These days, I read the famous American literature To Kill a Mockingbird and a story about a mob trying to attack a prison, but being influenced by a naive little girl, I deeply realized that the complexity of human nature can't be defined by a simple label.
To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of Addicks, a white lawyer, who insisted on defending a black man accused of raping a white woman despite everyone's opposition and personal safety when racial discrimination was still serious in the United States in the 1930s. This book has a great influence in Britain and America. It is the book with the highest borrowing rate in American libraries and one of the favorite novels of British teenagers. 1962 was also made into a movie, playing the leading role of a lawyer and winning an Oscar.
Ha Bai Li Yisheng wrote only one novel. In her own words, it is enough to finish such a work in this life. The name of "I" in the book is Scoot, the daughter of a lawyer. At the beginning of the story, I was only seven years old and just entered primary school. The contents of the book are brilliant, which profoundly reveals a large number of realistic and social problems in the United States during the Great Depression, but what impressed me most was an episode.
It was that the accused black man was transferred to the town prison before the trial. Racists in the town will cause trouble. Atticus knew this information in advance and stayed at the prison gate all night. Kupao's brother didn't trust his father, so he sneaked out of the house with her in the middle of the night to see the situation. When they arrived, they just saw a large group of people driving by and negotiating with Atticus at the prison gate. Kupao didn't know that the situation was on the verge, and that group of people might annoy his father at any time. They thought they were friends of their father, so they rushed over.
The atmosphere was not as friendly as Kupao, and she looked around looking for someone familiar to break the embarrassing situation. Finally, she found Mr. Cunningham, the father of one of her classmates, and chatted with him, saying that she had beaten his son, but she became friends again and invited him home for dinner. Seeing that Cunningham was not interested in this topic, I talked with him about the system of "limited inheritance of property", which was a case in which Atticus helped Cunningham. Scoot said the system was terrible, but Attix would try to help him cope with it.
Mr. Cunningham crouched down, hugged Kupao's shoulder, said he would take her greetings back, and then retreated with the troublemakers. A tragedy that almost bled was thus eliminated.
The next day, when Scoot realized what had happened, he said angrily that he thought Mr. Cunningham was a friend, but he turned out to be a bad guy and almost killed Attix.
This is the same thinking as watching TV when we were young. At that time, we always had to figure out which characters were good and which were bad. With the growth of age and social experience, I gradually understand that this society is not black and white as I imagined. Even the same person may be a good person at one moment and a bad person at another; You can be a good person in front of yourself and a bad person in front of others. Complexity is the essence of this society.
Cunningham is such a person. It was during the Great Depression before World War II. As a peasant at the bottom of the white society, although poor, the Cunningham family never took anything from others, nor did they owe anyone. Addicks helped Mr. Cunningham consult a lawyer for free, and Cunningham took the special products in his field as a reward, and the value of the agricultural products sent out exceeded the lawyer's fee.
"Cunningham was one of the thugs last night, but he was still alone. In any small town in the south, every thug is made up of people you know-which makes them look legendary. " Half angel and half devil, everyone has two sides. The criminal who stayed in prison is probably the one who greeted you warmly every day before.
Even less legendary, "an eight-year-old girl awakened their conscience." Not only that, Cool Run won their respect. Later, when the blacks were tried, Cunningham's people voted not guilty. Although this did not change the final result, it also extended the judgment that could have been concluded in a few minutes for several hours.
So it's hard to label people like Cunningham. If it has a simple farmer who is grateful for kindness, it can go to prison to make trouble just because it is not pleasing to the eye to see someone defending blacks; If he is an out-and-out racist, he can be one of the few people in town who is willing to speak for black people because of the innocence of a little girl.
Perhaps it is more appropriate to put it in Attucks's words: "He just has his own blind spot like the rest of us."
Yes, this is a blind spot. Everyone around us, including ourselves, will have this personality blind spot. In fact, in psychology, there are many scientific explanations for why there are blind spots. For example, there is a term called Lucifer effect, which says that there is only a thin red line between good and evil, and good people may become demons under the influence of social situations.
This effect stems from a famous prison experiment: college students who are physically and mentally healthy are randomly divided into two groups: jailers and prisoners, and then placed in a simulated prison environment. After the experiment began, the subjects strongly felt the influence of role norms and tried to play the established role. On the sixth day, the original simple college students have become cruel and heartless jailers and prisoners with mental breakdown. Because the situation became too realistic, the experiment scheduled for two weeks had to be terminated.
There is also a story about indifference, which I believe you have read in a lot of books or stories. This is a real case in new york: within half an hour, 38 respected law-abiding citizens in Queens witnessed the murderer chasing and assassinating the same woman three times in Yuan Qiu. Twice, the noise they made and the sudden light in the bedroom made the murderer stop in surprise, but every time he went back, found her and assassinated her. No one called the police during the whole process.
Whether good people become bad people or law-abiding and moral citizens become indifferent, there are blind spots under the influence of the situation. Maybe they are not such people in essence, or even noble people, but there are always various mechanisms that we know or don't know that affect judgment and choice, and sometimes they do very irrational things.
Let's go back to the incidents of girls jumping off buildings, passers-by booing, and old people falling to help or not. Although it is not an isolated case, we see more love. There are desperate courier brothers who catch the children falling from the upstairs with their bare hands, drivers who cooperate with Qi Xin in the hospital to give way to the car for emergency treatment, and thousands of netizens send their love online. At that moment, everyone became a kind angel and a person who was willing to contribute to this society. Perhaps one of them is the indifferent crowd among the onlookers.
But it doesn't mean that you can forgive or act rashly because of blind spots. Everyone should still pay the price for his irrationality and bear the corresponding punishment. Only by understanding the influence of situation on people's thoughts and actions can we have the opportunity to effectively guide and carry forward the power of kindness.
I still like the moral of the title "To Kill a Mockingbird": "Robins can only sing to people, and will not do bad things. They don't eat flowers, fruits and vegetables in other people's gardens, and they don't nest in corn barns. They just sang enthusiastically for us. Remember, To Kill a Mockingbird is a sin! "