> Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing.
I was taught as a child that most people deep down genuinely want to be "good people". If only I had known what an absolute lie that really truly was, I'd have chosen a very different path for my life. Going out of my way to be a "good person" to the best of my ability was a total waste of a life that could have been spent in the pursuit of wealth and power, which I would have been very good at, had I not foolishly chosen to adhere to a "moral code" that was based on fantasy and naivety and a "reality" that just didn't exist as it was taught in schools, churches, and homes.
It's a recipe for unhappiness to believe in either extreme: either that it's a waste of life to try and live by morals, or that one should shun wealth and influence to live a good life (and give up financial security).
I wasn't happy at all to end up associating with people who were zero-sum, transactional, and only valued wealth and fame. That can promote a constant sense of insecurity and lack of trust, which prevents the formation of true connections to others (which I've found to be important).
I've been very happy to find myself with groups of people, in work contexts and elsewhere, who try to care for others while pursuing their personal goals. There's a sense of belonging and security.
Having made similar experiences, I do have to say your conclusion to not be the good person isn't in your own interest, especially, but even otherwise, if your goal is power and wealth.
People like good things. They'll go out of their way to expend time, energy and money to have "good". You could be the source of that good and receive all of these if you try to truly understand others' view of what's good.
Coercive systems do happen, but rarely last, because people will also spend time, energy and money to get rid of them.
Just don't be fooled that there's a universal moral code. What's good for one might not be for another. You might appreciate "Science and Human Behaviour" by B.F. Skinner if you're interested in the mechanics of it.
I think this worked out quite well when there was a societal expectation of conformity in various ways and so everyone's good actions was either directed to the good of everyone or the good of the tribe depending on the person and their sensibilities.
But we started rapidly deconstructing that in various ways and paired with algorithms and an increasingly harsh world on some fronts this barrels towards certain things. When I grew up colourblindness was advocated for and the assumption that migrants here in western europe would not assimilate was considered racist, a gay person would not be questioned, the future was progress with hurdles to tackle.
Now i've never known society as race centered, expecting assimilation is considered bigotry, there's sectarianism of various kinds, i expect the social safetynet to be built down under it's new pressures, increasing homophobic violence in the major cities that saw lots of migration on one end and the culturewar surrounds trans people and the like on the other end, some of the hurdles like the climate seem insurmountable and yet we grow, etc.
It feels like in a drive towards enlightnment we tripped and fell backwards and consequentially I too have given up some tho not all of my views about being good.
What's a "good person" exactly? There are many wildly different definitions.
People do generally want to be good people but it is a fairly basic don't-upset-the-neighbours form of good. You can't rely on them to consider any specific act as being good or bad.
I was taught that a "good person" tries to actually care about their fellow humans and other lifeforms on this planet enough to try to live a life that contributes toward a positive future that we'll all benefit from, while choosing not to support the hatred, greed, and ignorance of those people who would work toward the opposite of that. Problem with that sorta fantasy is that it doesn't exist except in a really rare handful of "mutant" humans who are generally killed (or "destroyed" in other ways) for their beliefs that we could have a "better world" that isn't built on suffering and greed.
Most people do try to live a life that contributes toward a positive future that we'll all benefit from, while choosing not to support the opposite of that. There aren't exactly large groups of people organising around the principle that they want everyone to be worse off. It'd be pointless and they'd get crushed; militarily if needed. Only very fringe groups organise around negativity. People aren't very good at bettering themselves & others but that is clearly the direction they're trying to go.
As for "care", that is one of those unreasonable expectations. You can't tell who cares by looking at them and it doesn't do anyone much good for someone to be caring but incompetent. We get a lot more out of hyper-competent people who don't care but nonetheless do a very good job of making the world better.
Chances are, people are just expressing disagreement with you about what "positive" really means. And/or "benefit", "hatred", "ignorance" etc. Like, not what the dictionary says, but what in practice counts or doesn't count as an example.
Most people do want to be and think they are good people. People have very diverse understandings of what it is to be a good person. Very much rooted in tribalism and self-interest, like most any social animal.
You obviously can not build a cohesive society just by hoping people will want to be good, they have to have a generally shared understanding of what it means to be good.
I have also taken the black pill on society and trust. While I choose to remain true to my moral code, and attempt to improve the lives of those around me, I acknowledge that this is not rewarded in modern society.
No you were not lied to. and thank you for heeding the good advice to not be a jerk.
Whether you see it or not, the vast majority of people /are/ generally good, and more importantly they want to be around other people who value being good, not being a jerk.
Folks who are all about money and power hang in different circles; I can’t speak to their happiness levels, but regular folks steer clear of them and warn others when they get burned.
Stay on the good team. There’s plenty of us and we welcome you. What can I do to help?
Nothing you can do to help me specifically. I'm a lost cause at this point. I see no way back from where I'm at. I literally see zero hope for the future of humanity or this truly amazing planet we were fortunate enough to populate for a short while. If you truly do see some sort of future that doesn't end in dystopia or apocalypse, then you can help by doing everything in your power to work tirelessly toward contributing to that future. That's all. I'd help if I could, but I'm physically, spiritually, and emotionally entirely too "broken" in every way at this point to see any way that I could do anything that would turn any of this mess around in even the slightest way.
Viktor Frankl's body of work deserves a plug. Meaning can be found in the worst conditions, it's quite subjective. With meaning comes contentment. Buddhist teachings also deserves to be mentioned. Suffering comes from clenching to what the external world should be instead of just accepting how it is.
I am reminded of what Fred Rogers would say in times like these.
Fred Rogers often told this story about when he was a boy and would see scary things on the news: "My mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world."
If he were still alive, I'd vote Fred Rogers for Emperor of Earth all day long. One of the rare few humans who I'd truly label a genuinely good person. Not a hateful or greedy bone in that man's body as far as I've ever read, seen, or heard about him. I suspect the same of Jim Henson, too. Probably Carl Sagan as well. Maybe also Neil deGrasse Tyson for a more modern (still alive) example of a "good person" (as far as I can tell)? I believe "good people" still exist, but they're sadly not in positions of "power" (and probably wouldn't want to be). A shame, because the ones we've got in charge of things right now won't be happy until the planet is literally on fire from pole to pole and one of them has all the everything all to themselves...
> Whether you see it or not, the vast majority of people /are/ generally good
I've always found this sentiment to exist exclusively in privileged and overly educated, left wing, Western circles. It is an extension of the philosophy built around tabula rasa, and posits that individuals are not to blame for their actions, but rather society. When someone harms another, it wasn't because they wanted to harm another, but because society failed to instill the correct values.
Even a cursory inspection of history would disabuse one of this notion, but the myth persists. I suspect it's because it clashes with another fundamental privileged and overly educated, left wing, Western belief: that inequality is always caused by injustice. That it cannot be a normal and expected outcome of people making different decisions. This fanciful ideal suggests that we should all be equally successful, with the same possessions and jobs and homes and values.
Back here in the real world, with zero exceptions, we know that power inevitably corrupts even the most chaste and moral of people. Humans are both a product of their environment and possess free will. Both. At the same time. Many people choose to use their free will to harm others, and in places where the rule of law fails, this proportion explodes. This suggests that some very large proportion of society chooses to not hurt others not because of some innate morality, but because of the consequences.
Of course I understand all of this conflicts so deeply with your beliefs that you will choose to dismiss them out of hand. Feel free to consider my comment nothing more than some superficial thoughts.
> Back here in the real world, with zero exceptions, we know that power inevitably corrupts even the most chaste and moral of people. Humans are both a product of their environment and possess free will. Both. At the same time
Isn't it a bit contradictory? If corruption really is an inevitable consequence of power, then there is not much free will involved.
It's easy to think that some people choose to harm other as a result of free will, but even something minor like bullying usually hides some personnal struggle (like home problems, revenge from previous bullying). Even if you take the extreme cases of psychopaths like serial killers, they all have a troubled past and lack of guidance.
Note that I am not excusing their behavior, nor do I claim that all troubled people become psychopaths, but I think in general we should accept that we have much less free will that we would like to admit, and that a lot of our behavior can be traced to a wide range of elements out of our control such as: genetics, epigenetics, culture, immediate family, random events.
> Isn't it a bit contradictory? If corruption really is an inevitable consequence of power, then there is not much free will involved.
On the contrary. Unlimited power allows one to express their free will to a degree most people could only ever dream of. Given all the power in the world, what do humans do with it? Abuse others.
To extend an olive branch, the determinism debate doesn't have a neat answer. I could make compelling arguments for both sides. However determinism isn't just about social conditioning. It also requires accepting uncomfortable arguments about biology and genetics. If one is not willing to accept that humans are born non-equally capable of cognitive and physical tasks, they have no choice but to accept the premise of free will.
Nobody said the entire world is like that. We know it isn't. But I think the parent poster is correct that more people are good than bad in this world.
I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not a good person anymore. Not really. I'm the broken wreckage of what used to be a good person. I want to be a good person, but I was born on the wrong planet, or the wrong timeline, or the wrong corner of the multiverse, or whatever. I don't live on a planet where what I want is even in the realm of possibility. Too much hatred, greed, and ignorance here for the life I would prefer to live.
Not really sure if this was your intention, but you're making a very compelling argument to keep teaching a "moral code" in schools, churches and homes.
I actually think primatology is quite useful here. We aren't that different from other primates. We selfishly attach extreme morality only to things that impact us, which we would never do when we analytically study primates doing the same kind of thing (stealing and killing). To be frank, your kind of comment makes me more suspicious of human morality itself (as a social tool to mask resentment or overcome collective action problems towards some kind of aggressive action) than it does of humanity.
I was taught as a child that most people deep down genuinely want to be "good people". If only I had known what an absolute lie that really truly was, I'd have chosen a very different path for my life. Going out of my way to be a "good person" to the best of my ability was a total waste of a life that could have been spent in the pursuit of wealth and power, which I would have been very good at, had I not foolishly chosen to adhere to a "moral code" that was based on fantasy and naivety and a "reality" that just didn't exist as it was taught in schools, churches, and homes.