Humanities Knowledge: Being Bad

When it comes to determining what makes humans bad it was necessary for us to discuss the philosophy’s of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.  Hobbes’ work in “Leviathan” explains that man is born bad and that it is in ones nature to be bad. On the other hand, Locke believed that man is instead born innocent, it is the experiences they encounter that determines their outcomes, making the person good or bad, because to him “man is by nature a social animal.”  Hobbes’ though believed that it was impossible for a man to exist without a government. I would like to think that I believe somewhat In both philosophies but I find myself siding more with Locke than with Hobbes. This is mainly because I do not like to think that man is in fact born bad. It makes more sense to me that is our lives, our society, and our experiences that make us either good, bad, or both.

In class we used the example of Walter White and whether or not we believed he was bad based on only two scenes from the entire series. This made it hard for the students who have not seen the show decide if he was good or bad. Based, on these scenes though, it seemed like majority of the class agreed he was good. I bring this up because I believe that he is bad. I do not believe that he is bad because like Hobbes said he was born bad, but I believe that he was bad because of his experiences and things he came to do, although his good intentions, he changed and became a different person that no one could recognize anymore.

                                                                     John Locke Image - Google

 Thomas Hobbes Image - Google

During this discussion though, another show came to my mind and that is Dexter. Dexter is a serial killer who you root for in the series. He on the other hand experienced the traumatizing murder of his mother which left him scarred and obsessed with taking lives. The catch here though is that, even though he is so un-human like, he tried his absolute best to be normal, get married and start a family. Not only that, he worked in a crime lab and helped save peoples lives. Best of all, he had a code that he would not break and that could meant that he can only kill "bad" people, people who thought they beat the system. So here we have an example of a serial killer who killed and dumped the bodies of rapists and murderers, then went home to his wife and child. 

It is interesting to note though, Dexter was not born bad, as Hobbes would suggest. Instead, there was a traumatic event in his life, witnessing the bloody murder of his mother and then sitting in her massive pool of blood for so long, as a young child, is what triggered his fascination and need for blood.  Therefore, Lockes philosophy plays a better hand here in Dexter's situation.

On the other hand, Walter White is an individual with a normal upbringing who passed up the opportunity of lifetime, to raise a family and work as a chemistry teacher. Yet, what he didn't know when he made that decision which he soon came to regret, was that he would be diagnosed with cancer. This event in his life made him realized that he had nothing to leave to his family once he passed away, causing him to hit the streets, cooking meth and eventually murdering many people. Walter White came to only think about himself, he tried his best to protect his family, and there are times when he failed. He did not feel empathy and he did not come to his senses, for when he was able to earn already so much money, it was not enough for him, instead, he kept going, digging his hole further and further. Walter White was no longer the family man with love and care, he was Heisenberg, and that to him, was more important than anything.

                                              

It’s our knowledge as a society to agree on a meaning of what is bad, sometimes it is based on intention or how you are raised. Also discussed was what constitutes as bad language and if that exemplifies a bad person. We discussed hip hop culture and euphemisms, essentially coming up with the solution that language is arbitrary and that culture, society, and context play a huge role on what is bad language and if using the bad language makes a person bad. In my opinion, it is not bad language that constitutes a person as bad, it is the intention the language has that might make them bad. By this I mean, if the language is used to intentionally hurt another human being. Other than that, I think what is bad language for one person that not make it bad language for another, therefore, coming to a meaning of bad as a society would be important in this case, yet I do not think it is possible.

My Very Own Knowledge

Being a Liberal Studies major, I have learned through my 201 and so far through my 301 class that we must think critically of all aspect in our lives in order to get through life and a teaching career with an optimistic mindset rather than a pessimistic mindset.

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The theme for this quarters class is “What Makes Humans Bad?” This is an open ended question that allows us to wonder what exactly knowledge is. Due to the fact that we are on this earth to discover and we are in this class to discover some more and to learn, we have made it a point to digest this knowledge and come to an understanding of the world that we live in, the good and the bad. Looking at humans as a whole in this world, I must agree that more people have a pessimistic mindset in which they fear being wrong and the desire for approval. Our consciousness is fact to us that we are aware and we have minds of our own, it is what makes us human.

To quickly get back to the theme of the class though, I must say I maybe do not fully understand the meaning of this. We are automatically assuming that people are bad without giving even ourselves the chance to be good. I do not believe that people are “bad” nor do I believe people are “good.” Instead, I like to believe that people are people. Even the bad and the criminals can love and love goes along with good. Also even the good may sin and hate therefore making them. Yet, to say that humans are bad I believe is too rash of a statement. Humans are exactly that, they are human; there are some that may be “more good” and some that may be “more bad.” Yet, I may just have it all wrong.

I believe I have an optimistic mindset on our class about knowledge, for I am open to learning, I am open to making mistakes and I am open to being wrong about my theories and ideas. With the Humanities, Social Science, and Natural Science disciplines comes an area of subjects so diverse, giving us the best opportunity to discover in the most knowledge filled way. Looking at life through one lens keeps it too narrow for growth.

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What opened my eyes a lot was in Chapter 4 of Consciousness A Very Short Introduction by Susan Blackmore. In this chapter my eyes were opened to the reality of our knowledge and to the extent we believe we know things. The concept of the grand illusion, believing we have a rich and detailed stream of pictures passing through our consciousness one after another (Blackmore, 61), and our perception, our ability to see, hear and be aware, of things that exist can just be all wrong. Often times we go through life only seeing what we want to see, creating so many gaps, inability to see something right before our eyes, although they are in our memories (Blackmore, 55), not noticing what may be very important to know. This is essentially how we take life, as this big grand illusion, seeing things with our own perspective and creating unconscious gaps. This makes what we think we know very faulty. For, looking only through one lens in a world we've come to perceive as something unreal with so many blindspots can justify much of what we know as humans. Shakespeare said “all the worlds a stage” implying that life is like a play with a written script that we all follow. Blackmore makes the point that life is a grand illusion theory, that we see only what we want to see. The most fascinating part of this concept was that after we see something and take in the whole thing, once we move we only remember a gist of it, forgetting the detail. Yet, the most interesting aspect of all of this is that every day we are gaining knowledge and we are also never forgetting it. For once we have knowledge, there is no losing it.

Personal Knowledge Inventory Table: