The Good And Bad Sprouts In Human
Humans are quite complex creatures vacillating between being moral and immoral. In the beginning, we start as clean slates. Moral sprouts are cultivated by external influences and surrounding environments, causing individuals to be ethically good or bad in society’s perspective.
Society ultimately believes goodness is instinctive, but we can also naturally develop bad sprouts as a result of negative circumstances we are placed in. In the fetus stage, you begin to get influenced by sounds and from that point sprouts begin to modify. Whether those are positive or negative, is reflective of the types of situations we are exposed to. I agree with Mengzi when he says the sprouts of goodness is dependent on the “richness of the soil”. The failure to provide the essential factors affecting the growth, results in humans investing in corrupt qualities. Obviously no one is perfect, as we do not live in a perfect society. The community tends to attempt to cultivate these sprouts morally through education and self-discipline, but that does not mean humans are naturally born with an aptitude towards goodness. Despite the attempts the world makes to develop good sprouts, there will be bad sprouts that generate as well. That is not something that we can control. Therefore, I do not agree with the portion of Mengzi’s thinking that humans have a root sprout for compassion from the very beginning and that aspect of goodness is not something that needs to be worked on. Righteousness does need to be worked on as imperfections will interfere despite all efforts.
As components such as suffering make an impact, you cannot simply conclude whether someone is good or bad. Śāntideva’s fundamental ideas contribute to the reason as for why it is impractical to group individuals based on certain actions. One negative response does not make a person evil. Other people may cause suffering causing them to perform these dishonest actions. Each adverse action could be caused due to a chain of prior actions. Determining whether a person is good or bad is like determining whether an object is red or yellow even though it is a mix that is actually orange. A person begins clear, developing both good and bad sprouts.
In conclusion, our unaware selves are taken advantage of by society, as we are stripped of our innocence and are shaped into who we are. I believe we are not good nor bad; we simply carry traits of both nature. All people are susceptible to abashment or guilt when they act in ways that are contrary with the world’s overall understanding of good behavior. The brain allows people to feel anger or jealousy and so the individuals that act on those actions break the moral expectations. Unethical behaviour is automatically associated with delinquent. It is hard to control such feelings, therefore every individual will develop these uncontrollable bad sprouts. It is like the weeds we see in our grass; the more we pull out, the more that shows up, and there is nothing we could do about it. Humans are initially simple, but rather complex.
