Morality: Good vs Evil

Both, Moral Insticts and Why Can't We All Get Along?, have situational awareness as an emphasis as well as logical and emotional thinking. With this in mind, an individual's intentions affects the goodness or evilness when it is perceived. A persons morality deeply impacts daily routines and even critical moments. Joshua Greene's study has a scientific approach in discovering what influences an individuals decisions, actions, and over all morals. Depending on which parts of the individual's brain is being stimulated, can either make a solid logical approach or a more sensitive emotional approach. Does a sympathetic neurological reaction result in a better or worse outcome than a systematic one? Well, Greene explained that the outcome is ultimately the same, but the only real difference is the individual perceiving this action. In, Moral Insticts, Steven Pinker starts off with an example of most admirable and least admirable celebrity or successful person. Mother Tereasa was the most common answer for most admirable because of her caring and giving acts, and accomplishments. Bill Gates on the other had unfortunately been the victim of being most unadmirable. Which begs the question, Why? Both individuals accomplished great things that have advanced the world, whether that be technologically or as a community or country. Both impacted the culture of the United States and even touched other countries. Joshua Greene, Why Can't We All Get Along, summarized this the best, by explaining how "Moral Dumbfounding" can complicate our reasoning. If it feels right to say someone is more admirable because their achievements are more caring and kind when compared to another's achievements then there lays the real problem. The self awareness that Greene and Pinker mention is to help lift the veil from over the eyes of most people. Appreciation of all acts, whether the intentions were positive or negative, has helped everyone evolve over time. If history is ignored then history is destined to repeat itself.

Does Intention Affect the Goodness or Evilness of our Actions?

The desire to do good can affect the goodness or evilness of our actions, especially if there are opposing groups who have a different view than ours. Hitler, for example, was a hero to the people in Germany and he was doing good, and people everywhere else in the world saw Hitler as an evil dictator who killed millions of people unnecessarily. So, Hitler had the desire to do good, but he was doing evil. In “Why can’t we all just get along”, and “The Moral Instinct”, a project is mentioned where Joshua Greene, a psychology professor, gives a scenario in which a trolley is heading towards five people, and you have the choice to divert the train and save their lives, but in exchange lose another man’s life. Most people would divert the train and kill that one person, knowing that they would save the lives of five people and they would be heroes for doing so, but not everyone would think of them as a hero who did good. The family, for example, might think of them as an evil person who killed their son, and that they should’ve just let destiny happen. For this reason, the desire to do good doesn’t always end up in complete goodness or evilness.

Morality

Everyone is born with instinctive morality. John Greene states in his blog that "morals are rooted in our genes". I believe that we have a have moral reactions to everything that happens to us. Steven Pinker states that we all have a moralization switch that can be turned on and off. He writes many examples in his reading that state our instinctive morality. He writes on page 556, three examples that people immediately declare are wrong because of their moral instinct. The acts are completely wrong according to any normal human being, so autiomatically you would say that they are morally wrong but Steven Pinker goes on to prove that you physically can't prove that the statements are wrong, but because of the moral instinct that we are all born with we automatically go straight to the conclusion that the act is wrong. In both passages they comment on the trolly problem, which has been studied by many scientist and proven my MRI's that when given the option their moral instinct is to kill 1 by pulling a leaver instead of pushing one off a bridge to save 5. According to Noam Chomsky we are born with a "universal grammar" that forces us to analyze human action in terms of its moral structure, with just little awareness. Steven Pinker also states that the stirrings of morality emerge in early childhood when children spontaneously offer toys and help others to try and comfort people they see in distress.

Are humans instinctively moral?

Everybody's morals are innate. We are all born with out set of morals that we believe and that we stick to. In Why Can't We All Just Get Along by John Greene, he states that morals are rooted in our genes and also Paul Bloom later demonstrates how an array of moral inclinations show up in infants and toddlers. Because of this we are clearly shown that everybody is instinctively moral. In both readings we are given these experiment like trials that they studied and see how people work and how their morals differentiated. In Steven Pinker's passage it talks about how children do things to in return get something back. Ever since an early age we try to please other people and also try to act in such a way to other people so we can get something in return. This shows that without anybody ever even telling us as little children that if we wanted something or wanted to be treated a certain way, we had to do certain things. By going through this we all developed our morals by ourselves. Yes we later grew up and learned from our parents the rights and wrongs but even if they did not ever directly tell us, we still knew because it is just an instinct that comes to us automatically. By going through experiences in life your moral instincts automatically kick in sometimes without you even knowing it.

Where does morality come from?

In both readings we are given to very similar situations both involving a trolley and a bridge both readings both go and discuss options we have on how many people will die and they explain that our morals come into play and it makes it difficult on what we should do because it's an "if-then" situation, if we push this person then more people will live if we flip the lever then more people will live both giving us difficult options. both reading explain many reasons where our morality come from and yet i don't fully agree with them, morality comes from our experiences just like everything in our life does we are shaped by what we are taught or have seen it isn't an instinct or a gene its just our experiences and our definition of right or wrong and how far we are willing to go till we find what we did isn't right. we have been fooled into thinking that everything is a universal thought of whats moral and what isn't but we are in charge of it not everyone sees eye to eye or is the same we believe different things and think certain ways that are not always normal and sometime people are criticized for having different morals. the scenarios leave each person in a predicament that no person can make because we as a society have made ourselves think that killing someone is wrong and since its wrong we should be punished if the killing was not for self defense. if thats the mindset that we all think, then how can anyone make that decision where no matter what its not moral. it isn't in self defense so in our eyes its bad either way and thats is good but bad because we let our morals get in the way of making a decision for someones life and that in some cases can make people question themselves as humans because if someone dies we will carry that on our shoulders but you can never forgive yourselves because of societies set definitions of morality. now a days morals come from a generic definition that is passed on through time and that how it should not be we should be making our own definitions of whats moral ourselves based on what we feel, see, and hear and what we believe not what others believe.

Where does our morality come from?

Morality is a tricky subject there are many answers as to where it comes from. Every person has their own set of morals that go with how they where raised and what they believe in. Joshua Greene tests peoples moral code with a simple test save five lives and kill one in the process or save one life and kill the other five. If I where to be placed in this situation my choice would be different than that of the person standing next to me. Morality comes from within yourself sure in my opinion it is influenced by how you grew up or your environment but it still comes from within you. Now whether we make moral choices is a completely different matter. Thinking back I probably could be told I didn't always make the best choices but everyone has their own moral compass that they follow. Maybe they find their morality in their religion or lack of religion in a way morality is something that we all have but is shown in different ways. When asked where does our morality come from there should be different answers, but in my opinion it comes from within yourself all you have to do is dig it out.

Does intention (or a desire to do good) affect the goodness or evilness of our actions?

Having good intentions or at least a desire to do good, does affect the evilness of our actions. It affects it because we could try so hard to do something right or be in the right mind to do so, and it can come out completely opposite. In "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?", by Robert Wright, talks about how this man named Joshua Greene wanted to test out an experiment. The experiment was to have 5 people tied up to a trolly, with three possible solutions for others. You could either pull a lever and only one person would die, pushing a man in front of the trolley, which would save the five and he would die or do nothing and let all five of them die. I think the people that chose to either pull the lever or to push a man in front of the trolley had good intentions of figuring out the best way to save the people but were rally just going off the top of their head or by the insticnt of their guts. Even if somebody chose to do nothing, probably has good intentitions too, but just doesn't want to suffer one, to save the rest. Those people having those thoughts to do those things are normal and they think it would be the best outcome to save the people, especially just by pulling the lever. So using either one of those ways are good examples of people having good intentions but having evilness come out of their actions.

Are humans instinctively moral?

     In order to truly prove whether or not humans are instinctively moral, an experiment would have to take place where a human’s responses to immoral situations must recorded after being left alone with no human contact and observed from birth to a certain point in time. There are far too many psychological complications that could possibly arise from this to have a clear conclusion; therefore we may never have a completely accurate answer. In Steven Pinker’s “The Moral Instinct” he mentions four year olds arguing that hitting a little girl for no reason is “not O.K.” even if an older individual tells the children that it indeed is O.K. This could be easily due to the results of the parenting of these children or the children putting themselves in the victims place and knowing the results would make them unhappy. This does not declare that humans instinctively can tell right from wrong; it just proves that people can feel pain and know if they would appreciate the same circumstances. Although it was also noted that the four year olds also agreed wearing pajamas to school is “wrong” unless the teacher declares otherwise. This is a clear example of the influences adults have on children when it comes to morality and decisions. Children do not have enough experience to differentiate between right and wrong, this is proven every day when children push over animals or steal crayons. Through time humans develop morality through experience and popular belief. Although the moral meanings to certain things may change over time, this continues to be the main cause for morality. Morality is simple adaption to ones surroundings, if people declared shoes with colored shoelaces immoral; many others would follow and agree with the statement. One person (or group of people) declaring something is moral does not make it moral. Different religions, countries, and people believe different things are morally just or unjust, this leads to complications upon whether or not humans can be instinctively moral. With so many diverse definitions of morality, one cannot claim that humans are born moral by instinct. Experience and time are the only proven reasons for moral understanding, ones moral views are ultimately dependent upon the beliefs that surround them and what beliefs  one may choose to follow.

Are we instinctively moral?

From a young age humans are "wired" to be people-pleasers. Toddlers will frequently perform acts that they know will please an adult and the child has a distinction between good and bad because at a young age he/she is taught the difference and is rewarded for the good acts performed and punished when a bad act is committed. In "The Moral Instinct" by Steven Pinker he explains that morality is present "early in childhood" because the children perform generous acts such as "offer[ing] toys", helping and comforting others. Through this we can see that morality develops during childhood and it isn't necessarily taught to us but it is more of an instinct because it provides emotional responses and actions. In “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?” by Robert Wright he tells us that sometimes how reasoning (logos) is not only controlled by facts, rationality or coherent but that it is “sometimes more about gut feeling” (instinct) allows humans to determine if behaviors are morally good or bad. But that is not to say that logic does not play a role in being inclined to morality. Wright tells us about the study performed on the brain when asked about situation of the trolley problem, whether to kill five people or one person. The area of the brain that is “associated with logical thought” is active when the people chose the utilitarian solution to save as many people as they could because there was not as much emotional connection. Society also plays a major role in determining human morality. Pinker provides situations that “universally” would be considered immoral such as the situation where the two siblings decide to “make love”. Is this situation considered immoral because it’s instinctive or because society has instilled in individuals that such actions are immoral? This has to do with the credibility of the person claiming acts to be immoral, an authority figure could make such immoralities known in order to effect a large group. But I believe in this situation most would instinctively consider this action immoral because most people don’t view their sibling in such a way and wouldn’t even fathom the idea. In the “Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies”  one of the fallacies is “appeal to authority” explaining that if a person with authority believes something others will believe it to be true as well. This shows that although one may think that they choosing the right belief system when it comes to determining morality but it actually is determined by personal instincts.

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Morality comes from our brain and the way we act. "Why Can't We All Get Along" the author talks about a psychologist named Greene. He did an experiment on what would people do if a trolley had 5 people in it and would you pull break or push a fat man in front of the trolley to save them. He figured out there morality came from different parts of their brain. In "The Moral Instinct" the way we act makes our morality come out. If we like killing people, then the morality of that person is they like killing and think it is right. We should increase good by teaching people and others how to follow the rules and teach them what is right. If we teach them evil will disappear and it will not be a problem. Greene's experiment was to see how humans reacted to different scenarios and how there morality would affect them or others. In "The Moral Instinct" it gave information on how morality is achieved and how people act to it and do morality.

Good vs. Evil (Logos)

       People aren't one sided of the good or evil. We're a combination of the two. Depending on whether someone performs a good or bad deed is entirely opinionated. We all have different perspectives on what is good and evil so we shouldn't be quick to judge someone's "evil" actions because to them they might have thought they were doing something good.
       For example, In the podcast Fritz Haber was a combination of good and evil. The good he did was that he created a fertilizer out of nitrogen that would enrich the soil and be able to grow crops and feed millions of people. This was a huge accomplishment that he was praised for by the people he saved. On the other hand, when Germany entered into World War I, Fritz decided to volunteer and help combat Germany's enemies by creating a chemical from the same ingredients that he used for the fertilizer, which is called Ammonium, to kill the enemy soldiers. Germany lost the war anyways and when Hitler took over Fritz was not allowed to stay with Scientist staff. Upset at the fact that since he was jewish and couldn't help his country, which he was very passionate about, He had no where to live and eventually died. After his death the Nazi scientist used the chlorine gas to exterminate the Jew's in concentration camps. While Fritz thought it was a good intentions to make the gas to help his country in the war, it turned out it was a evil idea which lead to the death of millions of people. Fritz helped save and kill millions of people and for that reason he is a combination of good and evil.
        In the "Flawed concept of good and evil" Miyazaki says "see the good in which is evil, and the evil in that which is good." which means that without evil their can be no good and vice versa. Rather to choose one side or the other Miyazaki ask us to "preserve the balance that exists between the two." Meaning that for us to be at our full potential we must control the balance between good and evil inside of us.

Good VS Evil (Logos)

Good VS Evil (Logos)

People are not simple good or evil, everyone is a combination of both. The podcast shows that Fritz Haber was a combination of light and dark. He was a German scientist who came up with a way to increase the production of food by producing more nitrogen. He saved billions of people because as the number of humans increased in the world people began to outnumber food resources. He took a nitrogen out of the air and was able to produce food with it. This was a great accomplishment and Haber was celebrated for the lives he saved and that people were not starving. When World War I broke out Haber volunteers himself to help Germany in the war. He uses the nitrogen he used to feed the population to make another chemical called Ammonium. He used the chemical against people in the war. People were in trenches and he used the Ammonium to gas all of those people and kill them. It was almost cheating because prior to this it wasn’t the way war was supposed to be done. Germany lost the war and then Hitler took over. Fritz Haber was part Jew so he was not allowed to be on the German Scientist Staff. He was very angered about this because he took a lot of pride in his country. He roamed around awhile homeless then he dies. One of the strangest parts about this is that during World War I his staff created a chlorine gas that he knew about. When the Nazis took over they removed the warning smell from the chemical and they use it as the choking gas that killed the Jews in the concentration camp. This is terrible because he played a major role in killing people who were just like him some who might have even been family. The guy did an amazing thing by finding a way to feed billions of people with nitrogen but the same nitrogen he uses to do that is what is used to kill people in war and in the Holocaust. People are much too complex to simply label them or their actions good or evil.

In The Flawed Concept of Good VS Evil Imgur says that “Evil is innate natural in all humans”. I agree with this quote because just as evil is natural so is good.  Imgur later says that evil is always their but it can be controlled. If humans were naturally just good or bad we wouldn’t have to learn how to behave properly or learn the difference between right or wrong because it would already be built into us, but we do have to learn because we aren’t born able to differentiate between the two. Some people are better at controlling the evil within them and those are the people who are considered good in our society. The ones who have more trouble controlling themselves are deemed bad and often find their way to institutions such as prison.

Good and Evil (Logos)

No one on earth can be completely good or completely evil. There is an innate balance between the two in everyone. For someone to determine the actions of someone else as good or evil is a matter of opinion, because everyone’s perception of good and evil could differ. If someone does something bad but has good intentions, not everyone would agree that that person is completely evil or completely good.

In “how do you solve a problem like Frits Haber?” the reporters were talking about how Frits Haber used Nitrogen for both good and evil. He won a noble prize for discovering how to feed people with nitrogen from the air. Everyone thought he was a hero. However, he then used this same process of taking nitrogen from the atmosphere to make bombs, killing many people. He went from hero to criminal. Frits Haber is the epitome of good and evil combined.

In the “Flawed concept of good and evil” Hayao Miyazaki and Ashley Allis portray how within everything good lies something evil, and in everything evil lies something good. They show how the universal children’s story about the strong prince defeating the evil and saving the damsel in distress is not how life is at all. Normally when it is least expected, the person who is trusted the most and seems to be the most good, is going to be the person who turns around and does the most damage causing the most pain. With that, I must say that even the most hopelessly evil person can find the silver lining and do something good as well.

Good Vs. Evil (Logos)

     In science, we often hear the phrase, To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This goes as far as up and down, left and right, yes and no, and good and evil. It is the same in our everyday lives. With everything we do there is some sort of outcome. In the TED video we watched Friday, the speaker said that "good and evil are the ying and yang of the universe. 

     I believe that people are a combination of both good and evil. With out one the other can not exist. In Hayao Miyazaki's philosophy of " The Flawed Concept of Good vs. Evil", he says, " see the good in which is evil, and the evil in that which is good". Since neither good or evil can exist with out one another , then every single individual has both within them. 

     With that being said, I don't think  people can be labeled as "good" or "evil". In "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Fritz Haber?", Haber is a Jewish man who created a fertilizer that ultimately saved our world. But he also created a pesticide that was used to murder many other Jews and some of his own relatives. Haber can not be defined as either good or evil because even though he may have helped progress our world and then left his dead wife with his thirteen year old son, he's only human. He did help our dying world in a time of need. He also helped Germans in WWI to defeat the allied side using a deadly gas. But, naturally that's what humans do.

     Not to say that we all get Nobel prizes and celebrate war defeats, but we do make choices. Our decisions can be good or bad, but that does not make us ultimately a good or bad people. Everyone has a good side and a dark side, but we can not be defined as just good or just evil. We're both. We're human.

Good and Evil (Ethos)

People are a combination of both good and evil. Fritz Haber is a perfect example of how a person is naturally both good and evil. He did scientific research in order to feed his home land Germany. His experiments with nitrogen lead to a scientific ground breaking way of using the element to make rich fertilized soil. That helped feed millions of people during a rough time in Germany. This also to date is used and feeds billions of people around the world. Unfortunately during WWI he completely changes the way he used nitrogen and uses it immorally to the point where his own wife confronts him and tells him he is wrong by using chemical warfare to make enemy soldiers drown within their own bodies with ammonia. Even though he contributed to society he also introduced chemical warfare which was also used in WWII on his Jewish relatives. In the "Flawed Concept of Good vs Evil" the way that evil is described is that we all have evil in us, it's just a matter of us controlling it in order for it to not become a problem. If we can keep hate away from our vision and hearts we are able to maintain a good vibe instead of being an evil person with hate pouring out of our souls. If people learn to look past jealousy and hate they can soar to their full potential. Evil can be controlled in our mind its just a matter of fact if a person is strong enough to do so.

Good Vs. Evil (Pathos)

To label one as "good" or "evil," we first have to decipher for ourselves what the difference between the two. In all honesty, it just depends on the background you came from and the morals that you were raised on. While reading the comic strip assigned to us, I was greatly moved and appreciative of the artist portrayed the female hero as a strong and independent figure, rather than a weak, fawning figure waiting to be swept off of her feet. And even so, not even the male figures have to be shown as a strapping young man ready to carry the world on his back, when in reality any one can have a source of heroism inside of them. My favorite part was the very end, where he simply stated that within all good, there is evil, and within every evil, there is good. It is not our job to pick one or the other, but rather to preserve the balance between the two, because of the immensity of the both of them in this world.
In “How do you solve a problem like Fritz Haber?” they are very biased on the actions of Fitz Haber. It all depends on their own views and morals. They don't see his accomplishments as something of his own, rather something that they're allowed to see and judge according to them. I believe that there is a mixture of good and evil inside of us all, and it is up to us whether we pull more to one side than the other. There is no one person who doesn't have a little bit of one without the other. But in all, it creates each person specifically. I believe this podcast spoke to the pathos of each of us and allowed us to either agree with the ones judging him, or cause us to sympathize for him. Either way, there's no way around it.

Balance of Good and Evil (Logos)

People are all different in many ways; therefore, people can have a good side and a dark side to them. Most civilized human beings can control their actions, allowing them to only commit the crime in private. Others cannot control them and they attempt these dark, evil actions in the public eye. There is a different amount of evil inside each and every one of us. In the podcast the radio host explained to us the different discoveries a German- Jewish scientist, Fritz Haber, provided for the world. They start off explaining how, with a one of his discoveries; he saved billions of people in the world from starving. As they continue they explain how he also invented this gas to kill the Allied troops in WWI. As I listened to the podcast I also discovered this man, Fritz Haber, also did not feel any guilt toward this discovery he made, instead he celebrated. Although he may have saved many lives, he also destroyed many in his lifetime. This made me think, maybe because of his celebration to this fact, made him more evil than people perceived him as. I believe that the only reason he created a way to produce nitrogen or ammonia was to challenge him. I believe he was not as proud of that discovery, as he was of the dangerous gas.  A part of me believes that he found a thrill of the gaseous discovery. To top my theory off, it was also believed after his death the Germans used a pesticide, also discovered by Haber and his scientist, in concentration in Germany in WWII. Although he was not directly related to this crime I believe that in his life he was more evil than good. In the comic strip the author explains how the story lines of his work are not cliché as people would want them to be, because it does not happen in reality. He has a view on the world as if evil balances its self in with good because it cannot be defeated. I believe this to be true because throughout history there has never been an error that there was no evil.  

Neither Good Nor Evil(Pathos)

People are neither good nor evil. We, as described in an old Cherokee story about two wolfs, a good and an evil one, which fight within ourselves’ to show through in our character, have good and evil within us. Its the actions we choose to take that “feeds” the good or evil inside ourselves’ that shows through in our character. In “How do you solve a problem like Fritz Haber?” audio, they talk about Fritz Haber and his accomplishments. They did not once called the man neither good nor evil but referred to his actions in that way. When they perceived something he did to be evil, in their opinion, they explained how it was this way because it is resentful to their moral standards. This is why it is unreasonable to say someone is either good or evil because what one person may think is good or evil may be different for another person depending upon their culture or what they’ve been taught. People go through a constant battle within ones’ self between our good wolf and our bad wolf. Feeding either one can upset the other and cause it to fight stronger or we can choose to starve one and do only good or bad. In “The flawed concept of "Good VS Evil"”, the author’s explanation of evil and good follows this concept of no one is just good or evil. The author goes to explain how they do not think there should be just one concept of good by saying how they do not like to make their characters the cliché hero because they believe anyone can be a hero no matter who, how or what they are. This demonstrates how they’re can be good in any and all people. We shouldn’t expect good or evil from anyone because people should be able to choose how they react toward others and their actions. Being able to balance which side of us to “feed” is what allows the world to perceive good and evil and strive to do what they believe is best just as Haber did in his situations.          

Good Vs Evil comment

Some people would agree with Fritz Haber actions in what he did. But some would disagree with what he did be hurting many he also saved great amounts as well. I can barely see similarities between the two "Good Vs Evil" by Hayao Miyazaki and "How do you solve a problem like Fritz Harber", with Sam Kean, Latif Nasser, Daniel Charles, and Fred Kaufman as the speakers. I agree with Miyazaki in that the opposite sex can be just as strong and courageous as well as there being both good and evil in each and everyone of us. Just because we have some good in us does not necessarily mean that we are good people and just because we have a little evil in us does not have to mean we are bad people. People are portrayed differently by society making them good or evil according to the norms of society. On another note, today, people have the choice to be "good" or the choice to be "evil" it is up to what your actions are and what you do to make yourself a good/bad person.

Combination of Good and Evil (logos)

            People can’t completely be all good or bad, one day we may do a good deed that came from a pure and kind part of us and then a day later we could do a terrible act that came from a darker side.  We are a combination, a mixture; we are complex and with complexity, many different aspects come into play all at one time.

            We’ve all wanted to be that person who lives a normal life by day and a red caped, masked, super powered hero by night.  However, in the drawing the author conveys that physical strength and being a damsel in distress aren’t things that we should strive to be.  There’s more to being a superhero than what we think.  We should strive to do acts of good and to stop the bad acts that happen in front of us that is what a real superhero would do.  There also isn’t such a thing as a superhero that doesn’t commit bad or wrong acts themselves, because it’s impossible to be completely good or evil.  Being able to see the good in the bad and seeing the bad in the good is how we should live life.  Take for instance how many movies, TV shows, and comic books portray the typical superhero and how many kids grow up strive to be exactly like them, the flying and super strength in all.  What we don’t instill into the younger generation is that there is constantly good and evil everywhere we look and that it’s up to each individual to do more acts of goodness then of wrongdoing.

            Fritz Haber is the perfect example of how we all are composed of good and evil. Constantly searching whether we are considered good or bad is something we all do and do until we die, you might say it’s an reflex obsession to figure out what kind of person we all are. Hearing the story how this man designed something as good as trying to create a chemical to produce more food for the hungry, but turn it into a mass killing agent makes you wonder is he a good man or a bad man.  From a Nobel Prize winner to captain of chemical warfare. The only way it can make sense is if we are both.  We may be born good and happen to bad acts, but if we continue to do these bad acts than you become a bad person who occasionally do good acts. Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, we are split, we have good and bad to us this combination allows us to react differently in each situation and ultimately makes us unique and gives us our personality.  Even as far back as biblical times, Lucifer was one of God’s favorite angles, but he disobeyed God and now is the fallen angel of evil.  There are no absolutes, only partially good and partially bad.        

The Grant Study/ Love Hurts

            Love Hurts (Other People), written by Stephanie Pappas, reminds me of the Grant study. The Grant study, published in the Atlantic and written by Joshua Wolf Shenk, explains the scientific research study done by Harvard researchers that followed 268 men and chronicled their levels of happiness throughout the years. What the study found is that love truly effects how we develop as adults. One case explains how one of the test subjects was forced to eat alone for six years; this Grant study man later developed psychiatric problems.  Love Hurts, like the Grant study, is based on a trio of studies which took 130 people who are in serious relationships and eventually showed that when they are in a long term relationship their brains will do what it needs to “protect” the relationship, even if that means putting down potential threats. This directly relates to the Grant Study man’s brain becoming psychotic to make up for the lack of love from his family as he was forced to eat alone. The first study of the trio, at Florida university the test subjects were asked to fill out questions to see their level of jealousy, much like the Grant study where the Grant men were asked to fill out questionnaires and send them back based on their level of happiness. One of the big focuses in Love Hurts is jealousy; throughout the studies the researchers found people with higher jealousy would respond more harshly to pictures of potential threats to their relationships, so the researchers decided to see if low jealousy people were different than the jealous types. They designed a test in which the couples would separately be shown profiles of people of their same sex in their area who were signing up for a dating site, these profiles were made to be a threatening as possible to the peoples relationships and what the results proved was that even low jealously people still rated their potential threats as unattractive.  Both The Grant Study and Love Hurts had very different results than were expected when the studies began. Like the Grant Study, Love hurts is similar because both are scientific experiments that showed that our brains will automatically adapt to the situations we are in, in order to cope with the possible threat or situation we are in.

Our Love Vs Reality

Love is the feeling of being desired by others. Between the two sources, Stephanie Pappas' article "Love Hurts" and Yann Dall'Aglio's video "Love--you're doing it wrong", love seems to become a sense of materialistic desire. We are used to the idea that love is the unexplainable reason why we will sacrifice ourselves for another person. However, in the article and video we are forced to view ourselves as people who can easily be swayed by our innate sense of insecurity stemming from jealousy of not being desired by our partners. In the video we are all "useless", because in order to feel value we need to gain the feeling of compassion from others. Highlighted in the article, even when people feel as if they are in a successful, romantic relationship, they still have the potential of feeling threatened by others who seem attractive. With a comparing outcome from the Yann Dall'Aglio's discussion, our level of seduction capital, or desirability, is directly measured by others' view of us. Unfortunately, it seems as if our fairytale visions of mankind mask the true drive behind our instinctive craving to feel useful, which can only be achieved by other's view of us.

When watching “Love your doing it wrong” one of the main things he was supposed to be talking about was love.  But he started off his speech with defining love as the desire to be desired, which opened up the question that got me thinking of how does one become desirable and then stay desirable?  It is true that in today’s world you are free to value anything however you want too, and likewise everybody can value you however they want too.  This seems like a major problem because every single person wants the freedom to decide what they like, what they love, and what they don’t like and hate, but nobody wants to allow another person to tell them they aren’t good enough and aren’t worthy of their love; or for that matter anyone’s love.    Yann Dall'Aglio answers this problem by letting us know that people try to collect traits that will make them desirable and loved and then ultimately happy, whether they do this on purpose or not.  The grant study used a lot of information to show if the people in relationships were really happy and why?  I think that was a big difference between it and what Yann was speaking on, because he was focusing a lot on Love, but more on what it truly meant to be loved and to love others unconditionally.  The Grant study did connect with “Love Your doing it wrong” when it did find that some people were not happy and got divorced, and to me this was the same as Yaan confirming people have the freedom to value or disvalue anyone or anything as they please.  Yaan really seemed to be speaking on the uncertainty of whether or not the love for something or somebody will always stay.  This all hit home to me because even though I really don’t like that people have the right to pick what they like and why they like it I still respect that you can do that, because I personally love being able to decide that I love someone or something on day and then in two weeks just decide I don’t like it all.

When comparing the Grant Study paper to Yann Dall'Aglio's speech, I used Yann's idea of wanting to be desired and remain desirable as a measure of happiness. I noticed in a few examples that were given in the study that though people may have been financially successful and lived valued lives in the perspective of monetary values they still were unhappy. Those who maybe weren't so financially stable with closer family ties seemed to be happier, or at least not depressed to the point of suicide. When I read Yann's speech I thought about how I like the feeling of being "desired" or having a strong relation with someone. That feeling makes me happier than any sum of money could ever make me. There are friends in my life that have spent the vast majority of their lives chasing a financial goal as apposed to a relationship goal or even sharing their time with another. These friends have aged passed how old they actually are. In my eyes what makes us happy is a sense of belonging or a sense of being "desired" in Yann's words. Finances are a necessity but like people always say money can't buy happiness.

Love: You're Doing it Wrong/What Makes Us Happy

  I believe "Love: You're Doing It Wrong" and "What Makes Us Happy?" share similar ideas because they both show how the people around us have a major affect on the way we feel. In "Love: You're Doing It Wrong", Yann Dall'Aglio explains how many of us need to be valued, admired, or appreciated by other people in order for us to feel loved. We try to acquire the best cars, the best jobs, the best qualities, etc. not because we desire them, but because other people desire and value these things. When other people value us and what we have, we feel loved. Instead of loving ourselves, many of us need to gain love and admiration from other people so we can feel loved.
  In "What Makes Us Happy?", some of the results from Dr. Vaillant's study proved that our relationships with other people affect our level of happiness. If we don't form good relationships, then we will probably have a much more difficult time trying to find happiness. In the article, Joshua Wolf Shenk states "Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger." 
  Dall'Aglio's speech and Shenk's article both express the same idea: other people affect the way we feel. They just express this idea in slightly different ways; and they focus on different emotions. Shenk uses more of an experimental and statistical approach to show how other people affect our happiness. Dall'Aglio uses his humor and real-world examples to keep the audience engaged, and to help them better understand how other people affect the feeling of being loved.  

Love Hurts

In my opinion the topic in “Love Hurts” is different than the topic from the Grant study. The topic in “Love Hurts” is about love, and the Grant study was about happiness. Although there was some mentioning about the subjects love life, the Grant study was primarily focused on happiness. Both of these studies are very interesting and really show a different perspective on things.

“Love Hurts” was an article about how the partners reacted when taking studies that showcased “potential threats” to their other partner. When the partners looked at these “threats” they were asked to give their opinions, and they did not hold back. “… rating them as unattractive, unfriendly and other insulting adjectives.” This made me realize why the title of this article was “Love Hurts.” It hurts because these people are lashing out on people of the same sex that they feel are competition to them. This does show that these people really do love their partner. They feel that they’re the only ones their partner should be with. They get a little jealous and talk negatively about these potential “threats.”  I believe that this study did show to the partners that love sometimes does hurt.

The Grant study was about a few hundred students and how happy they were throughout their lives. This study literally knew everything about their subjects. They studied how experiences and people changed the lives of their subjects. Some were changed for the better, and some were changed for the worse. Something in this study that was similar to the article was love. The Grant study also looked at the relationships of the subjects. Some stayed with their first love and some divorced. Some of the subjects’ parents divorced as well. These events definitely affected their happiness.

These studies as we can see are different from each other, but have a similarity. The Grant Study was a more broad study about the lives of these people and how happy they were. The article “Love Hurts” was about a specific study that showed a different side of people in long term relationships.