I Humanity, or We, Humanity?

It's a question that's been bothering me for a bit.
It seems that people are quick to lump in all of the bad in humanity, as being part of the human condition.
However, when someone does something good, it's solely based on their virtue alone.

It comes up frequently on threads discussing a person who's done something especially depraved.

Dunno about you, but I've never noticed these people to be incredibly common.

It seems we hold ourselves at a double standard, we hold ourselves responsible for every wrong humanity does as a whole, but only celebrate the individuals success.

reply to post by RuneSpider
It's all a big plot, of course.
Kind of like how you get forced, one way or another to be involved in a role playing exercise where you are confronted with a hypothetical situation like a life boat with too many people on it.
TV, with shows like Survivor reinforce the concept that for the good of the whole, to kick people off.
The goal is this demeaning of humans to the level of so many animals. So, if you are Bill Gates and David Rockefeller you can have a meeting with Oprah about who should be allowed to live on an overpopulated Earth.
People have value because they are made in the image of God and have an inherent dignity that demands respect.
Pathetic that so many fall for this. Why do you think they want to destroy religion? Because it teaches that God loves us, even if we are not perfect.

reply to post by RuneSpider


Well I think it's bad anytime things are applied beyond the individual. Most of the focus anymore seems to be on putting people into groups and labels. And that is done because then you can pick and choose what you want to highlight of that group, and use it as a way of labeling and applying that to all individuals.

It's a well known media manipulation trick. Take a rally that is about some issue. Go to the rally, find some people who are a bit extreme and so forth. Interview them, ignore the legit people, and then report the extreme people as being an indicator of the entire group. Then people will associate the worse people they could find with the group.

Take another rally. Ignore the extreme people, interview the calm people etc. And paint an entirely different picture of another group. It could be an entire group of crazy's and you can choose what you want things to appear as.

So the real problem and issue here is seeing individuals rather than groups. And one thing I have to disagree with you is that people often try to attach themselves to the good things other people do. It's usually present in racism more than "humanism" though. Like a racist will do exactly what I mention above with the media. And they would bring out everything good that someone of that race has done, and then use that to apply to the entire race. And they would bring out everything bad another race does, and apply that to the entire group.

All of it is really just seeing people in terms of groups. It doesn't matter what another human does, good or bad. If I attach what they have done to myself, then I am a liar. Generally it's the people who haven't done a thing in their lives who attach the accomplishments of others to themselves. Like a man might say all the good scientists are white, while he himself couldn't have passed a 9th grade general science class. Of course, can't say that is always true, because then I'd be guilty of the above myself.

And it's like people just want to advance the group. The group is more important than any single individual. The individual must sacrifice for the group. And that has been present in history in all forms. Racism, nationalism, political party, religion and beliefs, humanism and so forth. All forms of "for the group".

But at the base of every group you will find the individual. And when you ignore the individuals, then you are ignoring what the group stands on. And when that happens, they will likely fall. Thats pretty much the state of America as far as I can tell. All the focus is being put on the good of the country/group/special groups at the expense of the individual and the base of it all has become weak as the individuals are ignored. Sad state.

I think it's best not to attach any such things, good or bad to ourselves. Be an individual, rather than a group.

It's like this, when someone does good, it is forgotten. When someone does bad, everything is remembered to the detail, every nut and bolt of it.

Because nobody wants to forgive, thanks to the brainwashing of media - it's not ok to be forgiving as they teach your young kids

reply to post by badmedia

But at the base of every group you will find the individual. And when you ignore the individuals, then you are ignoring what the group stands on. And when that happens, they will likely fall.

I was thinking of a way to say the same thing and you saved me the trouble. The qualities of the group is dependent on the quality of the individuals you want to put in a group or label as a group.