Commenter Richard Saunders has written:
I’m wondering where the stupid idea that people are inherently good got started. Until fairly (in historical terms) recently, everyone understood that the basic rule of human conduct was, as Thucydides put it, “The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.” Was it Rosseau? Marx? And why would anyone believe humans were inherently good when all of human history shows the opposite?
I thought I’d take up the question.
Very briefly and incompletely.
It’s an old old question: what is the nature of humanity? I can’t say whether Rousseau was the first to push the “good” idea (I doubt it), but he certainly was a big one for popularizing it and spreading it. Rousseau was the inspiration for much of leftist thought, and his basic idea can be very roughly summarized as the conviction that humankind is born with a kind of innate goodness and that it is society and its institutions that have gotten in the way.
This thought can lead people in any of several directions. One of those directions, for example, could be the formation of small Utopian communities that don’t seem to do all that much harm to anyone (except perhaps some of their members) although such groups usually have a rather short life.
Rousseauvian ideas can lead instead to those who work with a larger canvas, or would like to do so: anarchists of the leftist variety—that is, people who dream this sort of dream:
…a future society that replaces private property with reciprocity. In this society, no one owns things. People do not work for money to buy things. They do their work because it is the best for society and the things they need are given to them without cost. It wants a society where there is no one in charge. Each person does what they need to without others to lead them.
Good. Luck. With. That.
But at least the people who seek those ends don’t ordinarily propose to put into effect an all-encompassing police state to effect their lofty and unattainable goals. They are anti-statists, although in the highly unlikely event that their dream ever began to be implemented, they might change their minds on statism in a hurry when they saw the chaotic results of anarchy in action.
Totalitarian control by the state, or something close to it, is another option for the Rousseauvian point of view. It is the province of Communism and the nearly-obligatory end point of Socialism.
And now I’m going to leave politics, and I’m also going to skip what the ancient Greeks or Hindus or Buddhists thought or think about whether humankind of innately good (although please feel free to explore all of that in the comments) and cut right to viewpoints of Christians and Jews.
Now of course, neither Christianity nor Judaism has had a single unitary opinion about this. Different branches of each religion give different emphases to different aspects of human nature. But this is a simple summary of the basic Christian attitude (from Billy Graham):
From one point of view, the Bible says, we are basically good—that is, we were created in the image of God, and every human being bears within them something of God’s image or character. We aren’t like every other creature on earth; we know right from wrong, and we know human life shouldn’t be thoughtlessly destroyed. We are infinitely valuable in God’s eyes! The Bible says, “You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5).
But from another point of view we are basically bad—and the reason is because we have rebelled against God and chosen to live only for ourselves. The Bible calls this “sin”—and like a deadly cancer, it has infected our souls and twisted our bodies and minds. Evil lurks just below the surface of our hearts, and threatens to turn us into moral and spiritual monsters.
Judaism says something somewhat similar, although there’s much less emphasis on sin as “a deadly cancer” and more on sin as a failure to hit the mark:
On the question of human nature, as in most areas of abstract belief in Judaism, there is a lot of room for personal opinion. There is no dogma on the subject, no required belief about the nature of humanity…
In Genesis 2:7, the Bible states that G-d formed (vayyitzer) man. The spelling of this word is unusual: it uses two consecutive Yods instead of the one you would expect. The rabbis inferred that these Yods stand for the word “yetzer,” which means impulse, and the existence of two Yods here indicates that humanity was formed with two impulses: a good impulse (the yetzer tov) and an evil impulse (the yetzer ra).
The yetzer tov is the moral conscience, the inner voice that reminds you of G-d’s law when you consider doing something that is forbidden…
The yetzer ra is more difficult to define, because there are many different ideas about it. It is not a desire to do evil in the way we normally think of it in Western society: a desire to cause senseless harm. Rather, it is usually conceived as the selfish nature, the desire to satisfy personal needs (food, shelter, sex, etc.) without regard for the moral consequences of fulfilling those desires.
The yetzer ra is not a bad thing. It was created by G-d, and all things created by G-d are good. The Talmud notes that without the yetzer ra (the desire to satisfy personal needs), man would not build a house, marry a wife, beget children or conduct business affairs. But the yetzer ra can lead to wrongdoing when it is not controlled by the yetzer tov…
People have the ability to choose which impulse to follow: the yetzer tov or the yetzer ra. That is the heart of the Jewish understanding of free will.
And of course, another difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Christianity believes that accepting Christ as one’s savior is the way that leads out of the sinfulness of humankind. Judaism relies on personal free will and a decision to follow the yetzer tov, “the moral conscience, the inner voice that reminds you of G-d’s law.”
[NOTE: In a somewhat related matter, I refer you to my discussion of a famous and somewhat relevant passage in The Diary of Ann Frank:
Most of us have read Anne Frank’s diary, or at least parts of it, in some form or other, and even those of us who did not are probably familiar with at least a few of its quotes, the most famous of which may be Anne’s observation: “in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
It’s instructive to look at the quote once again, embedded in its original context. When we do, we find it to be far more complex and dark than it appears when as a single famous sentence standing alone…[emphasis mine]:
…”It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually turning into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”
Anne Frank seems to take the long view. Hers is a consciously willed optimism that takes into account some of the greatest horrors the world has ever known, and includes her own untimely death, which she correctly foresees. Whether the peace and tranquility she ultimately envisions are temporary or permanent, and whether they are of this earth or beyond it, her message has nothing of the innocence or simplicity of a trusting child, although it has often been portrayed that way.]
