Thread: Torturing someone is actually humane

The title is provocative on purpose.

The dictionary says "humane" is: characterizedbytenderness,compassion,andsympathyforpeopleandanimals,especiallyforthesufferingordistressed.

Anyone opening a history book would know this to be false. The thing we are best at is cruelty and finding better ways to kill eachother, destroying the planet, animals and plantlife.
Modern society claims to be civilized when all it does is preventing true human nature to emerge through control and force. In modern society our whole new game is based on lies and deception.

I think its rather strange that we can be so delusional that we think our good side overshadow the dark side. Looking at both our history and the current state of the world today, Id say its easy to see that evil triumphs good at every turn. Most humans seem to be cruel and egotistical and I always found it absurd that the word HUMANE is used as a positive word.

Media and other sources tend to paint the world darker than it is, sure. But what does that tell us when catastrophes, disasters and tragedy sells more than good news?

Have we really EARNED the right to define humane as "tenderness,compassion,andsympathyforpeopleandanimals,especiallyforthesufferingordistressed."? Or is this self-deception and self glorification?

That said I personally follow the code written in the movie "A kingdom of heaven" which states "What good is a man that does not make the world a better place" I try to be just and do good to others. And ofcourse - alot of people feel and do the same. But it sure feels like for the most part - statistically - that this is the minority. Hence the question - do we have the right to use the word humane as we do it today?

Anyone opening a history book would know this to be false.

Recorded history is notorious prone to sampling bias. History tends to record the bad events, while glossing over or consolidating the good things into "golden periods' and whatnot.

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Humans might be programmed towards remember the worst events as a type of self-defense mechanism. "The good berries" become part of life and unemotional and perhaps even forgotten without much effect--while the berry that left you retching or doing the "green apple quick step" for two days is so dramatic you make damn sure no one but your enemy tries to eat another. If Bill Gates ran over and killed a kid in his car and ran from the accident we'd remember that more than the thousands of lives he's saved with his generous contributions.

At least in modern societies, acts of altruism are far more common than acts of violence.

Originally Posted by Raziell

The thing we are best at is cruelty and finding better ways to kill eachother, destroying the planet, animals and plantlife.

Not true, the thing we are best at is finding new and better ways to keep ourselves entertained, for me personally; that is to improve on how best to draw a perfect circle freehand.

Originally Posted by Raziell

Modern society claims to be civilized when all it does is preventing true human nature to emerge through control and force.

I would think that it does so through persuasion with reason, and reserving "control and force" for those who aren't receptive to reason.

Originally Posted by Raziell

In modern society our whole new game is based on lies and deception.

Are you lying and deceiving here and now too?

Originally Posted by Raziell

I think its rather strange that we can be so delusional that we think our good side overshadow the dark side. Looking at both our history and the current state of the world today, Id say its easy to see that evil triumphs good at every turn. Most humans seem to be cruel and egotistical and I always found it absurd that the word HUMANE is used as a positive word.

I concede that we can be cruel and egotistical at times, but we can similarly be kind and humble too. Both these negative and positive behaviors and traits are found in all of us.

We are born completely selfish (me, me ,me), so it is our "nature". We must be "nurtured" toward other behavior.

We are born completely selfish (me, me ,me), so it is our "nature". We must be "nurtured" toward other behavior.

We are 'born' as infants of a particular species. That species has survived and thrived only by virtue of its capacity to learn and to teach ways of succeeding as a social group. Nurture is not contrary to our nature, it's the way we survive.

Originally Posted by adelady

We are born completely selfish (me, me ,me), so it is our "nature". We must be "nurtured" toward other behavior.

We are 'born' as infants of a particular species. That species has survived and thrived only by virtue of its capacity to learn and to teach ways of succeeding as a social group. Nurture is not contrary to our nature, it's the way we survive.

I think we need both. Certainly newborns are helpless and selfish and need others to provide almost everything for them, so this is our nature as newborns. Later, children attain the ability to stand on their own two feet, and certainly they have the capacity to be less selfish and to think of others, which is also our nature as children, but certainly parents and other caregivers struggle to teach children to share and not to be selfish, and this complements our nature, and by definition, must be contrasted to it. If it was our nature to mature on our own, we wouldn't need to be nurtured in that direction.

Originally Posted by jrmonroe

We are born completely selfish (me, me ,me), so it is our "nature". We must be "nurtured" toward other behavior.

Some of the evidence directly contradicts your Hobbesian viewpoint (see below). Somewhat like some aspects of language, which seem hardwired into humans, there's pretty good evidence that so is some altruism--not so surprising considering we are a social species.
"Fairness Expectations and Altruistic Sharing in 15-Month-Old Human Infants"
PLOS ONE: Fairness Expectations and Altruistic Sharing in 15-Month-Old Human Infants

Originally Posted by Raziell

That said I personally follow the code written in the movie "A kingdom of heaven" which states "What good is a man that does not make the world a better place" I try to be just and do good to others. And ofcourse - alot of people feel and do the same. But it sure feels like for the most part - statistically - that this is the minority. Hence the question - do we have the right to use the word humane as we do it today?

The words "feels like" and "statistically" do not go together. Do you have any actual statistics to support what you feel like? If someone wanted to develop such statistics, the first thing they would have to do is define "good." This will be an impossible task because it is a subjective judgement. Those same things you are complaining about were probably viewed as good things by the people who were doing them.