IS MANKIND EVIL?

By: Victoria Wong

For hundreds of years, going back centuries or more, countless numbers of philosophers have debated over the nature of mankind, whether humans are born evil or good.

Numerous books and thinkers have argued over this topic such as the renown Lord of the Flies and the members of the Enlightenment Salon, about mankind’s nature with

different concepts and interpretations.

In this presentation, you’ll find quotes and analyzes of them from well know people and Lord of the Flies, and examples.

Past and current news and my personal ideas on human nature will also be described in detail.

INTRODUCTION

Nature Vs. NurtureNature Nurture

If we’re naturally good or evil

If it is society that makes us good or evil

I believe that nurture can corrupt an individual eventually. Babies aren't born evil, its only as they grow up, the environment and influence around them that effects what they do.

CITY

Also, it depends on which places they live in, like if they live in a poor part in a city and has a lot of shooting, gangsters, bullying and murders and such, then they will most likely be affected by that. If you live in a bad city it is because of the 'survival of the fittest' nature that you’d naturally become a gangster to save yourself, whereas in a good city with more police enforcement, you’d be much less likely to do the wrong things.

FAMILY/ FRIENDS

It depends on their family and friends too. For example, if a person had a bad family history, with their parents being murderers or gangsters, and friends who stole and made trouble, they’d most likely copy them because that’s what they’ve been seeing since a young age.

Famous

People’s Beliefs

Mother Teresa: Brief Biography

• “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we

belong to each other”

- Mother Teresa

• Who is Mother Teresa? She spent all of her life helping the poor people in India, visiting and helping those who lived in slums and in poverty, giving her life to helping those who were sick and suffering.

• What does she represent? Considered a saint, she represents the goodness in human nature, who willingly gave up her own needs and comfortable life to benefit and change thousands of others lives.

WHY? • Founder of the Missionaries of Charity, where they opened schools, and various

centers to treat the blind, the aged, lepers, the disabled, and the dying.• She also found the Nirmal Hriday (“Place for the Pure of Heart”), a caring home

where the seriously ill could die with honor.

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.- Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa: Human Nature• “When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take

care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.”

- Mother Teresa• I believe that Mother Teresa has stated here, in an indirect way, of how human

nature may work. • If we see a poor hungry man or woman, slowly withering away, it isn’t because they

did any sin for god to punish them, in fact they could be living comfortably right now.• It is because we don’t care for them, that we’d just glance or avoid looking at them

at all and just pass by. We’re much too selfish to care about their problems as we don’t get anything back from helping, we’d rather save our money for ourselves, even though they need it much more than us.

• If we do help them, it would only be giving them a coin which isn’t enough to help them. Even if it’s a child, we are too selfish to take them into the warmth of our house and feed them, even if its during winter and freezing cold, with the person close to dying of coldness.

Mother Teresa $

$

$

$• “Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money

can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.”

- Mother Teresa• Money isn't everything, giving money doesn’t means giving your love or

caring. It doesn’t bring happiness, as those can’t be bought.

EXAMPLE: If there was a beggar squatting outside your door, or shivering beside your building, the most a person would do would be giving them several coins, barely enough for them to buy a proper meal. If humans showed morality, we would at least try to help them to the best of our abilities, to find them a job or a possible way to live in better conditions. $$ $$

Rousseau

• In the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality, he pointed out that it is natural in humans to be good

• He believed that civilization corrupts humans nature and that it is not a wonderful thing as all of the people of his time had thought, but a terrible monster that would eventually destroy and claw away all of humans “born goodness” into shreds.

• Rousseau explains that it is the influence by our daily lives that is affecting us and clouding our vision, growing the natural sin within us. He expresses that we, humans, aren’t born naturally evil, (because babies can’t be sinful,) but it is our surrounding environment that corrupts our thoughts and feelings.

• “Man is naturally good, loving justice, and order”• It is in mankind’s nature to be good, independent and compassionate• He felt that feeling is more important than reason. Just do what you feel like,

no matter the sensible reasoning for the task.

Adam SmithThe Theory of Moral Sentiments (a book by Adam Smith) • “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some

principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.”- Adam Smith quotes

• Humans are complex, although we’re selfish, something within us still tugs at us, a desire to care for the welfare of others.

• We wish to make other people happy, and yet we expect nothing in return, apart from the pleasure of doing it.

• So humans, ARE naturally selfish, but we’re still good in away. Because we are taught from a young age either directly or indirectly about morality, we still have some willingness to help others within us.

Lord Of The Flies

Evil in Lord of the flies

“You knew didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close,

close!” – The head

the “beast “isn’t really real, but more of a fragment

in their minds which contains all the sins and

evilness in the boys. It is themselves who are

haunting them. The pig head represents this, the

evilness in mankind

In William Golding’s novel, the Lord of the Flies, he constantly shows the evilness in our world. Set on an deserted island where a plane full of school boys crash, representing the miniature version of our world, this story shows us Golding’s perspective on Human nature.

The Pig’s head on a stake was placed in the forest as a gift to the “beast” by Jack, the Id in the story.

SIN IN BOYS

Simon, found out while looking at the pig head that the beast that the boys had imagined isn’t real but is the sin in human nature, of irrational fear.

The Pig’s head on a stake

The action of CRUELLY killing a living sow, a mother who was feeding her children, shows how …

Jack and his hunters have cast aside their civilized selves for exchange being wild savages without mercy.

The fact that they had FUN and tortured the pig to death shows how eventually a civilized and kind person can naturally turn bloody and ruthless overtime when left alone

Lord of the Flies: QUOTES“Conch! Conch!” shouted Jack. “We don’t need the

conch any more. We know who ought to say

things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or

Walter? It’s time some people knew they’ve got to

keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of

us.” • Conch was used in the story as

- “civilization”

- call meetings,

- right to speak without being interrupted.

Civilization breaks, dictatorship

• When Jack says that, it shows the boys are

becoming more savage (especially Jack) and the

greed for power

Lord of the Flies: Quotes

“Roger stooped, picked, up a stone, aimed and threw it at Henry- threw it to miss.”- Narrator (page 51)

Roger still is civilized enough to miss Henry on purpose. The thought of punishment and consequences still remain more clearly in his mind than the realization of being able to do whatever he wants.

“The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.” – Narrator

Roger killed Piggy on purpose my shoving a GIANT rock onto him = EVILNESS

1) Roger killed him out of cold blood for no gain at all. 2) Before Roger still had a bit of civilization in him , now

its all gone, he has gone wild, and turned evil, showing mankind's true nature when finally having the ability to do it without punishments or consequences.

Before After

“….Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the

darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air

of the true, wise, friend called Piggy.” - Narrator

Piggy is dead, Simon is dead, Jack had betrayed

him, Ralph was in pieces. He wanted the whole

world to know the evilness in man’s nature, that

when humans are left alone on an island, they

could never maintain peace and order, but will

always result in chaos and savageness, as it is

within our nature.

Chaos

GOLDING’s MESSAGEWilliam Golding’s message:

Apparently, Golding thought that mankind was naturally EVIL and when left alone, they create chaos.Even if the person was previously civilized, if they are thrown in a place where there are no punishment or consequences for their actions, it’ll eventually dawn on them that they can do whatever they like, and that is when the monster comes out in a person.Golding shows us about this idea by putting a group of boys on a deserted island. With no laws and punishment for their actions, most of the boys start out from hesitating to kill a pig, to actually killing Piggy and Simon and attempting to hunt down Ralph in the end in pure cold blood.

EVIL

EVIL

INTERVIEWS

Interview of other people’s perspectiveVideo Interview: Sara Pistono

1. What do you think that human nature is like? Good, evil, neutral, or half and half? And why?

Questions for Interview

2. Do you think that man kind is “born” evil or good, or neither? Why?

3. Does society affect man’s thoughts, does it affect human nature?

4. Do humans have any “good” qualities in them? Or all are we completely absorbed in self interest?

5. If you put humans unaffected by society on a place, say babies were put on an island and they grew up there (somehow, without outside help). When they grow up, would they naturally become savages and destroy the island, or would they be “noble”, and have peace and harmony prosper?

Interview of other people’s perspective

Questions for InterviewVideo Interview: Deanna Pistono

1) What do you think that human nature is

like? Good, evil, neutral, or half and half? And

why?

2) Do you think that man kind is “born” evil

or good, or neither? Why?

3) Does society affect man’s thoughts, does it affect human nature?

4) Do humans have any “good” qualities in

them? Or all are we completely absorbed in

self interest?

5) If you put humans unaffected by society on a place, say babies were put on

an island and they grew up there (somehow, without outside help). When

they grow up, would they naturally become savages and destroy the island, or

would they be “noble”, and have peace and harmony prosper?

News:

Serial

Killers

Current News: Serial Killers

Charles Manson • He had a terrible life, his mother having him as an

illegitimate son at age 16• Lived with highly strict religious aunt and brutal uncle,

who tried to “make him a man”• Once his alcoholic tramp of a mother was bailed out

of jail, she refused to have anything to do with him in the end, even once trying to pay for beer by giving Charles to the barmaid.

• A life of violence and loneliness, with no friends and mistreated by family.

• Started following his mother path• Committed rape, drug use, pimping, stealing, and

fraud. • Sent to many reform schools, Jails, institutes etc. • Tried to start up a racial war, misunderstanding the

Beatles song “"Helter Skelter” thinking there would be a war with African-Americans rising against whites.

• When it didn’t happen, he decided to help them start it.

• Started a group of murderers, famous for killing Sharon Tate, an actress.

Andrei Chikatilo • When he was young, World War II started and as the

USSR went against Germany, famine spread to his Ukrainian village in Russia.

• He was told by his mother how his brother was kidnapped and eaten by his neighbors, (but unknown if that was true),this probably gave him an idea on cannibalism.

• Mother was brutal, he was beaten and humiliated• Wrestled a girl to the ground at 15, giving him the urge

to overpower people. • He became a teacher, but was highly shy and was

constantly bullied and highly disrespected by his students.

• He was so scared of the boys, that he even carried a knife with him

• This led to him (quite possibly) into becoming a serial murder.

• He ended up becoming a serial killer, responsible for torturing, murdering, and cannibalizing 50 children/young people.

Serial killers explained

• For both Charles Manson and Andrei Chikatilo, they both had terrible past lives. Indeed they have done terrible things, with Charles Manson a famous criminal representing the evil icon, and Andrei Chikatilo the most notorious serial killer ever.

• However, if they had had better lives, with family members who cared for them, and that they were never mistreated, they may have never became brutal mass murderers, they could’ve actually been GOOD. If they had had parents to teach them what was right an wrong, like for Charles Manson, if his mother wasn’t also a criminal, they would’ve probably never have looked at things the wrong way that they did.

• Although, it is quite possible they were born in that way too. For Charles Manson, he could’ve been a pretty famous musician if he had chosen to. Instead, mankind’s “evil nature” kind of overtook him, and he turned to murdering instead.

What I think • It is true that humans are naturally selfish and greedy. As shown in

Lord of the Flies, mankind when left alone without the boundaries of civilization to keep them in will eventually run wild. However, I believe that like Adam Smith said, humans are naturally born evil, but there is still some good within us, either by donating or just helping out people in trouble. We’re good in a way such as Rousseau mentioned.

• Nurture can also corrupt an individual eventually. Babies aren't born as murderers, it’s the environment around them that effects what they do added by the fact that we are naturally self-interested. If a person had a bad family history, with their parents being murderers, they’d most likely copy. If you live in a bad city it is because of the 'survival of the fittest' nature that you’d naturally become a gangster.

• If you compare Charles Manson and Andrei Chikatilo, as much as it is their personal fault, they had terrible past lives. However, if they had had better lives, with family members raised them up, teaching them the right concepts they could’ve actually been GOOD.

• I believe that there is no plain good or evil in an individual, with few exceptions. We are naturally evil, yet good in a way, and we’re both affected by Nurture and Nature. There is no completely good or evil person on this world, and there never will be a perfect individual on our planet.

THE END

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