Harm vs. Suffering

Harm and suffering...what is the difference. Well to start here are the definintions of each word thanks to dictionary.com.

Harm- physical injury or mental damage
         -moral injury; evil; wrong

But I like this second definition better for the purposes of our class...

Now what is suffering....

Suffering-to undergo, be subjected to, or endure (pain, distress, injury, loss, or anything unpleasant)

Of course there are many more definitions but for the purpose of this post I feel they are not necessary. Notice both definitions include injury...so what is the difference? Well I believe this is where the second definition of harm comes in...what is morally right and wrong. Obviously suffering is just as morally wrong as harm if not more. As we discussed in class harm and suffering also breaks down into feeling and consciouness.

One can physically feel harm when they are conscious but they can not feel harm when they are unconciousness. Does that make it right to inflict harm when one is unconciousness?...NO! Suffering you also need to be conciousness in order to experience but it doesn't have to be something you physically feel; it could just be mental suffering. One example I can think of is the death of a love one or anything else that will effect you and stick with you for a long period of time. Yes when one is unconsciousness the harm and the suffering go away but unlike harm when you wake up the "side effects" (if you will) of suffering are still there. Okay so sometimes after a surgery or operation that inflicted harm one can still feel that after the fact but eventually that goes away. Suffering doesn't....it is something that will always be with you; even if you are strong enough to put it in the back of your mind. But suffering unlike harm when something triggers that memory you continue to suffer. Harm on the other hand when brought back to mind doesn't bring back the actually physical pain.

In my opinion it is "MORALLY" wrong to hurt and/or make something or someone suffer no matter what their state of consciousness is and whether or not it is something that will stick with them. So here is my question to you....

Question:

Can the notion, "what you don't know won't hurt you" be true??

Human Nature/Society

I don't want to post an answer to Lauren's question but I would like to comment on her post titled Human Nature Doesn't Change, Society Does. In my opinion this raises yet another great topic of discussion....What exactly is society? How does society develop and change?

My argument is, isn't it us humans that determine society. In my opinion yes. If it wasn't for the human race there would be no reason to have such a thing that we call society. So in my opinion it is both human nature and society that change not just one or the other. It is because human nature is changing why the society is changing.

Question:

What are other opinions?...Is it human nature that changes, society or a combination of both?....Do they depend on each other?

In response to Cameron Hamlet's question "Would you rather have an evenly happy/sad life or extremely happy and extremely sad life?

I believe I would rather live an equally happy/sad life instead of an extreme one or the other. First of all who in their right mind would want to be extremely sad or in other words depressed all the time. In this constant state one would probably need some kind of medication otherwise they would run a high risk of suicide.

Being on the other side of the spectrum...being extremely happy all the time could also be potentially problematic. Something that comes to mind is does extremely happy mean extremely energetic; if so isn't this what we diagnosis as A.D.D. or A.D.H.D. Again if this is the case then one would probably be prescribed some kind of medication to "bring them down". Which leads me to my next comment...notice how for both extremes one would be given some kind of medication in order to bring them closer to the middle; so wouldn't be all be better off just living lives in the middle...equally happy and sad...if we could control our emotions to that extreme?

It seems to me that society as a whole has already answered this question based on how they treat the extremes or the outliers. As a society it seems we want everyone to be as close to equally happy and sad as possible.

Question:

Is there a reason for this...If we were constantly one emotion would we be able to feel and sympathize for people of other emotions??