Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

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2021-11-29 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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bad
Votey panel for bad
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Explanation

This comic examines moral judgment and how people evaluate whether humans are fundamentally good or bad.

In the first panel, someone asks: "Are humans good or bad?" The response: "Neither. We're group oriented." The second character asks: "As long as I'm convinced humanity is made up of a single decent but flawed person at a base level, I'll keep going."

The second panel continues: "So if you convince me that humans are part of a continuum, part evil, by God I'll eat their livers to make them pay." This escalation reveals the dark irony: the speaker claims to believe in human goodness, but the moment they're presented with evidence of human moral complexity, they immediately resort to extreme violence -- thereby proving the very point about human nature being complicated.

The third panel shows the punchline with a figure saying "And I didn't even claim the liver," highlighting the absurdity. The character who asked the original question about human nature is now the one demonstrating humanity's worst impulses.

The comic satirizes how people who loudly proclaim belief in human goodness often have the most extreme reactions when that belief is challenged. It also plays with the philosophical question of group morality versus individual morality -- the initial answer ("we're group oriented") is probably the most accurate, suggesting humans aren't inherently good or bad but are highly influenced by tribal dynamics. The violent reaction to moral complexity proves the "group oriented" thesis: the speaker defaults to aggression the moment their in-group moral narrative is threatened.

View History (1) Original Comic