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Only individuals are monsters

exact

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I don't think I do.

I think what constitutes a monster is based on the paradigm of individuals and you can assign those traits to any subdivision of nature.
 

Tyrinth

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On some level, but if multiple individuals who where monsters grouped up, wouldn't that make a group of monsters?

I mean that a group can be monstrous, but it's not really the group that's the monster, it's the individuals that make up the monstrous group that are truly the monsters... So to speak...
 
A

Anew Leaf

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I agree.

For example, Cookie Monster seems to be a single entity rather than a race of sugar hungry and wheat crazed super beings who can mimic carpets.
 

Lark

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On some level, but if multiple individuals who where monsters grouped up, wouldn't that make a group of monsters?

I mean that a group can be monstrous, but it's not really the group that's the monster, it's the individuals that make up the monstrous group that are truly the monsters... So to speak...

The context is a fictional diary in a film called the Odessa Files, it is a diary of a holocaust survivor who witnesses a German officer killed by an SS man, he states that he does not hate the Germans and that only individuals are monsterous not peoples.
 

Lark

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I agree.

For example, Cookie Monster seems to be a single entity rather than a race of sugar hungry and wheat crazed super beings who can mimic carpets.

Did you ever think that cookie monster and oscar the grouch or elmo were related?
 

Tyrinth

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The context is a fictional diary in a film called the Odessa Files, it is a diary of a holocaust survivor who witnesses a German officer killed by an SS man, he states that he does not hate the Germans and that only individuals are monsterous not peoples.

Oh, hmmm, well that kind of complicates things. In that situation I think you need to get rid of the notion that monstrosity is a dichotomous trait (I'm not sure if I said that right). Basically, in that context the "monstrosity" of the group and individual is largely subjective. Uhh, what am I trying to say? Basically, in that context I think it's both. Basically, I think that everyone doing monstrous (I'm starting to dislike that word, as it seems to be standing in for something else.) is a monster on some level, regardless of whether they are doing it because of orders or because they truly are that kind of person. But, in turn, the group that they are a part of tends to take on a monstrous tendancy of it's own, it gains its own momentum so to speak.

Sorry, I'm having difficulty organizing my thoughts right now for some reason.

Basically, the individual is the monster in my opinion, but the group takes on traits which are common among individuals within the group. (I hope you can follow me at least a little. :D)
 

Lark

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Oh, hmmm, well that kind of complicates things. In that situation I think you need to get rid of the notion that monstrosity is a dichotomous trait (I'm not sure if I said that right). Basically, in that context the "monstrosity" of the group and individual is largely subjective. Uhh, what am I trying to say? Basically, in that context I think it's both. Basically, I think that everyone doing monstrous (I'm starting to dislike that word, as it seems to be standing in for something else.) is a monster on some level, regardless of whether they are doing it because of orders or because they truly are that kind of person. But, in turn, the group that they are a part of tends to take on a monstrous tendancy of it's own, it gains its own momentum so to speak.

Sorry, I'm having difficulty organizing my thoughts right now for some reason.

Basically, the individual is the monster in my opinion, but the group takes on traits which are common among individuals within the group. (I hope you can follow me at least a little. :D)

There is perhaps a chicken and egg scenario, the individual monster and the monsterous groupthink or social character.

Nazism, with the benefit of hindsight which is twenty, twenty seems like something no one could have been complicit in but I dont know, even today I believe that a lot of people who would not consider themselves to be so are some how complicit in various oppressions and benefit by oppressions. It is in no way comparable to the holocaust but perhaps it is comparable, in some instances, to kristalnacht or the many events leading up to that. How could any of the people who did not oppose the Vietnam war know about the My Lai massacre? How about the recent much smaller scale murder of families by a US soldier in Afghanistan?

I think the truth of whether or not there was an evil besides individual evil in aggregate at work in Nazism lies some place between the Hitler's willing executioners scenario on the one hand and complete innocence on the other. There was no doubt complicity but there was a lot of resistance to nazism in germany, from early on right through to the generals plots and other plots to kill Hitler.
 
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Ginkgo

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If an individual is a monster, and there are no such things as monsters, we can only truthfully use term "monster" analogically. If we are using it as such, we may as well apply it to entire bodies of people.
 

INTP

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no, people can do horrible things against their will in a group of monsters. this would mean that the person who does those things against his will is not a monster, but he still does monstrous acts due to monstrous group. but if we take it literally, monster is a word that is used when talking about an single creature
 

Owl

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I'm going to have to say no, groups cannot be monstrous, because only persons can be monstrous, and groups are not persons.

However, there are times when it does seem as if a group is a person. E.g., the president of a university might ask the philosophy department what it thinks about requiring critical reasoning courses in order to earn a degree. The philosophy deparment may then issue a statement to the effect that it thinks requiring critical reasoning in a college education is a good idea. And this statement might be issued even if there are dissenters within the group, perhaps even if the chair of the department disagrees with the statement of the department taken as a single entity.

Groups can seem even more like persons when they do something that would clearly be immoral for a person to do. For example, the big tobacco manufacturers consistently denied that smoking tobacco was not harmful even when many members of the group, including those in positions of leadership, knew these denials to be false. In such situations, when the action of a group is harmful, it can be tricky to determine the degree of responsibilty to assign to each member in the group for the harm that was done. With respect to big tobacco, it might be said that the big companies lied, and then hold the companies, as opposed to any individual within those companies, responsible--in effect, treating a company/group as if it were a person, i.e., the sort of thing that can lie and that can be held responsible for lying.

Soooo... by punishing a group, (or praising a group), our behavior provides evidence for the claim that groups can be held morally responsible for their actions. Still, I'd maintain that we behave as if groups were morally responsible, or persons, out of expediancy, and not out of a recognition that the group is actually morally responsible.
 

Orangey

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"Monstrosity" is not really a stable trait of personality; it's just a word that we use to describe someone who has committed acts that we deem monstrous. As such, it makes little sense to argue that some distinction ought be made when applying the term to individuals and groups. If it is legitimate to call an individual who has committed monstrous acts a "monster," then it is equally legitimate to call a group of people who have committed monstrous acts "monsters."

The only potential problem is that the label will be given to the wrong group (e.g., "Germans are monsters, because Germans were Nazis, and Nazis massacred the Jews"), but that's a category/logical issue and not really an issue with the meaning or application of the word.
 

Lark

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no, people can do horrible things against their will in a group of monsters. this would mean that the person who does those things against his will is not a monster, but he still does monstrous acts due to monstrous group. but if we take it literally, monster is a word that is used when talking about an single creature

Groupthink can neutralise personal responsibility or personal conscience perhaps there's a lot of hivemindedness and herd instinct in people yet but its still an individual choosing and acting.
 
G

Ginkgo

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"Monstrosity" is not really a stable trait of personality; it's just a word that we use to describe someone who has committed acts that we deem monstrous. As such, it makes little sense to argue that some distinction ought be made when applying the term to individuals and groups. If it is legitimate to call an individual who has committed monstrous acts a "monster," then it is equally legitimate to call a group of people who have committed monstrous acts "monsters."

The only potential problem is that the label will be given to the wrong group (e.g., "Germans are monsters, because Germans were Nazis, and Nazis massacred the Jews"), but that's a category/logical issue and not really an issue with the meaning or application of the word.

Exactly.
 
A

Anew Leaf

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Did you ever think that cookie monster and oscar the grouch or elmo were related?

Yes. The missing link between them all is an undiscovered creation who's father was a mop and who's mother was a shag carpet.
 

Thalassa

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"Monstrosity" is not really a stable trait of personality; it's just a word that we use to describe someone who has committed acts that we deem monstrous. As such, it makes little sense to argue that some distinction ought be made when applying the term to individuals and groups. If it is legitimate to call an individual who has committed monstrous acts a "monster," then it is equally legitimate to call a group of people who have committed monstrous acts "monsters."

The only potential problem is that the label will be given to the wrong group (e.g., "Germans are monsters, because Germans were Nazis, and Nazis massacred the Jews"), but that's a category/logical issue and not really an issue with the meaning or application of the word.

The irony being that Nazi Germans thought Jews were monsters...and on and on.

I don't believe there's anything such as inherent monstrosity in a particular nation or group of people. On the other hand, a group of people can have a schema that causes more individuals to act more monstrously.

But I think it's just people in circumstances or with philosophies or world views which spur them on to the darker side of humanity. I mean for pete's sake we don't say "the Romans were monsters" just because Nero was an asshole.

I think people have it it in them to behave in a way that is violent or destructive and that it may come out under particular conditions.

I agree with [MENTION=4490]Orangey[/MENTION]. I mean for fuck's sake my family on my maternal grandmother's side is German, but my immediate relatives were in the U.S. long before WWII, so iz I a monster because I'm German? I don't even believe all Nazis were monsters, because so much was going on that the common German person, even with Nazi sympathies, wasn't fully cognizant of until the truth of the extent of the genocide and murder was exposed.

I also agree with [MENTION=2771]Owl[/MENTION].
 

miss fortune

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according to most sociological research people are much more of assholes when a part of a group than as an individual, because when a part of a group they feel that their actions or lack thereof are sanctioned by the behavior of the others and the blame is diffused as opposed to when the person is acting as an individual and has to answer for their own actions :shrug: just to put my two cents as having a degree in social psych in here! :)
 
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