Results for “Walter Ziffer”

Forgetfulness of the past and the consequences such forgetfulness potentially produces. Extreme nationalism prevents nations from cooperating with other nations.

As I see it, education that strengthens our inclination toward the good is the means toward creating decent behavior in humans. Such education should be of the formal kind and through role modeling and osmosis.

When pushed to extremes by exterior influences, real or perceived as real, the inclination toward evil can overwhelm our psychic system and push us toward extreme cruelty toward others and even toward the self.

I cannot help but admire the insight of our Jewish sages of old who taught that every child is born with equal affinities toward goodness and evil, in Hebrew yetzer hatov and yetzer hara. This means that we are not born as a tabula rasa.

In my opinion, the seeds of cruelty are in nature. We are animals and so we participate in animal behavior. Aggression is part of the natural world and we derive our origins from the natural world in which there are priorities that drive existence such as the need to eat, to reproduce and to defend.