Do you think everyone’s fundamentally a mixture of good and bad?
 

(Not necessarily split 50-50 in any case; I just mean in varying proportions, within wide limits on either side.)
Or do you think some people truly are 100%-angelic or 100%-worse-than-Hitler?

I think that everyone has a good side to them, even the most despicable people in history probably have a facet of their personality that you would like about them.

I don't buy in anyone being 100% good, or 100% bad.

I think most people are usually more one thing than the other, be it good or bad.

Mind you, some people could find umbrage with someone in an ice-cream cone and commit themselves to the projection that they’re never going to like one thing about X-person, even if they engage with them in various ways. I think what’s big for me is not being actively complicit in systemic bias (like racism, like rape-apologetics) just to spite the nose off-of another person. When it crosses that line, the person’s very-much in my bad books until and unless (and that can be a big if, ’cause some people really will compromise their integrity just-to spite you) they try and find a way of coming back from that low, and it sticks. At that point it’s not about, for me, whether they have good traits or not. Sacrificing your integrity to heinous limits just puts a dark cloud over whatever’s good about that person to me. When someone’s willing to stoop so low, it just says bad thing after bad thing about them to me.

Good and bad is a made up human construct and has no absolute meaning

I 100% agree with you about disliking someone if you feel like what they've done is really bad, or that the bad outweighs the good.

Because after all it'd be disingenuous to go through life and pretend to be cool with everyone's bad traits.

That's not entirely true.

There are some traits that some people have that are just straight up evil.

We all like to think we’re the good guy in our own story. But everyone’s done shitty stuff. Everyone’s hurt someone. Some just hide it better or justify it louder. No one’s a full-on angel. Some are just better at PR.

That much can be true as far as individual interactions are concerned, even when the other person’s taken offence. Even with good intentions, we can all still get it a bit wrong. But that’s basically what you’re saying anyway, so I guess. But like you say, it goes both ways.

Do you think anyone’s 100% good?

…I would say no, for sure …no…because that would be ‘perfection’ and how would perfection grow and learn to remain perfect, there just wouldn’t be any room/scope to do so…as humans, the thing we learn from most is our imperfections so 100% good wouldn’t be any type of ideal, I don’t think…extremes are not ideals…

Basically this everyone has shades of good and bad, apart from Pyschopaths who are 100 per cent evil, not sure there are people who are 100 per cent good maybe a small percentage like the evil ones

Excellent question


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No none of us are. However some are inherently evil, proper psychos if you scratch the surface. And no I don't mean anyone on here in case anyone thinks it. I'm talking real life. I've met two, one male and one female.

99% of people have at least a few redeeming factors, happy to acknowledge this even though I may clash with some individuals.

Great post.

I know I don’t see eye-to-eye with you but thanks.

:love:

You make a very good point about most people having at-least a few redeeming qualities. That’s something I overlook sometimes when I don’t like someone.

Yes we're all part Cain, part Abel

I saw this phrasing on a sub-Reddit:

‘Many people don’t plan to hurt you, they just prioritise themselves, and you’re collateral. Their choices weren’t malicious, they were selfish. You got crushed beneath the weight of their convenience.’

And I guess that’s a fair point and can help put certain things into perspective. But even-still, just like some people have said already, some people more-or-less are pure evil.

No-one’s 100%-innocent in life all the time, that’s for-sure. Doesn’t inherently make anyone a hypocrite (people are naturally full of at-least a few contradictions; that’s life), but it doesn’t make anyone one person blameless, either, and that applies to a lot of the friction we have with others. Often-times it really, really, really is the case that it’s 100% the other person’s fault (especially when the other person’s really not a good one) but sometimes it’s both parties baiting, digging, gaslighting, goading, insulting, disrespecting or whatever on various levels and to varying extents, explicitly or implicitly. Watching those interactions play out with two sworn enemies in-particular does add to the perspective of people really being able to bring out the ugly in each-other under certain circumstances. Some people really will bring out the worst in you, and with enough self-awareness (without being too self-absorbed, of-course), you’re naturally not going to want to remain in that person’s shadow. You want people who can bounce the positivity you need off-of and back to you, and in that way someone can swing between extremely charitable, hospitable and trustworthy with the people they actually like and have care invested in and … not-so-good to people who bring out those ugly shadows, to whatever extent, in them. That’s why I always find it funny when strangers talk with authority about you and try and get in front of your life-narrative, thinking they know you when they actually don’t. I know we share a broad range of stuff online but on forums like this we’re still anonymous. There’s still a trillion things about each-and-every single one of us that can’t possibly be known without having a personal relationship with you in a way that either gives away or bypasses your identity.

Even people who are generally disliked by most people, for various reasons, often do have intimate relations where people value their company and investment in the relationship. Different people see (or imagine) different sides to you, and that can help quell whatever negativity that’s beyond what you desperately need to account for comes your way. They might have your vibe completely wrong or they might just be interacting with a shadow-part of you that’s very far-removed from how you come across to people in your circle or even in broader interaction. You just don’t know half the time unless you actually know the person quite well in a more personal light. We all have different sides to us and different personas that we wear depending on the company. You’re probably never 100%-yourself, for better or worse, to any one person, unless they know you in an intimate way. And most of the time, you just can’t know them like that, even if you’re very sure that your perceptions of them, as far as they go, are accurate and you’re not afraid to tell them to their face. That’s neither here nor there when you don’t know the person in any meaningful way. It’s unlikely that anyone besides yourself knows everything about you at any-one time. Again, most of us aren’t heinous psychopaths or otherwise deeply-wicked people (thank God for that), but even angels (not just Biblically-fallen ones) have darker sides to them, consciously or not. Hopefully not too dark but y’know. Not entirely, 100% unblemished.

In terms of general morality, we are what we are, I suppose. Some people are bound by principle, others have a more directly humane warmth for mankind, but even then, there probably still does exist a darker shadow. So the Cain-and-Abel analogy is very apt.