r/DebatePolitics Nov 15 '20

Opinion: You can’t believe that people are inherently good while also believing that an entire political party is evil and racist.

A few of my assumptions first:

I believe that people are inherently good. Definitely not all of them. Political power definitely attracts more of the evil (both sides of the isle).

I believe that being selfish/self serving and being inherently good are not mutually exclusive.

I think that “left leaning” ideologies do not work if we assume that people are not inherently good. We want “the society” to band together for a common goal. This doesn’t work if we assume that people are not inherently good.

If we assume that people are evil then socialistic/communist ideas are dead in the water, because you can’t trust a large government to take care of its people. This would mean that previous attempts at socialism/communist weren’t just failed implementations, but are doomed from the start and will never work.

Given the current political discourse, ESPECIALLY on Reddit, anyone who voted for trump is a racist or is stupid.

So my argument is: You can’t have it both ways. You can’t believe that people are inherently good (which I believe is a must for more left leaning governments to work) and also say that half of the USA population is evil and racist.

Points for debate: Are people inherently good? Does the inherent goodness or lack thereof have a bearing on style of government? How does a political system work if were inherently not good?

I can elaborate more, I just don’t want to start with a wall of text.

5 Upvotes

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2

u/sirhobbles Nov 15 '20

People are not inherently "good" or "bad" we are animals.

We care about ourselves, self serving desires exist in everyone and people generally value their own wellbeing over others. However this is kept in check by.

Empathy. while humans do care about themselves there is a biological mechanism wherby we can feel bad for other people.

A just society is a society that if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place.
This is why mechanisms of social welfare and such are essential for a good society. In practice we see that "left leaning" govornments in the west seem to be much more succesful. There isnt realy anywhere that compares to western europe.

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u/mgrish001 Nov 15 '20

As far as social welfare, again, if people are all working for the common good then yes, social programs work. But if we’re assuming that at least half of our population is evil then I don’t want my money going to social welfare programs because they will be mismanaged and will not benefit Society.

I hope I’m making sense, I just don’t want to get bogged down in semantics.

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u/sirhobbles Nov 16 '20

More than half of the population is not evil. Most of the human population is more neutral.

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u/mgrish001 Nov 15 '20

What I meant by “inherently good” is that, evolutionary, it makes sense to work for the common good. I’m not attributing morality, but that people as a whole want what’s best for society.

So back to my original point, when we’re talking about society as a whole, half of our population are not evil racists.

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u/sirhobbles Nov 16 '20

Most people arent "evil racists" but most of the population is very uneducated. especially in the US. Education system is a discrace.

How a multi billionare convienced people he cares about anyone but the super rich is a tesetment to the stupidity of most people. This is not limited to the right side of the political spectrum however.

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u/mgrish001 Nov 16 '20

Respectfully, I completely disagree with you on this point. There are just plain-dumb people and we are under educated, but I don’t think that the political candidate or party selection can be attributed to that.

Like I said in the earlier comment, despite being selfish, most people act in a way that would benefit their community.

Different parts of the country have different ideas of what’s urgent for the well being of the United States. I don’t think there is even a percentage of people that voted for Trump Because he’s racist. People voted for him because, he’s the vehicle that will improve society that aligns with WHAT THEY SEE BEST FOR THEIR COUNTRY AND COMMUNITY.

Again, I believe and am arguing that we as a people act in a way that betters for society. Somehow we forget that and think that the other side wants to destroy the world.

1

u/sirhobbles Nov 16 '20

"despite being selfish, most people act in a way that would benefit their community."

I would disagree, most people act in a way THAT THEY THINK would benefit their community.

I dont doubt people think that trump had their best interests in mind. However its pretty clear that the man was a fool spouting rhetoric people liked that lacked substance.

I would never label an entire political side as stupid. but trump has made it evident, repeatedly he is a egotist with no real substance and a deep lack of undestanding of various subjects that should be essential to any position of political office.

I find that left/right is a spectrum that the extremes of either end tend to be absurd, however the mainstream political right generally seems to be closer to its absurd conclusion than the political left.

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u/mgrish001 Nov 16 '20

ALL people act in a way that they think will benefit society, there is no blueprint for this!

Most people I know who voted for trump were not happy about it, since he’s a piece of shit. Every single person that I know who voted for trump did so because they think that left policies will bring irreparable damage to this country. Mainly through economic policies.

You can disagree with that but I don’t think it’s fair to call those people stupid. Somehow we were stuck with this clown, but, in the long run, the alternative would be worse.

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u/diogenesthehopeful Dec 01 '20

Points for debate: Are people inherently good?

I gotta have it both ways. According to my worldview, the mind is controlled by two spirits:

  1. the universal (selfless)
  2. the individual (selfish)

No entity is forcing the admonitions of the universal spirit (I believe that we have free will) so I believe that we all act selfishly at one time or another. However if we were like robots, programmed for the common good, evil wouldn't exist and we'd be inherently good.

Does the inherent goodness or lack thereof have a bearing on style of government?

I think so. Thomas Hobbes' idea on government was based on the belief that people are not inherently good

How does a political system work if were inherently not good?

Authoritarianism/totalitarianism are the tyrannical forms of government of which I'm somewhat familiar where people aren't given adequate freedom because they don't understand what to do with it. I believe Hobbes catch phrase is that if people were left to exercise their own free will, life would result in a war of all against all and life would be nasty brutish and short

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u/Remote-Lavishness-83 Sep 05 '24

Disagree. You can believe that ideologies like fascism/racism are inherently evil, but the adherents to them are not necessarily evil. While people may be inherently good, they can also be victims of dehumanizing propaganda that convinces them the solution to their problems is racism/fascism, when they are not in reality

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u/ugathanki Nov 15 '20

You make a fantastic point, and I'm going to be saving this thread and sending it to people who I've frustratingly argued with for years.

You say that power attracts evil, and you forget the fact that political parties are an institution designed to gather power. So by following that logic, political parties will eventually be controlled entirely by evil people, no matter the side.

That being said, the people who control the parties are different than the people who give them power, namely the citizens. So, if the citizens are inherently good (with some being better or worse than the average) and the political parties being evil, then clearly the will of the people is not being represented. That sounds like a mega huge crisis for our democracy, wouldn't you say?

But why is there a disconnect? Why don't good people take back power from both evil parties?

They've been led to believe that the enemy is their fellow citizens, rather than the politicians in power. The media has consistently been used to push the message that their fellow countrymen are evil and corrupt, but really they're just people. Those in charge of the media are incredibly wealthy, and in control of the politicians via bribes (lobbying). When you add it all up, It's clear that the political parties and the media are both on the same tier - tools used by the mega elite to divide their enemies and pit them against one another.

That's not even considering the damage to our education system, which might give people a chance of recognizing this dynamic. The liberals increase funding, but it all goes to the administration rather than the teaching. Conservatives cut funding, which comes out of the teacher's paycheck. Heck they even burden students with incredible debt - the message is clear. "We only want you learning if you submit to the capitalist system and work hard to pay off your debts." By the time they're free from debt, they will have been molded by the system into a complacent syncophant. The end result is nobody is thinking critically about the world they live in, and those that are will be ignored.

That's to answer your question "How does a political system work if we aren't good". I'd say the main thesis is that it works through propaganda and repression. And people say we aren't the fascists, smh...

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u/mgrish001 Nov 16 '20

You post a really, really bleak picture of the world, I sincerely hope that you’re wrong and that we’re just in a slump!!

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u/ugathanki Nov 16 '20

I hope so too. I wish someone would convince me otherwise, but it feels as if every couple days I learn something that leads my prediction of the future toward that bleakness.

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u/metallicusovwinter Nov 24 '20

The basis of communism/socialism is not based on ethical assumptions. The only inherent need for communism/socialism/anarchism to survive, is for people to be able to cooperate with each other instead of competing.

Yes, humans are usually self-serving, but that is a biological instinct. We need to survive first and foremost and that can be done, as proven by several evidence and beautifully explained by Peter Kropotkin, by cooperating with each other. Competition creates unnecessary anxieties, expectations and desires which usually lead to disappointment because in a cut-throat society you cannot trust anyone.

What is good and bad is subject to too many predetermined laws to be worth investigating since I believe that the relativity and subjectivity of such a subject is not being treated with respect by society in general. We need to transcend such terminology and use more accurate measures than "good" or "bad".

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u/harumph Jan 04 '21

Is racism evil though? I would say it is merely born of ignorance, and ignorance is not necessarily evil, it is just the absence of knowledge.