My name is Thomas Hobbes, and I am an English philosopher. I have come to the conclusion based on my research, that humans care only about oneself, and will do anything to protect themselves. I believe that every action that we take will always benefit us in some way, even if it is very small. We may think that we have friends who are on our sides, who will protect us, but this is a lie. Every man is for themselves in our world. When we begin our lives we have nothing. No property, no laws, and no morality. I believe that this should be the state of nature. However, I do consider there to be one natural right - the right to protect oneself using any means at one's disposal, including violence and slaughter. Of course this philosophy of mine influences the government that I see fit for our country. I feel that if two parties are having a difficult time coming to an agreement, that a third party should be involved, and should be given all of the first two parties power and with that power, make a decision. This third party has to promise not to abuse this power. This is my social contract. I realize however, that this third party will most likely abuse this power, which would eventually lead to a dictatorship, but I still trust that this type of government would be better than an anarchy. Overall, in my opinion, mankind is greedy and selfish, and not one person is an exception to this. The resources in our world are becoming scarce, and every human will do whatever they possibly can to survive. My most important point to you, is that people don't care about anybody but themselves, and we will do anything to become the best.
This selfishness can be traced through all stages of a humans life. As young kids, we see this quality in our parents, uncles, teachers etc, and it makes us think that this is how we should act as well, so we do. For example, in high school, you see acts of selfishness everywhere that you look, even on the basketball court. There are kids on the team that every chance they get, they will drive to the hoop, or shoot, even if they could have passed it off to get a better look. They do these things to make themselves look good. This player is doing this to help only themselves, and because of this, their team will suffer. This is only one example of selfishness that goes on during high school years.
As time goes on, you will enter college. Here, the competition to be the best is stronger than it was in high school, so one will become more selfish, to succeed. For example, at the University of Michigan, a graduate student named Postdoc Vipul Bhrigu worked in a lab. He sabotaged the work of Heather Ames, a graduate student who was working in his lab, in order to get ahead of her. Before this had happened, his professor had made it clear to him that he wasn't progressing as fast as he should be, so he ruined her work to make him look better. As I said in my first paragraph, humans will do whatever they possibly can to become the best. In this case, he ruined the work of another. Eventually, they did catch him, by looking through security tapes in the lab.
If you would like to read this entire article, here is the link.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100929/full/467516a.html
This self-interest can can be seen throughout college and into your adult life as well. An obvious example known throughout the world is the tolerance of Jewish persecution during World War II. Many "regular" people looked the other way when the Jews were mistreated and even killed during Hitler's reign in Germany. They did this because they wanted to survive. As I said before, humans only have one natural right, which is the right to protect oneself using any means at one's disposal, including violence and slaughter. This exactly what they did. They killed millions because they wanted to survive. Those innocent people didn't do anything wrong, yet nobody dared to protect them, because they wanted to protect themselves instead. Some people even helped to murder these people, so that they wouldn't die.
I am not saying that I like how humans are selfish, and greedy. I am just saying that that is how we are.
No comments:
Post a Comment