Comment on What is in for the antivax in a government?
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 6 months agoThey absolutely think they are doing good…
Pretty unanimously, the most evil people to walk the planet all legitimately believe they’re the good guys.
Almost no one sees themselves as a villain, that’s just how the human brain is wired.
People not understanding this, is why evil shit keeps fucking happening.
If you just keep writing them off as “villains” doing evil for the sake of evil, we’ll never learn how to stop it. That literally why they keep coming back.
Pretty unanimously, the most evil people to walk the planet all legitimately believe they're the good guys.
Nah, the majority of evil people are doing stuff that benefits them personally, not for some misguided altruistic purpose that makes for good villains in fiction. Trump, Putin, and all of the rest sre just looking out for themselves and sometimes their families/contacts at the expense of everyone else.
Yes, but they honestly believe that’s the right thing to do. Or at least they’ve convinced themselves that it’s excusable. They believe they have a right to do things for themselves at the expense of others. That’s why they won’t ever have remorse. It takes more intelligence to empathize with others; they don’t have that. It’s actually kinda sad.
People who wig out and do what they know is evil are very distraught, and often suicidal.
None of that describes someone who thinks they are 'one of the good guys'.
But it does describe an embattled hero surrounded by villains on the snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
Heroes kill people all the time in stories. We don’t disparage the hero because they killed because it was for a good cause. And like imagine if the hero didn’t kill the bad guy and next week you’re dealing with the bad guy again. Clearly RFK and friends are fighting the good fight and have to defeat the bad guys once and for all.
Obviously to me it’s BS but the point is that they might see the bad stuff and justify it because of the greater good or whatever. We’ve learned through countless tales that ends don’t justify the means and doing bad things for the greater good is usually bad and often terrible. But we also have an imagination and empathy. And know how to read.
Fiction is full of stories that teach you right from wrong. The distinction gets more complicated as we get older so we use stories to explore the ideas. WE do that, our current leaders do not. And because of that they are lacking in empathy and didn’t see the patterns that they are following. And don’t see the history that they are rhyming with.
lovely_reader@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I broadly agree but there’s not necessarily anything altruistic about the “good” that they’re doing—they’ve just found a way to justify what they want/decide to do, same as everyone. They don’t have to believe it’s good for people or the world. As long as they can find a reason why those harms don’t matter, or convince themselves that those people/the world would’ve been fucked regardless, or figure at least they’re not doing [insert some other scenario they can imagine], they can live with themselves. And they can focus on who it is good for (their kids perhaps, and all the people in their lives who are undoubtedly pressuring them to abuse their power).
I just wanted to speak up for that nuance, because to me “they think they’re doing good” implies that they value the ideals of doing actual good…and I don’t think there’s necessarily true.