People are truly good at heart? Sadly, no
This fixation on stopping bad things — as opposed to stopping bad people or bad behavior — goes beyond keeping air travel safe from al-Qaeda. On the international stage, it shows up in campaigns to reduce strategic arsenals and destroy nuclear warheads, regardless of the moral caliber of the governments possessing them. …
More recently, the shrill demands for more restrictions on guns in the wake of the Newtown massacre have been a classic illustration of the phenomenon. …
It is fundamental to the Judeo-Christian outlook that human beings are not naturally good. “The intention of man’s heart,” God says in Genesis, “is evil from his youth.” To use the Christian formulation, man is “fallen.” All of us are tugged by conflicting moral impulses, and whether we do the right thing or the wrong thing is up to each of us.
Peace, justice, and compassion are not the natural human condition. With rare exceptions, criminal violence can’t be blamed on external culprits. Murder isn’t caused by poverty or gory videogames or low self-esteem – or guns. Nor are wars caused by nuclear missiles, or al-Qaeda terrorism by box cutters. We fool ourselves if we imagine that by fixating on missiles and box cutters we can avoid reckoning with the cruel side of human nature.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
“Son, stocks may rise and fall, utilities and transportation systems may collapse. People are no damn good, but they will always need land and they’ll pay through the nose to get it! Remember,” ~~ Lex Luthor’s Dad
Rocks on January 3, 2013 at 9:55 AM
We say, “I’m not as bad as most people,” but we don’t hold ourselves up to the only good standard, which is God’s.
Someone asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment.
He answered that it’s to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, & strength.
Do you do this all day, every day?
Neither do I.
We fail at the greatest commandment, & we fail at many others.
itsnotaboutme on January 3, 2013 at 9:55 AM
Oh my a rational thought…imagine that people are not good at heart!
PierreLegrand on January 3, 2013 at 9:57 AM
Well now you have done it…atheists outrage in 3,2…
PierreLegrand on January 3, 2013 at 9:58 AM
Define the terms “good at heart”, and “people”.
Mimzey on January 3, 2013 at 10:04 AM
Christians and Jews have known this for thousands of years.
Logus on January 3, 2013 at 10:26 AM
Part of the reason the left is so fixated on this stuff is because of the concept of the New Soviet Man, an outdated idea that remains highly influential in leftist thinking today. It inherently assumes that man is “perfectable” and essentially rejects the concepts of human nature depicting man as an inherently flawed.
It is no surprise to me that societal paradigms which accept the nature of man as flawed and try to adapt and mitigate the evil of men are far more successful than societal paradigms which assume man is a computer which will do everything “right” if only they are programmed properly.
Doomberg on January 3, 2013 at 10:26 AM
A bad question, and like the gun control debate, misses the point. But it is instructive to note this is the same type of thinking that created the term “assault weapons” (no such thing, there are only weapons that are used either for assault or defense) which Jacoby goes on to excoriate, but for a different reason, i.e. that they are just things.
In short, man is neither good at heart nor bad at heart. Man is rational and has a free-will. It’s what he does, not what he is, that is either good or evil. When man fell in paradise, it only showed he is not perfect.
Dusty on January 3, 2013 at 10:29 AM
Oh c’mon now. We all know that liberals really are good at heart. It is only murderers, rapists, conservatives and white evangelicals who are evil and even the murderers and rapists would be good if it weren’t for the conservatives and white evangelicals.
DaydreamBeliever on January 3, 2013 at 10:33 AM
I’ve only known it for a half century or so. Okay, I’m being a smart alec, but I do have a point. If you don’t “train the child in the way he should go” then things tend to deteriorate.
Fenris on January 3, 2013 at 10:33 AM
I’ve only known it for a half century or so. Okay, I’m being a smart alec, but I do have a point. If you don’t “train the child in the way he should go” then things tend to deteriorate.
[Fenris on January 3, 2013 at 10:33 AM]
Good point. One aspect of Catholic belief is that, to say it simply, good is knowledge and evil is ignorance.
Dusty on January 3, 2013 at 10:40 AM
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9), pretty much sums it up.
jackmac on January 3, 2013 at 11:21 AM
Exactly. The progressive idea is that with enough money/education/laws/whatever, men will become angels. Which is why a study of history is so important. Of course, the progressive answer (much like their answer to Socialism failing everywhere it has been tried – including the Soviet Union – is that it hasn’t been tried “properly” yet) is that all those folks in the past *didn’t* have enough money/education/laws/whatever. This time it will be different.
The conservative answer is to buy guns and wait for the inevitable downfall, then to scrape together the pieces and start over building a society where it is safe for progressive stupidity to take hold again.
GWB on January 3, 2013 at 11:28 AM
The Bible says all men fall short. Throw away that, and you get a modern Democrat, who argues all men are equal, except those who would rise above other men
I like to blame the French for the current delusions sweeping the West.
In Rousseau are all the foundations of modern liberalism, and to be a Rousseau, you must be a religious squish
Man will be good, if you keep from him all the tools with which to be bad
Without the Bible how do you persuade any man he too is fallen? Many like Rousseau, will find an explanation that makes themselves the exception.
entagor on January 3, 2013 at 12:01 PM
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
Richard Romano on January 3, 2013 at 12:41 PM