Established Fall 1988

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I heard this saying spoken by a music artist in a moment of self-reflection, when answering did the ends justify the means. He described the environment for which he came from and the bad choices he made to gain the things he wanted and needed but couldn’t afford. The artist’s needs and desires were good and innocent not ill, however his way of achieving them was. My conclusion is that human nature is variable; it changes not with time, but with ones circumstances.

Humans tailor their actions to gain satisfaction and to survive. So when moments of desperation arise humans do whatever they need to do, good or bad, to make things happen. There are good men and women willing to do immoral things to secure their wants and needs. There are politicians who entered the sport with the intent of helping society, but took a turn for the worst just to get their agenda across. There are good young men who have been dealt bad hands in the difficult game of life and ventured into a world of evil just to survive. It is a moment of pressure, distress, and agony that test human nature and causes variability.

In conclusion, the way of man is good based on the innocence of basic human wants and needs. The motives of mankind are generally good. The emotions that drive human nature are natural and expected. However human nature is not just based on human motives alone. It is also based on the based on the way humans act and react. The nobility of man is challenged in the hour of desperation: when the eviction notice is on the door, when there is no food in the refrigerator, when you cannot afford the latest fashions, or when you can’t afford treatment for an illness.

A great example of the transition from good to bad is evident in the movie John Q, starring Denzel Washington. John is a husband and father, an all around family man. John is a noble, hard worker and the coach for his son’s little league baseball team. But when John’s insurance provider refuses to pay for his ailing son’s heart transplant and the hospital decides it will not operate without the funds, John takes the matter into his own hands. John, armed with a gun, storms the hospital and takes hostages in an effort to make hospital officials give his dying son a much needed heart transplant. Denzel’s character was against the ropes; his son’s life was at stake. John’s motives were good, to keep his son alive. His method was not. When humans have exhausted all moral means of meeting their needs and satisfying their desires, it is in the hour of desperation that immoral action becomes reasonable. This is the way of man: good until evil is necessary.