Robin Williams once observed that God gave man a brain and a penis, but only enough blood to run one at a time.

__________________
The apocalypse is coming... we're gonna need more ammo.

Greetings and Felicitations,

One action doesn't not make one great. It may make one a hero but not necessarily great. A person could be the most disgusting example of humanity and still decide at the spur of the moment to perform some great sacrifice. That would not make him a great person. Greatness, for me, is defined by one's constant striving towards some great goal.

I don't hate any of the great masses of humanity. It is from them that greatness is defined. Those that stand out from the herd are great and those that remain safely snuggled in the herd are simply existing. I simply choose to model myself after those that have stood out and tried to make something of themselves. I would also like to point out that I don't consider success to be a determinate of greatness. A large number of people I hold in high esteem sought to succeed in something and failed. The Japanese call it the nobility of failure.

Lord Vicari

__________________

Greetings and Felicitations,

I was wondering when you would notice my signature and make a reply. Your opinions in these arenas are no longer of any significant relevance to my life philosophy.

Lord Vicari

__________________

Not much I can say to what you're saying. I very much agree with most of it and could only disagree and probably only split insignificant hairs with you :-)

Very well said I think.

.... what IS success ? .... what IS failure ?

Were they ever? Are you the next incarnation of David?

__________________
The apocalypse is coming... we're gonna need more ammo.

Help me out with this one. There was a study on college students where they were given the task of shocking someone with varying levels of current. The results of the study showed that, given the direction of an authority, the shockers would shock at too high a current simply because the authority told them to do so. The thinking was that the authority would not allow them to do something detrimental to the well being of the shockee even though the they thought the current would be too high.
I cant remember the name of the theory but I think it has alot to do with this thread.

__________________

I should have had more confidence in google.
its called the Milgram experiment:
Milgram experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

__________________

I missed this Beer - yes it is very relevant. The Milgram experiment shows us how easily 'I was just following orders' can lead to the worst crimes against humanity.

there are a couple of other experiments also that should be discussed.

One is the Zimbardo prison Study (circa late 60's) in which ordinary college students adopted the role of either prison guards, or prisoners.

the participants got so much into the role that they had to stop the experiment. This is a good example of how, somehow - identifying ourselves as an A or a B can impact on how we relate to those we identify as the other.

There have been countless examples of this in recent history - from Germany (a few decades ago I interviewed a woman who had grown up in pre war Germany, and she told me how in her comfortable middle class neighbourhood in a town near Dresden the Jews, who had been accepted int he community, suddenly became unacceptable, and she was told to cross the street rather than talk to a Jewish girl who had been a friend), to the Balkans, where Serbs murdered neighbours they had previously shared meals with, to Rwanda, where the definition of Hutu or Tutsi - became the difference between your right to live or die, and over 800,000 were slaughtered, to the current situation in raq - where many Shia and Sunni had shared good times, intermarried and lived under a harsh regime, but after the invasion many became sworn enemies - and I'm sure you can think of more.

So - add to 'I was just following orders.' the 'you're not one of us' reasoning

And finally - there's the Asch experiment. quite harmless. Get a few people in a room, and watch as the subject begins to identify the shortest line as the longest - just because everyone else does. Maybe you'd like to think that in the real world, where life and death is involved people stand up and say - no - you're all right and I'm wrong - but the fact is they don't.

and again - Nazi Germany is a good example of that - and I'm sure we can all think of other examples where 'majority rules' is the decising factor on deciding what is/isn't acceptable.