For example, in The Shield, the cop character Shane is super racist and says the N-word, but when a Black girl is killed, Shane gets really mad and wants to find and kill the killer or bring him to justice. Some CEOs who are straight-up classist would still help their employees, and if their employee dies, they would start funds for their kids. But why? Why would people like this do something ‘good,’ especially when there isn’t anything in it for them?
the world is not made up of exclusively binary good/bad characters or outcomes, and most half-decent TV shows aren’t, either.
People are complicated. Their motivations and actions don’t always seem consistent.
Because people are usually quite complex and rarely fit into the neat labels people want to assign to them.
Your premise assumes people are morally consistent, and that’s just not how humans work.
Someone can hold racist or classist views and still feel real anger, empathy, or a sense of justice in a specific situation. People compartmentalize constantly. Having prejudice doesn’t turn off basic emotional responses when something concrete and personal happens.
Also, it’s not true that there’s “nothing in it for them.” There are always underlying factors like personal identity, guilt, attachment, social image, or even just the need to see oneself as not completely awful.
What you’re describing isn’t a contradiction. It’s exactly what real people are like, and why well-written characters behave that way too.
One of the dumbest but best examples anyone’s given me for the inconsistencies of morality. Is video game lobbies.
You can find people who do charity work actively protest for civil rights and fight for immigrants rights. Then the load into a Dota 2 match and call the Brazilians dirty f****** slurs every 3 seconds and wish they were all deported for us servers.
The only consistency in humanity is that it’s inconsistent.
Well for one thing, people are complicated, but citing a fictional character isn’t helpful here.
Do you really think most racist people would say “fuck yeah, a Black person died!”? Racism in contemporary society is largely covert and not explicit.
In terms of your class question, most people who are “CEOs” are not in charge of billion-dollar corporations. They have a small company where they are on a first name basis with everyone
The biggest piece of shit I know (MAGA, gun nut, religious nutcase, married his daughters off to desirable candidates) lives near the Mexican border and takes in immigrants who have illegally crossed the border, gives them food and drink and sends them on their way. No, he doesn’t call ICE.
Let me guess, he thinks/says “But those are different than all the others!!!”
Or y’know, maybe they are pretty representative of the people who comes here like that
Do as many people leave his place as entered it?
Should I ask the neighbours 🤔?
As others have pointed out, there’s no “black-and-white” (if you’ll pardon the irony) way of categorizing people. Bad or good people are fictional. Even the best of us have ugly parts to how we behave, and otherwise terrible people can show surprising compassion. Our values can conflict and in the moment we chose to do something wildly out of character, or indulge in impulses we didn’t even realize we had.
In the real world there are no absolute heroes or villains. A man who gave his boots to a homeless man one moment, could beat another to death a few months later. Human beings are wildly inconsistent.
it’s a tv show, it was written to be that way because it’s part of a copaganda machine
this is so ironic to say about The Shield, one of the rare TV shows known for portraying cops as corrupt pieces of shit
Yeah, but according to the show these pieces of shit are necessary and that makes this show copaganda shit.
People who are racist arent trying to be evil: they genuinely think that Europeans and Asians are more evolved to live in societies that require cooperation. They are wrong to attribute to color the effects of culture and education.
People who are homophobic arent trying to be evil: they genuinely think that propagating the species is honorable but hedonism is not. They are wrong to dismiss the social and intellectual benefits of cooperative sexual recreation.
If these bigots decide that violence against the other will solve their problems, they become far more dangerous.
And Asians? Over here people are just as racist towards Asians.
I’ve lived in Asia for over a decade and it’s not just anti-asian racism. Hell, as a white blond guy, I have it easy compare to black folks.
why do anti-abortion women get abortions?
I think this just shows the way socially ingrained attitudes are not total, i.e. there is lots of room for variation and breaks - exceptions exist even to people thinking in terms of stereotypes or generalized patterns.
“Oh I’m different. I had a good reason.”
Log off for real
Leave him be, for real.
Each person has a different definition of good. On a Venn diagram, you might even overlap with Hitler or pol pot on one or two points. Humans and their ethics and morality are complex. Different people have different dealbreakers.
Take the example of “even a broken clock is right twice a day” and therein find an answer.
Humanity is shades of gray. Most people don’t do 100% morally and ethically good things or 100% morally and ethically bad things. Likewise it’s probably a small minority of people that are evil and strive to be as evil as possible at all times.
Morality does not CAUSE anything. No one does things because they are “good”. People are “good” because of the things they do.
Morality is a DESCRIPTION of something, not an EXPLANATION.
People DO things. WE assign labels to the things they do and to the persons themselves.
When you have some time for introspection, you’ll find good characteristics and bad characteristics within you. That’s normal. If you dig deep enough every saint can be an asshole sometimes and the person who just bombed to death 110 girls in a school can be a caring family man. We are complicated monkeys.
Why whouldn’t a morally good character do good things?
