In some ways Richard is "bad" and some ways he is not. When he writes the four letter words on the windows with soap he is not "bad" because he did not know that he was not supposed to do that. On the other hand when he kills the kitten he is bad because he knew that his dad did not really want him to kill it he was just doing it to prove a point.
To begin with I think that to be "bad" is when you contentiously make a decision to do something. For example if you know that what you do is going to heart someone and do no one any good and you do it anyways it is bad. Another example is if you do something that you know that you are not supposed to do and you know you will get punished for.
A person is not bad when they do something wrong and they do not know it or there is a justification for doing it. For example, if a parent was to steal for their children who were starving from someone who had more than enough to eat they would not be bad because the person that they stole from did not need the food and their children needed the food. Another example is if a child did something wrong such as stole something from a store and they had never been told not to steal they are not bad the merely did not know that it was wrong.
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5 comments:
I find your definition of "bad" to be facinating - that one must KNOW they are doing something wrong. Was Rosa Parks "bad" then since she KNEW she was committing a crime when she refused to give up her seat to a white man? (Just playing devil's advocate!)
I agree with Ms. Froehlich, what happens when a criminal intentionally robs a bank? He may be doing it for the good of his family but would it be right? other families who might have been in just as bad a situation but instead of...stealing had begged and made a meager profit. They had left the money at the bank. Now the money's gone. would that have been right? Anyways I'm trying to procrastinate so if this comment is ignored I won't be offended. I also like playing devil's advocate. :P
I really liked your post!!! It makes perfect sense how Richard didn't even know what he was doing, so he shouldn't be considered a "bad" boy. The example with the soap was good. Richard never knew that what he was writing was bad and he had no idea what any of them meant. No one had ever explained to him what these words meant, or that he would be punished for writing them...So technically he never did anything wrong.
I like your ideas, Julia! You had really good examples of Richard doing "bad" things, but then you showed us the subtle, yet very important difference between them. I also really liked the example about the family stealing food for their starving children--- almost like Robin Hood!
In my example I did not have a poor person to rob from another poor person. There was a reason for that.
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