With all the horrors happening around the world, we all can't help but ask if the people committing these atrocities were always Evil or are their actions just a product of their circumstances. Did they always want to become evil? Or were they pushed beyond their limits thus they were able to do these notorious acts? Let's take a deeper look into this dilemma and some points to take into consideration to understand this predicament.
What makes a man corrupt?
The subject has always been an important discussion between sociology: If we were to agree with Rousseau, it’s our modern organization of society that corrupts a Man; but Locke and Hobbes would say otherwise.
For them, man is not a social animal, he may even be evil from his heart - and that’s the exact excuse Hobbes uses to justify a totalitarian form of government.
Rousseau's theory vs. Locke
In light of Rousseau, we should bring this argument for this day and age – how can we answer those questions today? It might seem nearly impossible at first, though, taking a look at our lifestyle, it becomes crystal clear. You surely have had contact with any viral YouTube video showing children being nice, gentle and pure of heart to each other, no matter the differences between them; so that means Rousseau was right.
Although that is true, Locke was right as well, but on another theory: the human being is like a blank page, written through experience.
And what does that tell us? It’s a friendly warning about not ever growing up, about not letting your inner child fade - because when that happens - we’ve become the Leviathan ourselves.
Are we all Leviathans?
Consequently, there are several Leviathans among us, (maybe you are one of them) which have lost their sense of good faith and love, imposing their decisions on the rest of the humans - as society needs to overcome their bestial state.
And if your first mental image of the monster were politicians or terrorists, don’t be so hard on yourself: therefore, most of them decide for us and also against us.
Politicians or terrorists, despite to their behavior, have been children too. So, the strategic point is to find out when exactly did they lose hope and became villains themselves, so that doesn’t happen, and rarer good leaders can rise. And for the bad ones, beware, villains get no happy endings at all, luckily human mind is a constant river, strong enough to change back and make our hearts pure once more.
