What's your alignment?
meagloth
Member Posts: 3,806
So, I know we've had a few of these, but there hasn't been an active one in a while, and I wanted to see if any things changed. Just to be clear, I'm asking what you think your actual alignment is, not your favorite to play or whatever. You, in real life. Or as real as It gets wham you start using videogames to describe reality.
- What's your alignment?115 votes
- Lawful Good3.48%
- Neutral Good25.22%
- Chaotic Good25.22%
- Lawful Neutral11.30%
- True Neutral11.30%
- Chaotic Neutral15.65%
- Lawful Evil4.35%
- Neutral Evil1.74%
- Chaotic Evil1.74%
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Comments
That said, neutral beings care about themselves, but care about their relatives and those close enough to them too. They are not selfish and so can help their loved ones as well. Good aligned beings care about others regardless of their relevance and relation to them, and help them regardless of the cost to their own. A neutral can help others if it is a small thing, but will not go too far out of his/her comfort zone to do so. A real good person will help others even if it costs him/her time, money, effort or if it requires a sacrifice on his/her part. An evil being will be more selfish and will not care if he harms others or not. Infact, harming others while benefitting yourself is the definition of evil in most situations.
I am opposed to relativism of any kind. The popular liberal notion that that there are no better or worse ways to go about life, that every alternative is just as good as any and purely a matter of preference is, as I see it, dangerous and harmful both to individual, collective and (ultimately) planetary well-being. Actions do have consequences, some better than others. One could say that I believe in sin and karma, though I rarely use those words due to them having become distorted through hundreds of years of misuse. To me, sin is not some obscure religious judgement but the often very tangible end result of following an unsound course of action. There is nothing personal about it. You eat spoiled food, you end up feeling bad in the stomach. You treat other people and living beings as stepping stones or means to ego-gratification, you wind up feeling bad in the end. Since these notions have become quite unpopular in today's do-it-all, have-it-all climate, a lot of people do not even realize that they are stuck in a loop of karmic action. Any satisfaction they find is short-lived and they often feel powerless to act on their higher aspirations. They are aware that something is not quite right, yet they cannot exactly put their finger on what it is. When they go out to seek for answers, the world tells them that what they need is more material possessions or instances of psychological gratification. To me, misdirection is the true evil.
On the other hand, I reject rigidity, dogmatism, authority or any model of thinking that is rooted in theory rather than present-moment awareness. While there are undoubtedly 'better' and 'worse' actions to take, we rarely have the whole picture at the time of deciding. Rather than trying to live up to an idea of a good, righteous, virtuous or spiritual person, it is more helpful to trust our intuition when dealing with life's challenges. Tolerance and forgiveness often trump judgement while humor and kindness are usually more powerful changing agents than any sermon or lecture. At other times, courage and principled, decisive action might be required. Sometimes this means going against established customs, rules, norms or traditions. As long as we stay attuned to our inner moral compass, our actions tend to be pure and sincere as well.
Good=selfless
Evil=selfish
Neutral=confusing.
Maybe dropping the neutral(which doesn't do anything) will help.
Lawful good
Good
Chaotic good
Lawful
Neutral
Chaotic
Lawful evil
Evil
Chaotic evil.
Only CE actively tries to harm others for no reason. NE doesn't care what happens as long as they being it. LE doesn't really make sense :P LN just follows the rules. Nothing else. CN I think was pretty accurately described in a text conversation I had. "Lol I dunno I just do whatever" TN does the "correct" thing. They don't really care if it's good or evil, they just help the weak, or losing side. They don't care whether they're good or evil, they just need help. True neutral is... Hard.
- If you're Good you always help others, even if it involves some form of self-sacrifice.
- If you're Neutral you help yourself unless it involves harming others; you can help others but you're free not to do so if it involves self-sacrifice.
- If you're Evil you help yourself even if it involves harming others.
I don't think evil is merely about actively harming others. That would be only one form of evil, a cruel/sadistic one at that. My bar for evil is lower: I think anyone who's only after his own interests while accepting the harmful consequences of his actions for others would qualify as evil.
Neutral is the most difficult to define I think. True apathy, @Com_Solaufein style, is as Neutral as actively seeking balance for example. I consider myself (Chaotic) Neutral. I'm likely to help others, which is considered "good". But on the other hand I try to be as non-judgmental as I can and I've come to embrace the idea that it's often best to let things be rather than to impose one's will (as good-intentioned as it may be). I forgive, and I tend to rely on karma a lot, much like @Ballad, not as a punishment system but as an invisible law of cause and effect.
That being said, my own views are different from the canon. I think Neutral is often the 'real' Good. Take a look at the following video.
To me the bearded man (Robert Rule) is a great example. I truly admire him, and I think many good-aligned people will. However if he had said what he said about a person he didn't know instead of his own child, he would probably be considered Neutral in alignment terms. Many or most good-aligned people would want to see justice exacted on the criminal and some form of satisfaction for victims or surviving relatives. To me it's the opposite: forgiving, non-interfering "Neutralilty" is what I would call "Good".
After some time passed, and i started eating sit and slaps from life head on, i had a stupid, shallow and twisted metamorphoses into the chaotic evil alignment. I became sadistic, twisted, was happy about learning of others' misery and misfortune, and thought ill and nothing of anybody and everybody else.
When i saw that this was stupid and leading to nowhere, i turned to being chaotic good. I liked general good, but hated laws, because i saw how hypocritic, primitive and needless they are. Only idiots obey laws out of fear. Real men obey laws because they know both good and bad, and can choose with free will, plus NOT blindfolded justice (everybody knows that following laws, many times, ends up against justice itself). But i still was getting things wrong.
Finally, i became a chaotic neutral. Neutral is the wisest selection. Because this way, you can judge without blindfolds and you avoid choosing a side. Because this way, you accept everybody else, just the way they are, and not out of the passive simplemindedness of good people, or their possible hypocricy. Because this way, you do not screw any other side, you are not preoccupied, you are not sheepherded, you are not manipulated. Because this way you savor life the best, just the way it is, and you become open-eyed, misery and drama free. And most importantly? You serve no one.
And this will be my final change. I am going to die as a chaotic neutral character. I hate laws. Because they become tool for the corrupted to rule the gullible and weak. I hate laws. Because i make, i believe, and i follow, my own, unwritten ones, not out of fear, but out of respect for others; respect for others not out of having something to gain in return, but out of using human's best gift... Brain!
I also completely agree with @Blackraven's definition of good/neutral/evil.
But other people, like myself, are merely noncommittal on concerns of good and evil, law and chaos. Sometimes it is due to jadedness, but it need not always be. They are self-centered, but not malicious or malevolent. Mind one's own business, care for loved ones, and stay out of external conflicts. Let the powers that be fight things out and stay away from the collateral damage.
This is why I chose CG and not TN, because I consider myself one of those not exactly reasonable individuals who keep fighting windmills against all odds. I value calm stability, but external calmness is unachievable without inner peace - and the other way around. As they say, if you're not even slightly angry at the world, it means you're not paying enough attention. But anger is not enough, what matters is what you do with it.
I like to think of myself as good, so Chaotic Good it is.
I used to think I was angry, or should be angry, at the world. Then, as I delved deeper into various subjects like history, religion, and the like, I became increasingly dispassionate even as I became more learned and knowledgeable. That I majored in Statistics probably contributed to this, since statistics reduce everyone to a number, including myself.
In any case, I see the world as being functional with or without me, nothing is new under the sun, and it is always "meet the new boss, same as old boss". Not terribly motivated to move the status quo any way. Just give me a wide berth to police myself, do things I enjoy (reading, learning, etc.) and have a couple of guilty pleasures (like watching SPN :P)
there is a train coming down the tracks at a family of four. The family cannot move and the trains brakes are broken, but there is a large man that you can push onto the tracks and stop the train. It feels wrong to actively kill someone, but you're saving four people.
Though thinking about it I bet any alignment could have a justification for doing that.
I generally agree with you, but I simply couldn't live without asking questions - while realizing that most of them are pointless, but still hoping to find the right one. I think I can appreciate so called small things, I value personal comfort but living without a tiny bit of rebellion would make no sense. My experience says: I can make difference, it will not necessarily be praised in worldwide news, but that would actually be kind of awful, so.
Wow, this topic definitely doesn't need a butt paladin and I hope it stays this way.
Have you ever considered that... the real True Neutral person may also not do anything?
If you are good, you are all about the greater good. Often times that means helping others, but it isn't necessarily about that. Sometimes it is about shoring up the whole rather than the individual. In any event it is about making a positive difference for society as a whole and the world in general.
If you are evil, you are more about self serving goals and furthering your own agenda. Evil isn't 'Necessarily' the Snydly Whiplash of the world. They aren't always about pulling the wings off flies and kicking babies just for fun (that's more psychotic than actually evil). They are more about what they can get for themselves by any means necessary.
Neutrality is basically what it sounds like. You are neutral. you don't get involved. You aren't a goody two shoes going around helping everyone. You also aren't the type that would screw over your neighbor for a percentage. You do your thing, you don't go out of your way to help or harm others and you aren't all about getting 'For You'. You are just middle of the road.
Neutrals should be the hardest of the alignments to play, contrary to what most people think. It is HARD not to get involved and help people. It is tough to not be selfish and greedy. And it is darned tough not to do either for the opposite reason. It's like standing on a precipice where the right hand plunges you down towards evil and the left hand (or vice versa) towards good. It's a slippery slope on either side.
I'm afraid this "thought experiment" does not prove anything. Its main purpose is to be a wet dream for the questioner as he imagines himself asking this question and the answerer is seemingly put in a spot
@winters
A True Neutral person may call 911. But he may also ignore this entire thing. It's not his role to play god and he may even do nothing if he sees himself as having withdrawn from this world, i.e. he's a non-actor in the course of events.
Some time ago I would've happily described myself as Lawful Good though, and quite religious at that. But then things and stuff happened, and it turned out that blind following of laws and religion that are actively discriminating against people is not what I strive to do.
My lawfulness is more in terms of personal dogma rather than following society. Again, it's something I aspire to so maybe I'm more of a TN. But as the Order of the Stick says, "trying is important".