Most people are pretty good. I live in central London. Scowls everywhere. But smile or say hello to complete strangers, which I sort of do, all the time, and 99% of people smile or wave back. All races, all types, all ages. Occasionally you get blanked, but hardly ever. People like saying hello. Not saying that makes everyone’ good’, but one thing is for sure, people like people.
I don't think we know how humans are, really. We know them in a slave-system where they have adjusted to a slave environment, been lied to, divided, gaslight and put under constant pressure. We know at least from this, humans are highly adaptive! Given the conditions and ubiquitous lies, I'd say we're pretty remarkable.
Funny enough - just replaced my mailbox couple weeks ago. (I wonder if there is something significant in the symbology of that?)
We're all born with a sin-nature into a broken world. Unless natural desires are appropriately mastered, we remain in that state. We all have innate personality characteristics and a wide spectrum of experiences that can shape our behavior patterns, but the choice to do good or evil is always present.
It's like the tale most of us have heard from Native American lore, there are two wolves fighting inside you - one good, one evil. The one you feed is the one that grows stronger and wins - roughly speaking.
I would argue that if all neighbors had a strong fence and a well stocked gun safe, society would be more civil. Especially if we would all carry, as well.
I don't think people are naturally good. I do think there are a lot of good people. I think they need to be taught goodness, or at least taught to control their own base impulses.
If you watch kids, good just doesn't come naturally. Some people are more inclined to it than others. But a child raised in nature will do whatever is necessary to survive. We live in a bubble that makes being good easier.
And "being free to do good" is the classical definition of freedom.
I note in myself a tendency to completely forget good times and good instances when they aren't actively happening.
When I'm depressed, for instance, I have to remind myself that it actually hasn't 'always been this way.'
I think this tendency to strongly imprint negativity is to avoid repeating mistakes or taking risks. But when things are actually pretty good and there's time to complain, that tendency makes it easier to harp on how terrible people or life or the world is. I have to make a more active effort to focus on goodness and the positive in order to balance out my sensitivity to badness and the negative.
I kind of think the worst people have the hardest time seeing the goodness in the world. I think as humans we tend to do ill when we're afraid of negative consequences or when we believe that nobody else has ever done right by us and we'd be a sucker to try to do better. Or if you already feel like you're irredeemable, then why try to do better?
It helps me when I think of myself neutrally, simply a person, and reframe it as a capacity for both good and evil-- I do good things and evil things, I am not inherently good or evil. It helps me take responsibility (can't completely disown my poor choices 'because I'm a good person', can't demonize someone else 'because they're a bad person') but it also takes some pressure off. When I feel like 'a bad person' I can get stuck in a hole where I feel irredeemable. But if I'm just a person, then all I can do is identify 'bad choices' and avoid them.
I think it's fair to say most of us are in the middle, as you say. It can be positive and humbling to realize we're all doing our best-- and it's neither terrible nor outstanding. Room for improvement, room for failure.
Things have changed with me and how I look at things lately. Im finding it hard to be friendly to people that support a man that took showers with his 12 year old daughter, for sexual reasons. Ok some people don’t realize he was showering with his daughter and that he raped Tara who was helping him while he was a senator. Does a person that bashes one candidate while ignorantly supporting a child pervert have any responsibility to make better informed decisions? Should I ignore this because they told me I don’t pay attention to it and I don’t want to know? I’ve always tried to help people if I can, even the people that supported the child molester. One instance a while back, I stripped and reroofed their whole house for free, as a neighbor and friend. Today I would think long and hard about helping them in this way. If they knew how I felt because I’m informed they would like to see me in the gulag I bet. I must add, I am not part of the side that has politically tried to jail people for their political thoughts. In need of some direction. J.Goodrich
What a nice neighborhood you live in! Loved seeing your pretty snow photos - we don't get snow in Georgia.. maybe a few flakes in the air that never settle! Very nice to see that people can get along politely and respectfully.
When 4% of the population is sociopathic, the rotten apples theory certainly rings true. Institutions would be full of sociopaths who had sought out power positions. So it sounds like Rousseau and Locke would have been saying basically the same thing, but Locke took it down to the unit of the individual, which sounds a lot closer to how you would think that through, Chris.
I was scanning my own comments history and came to the ones we exchanged on this post, last week. Between then and today we took our camper out for a weekend with the grandkids. You’ll never guess what I did while returning it to the storage facility down the narrow streets of our neighborhood on Sunday….
Ok, so you guessed and yes you are right. It was one of those plastic things sculpted to look like a brick structure. Surprisingly the box survived without and real damage but the 4X4 post snapped off cleanly and perfectly at ground level. It was mounted in what must have been a full 80 pound bag of concrete. After ten minutes of trying to dig that blob out whit my trusty sharpshooter I moved over about two feet and dug a new hole. Sand is a much better filler than concrete.
Funny. I live off a very narrow street that has no sidewalks,, and deep drainage ditches on both sides, and on the rare occasion when two vehicles might be going in opposite directions and need to passby each other there is just barely enough room if one is not oversized.
My driveway is slightly more than a half mile from the road and my mobile home around 4/5 of that distance from the road. Delivery truck drivers sometimes did not want to walk that distance with
any packages and so they would drive in and attempt to back out and twice knocked over my mailbox.
But the companies didn't offer to pay for repairs. Instead I complained to the P.O. and they repaired the pole and box because they own them, not me. But now the delivery drivers always walk the packages from the street to near the porch, or sometimes on the porch if they are not overly heavy. I suppose that was via instructions from the P.O.
The comments here have been pleasantly thought-provoking for me. Lately I’ve read so many ugly comments on other pages. Thank you Christopher Cook and all (most?) of you commenters for a dash of sunshine.
If a large percentage of the population don’t love themselves or treat themselves with goodness, how can they possibly treat others with same? Mental health statistics today would indicate that we’re a fairly deranged society. I’d say that overt acts of goodness and kindness are indeed rare and should be celebrated as you have.
Wow!!
I love the new black mailbox. It’s so snazzy!!
I do believe people are good.
How we treat others is dependent on how we view ourselves. ❤️
Most people are pretty good. I live in central London. Scowls everywhere. But smile or say hello to complete strangers, which I sort of do, all the time, and 99% of people smile or wave back. All races, all types, all ages. Occasionally you get blanked, but hardly ever. People like saying hello. Not saying that makes everyone’ good’, but one thing is for sure, people like people.
I don't think we know how humans are, really. We know them in a slave-system where they have adjusted to a slave environment, been lied to, divided, gaslight and put under constant pressure. We know at least from this, humans are highly adaptive! Given the conditions and ubiquitous lies, I'd say we're pretty remarkable.
Funny enough - just replaced my mailbox couple weeks ago. (I wonder if there is something significant in the symbology of that?)
Thanks, Chris.
We're all born with a sin-nature into a broken world. Unless natural desires are appropriately mastered, we remain in that state. We all have innate personality characteristics and a wide spectrum of experiences that can shape our behavior patterns, but the choice to do good or evil is always present.
It's like the tale most of us have heard from Native American lore, there are two wolves fighting inside you - one good, one evil. The one you feed is the one that grows stronger and wins - roughly speaking.
I would argue that if all neighbors had a strong fence and a well stocked gun safe, society would be more civil. Especially if we would all carry, as well.
I don't think people are naturally good. I do think there are a lot of good people. I think they need to be taught goodness, or at least taught to control their own base impulses.
If you watch kids, good just doesn't come naturally. Some people are more inclined to it than others. But a child raised in nature will do whatever is necessary to survive. We live in a bubble that makes being good easier.
And "being free to do good" is the classical definition of freedom.
I note in myself a tendency to completely forget good times and good instances when they aren't actively happening.
When I'm depressed, for instance, I have to remind myself that it actually hasn't 'always been this way.'
I think this tendency to strongly imprint negativity is to avoid repeating mistakes or taking risks. But when things are actually pretty good and there's time to complain, that tendency makes it easier to harp on how terrible people or life or the world is. I have to make a more active effort to focus on goodness and the positive in order to balance out my sensitivity to badness and the negative.
I kind of think the worst people have the hardest time seeing the goodness in the world. I think as humans we tend to do ill when we're afraid of negative consequences or when we believe that nobody else has ever done right by us and we'd be a sucker to try to do better. Or if you already feel like you're irredeemable, then why try to do better?
It helps me when I think of myself neutrally, simply a person, and reframe it as a capacity for both good and evil-- I do good things and evil things, I am not inherently good or evil. It helps me take responsibility (can't completely disown my poor choices 'because I'm a good person', can't demonize someone else 'because they're a bad person') but it also takes some pressure off. When I feel like 'a bad person' I can get stuck in a hole where I feel irredeemable. But if I'm just a person, then all I can do is identify 'bad choices' and avoid them.
I think it's fair to say most of us are in the middle, as you say. It can be positive and humbling to realize we're all doing our best-- and it's neither terrible nor outstanding. Room for improvement, room for failure.
Things have changed with me and how I look at things lately. Im finding it hard to be friendly to people that support a man that took showers with his 12 year old daughter, for sexual reasons. Ok some people don’t realize he was showering with his daughter and that he raped Tara who was helping him while he was a senator. Does a person that bashes one candidate while ignorantly supporting a child pervert have any responsibility to make better informed decisions? Should I ignore this because they told me I don’t pay attention to it and I don’t want to know? I’ve always tried to help people if I can, even the people that supported the child molester. One instance a while back, I stripped and reroofed their whole house for free, as a neighbor and friend. Today I would think long and hard about helping them in this way. If they knew how I felt because I’m informed they would like to see me in the gulag I bet. I must add, I am not part of the side that has politically tried to jail people for their political thoughts. In need of some direction. J.Goodrich
What a nice neighborhood you live in! Loved seeing your pretty snow photos - we don't get snow in Georgia.. maybe a few flakes in the air that never settle! Very nice to see that people can get along politely and respectfully.
When 4% of the population is sociopathic, the rotten apples theory certainly rings true. Institutions would be full of sociopaths who had sought out power positions. So it sounds like Rousseau and Locke would have been saying basically the same thing, but Locke took it down to the unit of the individual, which sounds a lot closer to how you would think that through, Chris.
I think that the majority of people are good and decent. Most people that turn do so out of desperation…
I like the idea of symbolism.. maybe by creating a new receptacle for input we might get something different..?… maybe less bills!! LOL
Thank you!
I was scanning my own comments history and came to the ones we exchanged on this post, last week. Between then and today we took our camper out for a weekend with the grandkids. You’ll never guess what I did while returning it to the storage facility down the narrow streets of our neighborhood on Sunday….
Ok, so you guessed and yes you are right. It was one of those plastic things sculpted to look like a brick structure. Surprisingly the box survived without and real damage but the 4X4 post snapped off cleanly and perfectly at ground level. It was mounted in what must have been a full 80 pound bag of concrete. After ten minutes of trying to dig that blob out whit my trusty sharpshooter I moved over about two feet and dug a new hole. Sand is a much better filler than concrete.
Funny. I live off a very narrow street that has no sidewalks,, and deep drainage ditches on both sides, and on the rare occasion when two vehicles might be going in opposite directions and need to passby each other there is just barely enough room if one is not oversized.
My driveway is slightly more than a half mile from the road and my mobile home around 4/5 of that distance from the road. Delivery truck drivers sometimes did not want to walk that distance with
any packages and so they would drive in and attempt to back out and twice knocked over my mailbox.
But the companies didn't offer to pay for repairs. Instead I complained to the P.O. and they repaired the pole and box because they own them, not me. But now the delivery drivers always walk the packages from the street to near the porch, or sometimes on the porch if they are not overly heavy. I suppose that was via instructions from the P.O.
I like your story much better.
The comments here have been pleasantly thought-provoking for me. Lately I’ve read so many ugly comments on other pages. Thank you Christopher Cook and all (most?) of you commenters for a dash of sunshine.
If a large percentage of the population don’t love themselves or treat themselves with goodness, how can they possibly treat others with same? Mental health statistics today would indicate that we’re a fairly deranged society. I’d say that overt acts of goodness and kindness are indeed rare and should be celebrated as you have.
They need space in the middle from the evil side.
Unfortunately you’ll need some of the Dark siders to keep them at bay. Good can easily be tricked by decency, kindness, Laws, misplaced mercy.