Why We Aspire to Be Good People

it's rant time everyone look at this viral tweet okay now look at these perfect responses to it that's really all you need but now I'm going to explain it in anime terms Finland Saga is a story about thorfin a young boy from Iceland who spoilers after watching his dad die goes through a like 10 year long ordeal in order to get revenge on this sexy [ __ ] askalad I'm cutting out a lot of details but I already made a video about this show last month so watch that if you want more analysis the point of the first season in terms of thorfin's personal journey is to show that his focus on Revenge makes him a constantly bitter and angry person focused purely on killing people until the previously mentioned sexy [ __ ] is killed by someone else leaving thorfin with suddenly no purpose behind everything he had done since he was six years old and nothing to achieve now this all starts to change for thorf and win in season two he works on a farm and starts to meet a bunch of nice people who teach him how to build stuff grow crops and fish you need to put more spin on it like this see finally meeting nice people forces him to reflect on all the people he had killed learning how to build things that benefit others unlocks a passion inside him and after going to hell for a bit he decides that he's going to become Viking Gandhi and create a better world for all those who wish to escape the endless war of medieval Europe over the course of season 2 you can clearly see how asthorphin reflects on the morality of his past actions and starts to care about other people more he goes from being a broken empty shell of a man doing nothing but what he is told to someone with strong passions and dreams of a better world actively doing what he can to achieve his desires he very clearly becomes happier and his increase in mental well-being correlates directly with him becoming a morally better person but why does that happen let's return to this tweet what pushes people to believe that being a good person is pointless well I think that should be pretty obvious in the world that we currently live in it is often people who trample on others who make it to the top not just that but doing things for other people like donating to charity or helping out someone you know takes away time and money money being the apparent most important marker of success in our current Society being nice to people in our day-to-day life doesn't guarantee that they'll return that kindness being kind can also allow people to take advantage of you everyone watching this can probably think of many more specific examples one of the most important scenes in Finland Saga is this one in the first season where thorfin gets rescued by some British people this girl and her mother house feed and clean thorfin even going so far as to lie to the cops about who he is how is their kindness repaid later that night orphan signals askalot's Fleet to come destroy the village everything is burned down and the people are slaughtered clearly this must be the most logical way to live in a world with no benefits to being a good person do what must be done in order to achieve success trampling on everyone weaker and Kinder than you so why be good what does it even mean to be a good person our modern conception is something like uh being kind doing good things but villain Saga seems to have a much more concrete idea similar to a lesser-known Greek philosopher uh Aristotle his name is Aristotle this guy had a system called teleological ethics or virtue ethics building on the teachings of those who came before him people like Plato and Socrates who you might know from Epic Rap Battles of History when we think of ethics and morality today we're often thinking of stuff like the trolley problem or [ __ ] Attack on Titan discourse moral dilemmas where we debate if certain actions are right or wrong ponderings which don't really have that much of an effect on our everyday lives ethics is not seen as something necessarily pragmatic or useful to us it's a type of decision making separate from stuff like how do I get the money but what Aristotle meant when he like invented the concept of Ethics was not for it to just be something to debate in YouTube comment sections but something to base your life rounds more modern ethical theories tend to focus on actions themselves but Aristotle was focused on the individual person and what it meant for them to live a good life a good person was not just someone who did morally good things but someone who was good at being a person which to Aristotle meant improving oneself through different skills morality being one of those skills you get better at things by doing them a lot until doing things well becomes habitual and this applies to ethics as well a good person is eventually able to do the morally good thing out of habit because they have trained themselves to do so they embrace the joy of seeing others lives improve and thus work to improve others lives through their own actions we see this same kind of unification of the ideas of practical stuff and morality both as skills to be developed in Finland Saga thorfin improves himself both by learning how to do the farm stuff and by reflecting on his internal moral code these things go hand in hand but why do we want to improve ourselves well why do we do anything what's the point of it all Aristotle wrote that all actions are aimed at some goal and there is a highest goal which all actions ultimately aim to achieve some might say that their goal in life is Success maybe power stability or moment-to-moment pleasure but why do we want those things well we believe that in the end they will help us achieve some sort of personal contentment or happiness Aristotle called this eudaimonia which translates to something like human flourishing or good spirit a feeling of Happiness fulfillment and contentment achieved through the hard work of improving oneself Aristotle wrote that the ultimate purpose of life was not success or power or pleasure but to achieve this feeling that the life you are living is one in which you are satisfied in doing the things you enjoy and fulfilling your nature as a human this is why Aristotle's system is called teleological coming from the Greek word Telos basically meaning an end goal purpose or ultimate objective the end goal being happiness so a good person is one who is cultivating good habits and improving themselves and in order to live a happy fulfilling life and being a good person morally means cultivating the habits of character which result in you benefiting those around you all of this helps a person achieve eudaimonia which Aristotle believes was the natural objective goal of human life which meant that cultivating these good habits including the moral ones was part of achieving our nature as human beings and the reason why good morality is necessary for happiness is shown very clearly in Finland Saga what makes the episode with thorfin and the family he betrays really important is that this is not the less we see of this old British woman thorphin continues to get flashbacks in his dreams of her face staring at him in disbelief over his betrayal forfin is having attacks of what we call basic human empathy and regret and there are two things he can do to solve this recognize that he has done something bad work through his feelings maybe go to a viking therapist and try to atone by doing good things in the future or he can rationalize his actions repress the memory and repeat in an attempt to silence his regret as he continues to kill more and more people season 1 thorphan chooses the second option and is made miserable while season 2 thorphin goes for the former discovers a desire to improve the world and to help other people he becomes more open and friendly and by the end of the season he is very clearly in a better place on his way to achieving a more fulfilling life on his way to achieving eudaimonia being a good person helps you flourish because it not just makes people want to be around you more but it also leads you to accomplish things that you can actually proudly look back on thorfin is never able to think about his time killing people positively but he will always be able to think back fondly on the memories of farming and building [ __ ] with Anar and the other buddies he made no matter how much of an edge Lord you are unless you literally have like an anti-social personality disorder you are supposed to feel good when good things happen to both others and yourself when you don't let yourself be happy when things go well for other people all you are doing is closing yourself off from feeling good you are making yourself suffer and then when you open yourself up to feeling pleasure when the people around you are doing well the most logical course of action becomes do things to help other people be happy uh do good things be kind and then suddenly you are being our modern understanding of a good person there are a lot of responses to the original poster saying stuff along the lines of there aren't supposed to be benefits to being a good person you're supposed to do it for its own sake and I think that's a wonderful sentiment but actually I know firsthand that being actively compassionate towards others wishing for their well-being and working to improve their lives has made me happier aspiring to be a better person at least for me has resulted in a healthier mindset which I think allows me to get through life easier and like in daily life most of us aren't doing political stuff we're not doing charity or volunteer work but like you can still do good things for your friends you want your friends to feel good right is this is this really something I'm arguing about right now uh basically I have absolutely felt benefits from trying to be a better person Agape was an ancient Greek idea of a universal love for all Humanity manifesting as acts of kindness towards others regardless of who they are and wishing happiness upon everyone Buddhism says to radiate boundless love towards the entire world the idea is present in Christianity and many more religions because people across the world and throughout time have discovered that it is good to be good it's not about having some sort of abstract moral High Ground over others it's a necessary part of achieving the ultimate purpose of being truly happy feel Joy when good things happen to other people let their Whimsy rub off on you when they laugh be happy when other people are happy but wait we're forgetting someone aren't we our fun little guy thorkel so joyous in his Slaughter of others that it's impossible to hate him still we for sure can't call thorkel a good person but he's still happy what the [ __ ] how do I explain this uh thorkel is dumb that's my answer his his weakness is literally his head okay but actually thorkel is Happy while being a monster because he just has fun with war and doesn't really reflect much on the things he does he's just having fun in the moment it's impossible to hate this little guy but we can't all live like thorkel for those of us who think about what effects our actions have who do at least some self-reflection we have these experiences that Force us to realize what it means to hurt others for thorfin who is working on kettle's Farm learning to contribute something meaningful to the world and for the first time making positive connections with other people which made him truly understand the pain and suffering he had caused and that he never wanted to hurt anyone ever again for his father it was his wife and first child which made him realize how precious human life was and how important it was to escape War I'm sure a lot of people have had experiences similar to these characters moments where we discovered the incredible value of our own lives and the importance of those around us which then make us wish for harm to not come to those things both in our lives and the lives of others and of course obviously it's okay to do stuff like cut toxic people out of your life sometimes you need to hurt someone in the moment to prioritize your own well-being but we can't let this make us give up on being kind to everyone else we shouldn't want to shut off our empathy and we shouldn't want to be like thorkel either even he has this moment where he thinks back to when Thor's left the yom's Viking camp and he reveals that deep down he wishes that he had gone with Thor's to learn what a true warrior is something draws him to this person with a vision set on something so far in the distance because he is stuck in the present those of us who have been given the gift of pondering over ourselves should embrace that ability and the fact that we get the choice of which mindset we want to build for ourselves villain Saga resonates with so many people because it presents a relatable experience of silencing your morality becoming numb as a defense mechanism against the pain you face but then it demonstrates how we can either Escape The Emptiness and flourish from the fruits of our labor alongside the people we care about or we can choose to wallow in misguided stoicism a cycle of pain turning to hatred and apathy repressing our nature to be good alone which would you choose and one last thing I swear to God it sucks how many people are at my age I've seen with this kind of mindset Our Generation and many before us have worked so hard to push for an end to these kinds of ideas and replace them with an emphasis on helping each other and being kind and yet here it is still popping up and getting massive amounts of attention and support this mindset has persisted over Generations because having it makes you create the conditions which lead to its spreading it's a self-perpetuating cycle like [ __ ] generational trauma but we don't like living this way we don't like it when people act without care for us we don't like being with bad people shouldn't we try to fight for the world we want to live in instead of giving into Despair and assimilating ourselves into the current one we have to be the change we want to see we have to make ourselves better than those who came before us and better than those around us we have to be good people not just for the sake of itself but because it helps both us and those around us and that's what makes us happy the only way you can believe this is if you've been beat down so hard that you think you have no choice but to carve it into your mind in order to survive in this world but you do have a choice you can do better I love you mwah [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: chrysanth

Views: 321,143

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Id: paxnw1a5urM

Length: 13min 36sec (816 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2023