Dude’s severely broken by his past and upbringing. I don’t have much more than passing familiarity with the circumstances of his particular upbringing, but just the Wikipedia page on his early life describes his upbringing as “strict” and says of Donald Trump’s father Fred Trump:
Fred… held profound sway over his children, repeatedly telling Trump that he was a “king” and a “killer”.
“I strongly suspect that he had a relationship with his father that accounts for a lot of what he became,” Tony Schwartz, who co-authored The Art of the Deal with Trump, tells FRONTLINE. “And his father was a very brutal guy. He was a tough, hard-driving guy who had very, very little emotional intelligence, to use today’s terms.”
And later in the same article:
“All of us were part of this culture of you beat on kids when they didn’t do the right thing,” says Trump’s former military school classmate Sandy McIntosh.
If anything can fuck someone up, that’s probably it.
Mind you, a similar upbringing in a different individual with different genes and epigenetic factors and depending on the specifics of the context could well produce wildly different results. But traumatic events, in one way or another, fuck people up. Often for life. And sometimes fucked up people make their fucked-up-ness everybody else’s problem.
Let me put a few qualifiers on the claim that “everyone is good”, though:
If I use terms like “bad” or “evil”, I’m being a little more loose with my language than I probably ought to be. I’d generally prefer to say “antisocial and/or maladaptive” over something like “evil”. Specifically because “antisocial” and “maladaptive” sound more clinical and less condemnatory.
What I mean by “everyone is good” is that people don’t need an excuse to do good. Humans are a social species that capitalizes on cooperation and community. When a person does something antisocial (or maladaptive), that requires a cause in a way that doing good does not.
To an extent, my definition of “good” is a bit circular. What humans do when most optimally healthy, fulfilled, and otherwise “well” is kindof good “by definition”. Yet, there’s a certain extent to which that definition of “good” may not fully line up with what a lay person may consider “good” behavior. I haven’t got the quote right at hand, but I remember reading Maslow’s “Toward a Psychology of Being” in which he said that the “growth-need-motivated”/“self-actualized”/“fulfilled” individuals can exhibit a cold, calculating, perhaps ruthless sort of logic that might be disconcerting to some. And by his estimation, “growth-need-motivated”/“self-actualized”/“fulfilled” sort of situation is the most healthy and fulfilled sort of state that a person can be in.
I do believe it’s most likely possible for the sort of “brokenness” that can result in antisocial and/or maladaptive behavior due to circumstances (as opposed to innate traits) to span generations. I’ve read in a Robert Sapolsky book (again, I don’t have the book at hand at the moment) that there’s a statistically significant negative effect on IQ in the great grandchildren of smokers. (And if I recall, the experiment in question showed causation pretty convincingly, not just correlation.) If some environmental factor can have a negative effect on IQ that many generations downstream, it seems plausible that one’s propensity for or againt antisocial and/or maladaptive behaviors could also be affected by events many years before their birth. However, I still believe that the vast majority of antisocial and/or maladaptive behavior probably traces back to a cause.
I also don’t believe in “free will”. Everything everyone does ultimately traces back solely to factors over which they have no control. Your brain works the way your brain works because of your genes, epigenetic factors, upbringing, and similar circumstances you had no input into. No matter what you do, if you ask “why” enough times, you’ll find youself back at a cause/reason that had nothing to do with your own “will”.
One of the main social implications of the idea that people are inherently “good” and that free will doesn’t exist, at least in my estimation, is that the whole idea of a punitive criminal justice system is a wrong-headed way of going about it to say the least. A “bad” person (or, again, better said “a person who exhibits a pattern of antisocial behavior”) is a “sick” or “injured” person. The process of making them able to contribute constructively to whatever social system they may find themselves in in the future should be one of treatment. Making them more miserable is just giving them more of what caused them to exhibit antisocial behavior in the first place. To try to “fix” such a person with punishment is like treating morbid obesity by force-feeding chocolate cake.
I think if you’re going to use having terrible parents as the definition of “forced,” you’re casting a much wider net than most people would. Like you said, other people with even more abusive parenting turned out to be much nicer people. “Forced” to me implies they have no choice, and a lot of people like this do have a choice. The fact that they make no effort to rise above it is part of what I consider a bad person.
Mind you, there are degrees. Sure, some people are so completely broken that they don’t have a clue they’re doing anything wrong. But we’ve seen Trump and his ilk make justifications and lie about things in a way that lets us know that he does know he’s done wrong.
I didn’t mean to imply that that was the only thing that can lead to antisocial behavior. I just think that’s the most likely explanation for Trump specifically. (But even if you don’t think his childhood is to blame, you can’t honestly tell me you think Trump ever seemed like a “mentally healthy” and “fulfilled” individual. The specifics what made him what he is kindof hardly matter, really. The important bit is that something made him what he is. His cruelty isn’t just his choice. It’s the product of his genes, history, brain structure, brain chemistry, personal insecurities, unfulfilled needs, etc.)
I mentioned, for instance, that I think such factors can span a surprising number of generations. I also think (and I’d be surprised if you didn’t agree) that there are plenty of antisocial behaviors that result from purely physiological medical issues.
people… do have a choice
How do “people” make choices exactly? What part of them makes choices? By what mechanism does that part make the choices? Is there a mechanism or is it simply “magic”? If it’s a mechanism, is it a mechanism that isn’t ultimately physics acting on the some portion of their body? (Physics acting on the lump of gray matter between their ears, for instance.) If it is ultimately physics, then in what sense can the “choice” be attributed to “the person” exactly? Can it be attributed to the person more so than the behavior of your computer can be attributed to your computer? If so, what’s the crucial difference between your computer and a “person” that makes what a brain does ethically(?) someone’s “responsibility” but not what a CPU does? How do you decide if an action is “involuntary” in a way that exempts someone from moral responsibility for the action? Or perhaps do you think the part of a person that makes choices is non-physical? (An immaterial “soul”, for instance?) If you think people have souls, then how do you decide what actions are the actions of the soul and what are actions of the brain? And for that matter, how does an immaterial soul aim and fire a gun or steal a material object?
You see what I’m getting at? I don’t think people make choices, really. The things we call “voluntary actions” are still just the result of physics acting on the lump of meat that makes up “us”. Our pasts (in the form of trauma, neglect, abuse, malnourishment, addiction, bullying, whatever, but also love and good memories and kindness, etc) can affect the shape and functioning of our brains in ways that change how we act, but we don’t have any input into what shape our brains take. Even if we “decide” to be a better person moving forward (and succeed in sticking to that decision), it’s only because our brains made (and stuck to) that decision. And by “our brains”, I mean “physics acting on gray matter”. And those who have what most would agree are “shitty” childhoods and end up being very kind, altruistic, “good” people later in life are “lucky”. (I remember Sapolsky mentioning in one of his books something about rare individuals who lived through Nazi concentration camps and came out of it seemingly very high-functioning and untraumatized.) Something in them happened to turn out “right”. (And those who end up being serial killers or Donald Trump or the CEO of Monsanto are unlucky and broken.)
some people are so completely broken that they don’t have a clue they’re doing anything wrong.
I don’t agree that whether a perpetrator “knows” what they’re doing is “wrong” (or, I might prefer to say “harmful” or “antisocial” rather than “wrong”) should affect how a society responds to it. If someone does something wrong (and by that I mean if someone exhibits behaviors that cause harm to others – or themselves, really) and if that action rises to the level that the society should take actions in response, then the society should do their best to balance the (potentially conflicting) aims of protecting both the perpetrator and other people. And that’s true whether the perpetrator’s actions are voluntary or involuntary, and whether the perpetrator “knows” or doesn’t know that it’s “wrong” (or, better said, “harmful”).
Sometimes protecting people involves denying a perpetrator basic liberties. (Involuntary confinement, for instance.) And that’s true even in cases where even you would agree that the perpetrator has no ethical culpability. (In cases where they “don’t know” they’re doing “wrong” or where their actions may be “involuntary”.) I do believe that should be a last resort. (And I don’t think a death penalty is ever justified.) But I don’t think involuntary confinement should be completely off the table in cases where it’s necessary to protect people (including when it’s necessary to protect the perpetrator). But never should it be used as punishment. The aim should always be treatment and ensuring people’s safety.
“Forced to do bad things… by circumstances.”
Dude’s severely broken by his past and upbringing. I don’t have much more than passing familiarity with the circumstances of his particular upbringing, but just the Wikipedia page on his early life describes his upbringing as “strict” and says of Donald Trump’s father Fred Trump:
Which is… you know… kinda fucked up.
From a PBS article:
And later in the same article:
If anything can fuck someone up, that’s probably it.
Mind you, a similar upbringing in a different individual with different genes and epigenetic factors and depending on the specifics of the context could well produce wildly different results. But traumatic events, in one way or another, fuck people up. Often for life. And sometimes fucked up people make their fucked-up-ness everybody else’s problem.
Let me put a few qualifiers on the claim that “everyone is good”, though:
One of the main social implications of the idea that people are inherently “good” and that free will doesn’t exist, at least in my estimation, is that the whole idea of a punitive criminal justice system is a wrong-headed way of going about it to say the least. A “bad” person (or, again, better said “a person who exhibits a pattern of antisocial behavior”) is a “sick” or “injured” person. The process of making them able to contribute constructively to whatever social system they may find themselves in in the future should be one of treatment. Making them more miserable is just giving them more of what caused them to exhibit antisocial behavior in the first place. To try to “fix” such a person with punishment is like treating morbid obesity by force-feeding chocolate cake.
I think if you’re going to use having terrible parents as the definition of “forced,” you’re casting a much wider net than most people would. Like you said, other people with even more abusive parenting turned out to be much nicer people. “Forced” to me implies they have no choice, and a lot of people like this do have a choice. The fact that they make no effort to rise above it is part of what I consider a bad person.
Mind you, there are degrees. Sure, some people are so completely broken that they don’t have a clue they’re doing anything wrong. But we’ve seen Trump and his ilk make justifications and lie about things in a way that lets us know that he does know he’s done wrong.
I didn’t mean to imply that that was the only thing that can lead to antisocial behavior. I just think that’s the most likely explanation for Trump specifically. (But even if you don’t think his childhood is to blame, you can’t honestly tell me you think Trump ever seemed like a “mentally healthy” and “fulfilled” individual. The specifics what made him what he is kindof hardly matter, really. The important bit is that something made him what he is. His cruelty isn’t just his choice. It’s the product of his genes, history, brain structure, brain chemistry, personal insecurities, unfulfilled needs, etc.)
I mentioned, for instance, that I think such factors can span a surprising number of generations. I also think (and I’d be surprised if you didn’t agree) that there are plenty of antisocial behaviors that result from purely physiological medical issues.
How do “people” make choices exactly? What part of them makes choices? By what mechanism does that part make the choices? Is there a mechanism or is it simply “magic”? If it’s a mechanism, is it a mechanism that isn’t ultimately physics acting on the some portion of their body? (Physics acting on the lump of gray matter between their ears, for instance.) If it is ultimately physics, then in what sense can the “choice” be attributed to “the person” exactly? Can it be attributed to the person more so than the behavior of your computer can be attributed to your computer? If so, what’s the crucial difference between your computer and a “person” that makes what a brain does ethically(?) someone’s “responsibility” but not what a CPU does? How do you decide if an action is “involuntary” in a way that exempts someone from moral responsibility for the action? Or perhaps do you think the part of a person that makes choices is non-physical? (An immaterial “soul”, for instance?) If you think people have souls, then how do you decide what actions are the actions of the soul and what are actions of the brain? And for that matter, how does an immaterial soul aim and fire a gun or steal a material object?
You see what I’m getting at? I don’t think people make choices, really. The things we call “voluntary actions” are still just the result of physics acting on the lump of meat that makes up “us”. Our pasts (in the form of trauma, neglect, abuse, malnourishment, addiction, bullying, whatever, but also love and good memories and kindness, etc) can affect the shape and functioning of our brains in ways that change how we act, but we don’t have any input into what shape our brains take. Even if we “decide” to be a better person moving forward (and succeed in sticking to that decision), it’s only because our brains made (and stuck to) that decision. And by “our brains”, I mean “physics acting on gray matter”. And those who have what most would agree are “shitty” childhoods and end up being very kind, altruistic, “good” people later in life are “lucky”. (I remember Sapolsky mentioning in one of his books something about rare individuals who lived through Nazi concentration camps and came out of it seemingly very high-functioning and untraumatized.) Something in them happened to turn out “right”. (And those who end up being serial killers or Donald Trump or the CEO of Monsanto are unlucky and broken.)
I don’t agree that whether a perpetrator “knows” what they’re doing is “wrong” (or, I might prefer to say “harmful” or “antisocial” rather than “wrong”) should affect how a society responds to it. If someone does something wrong (and by that I mean if someone exhibits behaviors that cause harm to others – or themselves, really) and if that action rises to the level that the society should take actions in response, then the society should do their best to balance the (potentially conflicting) aims of protecting both the perpetrator and other people. And that’s true whether the perpetrator’s actions are voluntary or involuntary, and whether the perpetrator “knows” or doesn’t know that it’s “wrong” (or, better said, “harmful”).
Sometimes protecting people involves denying a perpetrator basic liberties. (Involuntary confinement, for instance.) And that’s true even in cases where even you would agree that the perpetrator has no ethical culpability. (In cases where they “don’t know” they’re doing “wrong” or where their actions may be “involuntary”.) I do believe that should be a last resort. (And I don’t think a death penalty is ever justified.) But I don’t think involuntary confinement should be completely off the table in cases where it’s necessary to protect people (including when it’s necessary to protect the perpetrator). But never should it be used as punishment. The aim should always be treatment and ensuring people’s safety.