“Humans beget evil as if a bee makes honey.” The novel’Paris the Great’, in which boys trapped in a desert island lose their mind and fall into barbarians, is regarded as a 20th century classic that captures the dark side of human nature. However, outside the novel, the boys who were actually trapped on a desert island were rescued in healthy form after working together and acting altruistically.
The Stanford Prison Experiment, also known as the Lucifer Effect, has been cited so far as a representative example that reveals the evil nature of human beings. Professor Philip Zimbardo, who led the experiment, built a fake prison in the basement of a building at Stanford University’s Department of Psychology in 1971, and gave 18 healthy white male students the roles as prison guards and prisoners and immersed them in a role play. From the first day of the experiment, the students in the prisoner’s role began a riot, and the students in the prisoner’s station did not hesitate to conduct harsh acts on the grounds of restraining it. Even though they knew it was a simulation, the good students gradually turned into demons.
However, in 2018, it was argued that the experiment was tricky. According to the unpublished transcripts that recorded the experiment at the time, the abnormal behavior of the experiment participants was an implicitly agreed postponement to receive the promised pay, or the rules and punishments made by the students in the guard were directed by Professor Zimbardo. How exaggerated and distorted the experiment at the time was confirmed through an experiment reproduced by the BBC in 2002. In the BBC’s experiment, nothing really happened between the guards and the prisoners. The difference is that there was no intervention or instruction. They talked together, shared food, and even created a pacifist community on the last day of the experiment. However, people still only remember Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment,” which emphasized only human cruelty.
The Stanford prison experiment conducted in 1971 gave a shocking message: “Even good people turn into monsters.” However, according to various records released 50 years later, a fatal flaw was revealed in the results of the experiment as it was revealed that Professor Philip Zimbardo, who was in charge of the experiment, took out explicit instructions to maximize the results of the study. In fact, in an experiment reproduced by the BBC in the 21st century, those who played the role of prison guards and prisoners lived in harmony by exchanging gifts rather than harsh acts. Influencial offer
Vocal music theory is strong. The foundation of the political, economic, social and educational system that builds the world today, including capitalism that rolls out of human selfishness, is’evil’. Instead of Rousseau’s appeal that civilization and society corrupted humans, who were good in the first place, Hobbes’ slogan, screaming’the struggle of all for all’, was embodied within.
However, the book boldly overturns this premise. They claim that humans are good and noble. That said, the book is not a book of sermons claiming that humans are like angels, or that the preaching of sex. The author breaks down the myths of numerous literary works and scientific experiments that have built up the frame that humans are evil, with fact-checking through empirical studies of literature and field exploration, and reveals the fiction of vocal music.
For example, in order to refute the’Paris the Great’, which depicts the dark abyss of humans, the author unearthed an actual case.In 1965, six boys isolated for 15 months on the uninhabited island of Ata in Tonga, Polynesia turned into barbarians like the protagonists in the novel and played war. Rather than being immersed in it, they cooperated and acted altruistically, and were rescued in a healthy form. The story of Easter Island, portrayed as the tragic future of mankind after greed, war, and cannibalism, also reveals that it is a historical misunderstanding caused by the expansion and reproduction of false quotations.
The author of Humankind, Lutcher Brechmann. As a founding member of’de Correspondant’, an innovative alternative media that shook Europe, he is attracting attention as the most influential thinker in Europe.
The author’s ultimate problem is the attitude of the world in which human nature drives away evil as if it were everything. Powerful narratives spreading vocal theories nurture negative worldviews and beliefs, and eventually the so-called no-signal effect, which instigates negative human behavior, makes the world worse. The author even argues that brutal crimes such as violence and murder are’the result of acquired education’.
If so, who are the people who promote evil in this world? The author puts the media and power behind. The media is busy ignoring countless peaceful moments and intensively reporting exceptional events, pouring out only cruel and violent news, leading to people constantly doubting the good nature within us. It is power that prospers as humans become more evil. He tries to justify his control by making the cause of managing human evil.
It is a world of vicious cycles. To cut this off, the author proposes to regain the perception that humans are good. It’s not about making something new that didn’t exist. It was because of’altruism’ that the Homo sapiens species eventually survived. It was the decisive weapon to be able to become smart with others through’social imitation’ that cooperates with and empathizes with each other. The author emphasizes that now is the time to fundamentally reorganize society with the principle of goodness. Just as violence and hostility, distrust and cynicism quickly dominated the world, can friendship, kindness, cooperation, and compassion be contagious?
Human Kind · Written by Ruudher Brechmann · Translated by Hyunwook Cho · Published by Influenza · 588 pages · KRW 22,000
‘Realists’ cynicism may come about whether it is excessive optimism. The author refutes, “It is they who do not know reality.” “There are so many people in the world who want to be good people for each other. What they mean by the word realism should be used differently.” After all, the more important thing than whether human nature is good or evil is what kind of life we choose. If you’ve read a book and made the heart of wanting to be a kinder human being than you are now, then the book is pretty successful. I recommend reading to those who are bored and tired of selfish humans.
Kang Yunju reporter [email protected]
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