Humanity’s Capacity for Good and Evil, to Be Civilized or Savage”

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“Humanity’s capacity for good and evil, to be civilized or savage”- After reading the novel “The Lord of the Flies”, my opinion about civilization and savagery was challenged and I wanted to study the concept of ‘good vs evil’ within fellow human beings. If Golding’s purpose was to show us that everyone has the capacity for good or evil, how can society stop civilization from turning savage? I also wanted to understand why humanity chooses to be good or evil, and we see this unfold in the Lord of the Flies, with the boys’ need for civilization. There are many different opinions about how and why humanity chooses to be good or evil. In an article by EAM he states that ‘what people believe to be the nature of humans to be is a very personal belief. That belief is shaped by the religion they follow, the culture they grew up in, and by their life experiences’. This writer’s opinion is that people are inherently good and this has developed gradually over time. Another reason for this viewpoint is that we are all created in God’s image and by God to serve him now if that is the case then people would be inherently good, as God is. Determining whether or not people are good or bad also comes from life experiences. The writer says he has had many good experiences of people helping each other, which reinforces the idea of people being inherently good. In another article “Are humans good or evil’ by Paul J Zak, he states that ‘Human beings are highly social creatures. Because of this we are intensely interested in what others are doing, and why. We need to know who is good and bad and therefore who we want to avoid and who we can tolerate”. For example, Agnes Gontha Bojoxhia at the age of eighteen left her home to become a missionary and never to see her family again. Better known as Mother Theresa of Calcutta, she devoted forty five years of life to helping

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