Here's the thing,
There's a saying that encompasses what a lot of you that are "pro-morality" are saying. "It's easy to be a saint in Paradise." The morality we've all grown up with is a direct product of us being the most spoiled human beings who have ever lived. All the necessities of life are available to us with next to no difficulty. Food? 10 minute drive to the grocery store or fast food place. Water? Comes fresh and sanitized from the tap. Shelter? All but the utterly destitute have homes that would be the envy of 99% of the humans who have ever lived, and even homeless shelters are of vastly higher quality than the shelter(s) of 99% of all the humans who have lived since we developed on this planet. Safety and Security? Interconnected, overlapping law enforcement agencies with the wherewithal to deter the vast majority of individuals from committing any serious crimes. Health? Modern medicine is able to deal in the short-term with all but the most serious of health problems.
NONE OF THIS has been true for 99% of humanity's history. Modern society in the "first world" is the exception to human behavior that proves the rule of savagery. For thousands and thousands of years humanity saw no need to move beyond the tribe structure. Even when it did, it was only essentially expanding the tribe into what amounted to a very large extended family. Only in the most recent 5% of human history has our species decided to form social structures more advanced than the tribal, and this as a DIRECT RESULT of life's necessities becoming easy to obtain for almost everyone.
If you take away these necessities you'll quickly discover that there has been next to no real development morally speaking in the last 20,000 years. The most moral woman alive who also happens to be a mother will kill without qualm, as often as she needs to, to provide what her child/children need. Right or wrong won't even enter into it. Same goes for most men that are fathers, and most men and women in regards to looking after the people they personally care for.
We're not talking about a temporary interruption in society's continuity here. Society is OVER in TWD world, for good...or at least the next 200-300 years. Yes, at first the very apocalypse that winnowed down the population to 1% of its pre-apocalypse size will allow the survivors to live by scavenging off the remains of the fallen civilization. That won't be the case 6-12 months after the fact though. The antibiotics and modern medical supplies will have been used up, canned good/other non-perishables will have been stripped clean from stores etc etc.
To be blunt, I simply DO NOT BELIEVE that 99.999% of the people here would, in the situation Rick and Co. find themselves in, would perceive any problem with a leader whose decisions are made using the sole criteria of what is in the best interests of the group said leader is responsible for.
It's easy to SAY you'd have a problem with a leader who killed an old man and exiled said old man's family to take their resources after the old man and his family prove adamant in their refusal to peacefully coexist. In reality, I believe most of us would actually find our belief in the strength and quality of our leaders INCREASED by witnessing them make whatever decision is necessary to look after us and everyone we care about.
To be correct about your morality arguments you are in reality stating the following:
1) I choose for myself, my friends, and my loved ones to die of starvation and/or dehydration rather than take food and/or water that belongs to the stranger(s) I've encountered.
2) I choose for myself, my friends, and my loved ones to die of treatable medical issues rather than take medical supplies belonging to others, or forcing an unwilling medical practicioner to treat me, my friends or loved ones when suffering from life-threatening illness or injury.
3) I choose for myself, my friends, and my loved ones to die of exposure to life-threatening weather, or hostile actions by others we're forced to face and are helpless against, rather than take a secure shelter belonging to strangers.
4) I choose for myself and the people I care for to be raped, killed and/or eaten by hostile entities because we lack the means to effectively defend ourselves, and are not willing to seize said means of defense from strangers we've encountered.
See what I mean? Over and over and over again, "Modern Morality" = Suicide. Modern morality is a product and inseparable part of Modern SOCIETY. Far from losing confidence in or not trusting the leadership of one willing to take what is needed from others to provide for the people he's responsible for, for the vast majority of human history (where subsistence/survival was a personal responsibility not provided by civilization) we as human beings have actually lauded and made immortal the names of leaders who had no qualms about destroying outsiders to provide for THEIR people.
In a world where the 99.5% of the 6 billion people who just died are now cannibal corpses, I contend that since such an environment is far more lethal/dangerous than what our ancestors faced, we would respond with a greater degree of what modern society would call "savagery, brutality etc etc." than the most brutal civilizations of the past.
Why? It's HUMAN NATURE to take care of the people we care and feel responsible for, and everyone else be damned if necessary for that to happen.
Take a modern person, strip away the fat reserves easy living has deposited beneath the skin of their abdomen. Take away water until their tongue swells, their lips crack and bleed....Take away health, security, stability...and you will INVARIABLY find a "savage" that, even if they wouldn't do so only on their own behalf, will have NO QUALMS about taking whatever action is necessary to preserve the ones they love.
How is it even possible to contend otherwise, when 99.999% of everything we are, have been, and remain as a species cries out our capacity to destroy the outsider to preserve "OUR" people?
|
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Neil
In terms of the story, one could probably argue that he was at the back of the store and came up on the other side of the shelf so she never noticed....
Bookmarks