Local Localist wrote:I don't really know how to expand upon this question. We often hear people calling such and such 'evil' or implying that a policy or position is for the moral good - or, conversely, that it is immoral, but in the post-enlightenment, post-modern West, where exactly are people drawing that sense of morality from? Where do you personally draw your morals from, if you have any at all? I would be interested to hear everyone's responses.
I think our moral sense is a complex thing. Many things in life are not black or white and are shades of gray as they say. This requires you to understand how you relate to that fully.
People generally are products of their environment, their genes, their mother tongue, their culture, their context and their personality and their filters. How much choice goes into something in decision making is also another factor.
People adapt to their circumstances and environments. The survival instinct is there. But people also can commit suicide even when on the surface they have all their basic psychological and material needs met. They suffer from some ineffable 'void' and want to stop the pain of daily living. Maybe they choose to not struggle. A very common reason for suicide.
In the end? I think your moral sense comes from your internal value systems. And people in your society are interesting. They also project their value systems on to others and assume others think like they do. Often they don't. So there is conflict.
How does one cope with a difference in thinking?
I subscribe to the thought that the only person you really have control over is yourself. Work on your own defects and lacks and stop trying to impose or control others around you and what they do. Ultimately if you change yourself with your own efforts, you wind up changing how you relate to others around you---even the ones you don't get along with or agree with. That is how you change the world.
Also, be social and participate in society. Being passive or not doing or struggling never gets you anywhere in life.
Remember that it only takes about 40 days to 4 months to change a bad habit into a good one if you consciously seek it.
I also think some people lack empathy. They don't have it. And they also choose not to work on it. Those people you need to avoid and leave without your energy, time or effort. They are not worth it.
A human with no sense of obligation, duty or responsibilities towards others and society is a failed member of the species. You need to let them get isolated so they are forced to self reflect. And hopefully they can do a bit of inner work.
Compassion, love, respect, kindness and acceptance of others as they are? Without wanting to judge or control them? Are probably the most noble and spiritual of human qualities. If you have them? Human beings respond like flowers opening their petals to the sun. For humans deep in their hearts and minds? Want that love and respect and acceptance from a person who is good and steadfast more than anything else on Earth.
I know I would.
BTW, Potemkin is not a narcissist at all. I would say he is one of the greatest men I have met in my entire life. And is by far the most well read, with such a sweet character. A rare one of the most wonderful kind.
He prefers to be a very private man. He is someone special. But he sees himself as ordinary and not worthy of praise.
How wrong you are about that Bellisimo.
- By Unthinking Majority
- By FiveofSwords
- By Pants-of-dog