Body Modification

Body modification in terms of tattoos and piercings is normally perceived as an act of rebellion and deviance. Yet mostly people use them as a form of expression and have them because they mean something. People who undergo plastic surgery however act on the belief that they are unhappy with the current look of their body. I would not deem body modification as a necessarily bad thing but it is the stereotypical view of some people that such things are symbols of deviance and frown upon it. It is also shown on TV as people who are going against society, convicts, rebels, and general baddies all have tattoos and piercings. This is of course not true yet people do seem to be tarred with the same brush because of their appearance. I however do not believe that the way people look should be a judgment on their character although because of social norms it is hard not to.

Drugs

I think that pretty much all people would agree with the view that drugs and the taking of them are bad. Yet there are some things that are legal that do more damage. Weed for example is a lot less harmful than smoking yet smoking is still legal and very popular.
The effect that drugs have on you is never positive, yes it may feel that way for the time your taking them as with being drunk but afterwards the real bad feelings kick in like a mega hangover. However technically nicotine is an addictive drug as is alcohol yet both are legal even though beer and spirits can have bad and sometimes dangerous side effects to those that drink it and those around those who've drank it.

Bad Comedians

Bad comedians is a topic that is hard to define as being good or bad. Yes they say a lot of pretty bad things about people both alive and dead (Princess Diana, Michael Jackson) but they only do so in a manner that is light hearted no matter how satirical and full of pretend malice some of them may be (Frankie Boyle in particular).
The good thing about comedy is that you can say things that you normally could never get away with in the real world like most of the stuff in Family Guy and Mock the Week. The thing with comedy is that it is not intended to be taken seriously and so should not really offend too many people although it clearly does a lot of the time but I personally would still not classify it as being bad.

Outlaws and Bandits

Over the years there have been many outlaws and bandits both real and fictional who have captured our hearts in either the news or on film. The role of the loveable rogue seems to be very popular in modern society.
All the way from the days of Robin Hood right up to the Clint Eastwood days of "Dirty Harry" and "The Man With No Name" we have all loved to see a good guy dressed in a bad guys image. Even now we have Sawyer from TV series LOST and the new, darker James Bond films.
However in real life what these people are doing is classed as being bad and more often than not they are breaking the law. In recent news the great train robber Ronald Biggs has come up for bail yet a lot of people hold the view that they shoud just let him go now he's so old. Yet he evaded the law for so long that the authorities are adamant that he complete his sentence.
I think what it all boils down to is the fact that we all respond best to the bad guy in all of us because its one thing we all have in common. Though all of us aren't "good" we all have the ability to or already have been "bad". And that's the appeal, someone who seems cooler is normally someone with an edge to them, someone that is not just a one dimensional character with only the thoughts of upholding the law and justice of others in mind. Because we're all a little bit selfish we all would like to see someone do what we'd want to.
I think being bad in this scenario is a matter of point of view rather than right or wrong, black or white.

Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy, to my mind is one of the most exasperating, illogical and bad thing to have to put up with. You will have most likely experienced this element of being bad in your home as a child because I would guess that at least nine out of ten parents are hypocrites. It is the "do as I say, not as I do" thing that parents put you through as a child. You can't seem to make sense of what it is you are meant to do in life because all of the things you are not meant to do they either have done or are still doing.
Yet parents are not the only ones skilled at this level of "being bad", politicians and celebrities are brilliant at it too. Only last night Prince Charles held a conference about climate change and the need for the Human race to recognise that we are destroying the Earth. Yet he flies around in his own private jet!
But by far the biggest hypocrites of them all are the religious. The Bible alone is filled with thousands of statements which it goes back on later on. Just one such example of many without going into a religious rant is that if men and women were created equal why are women seen as subservient in the bible? Why is a woman's place at her husband's side?
To conclude, hypocrisy is just another one of the elements that make up being bad that has no reverse side.

Spite

On a smaller side note I would also just like to mention spite briefly because I don't feel that it and jealously are as inclusive as they may appear. Jealousy could be a reason for someone to be spiteful but also the person who has the thing the other person wants can in turn be spiteful to the person who wants it. Acting out of spite is normally akin to being selfish; it is normally subtle and sly in its actions and can still have devastatingly horrid effects on the person it is aimed at. Just like Jealousy, spite fits in excellently in this module. It is truly, to "be bad".

Jealousy

The act of being Jealous or acting out of spite of someone else is not against the law or really commented on unless it ends in murder. Jealousy is quite simply Human nature. It is out of this instinct that small children act all of time.
Whenever you see two children playing together one of them will inevitably snatch the toy off the other one and it will either result in tears or a fight. However what is really sad about this flaw in our makeup is that it still happens when you get older. People will scratch your car out of jealousy, slander your name out of spite of who you are and it either ends in tears or with a fight, which, in turn, leads to a court hearing.
There are other more serious acts of jealousy which constitute as being exceptionally bad. Someone may wish to kill you because you have everything they could never hope to have, they may kill your children out of jealous rage or your wife or husband because they feel that he/she should have been rightfully theirs.
The good thing about looking at jealousy is that there are no two ways to view it. To be jealous to whatever degree is always a bad thing to do and is so inescapable and so, though it wasn't discussed in class, it fits perfectly with the module.

Gambling

Gambling is seen by many who are practicing Christians as a sin, not just bad but actually sinful. But i'm sure we can see why. If a person gambles and develops a habit as a few people I know have then they usually (unless they're James Bond) go into debt.
They start seeing going to the casino as actual work and start falling behind on payments for bills and things that they actually need instead of working hard and saving their wages for proper things instead of losing it to the casino. God knows I've suggested often enough that they may as well just give it me who could use it!
The people in question actually have a daughter whose needs are not being met because of their lack of money and it has gotten so bad that debt collectors have come to the house on a number of occasions. And, for those of you who don't know, debt collectors aren't the nicest of people, not really the best conversationalists.
However gambling as a whole is not really being that bad, its only for those people who develop a habit and have to go. Those of us who have done it a couple of times for fun on the off chance we might win or have put a pound in a slot machine at the pub really have nothing to worry about. If there is a God i doubt very much if he'll cast you into hell for the sake of a few goes on the slots. It is not illegal to gamble yet, as with most things on the module there is a lot of social stigma attached to the act that makes it appear a bad thing to get into.

Cheating

Cheating is a topic we never got to do on the module, perhaps I suppose because many forms of it are illegal yet I still feel that I should cover it in this blog.
Cheating is bad no matter which way you look at it, but just for a minute suppose that it is necessary for your continued progress at a school, college or university. If you knew you could pass but couldn't for some reason revise, would it be so bad to cheat a little to continue your survival at that place in order for you to gain a better quality of life through education?
This is something that I brushed upon on the section about stealing. Is it ok to steal to feed your starving family as it says in the Bible? Surely this same view can be applied with cheating.
Of course there are worse forms, just like lying. The most recent form of cheating on the news was the MP's cheating the tax payers by spending their money on islands for their duck ponds and trouser presses (the most essential requirement for a British MP) during the recession. There is also the cheating linked to gambling and relationships. To "cheat" in a relationship is wrong as we have already said previously in this blog and surely in a casino it would be the same, robbing people of their fair chance to win money that (if it wasn't for you) would have been rightfully theirs.

Telling lies with integrity

Whether the ability to lie is a bad thing is a hard thing to put a yes or no answer to. It's not so much a black and white category subject like some of the others discussed in the Being Bad topic because there seem to be everyday uses and occasions where it is right to lie.
There are a number of categories that lies can be broken up into; one is the "white lie", possibly the most popular and most frequent lie told every day. When your wife or girlfriend asks you if she looks nice in her outfit, if it makes her look fat or not, if she needs to diet you say "No, you're just fine, you don't need to loose weight, I love that outfit!"
Yet what you're actually thinking is that she needs to lay off the chow and buy some bigger clothes. But you would be right to lie to save her feelings (and an enormous row). There are others of course, things you'd say to save feelings, to stay in a job, to seem interested, more interesting or just to save face or argument.
Then of course there are the more serious lies, lies that get others into trouble, those that pass the blame and those that just straight out deny the truth of your actions. These lies are the lies that sit well in the module, the very backbone of what it is to be truly bad. Because behind every single aspect of this module there lies a lie.
To answer a question that came up earlier in the module, I do not think that if everybody always told the truth then the world would not be a better place. If friends could not lie to each other there would be no friendship left, if men and women could not lie about looking at other men or women there would be no relationship, if nations could not lie to each other then there would be war because there would be no secrets between them and everyone would be in danger. Lies are told by governments all the time, yes sometimes it damages us but most of the time it keeps us safe. Ignorance is bliss.
To conclude I feel that there are two kinds of lying; the white lie and the bad lie. But when it all comes down to it I think that it is only the latter of the two that really classifies as "being bad"

Masturbation

In the past there seems to have been a rather large taboo surrounding the act of masturbation. It was considered an act of grave indecency and could even lead to physical illness. It would kill brain cells making an imbecile out of the men that did it and severely cripple them.
It was also condemned by many religions as are many things, yet surprisingly there were some that condoned it and even included it in their religious texts. In Egypt it was considered an act around which life depended, from which the River Nile flowed by the hand (and indeed penis) of Atum the Sun God and also from which came forth brother and sister Shu and Tefnut. However other religions said that the act of masturbation was a sin and should not be carried out. According to one religious text it was "concentrated evil" that spewed forth during masturbation.
Now however with the benfit of science and a less "old testamant" view on the world we realise that the function of masturbation is nothing other than natural, sure there are (as seen in class) some damn bizarre ways of doing it but... each to his own. The strangest experience I myself have had was back at secondary school when word got out about two year nine kids doing it under the table in History.
I personally feel that the act itself is a natural function of the body, without such a function there would be an end to us all. The organs are designed to be used to carry on our race; how much practice you get in in your own time is your business.

Infidelity

I found infidelity one of the more interesting topics we discussed in the being bad module. Not only did it open up avenues to explore other elements of being bad but it also gave us a chance to have another look at the examples kindly submitted to us by other members of the class.
In itself infidelity is bad, full stop. However within it we discover all of the different elements of being bad that make up this particular deed. Indeed as was mentioned in class the act of infidelity does itself encapsulate many other themes of being bad that we either brushed upon or went into in greater detail; lying, scheming, hypocrisy, using people selfishness, risk taking and exploiting others weaknesses for personal gain.
According to Annette Lawson however there do appear (from certain points of view) to be good points for what would appear to be such a heinous act. Lawson claims that women gain a certain amount of power that they normally lack as well as growing materially, in confidence and sometimes learning to control their marriage.
I however disagree with this being a positive view on what is essentially something that destroys relationships and makes crushing blows on families especially when there are children involved. The impact on their lives the aftermath can have can be devastating. To use a clique I would venture that honesty is the best policy.

Stalking

There are many varied forms of stalking but all of them boil down to the obsessive need to follow the actions of a certain person past the point of what is socially acceptable and normal by societies standards. One type of stalking is the obvious crazed psychopath version of films and news horror stories of past boyfriends or classmates gone wrong. However a much more accepted and everyday occurence is the stalking of celebrities by the paparazzi. Where is the line between the two sorts? When is it ok and when does interest become obsession? Personally, like most other people I feel that the private stalking of ordinary people by a certain member of the public is essentially wrong and is in fact "being bad". The stalking of the press however seems to be a much safer one as their intentions are absolutely clear. They are not there through a disturbing obsession with the person but only because they have a job to do and it is how they and the papers and magazines they work for make their money. An example of mass media coverage is of course Michael Jackson and all of the massive publicity he got from his strange lifestyle. Yet private stalking and its dangerous effects are shown with cases such as the shooting of TV personality Jill Dando. An apparently random killing for no reason yet she must have been followed for some time for the killer to know her schedule and daily timetable. There appears to be a fine line between what constitutes as stalking that classifies as being bad and that which is media stalking whose results sit in every household across the world.

Shoplifting

Shoplifting is a subject that I think we all understand is wrong. Morally what it boils down to is theft and is therefore against the law. There are still of course moderate degrees of shoplifting that are deemed to be less serious. Stealing a Kit Kat will not be held in such a high regard as our classes CD pilferer, yet both crimes are essentially the same thing, you're just taking less money from the person supplying the goods. There are of course biblical connotations to this such as the ten commandments that say that stealing is wrong yet the story about the man who steals bread to feed himself and his starving family is seen as perfectly fine (providing of course he doesn't get caught). This is a strange one as myself and another student commented in class because though it is a very strict taboo to steal there seems to be lax rules surrounding it. When compared to internet downloading which basically everyone in the world does illegally it doesn't seem as bad but it is exactly the same thing. You are taking a persons trade for free hence making them lose out on money they are trying hard to make.

Prostitution

The third week of being bad we were given kind of a free roam session where we all flung our thoughts around however important and beneficial or just downright hilarious. Prostitution is essentially being bad, I think we would all agree but is it not the people who are not prostitutes themselves who allow this type of behaviour to continue? We learnt from week one of the topic that someone in our class alone had had sex with a prostitute! I myself have varied views on the topic. No i don't think people should do it but the person supplying themselves as a product must have a damn good reason for doing so. Because, lets face it, out on your own at night with naught but a fur coat on can't be that safe and there is no telling who the consumer might be...

Smoking

I don't really remember my first experience of smoking but i can hazard a guess. It was most likely over some park/field or other with my school friends about five years ago. Since this time i have tried to quit about 1786549 times and am still successfully failing at dropping the old habit as we speak. Why people smoke despite the financial and physical cost we pay is a question I dont ever think we can answer, though it was raised often in the discussion we had in class. It's not so much that it's hard to quit for me it's more a case of boredom that makes me want to smoke, especially when drinking through the night at parties that begin to get tedious as soon as everyone turns up. However for most people the addiction is too much and it becomes just an everyday part of life and does not seem to bother us that even the packet itself is screaming out in horror that it could kill you. As for me, knowing that what I am doing is harming me irreversibly there is still something about it that is appealing. Who knows, maybe its just the "cool factor"; Rockstars, actors and other famous characters can be just a big an impact as nicotine can on impressionable people.

week 1

The first week of Being Bad was really fun with each of us writing down something bad taht we've done on a piece of paper and the sharing them out like some kind of bizarre raffle. It was exciting to hear your own secret get mentioned (especially by the person sitting in front of you as mine did) and it made it fun to see everyone's reactions to different peoples "badness". It was also very interesting to see just how many bad things were done by a group of apparently the more intellectual people from society. All in all I think it was a very interesting an worthwhile experiment to do with that amount of people and it was so different to anything else I have ever studied.

Being Bad Field Trip

Field trip to Joseph Fritzls house anyone?