What qualities hurt society?

[BonosSaint]

What do you think are the five destructive human proclivities that hurt society and humanity the most? And which of these are you guilty of?

My list:

Apathy--guilty
Greed
Lack of personal accountability--sometimes
Basing our decisions and choices and honoring people for
superficial qualities rather than substantive ones --sometimes
guilty
Sense of entitlement.

 

[nbcrusader]

Indifference
Lack of moral compass

 

[melon]

1) Religion
2) Ethnocentrism
3) Apathy
4) Ignorance
5) Selfishness

Melon

 

[XHendrix24]

Lack of willingness to step into other people's shoes and try to see the situation from their point of view.

 

[Irvine511]

1. scapegoating
2. nationalism (sometimes known as patriotism)
3. sense of entitlement
4. apathy stemming from a feeling of invulnerability

 

[deep]

arrogance

the belief that one has a moral compass to impose upon others
concerning matters that do not effect them.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

bigotry
selfishness
greed
lack of empathy
ego

since I'm human I'm guilty/have been guilty of all five

 

[indra]

I'm perfect.

Now, if all the rest of you would just be exactly like me, the world would be all hunky dory.

 

[verte76]

Apathy
Bigotry
Greed

 

[financeguy]

- Excessive nationalism
- Political extremism - e.g. Marxism, which doesn't work
- Lack of civc duty
- Lack of moral compass

I wouldn't include greed on my list.
"Greed is good" to quote Gordon Gecko. Greed works.

 

[Scarletwine]

Apathy
Arrogance
Bigotry
Selfishness
Nationalism (^excessive)

 

[echo0001]

Xenophobia (which covers predjudice, bigotry, etc.)
Excess Nationalism
Political Apathy
Religious Fanatacism
Selfishness

 

[A_Wanderer]

Whats the problem, selfishness and celebration of wealth can be virtues.

 

[financeguy]

Whats the problem, selfishness and celebration of wealth can be virtues.

I agree. I would much rather live in a society where wealth is valued then one where political "orthodoxy" is the key goal, e.g., North Korea or the former Soviet Union.

 

[Se7en]

e.g. Marxism, which doesn't work

marxism is a paradigm for social, political, and economic observation. you may or may not agree with its conclusions, but to say that it is something that "doesn't work" is a farce.

perhaps you were referencing totalitarian state capitalism?


1. religion
2. nationalism
3. authoritarianism
4. money
5. apathy

*edited to include my list.

 

[anitram]

To me, the main one is:

A lack of empathy for other people.

 

[financeguy]

marxism is a paradigm for social, political, and economic observation. you may or may not agree with its conclusions, but to say that it is something that "doesn't work" is a farce.

perhaps you were referencing totalitarian state capitalism?

Marxism may well be a "paradigm for social, political, and economic observation", but that doesn't get it off the hook.

Whenever marxism has been tried, it hasn't worked. I consider that adequate backing for stating that marxism doesn't work.

Bad ideas, bad economics, and bad philosophy cost lives.

 

[A_Wanderer]

The joke is that the Objectivists are the most orthodox even though as a philosophy it makes a virtue out of selfishness. I certainly see where Rand is coming from with it but the absence of compromise does make it seem quite cold.

The importance of the individual citizen is the most healthy characteristic of a society, this is something that does not exist in marxist or religious systems; it is always submission of individuality to the state or God ~ it always turns out that way because the power is consolidated and the structures are inflexible.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Marxism may well be a "paradigm for social, political, and economic observation", but that doesn't get it off the hook.

Whenever marxism has been tried, it hasn't worked. I consider that adequate backing for stating that marxism doesn't work.

Bad ideas, bad economics, and bad philosophy cost lives.

I recomend the Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek on the nature of totalitarian states and their relationships to their economies.

There is no such thing as a laizzes-faire economy in a dictatorship because without state controls on the economy it is impossible to control the people.

 

[Se7en]

Marxism may well be a "paradigm for social, political, and economic observation", but that doesn't get it off the hook.

Whenever marxism has been tried, it hasn't worked. I consider that adequate backing for stating that marxism doesn't work.

Bad ideas, bad economics, and bad philosophy cost lives.

"marxism" has never been tried. like i said, it is a paradigm for social, political, and economic observation. it does, however, advocate communism. no communist community, in accordance with marxist philosophy, has ever existed. come off of it. the cold war is over.

tell me, how much marx have you read?

 

[financeguy]

no communist community, in accordance with marxist philosophy, has ever existed.

Tripe.

How much Marx have I read? Enough to find be sickened by it, I'll put it that way.

 

[financeguy]

I recomend the Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek on the nature of totalitarian states and their relationships to their economies.

Yeah, might check it out. I read a bit of Adam Smith at college but that was quite a long time ago!

 

[Se7en]

Tripe.

do point one out for me then.

 

[melon]

If it weren't for Karl Marx, we wouldn't have the Federal Reserve.

Even if communism is a blatant failure, his philosophy made positive contributions to capitalism, even if supply-siders are more than willing to revert to the oppressive capitalism of the late 19th century.

Melon

 

[A_Wanderer]

The Marxist Utopia that I hear so much about must be an impossibility; if so many have tried to attain it and yet failed so miserably and killed so many. Why is it that free men are so unwilling to surrender their possessions for the greater good that they are always forced to do it? Why are individuals rights overrulled for the sake of the revoltion? Can there be voluntary communism?

Western style capitalism with the political backbone of the liberal democratic tradition is certainly the least bad system I can think of. Pushing the extremes in either direction will inevitably do a lot more damage.

 

[financeguy]

do point one out for me then.

I'll put it this way.

If apologists for Marxism are entitled to use the "a true communist society has never been tried" argument to get communism off the hook, can advocates of capitalism use the reverse argument to explain away any perceived failings of free market capitalist societies?

Deal?

 

[financeguy]

Why is it that free men are so unwilling to surrender their possessions for the greater good that they are always forced to do it? Why are individuals rights overrulled for the sake of the revoltion? Can there be voluntary communism?

Could it be, perhaps, that humans value liberty and freedom? Could it be that communism does not?

Could it be (oh the heresy!) that capitalism works?

Se7en, in the 1950's your ideas were pretty popular among the intellectual classes. The world has moved on, and thank f*** for that.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I'll put it this way.

If apologists for Marxism are entitled to use the "a true communist society has never been tried" argument to get communism off the hook, can advocates of capitalism use the reverse argument to explain away any perceived failings of free market capitalist societies?

Deal?

Or Nazis could as well; I mean it was an all encompassing political ideology based off the welfare state and racial pride based millitarism. It just wasn't done right the first time around. A true Nazi society would just move the undesirables to Madagascar like they wanted to originially. It worked in the 1930's so well so why don't people give it another shot. This time it could be done right.

I apologise for violating Goodwins law but the argument is circular; it doesn't refute the points. I ask explicitly what makes communism the better choice and why wasn't it done right?

 

[melon]

Just to note, the philosopher behind capitalism, Adam Smith, was opposed to laissez-faire capitalism, in practice. He was bothered by the concentration of power in big business, along with the emphasis on capital at the expense of labor.

Melon

 

[financeguy]

Just to note, the philosopher behind capitalism, Adam Smith, was opposed to laissez-faire capitalism, in practice. He was bothered by the concentration of power in big business, along with the emphasis on capital at the expense of labor.

Melon

Yes there is actually a budding campaign to reclaim Smith for the left. ('Left' here meaning social democratic left, i.e. not communists.)