Okay, so there's something I see often online that I've never been able to really understand.
People often say "People are smart and able to think well. They just consistently make bad decisions that end in suffering and destruction and death while being smart and able to think well for some reason." And "People are good and they don't want to hurt other living beings. They just vote for evil and they beat and torture and kill people and they engage in genocide while being good and not wanting to hurt others."
How does that make sense? How can I understand that? How do you get the conclusion of "Oh, this person is smart and good and they don't want to hurt others and they're good at thinking!" from the starting point of "This person abuses others and causes pain to the living beings around them and they regularly vote for people and policies that cause mass suffering and death?"
Is it some neurotypical type thing that my autistic brain isn't able to easily grasp?
Usually when I see this argument people are saying that oh, people are smart and rational and good, they just make horrible decisions that cause pain to others because they see themselves as smart and rational and good and they do what's easiest and most accepted in their violent social hierarchy to maintain their position in that hierarchy. They're not setting out to cause suffering and destruction and to ruin their community, they're just doing what makes sense.
Okay, but, like, the end result of their actions is suffering and destruction. I do not think that simply just not thinking "I want to cause suffering and destruction today" to themselves is an excuse or an explanation for how they're actually good and smart people despite the easily predictable negative consequences of their choices and actions.
Reading some more tags on the particular post that inspired this and thinking of other similar posts I've seen. I don't know if it's a neurotypical/autism thing or a grew up around religion/did not grow up around religion or middle class/working class or...okay, well, whatever the difference in perception was caused by, it's clear that I perceive reality very differently than the people who make these arguments do.
I do not think of living beings as "Good" or "Bad" in fixed categories with the categorization taking place before the beings engage in actions with easily predictable consequences.
But I don't know, I guess I do hold humans to higher standards than I do other species.
Like I know that cats do not have the ability to comprehend and understand the consequences of their actions on billions of other living beings on this planet, so I do not hold them morally responsible for things that they have no ability to understand.
I do not judge cats for biting or scratching, because they are doing what they can to defend and protect themselves and to try and enforce their boundaries. Or sometimes they're just running around and jumping and grabbing on with their claws.
I also don't judge them for decimating local bird populations, because they're just doing what they do. It's humans who can understand the consequences of cats decimating bird populations, it's humans who should know to keep their cats inside and to do what they can for feral cats, it's humans who are morally responsible. I never judge cats for anything, because I know they're doing the best they can with what tools and abilities they have.
But, as in that example, I tend to assume that humans have more ability to understand systems and to communicate in non-claw and non-biting ways and to be able to predict the consequences of their actions over a much longer range of time and on far bigger groups of other living beings than cats do. So I do judge humans, because I assume that they are often not doing the best they can with what tools and abilities they have.
Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe they have far less tools and abilities than I thought they did.
I mean, to continue that example, it's true that in my own family I don't think my mother or brother are really capable of understanding the dangers and consequences to cats being outside. Also it's true that once Misfit really needed help and care with fleas and my mother wasn't able to understand that, and it's true that my brother says Misfit looks happier and healthier now that she lives with us and regularly gets flea treatment and has better quality food and other things. Even though my mother loves Misfit and wouldn't have wanted to hurt her.
I don't know. I don't think I understand humans other than the spousal person very well. But hey, at least I got this one dude who gets me and who makes sense! :)
