What makes one bad?

Perhaps a good example of someone who is generally thought of as bad might be Adolf Hitler.

Most of the actions he initiated after becoming chancellor of Germany resulted in bad things happening to a huge number of people, including in the end, many of his own devoted followers.

So was Hitler bad? No doubt the Furher may have had his good side, but in effect we have here a man who plunged humankind into the most destructive war in history.

What made Hitler bad is another question. Probably a combination of many factors. From childhood experiences through the first world war etc. his ideas were formed. To say he was simply insane doesn't seem correct to me.

It must be that Hitler's 'badness' began as thoughts. However, these were powerful thoughts, capable of influencing the minds of many others, and in fact, whipping them up into a frenzy of racial hatred for example.
He could do it I assume because he had some kind of gift of oratory, and a kind of charisma for the Germans of the time.

Anyway, it's hard to say in the face of something like the NAZIs that there's no good or bad people. So it seems to me anyway.

 

Why is it different for nazi's? Did they all join out of evil? I'd rather judge them individually. Hitler can be considered a bad person because his bad deeds overshadowed the good.

 

This really is sort of a trick question because the trick is assuming that everyone has the same measure of good and bad. It is a trick also because even an individuals metrics for good and bad vary from day to day from circumstance to circumstance. It is a singularly poor way to apprehend phenomena, regardless your passions about things.

 

It's different for the other NAZis, bad as they were, because Hitler was the one who empowered the others. Without him, they would probably never have been in the position to act as they did.

Hard to know much about Adolph's 'good deeds'. History doesn't record that many.

 

Simply proves the point that sorting by category of good and bad, is a singularly poor way to apprehend phenomena.

 

I think it was just a case of hurt feelings. Germany's feelings as members of the human race were hurt after the big world war happened. So Hitler comes along with all this feeling and emotion, and all these guys get behind him like, "We're not a bunch of losers."

It's really easy to make the whole thing epic when it was probably rather childish. Hitler's hatred of the Jews was just Germany's projecting its own inferiority complex upon another people.

 

Hmm...doubt you'd think so if you were a jew in Germany in 1941

 

Doing things to others that you wouldn't want done to you or your loved ones.

 

Clear and present danger, is sufficient. Your doubting is not a significant statistic as far as my thinking.

 

What makes one bad is the judgement of others.

 

It's hardly a stastistic at all.

 

Given a choice between things and consciously and intentionally choosing to harm another being, be it physically or psychologically, when it could have been avoided constitutes what would, in my eyes, be a bad person.

 

many both good and bad things have a rather large consensus of agreement as to which they are. granted people can and do deceive themselves and each other. and yes indeed, beliefs, both dominant and otherwise, are among the means by which they do. and yet, even from birth, before even linguistic communication is learned, bennifit and harm are perfectly capable of being recognized. possibly before enculturation, a child is better able to do this, then most adults.

 

I agree that we possess reflexes for clear and present danger and these are wholly self centered. They work sometimes in a group because as group, species of mammal, we have the same essential needs. If indeed there is a universal sentience on the issue of right and wrong then there need be no education of polite custom and more than any no guilty violation can occur.

 

'Bad' is a human invention that depends on time, culture and circumstances.
What is 'bad' today might be acceptable tomorrow. What is acceptable today might have been considered 'bad' in another time, culture or circumstance.

It is very strongly intermingled with our dualistic view of the world. Good against bad. In Nature there is no 'good' or 'bad'.