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Are children born evil geniuses?

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Are children born evil geniuses?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby dealing with it on Sun Jul 02, 2017 9:18 pm

I was reading some Freud, and it occurred to me that if children are completely egoistic -- working out how to get what they want as efficiently and effectively as possible -- they are evil. But I've also heard that we are all born geniuses, and only lose our genius when we stop exercising our inborn talents. We shrink from the evil geniusness of our infantile life to an adulthood of mediocrity and conscience.

Anyway, as to a question, is a strong ego a healthy thing, or does it only harm ourselves and society in the long run?

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Re: Are children born evil geniuses?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Aniihya on Mon Jul 03, 2017 10:57 am

Evil is a matter of perspective. Without the intellect, there wouldnt be such things a morals.
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Re: Are children born evil geniuses?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Sara Whitley on Tue Jul 04, 2017 1:50 pm

Yeah, this is kind of hard to answer. Mentions of the outdated Freudian perspective, and the word "genius" leave me skeptical. Evil is a label we put on actions that in some way intentionally disrupt the flow of our social network and productivity. A genius is a generic term for a really smart person.

Children aren't really either. Learning to be, or being efficient at acquiring your goals even at the cost of others is really only considered "evil" if you're fully aware of it and are capable of reflecting on it. Sometimes as a child you're aware of it, but you'll never reflect on it with the depth of an adult's moral compass. And concerning adults, I would argue that not all sociopaths fit the label of "genius," even though it sometimes might feel that way. They might acquire things we normally wouldn't because we tend to care about other people - but the label of genius tends to go on the person who does this while not doing "evil" things, so as to preserve social ties, which they know to be one of the most valuable resources to a human being.

In any case, the Freudian notion that we shrink from being geniuses to mediocre adults - I completely disagree with this, it's an outdated theory and none of the current data really reinforces this.
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Re: Are children born evil geniuses?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Red_Cardinal on Wed Jul 05, 2017 12:57 pm

Ladies and Gentlemen, i'm bound to completely disagree with you here. Evil is not a "label" or "a matter of perspective", but the drive behind real actions, which have real consequences. "Morals" and "social ties" based on morals are nothing else as a construct, present only in peoples minds. If you don't believe me: try to hold up with all your hope, trust and love against a suicide bomber - quite a difference in the scale of power i must say... Though only for a short moment - the result will blow your mind!
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Re: Are children born evil geniuses?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby EricTurner on Thu Jul 01, 2021 1:06 am

Geniuses are made, not born. (The evil part is usually genetic though.) That's why we offer gaming youth camps and career summits with access to industry experts.

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Re: Are children born evil geniuses?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby mombie on Thu Jul 01, 2021 2:57 pm

Children are born with a prefrontal cortex that isn't closed, which makes them unafraid and ready for adventure. This also makes them more susceptible to learning things easier than adults, or even children at a certain age (they say about 7 years old it gets harder for kids to learn more than one language). Young children are capable of learning as much as people are willing to help them learn. They are not genetically predisposed to genius or evil, either. Theory of Mind (because you describe children as egotistic, which is very true) doesn't develop until age 6. Children before this age literally cannot believe that other people have their own emotions, thoughts, etc beyond their own selves. There are studies on this. Look up "theory of mind" and find them if you want.

I don't agree with Freud on a number of things (because a lot of his views come from a more perceptive standpoint on children rather than biological/physiological [at the same time, if you're around children enough you can actually see that some of it makes sense]). What children are more ready to learn and make mistakes without fear (which creates more learning), whereas adults grow into learning to avoid mistakes and give in to the fear of making them (which doesn't help us to learn at all). This is where learning becomes harder for an adult vs a child. So, I think that what Freud means is that (or how I take his words) children are more ready to learn because they don't care about their mistakes, hence, they are capable of learning more quickly and more readily than an adult might. Whereas, adults in learning might not be as willing to take risks because of mistakes, and this can make learning new things harder. Of course, there are biological/physiological reasons for these differences between Adults/Children (mostly the brain as children have a more rapid brain growth at a younger age).

As for children being Evil, that's just ridiculous. What children are doing is not caring about others because they are not afraid of other people's thoughts or opinions. An open prefrontal cortex is fearless, and this has been studied. Once it closes, we actually become more mature, or something like that (our thoughts also become more complex). As I already explained, a very young child before the age of six is truly egocentric, but to say that makes them evil is really ignorant. I use "ignorant" not as a bad way to say you're stupid, but maybe ill-informed on this particular subject. I'm really tired of people calling kids "evil" when it's egocentrism is a valid and helpful period of development for them (and all of us were these 'evil' children at one point or another). How else would they learn to walk, crawl, talk, etc, if they cared about what we thought of them or if they were scared? Think about how we feel doing things we've never done before.

We are all born with the ability to learn a lot of things (like a child can learn multiple languages at once whereas an adult will have a harder time), but what we lose is the confidence to make the mistakes we need to make in order to learn. That's just that.

That's all coming from studying and working with children, and also that I have a degree in Early Childhood Psychology and Education.

To answer your question, ego is healthy for your own self. Is it healthy for society? Eh, I don't really know. All I know is that it is healthy for CHILDREN because they need to learn and grow without the fear that we have about the thoughts and feelings of others. They need to be able to make mistakes. I think ego, for adults, is perfectly healthy. I suppose it would depend on how much ego, though. That's a really hard question, and it's all a matter of perspective.
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