Only individuals are monsters

[DiscoBiscuit]

assholes when a part of a group than as an individual

Hey now, I take pride in my ability to be an individual asshole. :cookie:

Edit - best emoticon ever.

 

[miss fortune]

Hey now, I take pride in my ability to be an individual asshole. :cookie:

Edit - best emoticon ever.

it IS a pretty awesome emoticon!

yeah, I can be a total bitch all on my own, but I can't even pull off the type of callous evil that the bystander effect can produce... just sitting there and watching something horrible happen doesn't even cross my mind

 

[INTP]

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.

Yes, but the individual might choose otherwise if he were alone and people tend to do pretty fucking weird shit against their will when in group.

 

[UniqueMixture]

What about the idea that people aren't monsters at all? It's all about trying to get basic needs met often in cruel, malicious, or inappropriate ways.

 

[Cellmold]

I find the act of calling someone or something a monster or monstrous, is done so as to distance ones humanity from the group or person in question.

I believe it is healthier to remind yourself that those people who commit terrible crimes are still humans, with capabilities we all possess a capacity for. In that sense we should use such people as an example of how others can go so wrong, so as to avoid such pitfalls in ourselves.

Unless of course they have mental issues, then it's all happy-day-dee-dah because you aren't like them......or something reassuring. Although you might suffer from the same condition....

 

[Lark]

I find the act of calling someone or something a monster or monstrous, is done so as to distance ones humanity from the group or person in question.

I believe it is healthier to remind yourself that those people who commit terrible crimes are still humans, with capabilities we all possess a capacity for. In that sense we should use such people as an example of how others can go so wrong, so as to avoid such pitfalls in ourselves.

Unless of course they have mental issues, then it's all happy-day-dee-dah because you aren't like them......or something reassuring. Although you might suffer from the same condition....

I'm interested in that idea, its humanistic in the best possible sense and I dont like "othering" of individuals or groups, on the other hand most of the creeds and deeds I consider monsterous are monsterous precisely because they are the opposite of that sort of humanism and engage in that sort of "othering" too. I'll joke about how libertarians are subhuman morlocks but at the point at which I'm being serious, sober and reasonable I'll acknowledge they're just the same as anyone else, misguided and possessing dangerous ideas to my mind but they're still people.

I'd have more sympathy for people who are mentally challenged or troubled than some sorts of ideologues, usually the violent ones but also the oppressive ones.

 

[INTP]

if someone thinks this is only an individual thing, he should learn about the manifestation of collective shadow in nazi germany

 

[Lark]

if someone thinks this is only an individual thing, he should learn about the manifestation of collective shadow in nazi germany

I have read about that and its interesting, although even were a collective culture or ethos mandates certain thinking and behaviour would you not consider that it is still an individual who chooses to act on those mandates?

 

[Red Herring]

I would go one step further and say that I don't think there are "monstrous" individuals (well, maybe depending on your definition you might use that label for the odd sadistic sociopath who regularly acts on a need to repeatedly hurt others). There are however heinous acts. Since the nazi card has already been played: I remember disturbing photos of concentration camp guards during their time off work. They are laughing, playing cards, having a beer with their buddies and acting and looking like completely normal people. Yes, positions of power tend to attract power hungry people who tend to abuse power. But history is full of people doing the most gruesome things either mentally detaching from them ("it's aweful but it's all for the good of the country, etc") to maintain sanity or - and this is probably much, much more frequent - being unaware of them since they don't regard their victoms as "real people" or people worthy of their sympathy and empathy. That's where the monkey zone and tribal behavior come into play. Think of wars of conquest and elimination, of witches burned at the stake, of cruel executions, etc.

That being said, there are ideas and ideologies that can lead to or are based on the sanctioning of monstrous acts and a disregard for human life and human dignity. Monstrous ideas if you will. And there are groups of otherwise normal people who form groups with the explicit goal of furthering those monstrous ideas (think KKK). That makes them monstrous clubs/associations of otherwise normal people who join for monstrous collective action (that can naturally be split down to individual monstrous microacts).
And then there are clusters of people - like ethnic groups or nationalities - that adhere or have adhered to monstrous ideas or committed monstrous collective acts. That does not mean that every individual belonging to that group is a monster or even participated in those acts or joined in those monstrous actions (I'll leave the duty to resistance and dissent aside for a moment because that is a whole other issue). But taking that group as a group you can say that this or that group has a history of violence, intolerance, and that there were incidences of collective heinous acts etc. ... which does not automatically make it to a monstrous ethnicity or nationality - because its identity goes way beyond those acts or ideas. But it does mean that - while composed of innocent individuals a few generations later - on a collective level that stain of past monstrous ideas and acts is still there in the collective memory, as it should.

 

[Snoopy22]

No - Unethical people create unethical nations and groups (example - 1930s Japan when they infected Chinese people with plague then performed autopsies on many of them while still alive without the use of anesthesia).

 

[garbage]

People have said the things that I was going to say, so I'll just leave a quote from Phillip Zimbardo here:

While a few bad apples might spoil the barrel (filled with good fruit/people), a vinegar barrel will always transform sweet cucumbers into sour pickles -- regardless of the best intentions, resilience, and genetic nature of those cucumbers.

Some researchers point at certain individuals' lack of an "empathy chip," so to speak, but societal structures and beliefs have much more potential to influence people toward good or bad decisions and actions.

 

[ZPowers]

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.

I agree with Lark here. Obviously individuals can be monsters, but groups acting together can have a sort of contagious disregard, in particular if emotionally stirred. Someone posted the link to the Standford Prison Experiment, or if you look at something like the My Lai Massacre or the actions of say the guards of concentration camps of Nazi Germany or Lynch mobs. I doubt each, or maybe even any, of those people would have individually and independently chosen to do the horrific things, but there's something about crowds that I do think causes it. It may be that crowds are an excellent place for aggrevation to bounce off one person and onto another and just quickly escalate like a fire, it may be that it's easier to accept yourself doing horrible things if you are not alone or even in the majority, and it could be that a group dilutes a sense of personal responsibility and guilt for whatever occurs.