This scene has been stuck in my head for quite a while. For those who have been paying attention it has a lot to say about human nature even though it was attributed to the police officers in the movie, 'The Dark Knight'. Actually, you can see this quote applied in nearly all aspects of our lives. And this is a usual reply I give when I hear that someone is a good (or even a bad) person. He is not a good person, he is only as good as the world allows him to be. I remember watching this scene during the presidential elections and I instantly associated this quote from the Joker to what was happening around me during that intense period. An absolute chaos. A jungle. A freak-show. People ready to eat each other. Political parties sabotaging each other. People in high positions calling us, civillians, asking for a vote or offering jobs in echange for a vote. People yelling and quarreling in the streets with other people. It is in such moments of crisis that you realize how spot-on the Joker was.
In moments of such crisis you can easily see that all the speeches of self-rightousness from the mouths of the seemingly noble and righteous politicians and all the preachings of all those self-proclaimed moralists were all a bad joke. It reminded me of the jungle that we live in. The dog-eat-dog world and makes you question what you know about morality. Where did all that fancy talking go? All these notions that most people and most leaders like to say in every second sentence? All that big talking? About democracy, liberty, (equal) human rights, empathy, collectiveness, friendship, cooperation, harmony, careness, benevolence, where did it all go? Have they all simply vanished and people are finally revealing their true colors now that the 'chips are down'?
Most people and especially demagogues and populists spout such arbitratry and vague concepts like 'love', 'friendship', 'harmony', 'compassion,' unity' without realizing how fragile these concepts are. Almost like an illusion. Sometimes they sound as if someone is spelling wishes like a magician, spells and hocus-pocus, a word salad that has no meaning whatsoever. Empty words. More like bullshitting themselves and us. And the reason why sometimes our moral 'values' seem so contradictory and turbulent is because we all behave with double standards unconsciously. If you can recall George Orwell, we have the remarkable ability of holding two contradictory views in our minds at the same time, and still able to rationalize them and remain sane. Humans behave in such 'dissonances' and still manage to persuade themselves that they are rational and more ethical than they really are.
https://psmag.com/news/we-are-absurdly-confident-of-our-superiority
http://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/video/overconfidence-bias
Most people are willing to be good as long as their interests are not compromised. Most people are willing to appreciate honesty just not about themselves. As long as you talk about someone else. Similarly, most people claim that they are honest and that they never lie and they brag that this is one of their best qualities....except when they are in job interviews of course and during all first impressions where some white lying never hurts. Besides if lying wasn't a survival mechanism we would have to invent it because people lie pretty much about everything. I am wondering if people can remain good when nobody is watching and when they cannot get caught. Some people might shed a tear in a touchy emotional scene from a movie or they are moved when they hear a guru or a priest preaching about high ideals such as democracy, universal compassion and connectedness amongst all the people of the planet.
However, this moral exhilaration and ecstasy lasts, well, no more than a few seconds. No more than a dopamine rush. It only takes 'a sign of trouble' for all our moral trilling and excitation to be flushed down the toilet and regressing to habitual automatic behavior, regressing to an animal. To deviate from what we preach. They are dropped at the first sign of trouble. Think about how many people repent on Sundays so they can start over on Monday. Think about people exchanging wishes every Christmas and celebrating the Ressurection with hugs and kisses for the whole planet only to start banging each other once the Holidays are over and we get back to work.
Pseudo-moralizing preachers of rightousness and priggishness are nothing more than a big joke. A great internal need for appearing something greater than the rest of the animal kingdom. After all we have values, don't we? Values and moral principles that no other species possess. Moralizing speeches of conventionality and prudence are nothing but a frustrating mumbling 'noise' in my ears, an attempt of our species to appear superior, to exhalt our selves to a greater rank and ignore our shortcoming and pitfalls. The need to appear good and suppress the idea that we are all assholes at some level. Assholes in different varieties and flavors. Have you ever tried to call someone dishonest?
Do you know anyone who is religious, reads the bible, goes to church but.....works in the army? Do you know anyone who hates people but..... loves animals? Anyone who holds conservative views about how women ought to dress but.....watches porn all day? Or watches porn but preaches strict monogamy at the same time. Anyone who sleeps with whores but.... accuses his wife for infidelty? Anyone who claims to be a patriot and that he worships his country while...choosing to remain abroad for a better income? Any feminist who wants equality but.... does not seek for a job in a mine or as a garbage collector? Anyone who posts starving children on facebook while..... planning a huge party that night with plenty of alcohol and pizza?
Anyone who cries over disturbed videos of explicit content showing slaughterhouses and who does not want to know...how her food arrives on her plate? Anyone who signs a petition for saving puppies in China but..... does not bother signing petitions for the hundreds of homosexuals being killed in Iran every day? Anyone who claims that all politicians are corrupted while..... lies on his tax return or exaggerates on his resume? Anyone who spends $200 on a dress and accusses the goverment for misspending and money laundering or politicians and celebrities for moral corruption for spending thousands on drugs, alcohol, sex and living the good life. How about preaching meritocracy while...... vouching for your best friend or relative because you do not want to hurt his feelings? How about being polite because... politeness is the only way you can get what you want.
The ability to feel comfortable and remain cool with our 'cognitive dissonance' behavior and the ability to accept and justify two opposing views at the same time in our minds, while remaining sane, is unbelievable.
The bitter truth is that morality for practical reasons cannot be universal (yet) otherwise we wouldn't function if we cared about everyone the same on this planet. Although we do have the ability to think 'universally' about very basic human matters and express universal emotions of disgust or pain or joy let's say, and we all share some basic 'wiring' when it comes to condemning genocides, murdering the young and the innocent, glorifying heros, dislike and discourage coawrdice and rewarding bravery and courage, still morality is higly 'local'. We value and we can identify more with what's familar and 'morality' usually extends to only a small circle. Anything beyond that becomes cognitively complex. Our minds cannot process it. Morality is mostly tribal. For those who are dying now in Libya, or for the Christians being killed now by some Muslim sect in Uganda, I can't pretend that I care. Or maybe I do, but just for a few milliseconds. Since I am living in the other side of the globe, they are outside my 'monkey sphere'. And this is mostly the reason why people on social media change their profile color when there is a terrorist attack in some famous and prestigious country like France, Venice or Brussels because these countries are in their 'monkey-sphere'. People who are not included in our monkey-sphere,our minds do not even perceive them as 'individuals' but merely as 'numbers' and statistics.
http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
I am not trying to present a totally nihilistic aspect of human nature. There are many and great examples of people (and even in the animal kingdom) who have lost everything they have during the war or you can see cases of beggars in the street or people who live in poverty and isolation who walk around and they try to feed entire villages or provide food and water to hundreds of straydogs and cats. There are many examples someone can refer to where people did not regress to the dark side once their resources and their existence was threatened. And this is actually where the Joker lost in the 'Dark Knight', in his Game Theory social experiment. None of the two ships blew each other and both passengers from both ships kept their values, they even 'transcended' their nature because they knew that from a moment to another someone from the other ship will blow them up just to save their own lives.