Argumentative Essay: Are People Born Evil?

The question: do I think everyone is evil? Or does everyone turn evil? Eventually, I realized it’s not that intense. I just mistook the two sides of the question are people born violent or are influenced to be violent to each side’s extreme. Later on, I also found it wasn’t that simple, either. I remember when hearing about this assignment by upperclassmen, I immediately thought it was nurture-- people are born with blank slates and, by examples in their environment, begin to turn violent. How could someone be born evil?

Throughout the initial stages of research of this question, I was more inclined to believe that people are born with some characteristics, making them influenced by nature, but their behavior by birth was a blank slate. The first piece of evidence that confirmed my existing pro-nurture belief was a class discussion/Do Now about where we think violent behavior comes from, where I said violence comes as a result of aggression, which is natural, but having violent reactions is led/inspired by examples of

I know kids who have suffered abuse by their fathers, and in all three cases, they’ve chosen to move past it and come to terms with it, not making them resort to violence as Golding’s thesis would predict. I also read a book by Stephen King called Under the Dome where a whole town is trapped under this impenetrable dome. The townspeople go crazy, in accordance to Golding’s thesis, many such as the police department resorting to violence and oppression to control their people. Yet, I also take into consideration the fact that the good people in the story were good before the dome, and the bad people also were bad before. My point here is that the isolation from society brings out one’s true self--to protect and serve others or yourself. Although my opinion has been influenced by this unit, those I’ve learned in my real-life experience I value