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.
Listening to a news broadcast is like smoking a cigarette and crushing the butt in the ashtray.
The Spirit works through community. Somebody will have a stupid, screwy idea. That's okay. The point of having creeds and confessions and traditions is to keep us in touch with the obvious errors.
The assumption that things which have been conjured in the past will always be conjured in the guiding principle not of rational but of animal behavior.
We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.
The recognition of the law of the cause and effect, also known as karma, is a fundamental key to understand how you've created your world, with actions of your body, speech and mind. When you truly understand karma, then you realize you are responsible for everything in your life. It is incredibly empowering to know that your future is in your hands.
I am no longer the wave of consciousness thinking itself separated from the sea of cosmic consciousness. I am the ocean of Spirit that has become the wave of human life.
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