split WhiteAndGreyMorality and : Rousseau Was Right

If you are going to make the Humans Are Good and White and Grey Morality tropes, I would argue having Rousseau Was Right as a third trope is necessary. The idea that humans are born evil but are corrupted is a very common one, both in fiction and in philosophy/religion/whatever. It is obviously distinct from White and Grey Morality, which is about factions and probably the reason for the split. It is also distinct, though more subtly so, from a general Humans are Good trope. If for some strange reason we don't go for three tropes I think Rousseau was Right is a better name than Humans Are Good, both because it is more creative and catchy and because the trope isn't meant to be the opposite of Humans Are Bastards.

^ Wait, if Humans Are Good isn't supposed to be an opposite to Humans Are Bastards, what is the trope supposed to be that's different from White-and-Grey Morality?

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

^Humanity Is Inherantly Good Until Outside Influences Corrupt Them, more or less.

As distinct from Humans Specifically Are Good In Contrast To Other Sapient Species.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

^ Right, that should be Rousseau Was Right, not Humans Are Good, which is the later. That's the simplist way of doing things, I think.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

Are we in agreement, then, for the repurposing?

edited 6th Sep '10 4:33:23 PM by karstovich

Agreed. If the trope doesn't even follow Rousseau's philosophy, it needs to be changed!

Some people say I'm lazy. It's hard to disagree.

So...how do we go about actually doing something?

The crowner shows very strong support for splitting off White and Gray Morality / Humans Are Good and for using the current page to be what Rousseau Was Right should actually mean. Thus, what we need:

• Someone needs to write up descriptions for the three tropes
• The two redirects need to be turned into their own pages
• The examples need to be sorted as appropriate

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

I'm not going to do a fully fleshed-out description, but here's the "seed" if you will of each:

Rousseau Was Right: In this setting, everyone is born as a moral blank slate (or tabula rasa as Locke put it), with a natural inclination to goodness. All villains in such a setting—if there are any villains—either mean well or have been turned evil by their upbringing or their society (or both). This isn't to say that evil doesn't exist in such a universe—it does, and regardless of their excuses, people (or aliens; Rousseau probably wouldn't discriminate) who do bad things still bear full responsibility for their actions. However, since nobody is naturally evil, some spark of goodness will tend to remain within even the most black-hearted of characters; redemption is always a possibility in such a universe, although it may not be easy.

Settings in which Rousseau was right always avert Card-Carrying Villain and In the Blood.

Examples include (at minimum) Babylon 5 ("the monster never sees a monster in the mirror") and most Pixar films.

Humans Are Good: In a Speculative Fiction setting in which there are other species running around, human beings are paragons of virtue and goodness. Diametric opposite of Humans Are Bastards.

White-and-Grey Morality: Evil simply doesn't exist in this setting. There are only people with misguided intentions and bad information. Antagonists tend to be well-intentioned. This is probably a subtrope of the new Rousseau Was Right (since that admits of the possibility of truly evil people; it simply denies that they were evil to start with). Kingdom is probably a good example of this one done well.

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What do you all think of these "seed" descriptions? If you like them, say so. If not, we can fix them.

edited 10th Sep '10 8:26:17 PM by karstovich

Those descriptions are pretty good, they just need a bit more depth.

Some people say I'm lazy. It's hard to disagree.

Works for me. Probably just change "or aliens" to "or other sapient beings" to cover all the bases (i.e., fantasy races and probably others I'm forgetting)

edited 12th Sep '10 1:42:25 AM by Servbot

Bump.

Bump.

Umm it seems to be a bit stagnent right now, wish I was more skilled so I could deal with the page spliting better...

Some people say I'm lazy. It's hard to disagree.

Under the system karstovich proposed, I assume borderline No Antagonist works where no one wants anything bad, we just se it from one side's POV would fall under White and Gray Morality?

The child is father to the man —Oedipus

I imagine White and Grey Morality to be more of a struggle between Heroes and Anti-Villians. Anti-Villians can do bad things but they never pass the moral event horizon and their actions are justified. Besides, how can there be a conflict of a two groups with different moralities without without an antagonist?

edited 8th Oct '10 5:17:02 PM by JustaUsername

Some people say I'm lazy. It's hard to disagree.

Um, what? How can you corrupt humans if they are born evil? Perhaps you meant either "born good but are corrupted" or "born evil but are purified/enlightened".

edited 9th Oct '10 3:10:09 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Bump.

I am also for the split. Mainly because White vs. Gray doesn't need to be so idealistic as the article portraits it. Depending on the shade of grey of those who oppose White, things may get quite nasty.

Bump

The crowner is stable, so I'd say it's time to start drafting new articles.

Two-way split: 40/7 = 5.7:1

Re-purpose and split: 17/1 = 17:1

While the two-way split (which would discard the original page) has the most votes by number, re-purposing the original page in addition to the split wins on a proportional basis.

edited 24th Oct '10 12:11:34 AM by Roxor

Accidental mistakes are forgivable, intentional ones are not.

Well, now only is necessary split.bump.

Can we just split karstovich's seeds right now as they are and expand them later? I mean, seriously, this is taking longer than it should do.

The seed's get the general point across well enough that I doubt that they'll be any (well, not too much, "Never doubt the true foolishness of fools", and all that...) confusion to what the tropes actually are.

I'd say those seeds work. Anyone who wants more detail can always expand upon them at a later date.

EDIT: The basic split has been done and the variations on "White-and-Grey Morality" have been turned into redirects for that page. Time to start shovelling examples.

Courtesy links:

• Rousseau Was Right
• Humans Are Good
• White-and-Grey Morality

edited 12th Nov '10 10:06:18 PM by Roxor

Accidental mistakes are forgivable, intentional ones are not.

Hey, guys? Are we going to finish work on this page or not?

I can't do the example shifting by myself because I'm not familiar with most of the works listed.

Accidental mistakes are forgivable, intentional ones are not.