Morality In Stephen Gould's A Time Of Gifts
“Man is the reasoning animal. Such is the claim.” Mark Twain has very strong opinions and morals that resonate throughout his works. He takes a very strong stand against the human race and their actions. He assiduously satirizes the human race in The Lowest Animal. Twain makes observations of the nature of man and other animals through comparison between species. He concludes that man has not ascended from lower animals; but man has descended from higher animals. His ideas are one side of a controversial ideology. “Good and kind people outnumber all others…” Stephen Gould introduces the sharp contrast to Mark Twain’s ideas with the better side of man in A Time of Gifts. He praises the people who came to the rescue and aid after the great tragedy
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Even though there are good people with decency and morals, most everyday acts of kindness are not given attention unless they occur after a disaster of some kind. That is why I disregard good as being the overall quality. We have to teach young children not to act bad or indecent, so by birth are we are evil in nature? However, this idea contradicts the idea that if man were naive and innocent then he would not be evil in nature. As a child we are often not blamed for our wrongdoing because ‘we don’t know any better’, but if we didn’t know any better would we not have done it all? Even in other species the youngest of the species has to be taught how to act, but after a certain point man has For some people it takes an act of evil to show compassion. Those people who are not evil or have no bad intentions, shouldn’t they also be blamed for knowing of the rest of man is evil and doing nothing about it. Or should they be blamed for selfish motives when they do help, they only help because they don’t want it to happen to them. They don’t care about the devastation that happens to the people they’re ‘helping’. You cannot say for sure that a person is evil until you see their intentions against other people. Most people never show their hand and others do, such as figureheads, terrorist groups, radical politicians,
Even though there are good people with decency and morals, most everyday acts of kindness are not given attention unless they occur after a disaster of some kind. That is why I disregard good as being the overall quality. We have to teach young children not to act bad or indecent, so by birth are we are evil in nature? However, this idea contradicts the idea that if man were naive and innocent then he would not be evil in nature. As a child we are often not blamed for our wrongdoing because ‘we don’t know any better’, but if we didn’t know any better would we not have done it all? Even in other species the youngest of the species has to be taught how to act, but after a certain point man has For some people it takes an act of evil to show compassion. Those people who are not evil or have no bad intentions, shouldn’t they also be blamed for knowing of the rest of man is evil and doing nothing about it. Or should they be blamed for selfish motives when they do help, they only help because they don’t want it to happen to them. They don’t care about the devastation that happens to the people they’re ‘helping’. You cannot say for sure that a person is evil until you see their intentions against other people. Most people never show their hand and others do, such as figureheads, terrorist groups, radical politicians,