I'm fascinated by the capacity to be able to do harm. I struggle every day with the ability of people to do evil. Not just the big things - the petty things that people do in order to make someone feel small, when it's so easy to do, and it hurts so much.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the ease with which people can cause harm to others, both in significant and minor ways.
Forest Whitaker expresses a deep fascination and struggle with humanity's capacity for harm. He highlights that it is not only the monumental acts of evil that concern him, but also the everyday, petty actions that degrade and belittle others, emphasizing how easily such behavior can occur and the profound impact it has on individuals.
In practice
A discussion on human behavior in a psychology class.
As human beings, we all have reasons for our behavior. There may be people who have certain physiological issues that dictate why they make certain choices. On the whole, though, I think we're dictated by our structure, our past, our environment, our culture. So once you understand the patterns that shape a person, how can you not find sympathy?
I think that cinema and the arts are central in our lives because we grow up and learn about the world through our exposure to stories. Parents use them as a tool to teach their children fundamental truths and values, much as adults can view them to gain exposure to cultures and individuals that they'd never be able to view in their own lives.
In some sense, when you take a child soldier out of an armed group, you've taken away the identity he or she has had for years, and you can't assume life is just going to return to normal.
Cinema and the arts invite viewers to focus on a story and, in doing so, peel away its layers and peer into the depths of the human soul.
I put down the camera long ago, you know? I was here in London, aged 19, and I was obsessed with my camera, shooting everything I could. Then someone stole it. It helped me to see things for the first time.
You try to pull away the experiences until you get to the core of humanity, and you find that light that exists in everybody. It's that light that I'm searching for in all of my work - is that connective thing, that ether that enters all of us - you know what I mean? That's a part of God.
It's ridiculous that we continue to incarcerate anyone for using a substance that actually causes far less damage than alcohol. No one goes out looking for fights on marijuana. No one dies from marijuana intoxication. And no one should be jailed for possessing marijuana.
I'm not a representative of blackness, and I'm not a healer.
If you truly believe in the brotherhood of man, then you must believe that blacks are just as capable of being racists as whites are.
One who previously made bad karma, but who reforms and creates good karma, brightens the world like the moon appearing from behind a cloud.
A man is never as big as when he is on his knees to help a child.
What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?
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