Less a necessarily bad person, and more an ideologically influenced one, I’d wager. Sure, there’s probably a couple psychopaths mixed in too
I’d argue that if ANY ideology can convince you it’s ok to shoot children in the head, you’re already a shitty person and/or psychopath.
Fair, but that argument stops working when it’s a large portion of a society. Our understandings of right and wrong are somewhat a social construct, and so subject to social change. All it really requires is a variation of ‘us v them’ mentality for most people to accept it as fact.
Have you considered the possibility that the majority of people are shitty and/or psychopaths?
Like most people will hear about companies using child slaves in impoverished countries and the biggest reaction is what, a boycott? Even that’s a minority of people, most just keep on truckin’ as if we don’t live in a disgusting fucked up world.
When’s the last time you heard about that Apple factory where people were regularly committing suicide? Why does Nestlé still exist despite widespread public knowledge of all the horrible shit they’ve pulled?
that argument stops working when it’s a large portion of a society.
Not the person you responded to, but I’d disagree with that. I’d say that if a large portion of a society can be said to be insane, then that doesn’t change the standard for sanity - it just means that the society itself is insane.
Our understandings of right and wrong are somewhat a social construct, and so subject to social change.
Only reasonably within a particular range. There are points beyond which societal notions of right and wrong become self-defeating, and thus irrational at best.
For instance, if one holds that the killing of innocents is such an egregious wrong that it justifies the killing of innocents, then one has created a closed loop in which every purportedly justified killing in turn becomes a wrong that purportedly justifies the next killing, which in turn becomes a wrong that purportedly justifies the next killing, and so on, endlessly.
That’s rather obviously irrational at best, and arguably insane, since it justifies that which it condemns and condemns that which it justifies. And that’s the case entirely regardless of how many or how few people believe it.
No, that’s the scary thing about ideology. Nearly anyone can be convinced to become a killer. Psychopathy isn’t required.
A psychopath can kill a child and be fully cognizant of their innocence and humanity. They know it’s wrong and just don’t care. That’s not what most are doing.
Ideology acts as a buffer, so these occupation soldiers don’t even acknowledge the children as innocent or human. Just “animals” - the soldiers truly don’t believe they’re doing anything wrong.
They all deserve to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but they aren’t psychopaths. They’re just like us and you have to reconcile with that.
You should read about the Milgram Experiments. And the Stanford Prison Experiment.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot be easily duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes into work every day and has a job to do.
- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
For what it’s worth the Stanford Prison Experiment was basically a lie. More than merely suffering from psychology’s massive replication crisis (which is enough of a problem on its own), the study was heavily manipulated by those conducting it in order to get the outcome they wanted. Its outcomes really shouldn’t be pointed to as evidence of anything.
As far as I know Milgram is still good and successfully reproducible, however.
The best defense against Nazism is to recognize that Nazis were ordinary people like ourselves. The scary thing about Nazism is not that Nazis were unusual monsters but that they were not. No society is immune to fascism, and no person can be sure they are. The same goes for military brutality and war crimes. The people who do it are for the most part like us, not unusual psychopaths.
If the influence of ideology is enough to convince you to snipe children in the head, you’re still a bad person. Weird take to be presented with children who were shot by a weapon that’s purpose built for accuracy and rush to defend the person that pulled the trigger. Edit: grammar
It’s the same way I can’t completely blame Hamas fighters for everything they did on them being bad people, either.
It’s a way of acknowledging that the difference between me/you and them is not their actions themselves, but primarily their targets.
It’s why simply removing the ‘problematic’ individuals on either side can’t fix anything, and we should keep that in mind lest nothing can change.
