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 The Human Condition 
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After watching the documentary on the massacre at My Lai, I began thinking about what Dr. Turner calls the human condition. I of course wikipedia-d the term and this is what most people define as the three paradoxes of the human condition:
1. Our imaginations can take us anywhere dragging our physical bodies along.
2. We are capable of the kindest, most noble things, but we are also capable of the most horrible and terrifying things.
3. Humans hope for everlasting life, but are always inventing new ways to destroy each other.

I think all of these things are true, but I still grapple with the concept of trying to understand the horrible things human beings have done to each other. Because to me, it seems there is nothing inherently okay with the human condition. It seems to me to be a flawed concept. Instead I think we each have an individual free will. We make choices and those that choose to make bad choices should be judged upon those actions. The human condition to me does not offer any excuse for what happened at My Lai. Each individual person at My Lai chose to take specific action. My fear is that we will look back twenty years from now on the war in Iraq and be ashamed of our actions. I'm not saying we can have a world without war; our world has been at war since the beginning and the United States is a country that has been at almost constant war. I am saying, however, that the way we conduct ourselves and the way we treat others during that war says a lot about who we are as a people.

The human condition, seems to me to be an interesting philosophical notion, but in my opinion it comes down to some simple questions concerning our actions against others: Is it good? It is right? How would I want someone to treat me or my loved ones in this situation? We are unique individuals, despite what our institutions try to tell us and it's up to us to do good or evil, or to follow good or evil. Just because we are capable of great evil, doesn't mean it's okay if we do.

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Kayla Danielle Keidel


Sun Feb 01, 2009 10:48 am
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I understand where you are coming from but my question is how can we define good or evil. Everyone has a different perspective of whats right and wrong and who has the authority to successfully label them. For example, some religions have followers who believe it is their duty to die for their beliefs while in the process taking others lives who they deem unholy. This is an extreme example, I know, but my main point is for us to question who has the audacity to define good and evil, especially today. I'm not refuting your points, I agree with you. I just wanted to mention this.

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Caitlin Cashman


Sun Feb 01, 2009 3:45 pm
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The video on My-Lai was certainly heart breaking, as well as the photos online of the lynchings. The video of the experiment was also troublesome because I would like to think that I would react differently if I were in the 'teachers' situation. I don't know that I would for sure until I was placed in that situation, but I hope I would do the right thing.

The list of the human conditions mentioned make a lot of sense when I read them, think about them and compare them to the video and images we've been looking at. We see people doing good things, but when we see people doing bad things, we think that deserves more attention. I'd like to think the bad things get more attention because we want to make it clear that whatever behavior is being portrayed is wrong and we should not repeat this action, but to me it just seems that we could be encouraged to do good things to instead of being reminded of bad behavior and the consequences.

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Jessey Pace


Mon Feb 02, 2009 7:52 pm
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Kayla,

I wanted to add that talking about this thing we call the "human condition" does not in any way excuse aspects of it. It merely allows us to ask good questions, just like you are doing.

I'm glad that you understand that the choices we make are so important!

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Gayle Turner


Mon Feb 02, 2009 9:29 pm
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Talking about this kind of stuff is very difficult and often times controversial. I agree that all have individual free will and it is up to the individual to determine how to act and react. I think all of the horrible things that people do are hard to understand and usually there is no way to reason anything out of it. We can't change the past but I think it is everyone's duty to try and learn from the mistakes of others and ourselves. I am also scared that we will look back and be extremely embarrassed/ashamed of our current war but that is only possible in hindsight, unfortunately. I would like to think that I would never behave in these horrible ways but how is one to know what their reaction would be until they are in the situation.
As humans we just need to learn from one another and try and "better" ourselves in anyway we see fit.

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Emily.V.Wells


Mon Feb 09, 2009 12:53 pm
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the problem i have is wondering if we truly learn from the past. we like to say that we have learned but have we? why is genocide taking place in Africa today when we suppossedly learned from Hitler? Why is slavery happening in the world when we were suppossed to learn from our country's past?

i think that we still have a long way to go and should not fool ourselves to think that we are better than the "past." we should strive to acheive more than the past generations but not forget that we make mistakes too.

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Shannon Wilson


Mon Feb 09, 2009 4:33 pm
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I think what's been so interesting about our discussion of the human condition is that we are forced to think about the ugly side of humanity, not just in an abstract sense or through the goggles of hindsight, but actually thinking about our own nature. We are human, and we have the same capacity to do good or ill. We all make tough choices sometimes, and someday we may have to face some of the choices that make us come out looking or feeling "evil." I like how we are being pushed to think about some of these things now, because I'd like to have as few regrets as possible in the future from tough decisions I've made.

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Rachel Watson
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Mon Feb 09, 2009 6:28 pm
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