http://readingrat.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] readingrat.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] menolly_au 2015-06-14 07:07 pm (UTC)

The degree to which human beings will do what they are expected to do is rather frightening; see also: Milgram experiments.
I saw I as in Icarus as a teen and it changed my attitude to mankind.

Even Cameron, who is probably the most soft-hearted member of House's team, treats patients with indifference (Clarence in Acceptance) or even outright cruelty (Ezra Powell, Dibala) if she believes that they have forfeited their right to compassion. Considering that she is paid to behave professionally at all times, that is interesting. It means that she isn't innately nice; she is only nice as long as she has no moral justification for denying compassion. Give her a socially acceptable reason to be nasty, and even Cameron will be so. I figure that we humans need a social contract that forces us to behave with a modicum of decency to our fellow wo-/men, otherwise we go all Lord of the Flies on them.

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