# Is there still good and bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 22, 2023, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-still-good-and-bad/990513 "2023-09-22T00:31:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 42
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-still-good-and-bad/990513/42 "2023-10-02T19:42:49Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > Basically, I agree very much with your #2 and I think Haidt would too, but I think he would say that people DO tend to make “sanctity” constructs out of societally preconceived notions and so therefore this is going to be a societal thing that governs people’s reactions whether it makes rational sense or not. People also tend to make in-groups and out-groups, but I wouldn’t recommend that modern societies designate an out-group to channel their hatered towards. Sanctity and purity in and of themselves are nonsense concepts. They should be discarded, along with superstition and tribalism, on the ash-heap of history. > [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > I also agree with your #1, but I would also agree with Haidt that it’s not generally speaking the underlying reason why a person might react with visceral disgust to the idea. For someone like me, I might react with visceral disgust, then think through that and decide okay, maybe my societal preconceptions aren’t a good reason after all, and then think of #1 as a reason why it makes sense to object to it Like I said, I agee with Haidt’s description of how people work. I just think the conclusion shouldn’t be “therefore we need to accept that people are hardwired to be concerned with purity”. We need to understand that these are arbitrary concepts that perhaps had purpose in a pre-rational society (in the sense that many harmful things are also taboo; but many other things are taboo because they harm not people but the social structure that placed certain elites on top) but are now obsolete. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-still-good-and-bad/990513)._