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Ethics Final Section 1: The Ideal Being Many people lose sight of what is important when determining what a good person TRULY is. What most people would consider to be a good person is humility, selflessness, caring, generosity, kindness, etc. Others believe that a good person is measured by how much he does and accomplishes in life rather than by what he does for others. Here in lies the problem.
Youll never be a truly great person if you focus all your energy on personal wealth. In the same respects, a great person cant simply lose sight of helping themselves either. After all, doesnt it read in the Bible that God helps those who help themselves. ? A good person is someone who finds the middle road. A person who cuts it down the middle.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is a wonderful example of this. Dr. King focused his efforts towards achieving a goal that was as much for others as it was for himself. He deeply cared about the black community being free, but dont kid yourself; he wasnt above oppression of any kind as his untimely death may indicate. Taking a side of complete altruism over egoism is a stance that merely leads to an inferiority complex and a great lack of self-esteem.
Taking a stance of egoism over altruism is a clear road to despair and regret. Altruism, while externally good for a person, will kill their spirit internally. When everything that you do revolves around the idea that everyone else comes first and you come second, you outcast yourself. Your mission becomes one of servitude and loneliness. No one always wants to be the host of the party. Sometimes its nice to let someone else have that privilege.
Altruism obviously has its benefits. It is great for the spirit in many ways when taken in moderation. There is no greater satisfaction for many people than the realization that they have helped someone else. Even that, however, can be an egotistical idea however. If you help someone that could not help themselves do you not at least feel some sort of feeling of superiority over that person? You were in a position that they needed to be in and you rose to the occasion.
As sad as that is, it is the truth although at least half of the reason behind good deeds is that you want to help someone for no other reason than the simple truth that it is the right thing to do. Egoism is a dangerous place to be as well. You always hear that people look back on their lives and are filled with regrets of not ever doing any charity work, not being with their families, and that they were money-driven. I have received many breaks in my life from some of the most unlikely sources, so when I deem it appropriate and possible, I give back when I can, but I hardly inconvenience myself or even take a loss for someone elses benefit. It is true that accomplishments that benefit you as an individual should be taken with great amounts of pride. Standing before something which you have created or accomplished is no small task and is something you should be proud of, but when you begin to feel that you are not only great for your accomplishment, but actually better than all predecessors, you have crossed the line.
This is a big reason that Malcolm Xs call for a rise of the black community to take over never worked. Dr. King wanted a rise, too. A rise to equality. That is why Dr. King was more effective.
You can only overcome evil with good. Evil v. evil is a dark place to live in. Pitting force against force, anger against anger, and strength versus strength, there will be a huge, disastrous, catastrophic boiling point from which, when the smoke clears, there will be no one left, and no progress will be made. The desire to be better than what you are is only human. The desire to become better than what you are by destroying what the current establishment has built is unhealthy.
Section 2: The Antithesis For every good there must be a bad. For every question, there must be a response. So, for every great person, there must be an evil to counter it. There would be no good if there was no evil.
Perhaps, the most evil, maniacal, self-serving individual of our time is Charles Manson. Charles Manson is the most dangerous of all the maniacs behind bars. He doesnt kill anyone. He doesnt have to.
He is able to manipulate people into doing his bidding. Charlie Manson is the type of lunatic that his ideas are so far out of the realm of possibility and reality that they almost seem feasible. Charles Manson, of course, is not the only evil. The term evil is so broad that it is hard to pick just a couple people to describe. The problem with most people is that they look with tunnel-vision.
Very few people have the capacity to look at a situation and realize the magnitude of the actions and consequences of those actions. The main question to ask yourself in any situation is, Do the ends justify the means? While this may not entirely conform to a Utilitarian perspective of life, it is a necessity. You cant say, Well, feeding that child to a vicious tiger made 100 people happy, so it must have been worth it. There has to be some inherent evil and innocent murder or anything that harms someone for your own personal gain is wrong.
There is always another way. It may be harder, but trust me, being able to look yourself in the mirror in the morning is entirely worth it. Charles Manson's appeal to others, as is the case with most cults, is that a ringleader came up with a few inane ideas on politics and life and was very vocal about them. He justified his thoughts that were even more inane than the ones being justified. When your audience is a group of disenfranchised teenagers, it is easy to appeal to them.
All you have to do is give them ideas that they can adopt as their own. They would much rather regurgitate what some acid dealer spouted off than look deep inside themselves, at what they have done, where they have been and what they aspire to be to formulate opinions of their own. People like this are the true evil. They would rather corrupt others and lead them into temptations of wrongdoing to do their bidding for them than take a stand on their own.
There arent but a few rules of engagement concerning human encounters. One of them in this book of unwritten rules is that you are ultimately responsible for your own destiny and need to act accordingly. You are an individual, no matter what society tries to tell you. Regardless of the fact that society keeps trying to mainstream education, social classes, politics, religion, and even morals in order to create a mindless utopia, you cant ever be anyone but you. Individuals are always the most successful at life. People, like Manson, David Korea, and Apple white of the Heavens Gate cult that try to poison your mind and conform you to a conspiracy theory type life in which the government is always wrong and only those enlightened few can decipher what is fact and what is fiction have never mounted to anything.
The only thing more appalling than those that actually suck the young and impressionable into these crazy ideas are those that allow themselves to be sucked in. Being a strong and well-rounded person with your head held high is not something inherited. You make that call and must avoid being sucked into temptation or you are on a collision course with becoming someone as evil as these maniacs like Manson. What gives people like Manson their power is ignorance. Rather than learn about religion, politics, and life through experience, they would rather take someones word for it. The only real way to fight such a parasite is for people to believe that there is a perk to experience.
Philosophy, ethics, and government classes should be mandate long before you are a senior in high school. By that time it is too late for way too many. Section 3: Justification Ive been under a gradual understanding f...
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Research essay sample on Charles Manson Lose Sight
