Why good things should happen to bad people

[briankoontz]

Standing in a dying world with a vibrant dark vision (escaping the earth) and no healthy vision to fight against it, witnessing a terrified and vengeance-seeking populace consuming Game of Thrones and rooting for the "good guys" to prevail and the "bad guys" to get what's coming to them, a reality check is clearly in order.

After World War I, Germany, as being the most prominent loser of the war, was punished severely, forced to pay billions of dollars in reparations. These reparations as expected decimated the economy, which in turn caused massive resentment among the populace, which in turn gave rise to the Nazi Party. While it's popular with some reason to "blame Hitler", a more honest evaluation of the situation might blame the onerous post-WW1 reparations for the subsequent Holocaust. Hitler did not hypnotize the German people into Nazism, a weakened populace was taken advantage of.

The lives of serial killers are rarely good ones - there's always some problem(s) which underlies their killing. In other words, bad things in their life causes additional bad things to happen.

Noone in history has ever done terrible things because they were shown kindness or love. More than a few have been prevented from doing bad things by having good things done to them.

This doesn't imply that we should apply a static and "one size fits all" model for how we treat others. What it means to treat someone well differs depending on whether they are Mother Teresa or Jeffrey Dahmer.

It's clearly wrong to treat people badly because you deem them a "bad person", and if you've lost your moral compass to the point where you can no longer understand this on a deep psychological level then perhaps the entire history of humanity will convince you.

 

[Glongpre]

I think you've missed the point of why people want the "bad guys" to suffer in Game Of Thrones. People feel that way because it seems like the bad guys only occasional have shit go wrong for them, whilst the good guys are getting fucked at every turn.

Also, reality check? It's a show featuring ice zombies, walking skeletons and fucking dragons.

I think you missed the point. He is just using GOT as a reference to support the idea that people will treat bad guys badly because they are bad.

To quote his point:

The lives of serial killers are rarely good ones - there's always some problem(s) which underlies their killing. In other words, bad things in their life causes additional bad things to happen.

Noone in history has ever done terrible things because they were shown kindness or love. More than a few have been prevented from doing bad things by having good things done to them.

It's clearly wrong to treat people badly because you deem them a "bad person"

I thought this was something interesting to think about. Good thread.

 

[Quoth]

It's an exceptionally liberal minded view that all bad people can be cured through kindness.

The reality is that some people are bad and will remain that way to the extend that they will take advantage of any kindness and manipulate the situation to achieve their ends.

 

[Bellvedere]

Well wanting "revenge" or certain persons to "get what's coming to them" is a hardly a conscious rational choice to start with. It's an emotional response to a situation and like many emotional responses it doesn't necessarily lead to positive outcomes. Simplistically the notion of reward good behavior and punish bad behavior makes sense but of course it's often much more complicated than that.

That being said it is probably a little too optimistic to think that people are only bad because of bad things happening to them. Things like greed and corruption effect the privileged as well as the down-trodden members of society.

At any rate, it is perfectly acceptable to indulge in whatever feelings we have towards "good guys" and "bad guys" in fictional universes, like Game of Thrones, because there are no repercussions. It's kind of the point of having an antagonist in a story to start with (well except all those tragic/sympathetic villains). It's enjoyable in it's own way to get worked up about this stuff (when no one is actually hurt).

 

[senordesol]

I agree to a point. However, there are just some people who don't want to change; that have something fundamentally 'broken' within them. There's no amount of mercy that will cure them and thus they need to be either killed or thrown into a deep dark hole until they're no threat to anyone.

 

[Nimzabaat]

It's an exceptionally liberal minded view that all bad people can be cured through kindness.

The reality is that some people are bad and will remain that way to the extent that they will take advantage of any kindness and manipulate the situation to achieve their ends.

Or they'll go on a shooting spree like that guy in Sante Barbarba.

I did get a chuckle out of the "No-one in history has ever done terrible things because they were shown kindness or love" line. There's just so much ignorance there, where to begin? Every Dictator? Monarchy? Religion? The people who decided that the Crusades were a good idea had a pretty good life themselves. A good portion of human history is nothing but terrible things being done to others by privileged people.

 

[Scarim Coral]

While I do agreed with the OP statement in that it's a desireable outcome (everyone should have happiness than to had lead to a dark path) but there is no guaranteed that just because they had a normal/ good life, they had won't become bad/ evil.

Example- In Nicolas cage film 8mm. He track down the final guy involved with this teenage girl death nicknamed Machine (who was wearing a gimp mask in the film). When he saw his real face, he was suprised at how normal he looked and the Machine make a statement if he thought he expected him to looked like a psycho and had a dark past like being beaten up by his father. It turn out the Machine had a normal life but he had a sadic undertone that lead him to become the Machine. Ok sure that was in a friction film but still it is believeable that a normal person can still become bad.

Even then it is still a naive approach, I mean sure I would show mercy when it is suitable but it doesn't apply to everyone as someone already mention above me, bad people/ person can take advantage of ones kindness to him/ her.

Just to quote a story editor-
"I don't think I'd want to reform all of our villains I don't think that would be realistic. No matter how hard you try, some people just aren't going to change their way."

Ok that was referring to a cartoon show but it's still relevent that it is realistic in that not all villains can be reformed.

 

[lacktheknack]

Noone in history has ever done terrible things because they were shown kindness or love.

Citation needed. I think you greatly underestimated how broken mankind is.

That said, you are correct that people should treat each other well.

 

[Lieju]

Erm, are you comparing how people feel towards a fictitious narrative to actual history and how we actually treat real people?

Because it's not the same.

I don't think just being nice to 'bad' people in real life is a good idea. What you need to do is try to prevent and correct bad behaviour. If someone acts violently, for example, we should try to protect others from them, and try to treat the source of the problem.