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What Makes Men Good?
Nothing. If history has taught us anything, it is that mankind excels at doing bad while pretending to be noble and otherwise.
Sorry to be so pessimistic, but the last century has proved beyond doubt that human beings are not getting better. In fact, the opposite has occurred: we’ve regressed. The myth of progress be damned and forgotten evermore. Sure the last century saw many positive examples of growth – technology and applied science come to mind. And, yes, this growth has been at an unprecedented level too – since 1915 we have had the invention or upgrading of planes, automobiles, vaccines, indoor plumbing, freezers, dishwashers, modern medical advances such as the heart transplant and chemotherapy, television, radio, mobile phones, satellites, and the computer. I could go on and on, but I shall stop where I am. Human technology and its use has been a definite benefit.
But the story of the last century encompasses much more then the good uses of technology. it also saw the rise of three totalitarian threats (the legacies of which are still with us), which nearly wiped out all life on earth; two unbelievably destructive great world wars; genocides (I use the plural because even in our “enlightened age” they occur still); mass torture; starvation; a Cold War (that included multiple actual wars); the unleashing of political tyrannies never seen before, whose great claim was making many of their subjects never to be seen again; the rise of police states to a level Orwell could not envision; biological warfare; chemical warfare; poison gas; gulags; concentration camps; the emergence of religious violence and the deaths of 200 million people. More people died in the 20th century from secular regimes than all the wars in history up until that point.
So why do people seem to think we are improving, that our better angels are calling us home? Many of our secular liberal/libertarian friends seem to think it: Stephen Pinker and Michael Shermer both have written books on the subject. Of course, they are wrong – and the reason can be seen or stated very simply by reference to human history and, more particularly, human nature. Jews and Christians both acknowledge the profound corruption of human nature. Many pagans, who realized the harsh fact that human beings are not good, historically did the same. The very idea that people are good, which is believed by many on the left, is an Enlightenment fantasy dreamed up in 18th century France. It is a very young and wrong idea.
There is a great Russian story about human nature (which Thomas Sowell mentions in his great Dismantling America book):
There is an old Russian fable, with different versions in other countries, about two poor peasants, Ivan and Boris. The only difference between them was that Boris had a goat and Ivan didn’t. One day, Ivan came upon a strange-looking lamp and, when he rubbed it, a genie appeared. She told him that she could grant him just one wish, but it could be anything in the world.
Ivan said, “I want Boris’ goat to die.”
There are variations of that story in many other cultures across time and space. What it lacks in narrative it gains in telling us something profound about human nature. That we have in us something very bad, despite the fact that we’re capable of goodness.
The really odd thing is that the myth of progress – the idea that human beings are getting better and more humane and kind— is beginning to come back with force in liberal mind. No matter the evidence to the contrary, people still return to it. This could be very dangerous. Those who fail to learn lessons from history are doomed to repeat it. And none of us want to see the 20th century repeated. I don’t, anyway. God willing and hopefully…
Published in Culture, History, Religion & Philosophy
Its complicated. Regarding slavery in America, it has been noted that slavery was dwindling until the invention of the cotton gin, which created a huge demand for cotton, and therefor for slaves to work the cotton fields, leading to an invigorated slave market. So, a counterfactual for your claim that industrial progress leads to moral progress.
Industrialization led to worsening conditions for many workers; mechanized agriculture threw many workers off the farms and into poor working conditions in the mills, and caused the clashes of workers and industrialists. It is an advantage of industrialization to have employees rather than slaves, because you can fire them to maintain profitability in a downturn and the employer has no responsibility to the aged or to the children so affected.
You speak about the economics of industrialization in terms of the lower costs of goods, while ignoring the massive social dislocations. Just because we have it good is no reason to sugar-coat the story of how we arrived at our comfortable station. And, when thinking about how good we have it, perhaps we should broaden our view to a global scope and think on the third world experience.
It is a sure-fire element of “progress” that one of the very first products to be industrialized in production was hard liquor, a development that was subsidized in England by government, at the behest of business leaders, to make the unemployed more palliative, resulting in chronic alcoholism that cascades through generations into our own times.
It is easy to be fooled into seeing moral progress of Man when looking at the progress of society, especially when looking at the history of a society that was informed by Christian moral teachings until just the previous generation.
G-d made us to be perfect, holy, loving people in perfect relationship with Himself and with each other.
Our “First Parents” chose disobedience, allowing all of creation to become corrupted by sin, which results in separation, broken relationships, and death.
Inasmuch as we do loving things, say loving things, think loving things, we reflect the good nature of our divine origin. In fact, we cannot help but think loving things, because our very nature springs from the love of the G-d who made us. However, we find that we seldom actually do many of the good things we think of doing; our corrupted state dramatically diminishes our ability to set our own self aside and follow through on all of our good impulses. The more a person focuses on himself, the less capable he becomes of doing good. The further one goes down a path that leads away from G-d, the less inhibition his innate loving nature can apply to limit his capacity to say and do selfish and hateful things.
Writ large, when viewing a society that upholds good moral values that reflect G-d’s intentions, you can see what loving people we have the potential to be. Take a real good look, however, and see the accumulation of broken relationships, selfish and hateful acts, and an ever-present capability to reject all that is good and embrace pure selfishness and pure evil.
This is not to say that non-Christian societies cannot maintain decency and do good works. They also were intended for perfection. Their potential can be seen, the same as ours. We pray that Christian societies will do better, but we recognize that sin corrupts all the good we intend. We try, and fail, and try again. The result is a very mixed record, which is plain to see.
Inasmuch as we do loving things, say loving things, think loving things, we reflect the good nature of our divine origin. In fact, we cannot help but think loving things, because our very nature springs from the love of the G-d who made us. However, we find that we seldom actually do many of the good things we think of doing; our corrupted state dramatically diminishes our ability to set our own self aside and follow through on all of our good impulses.
I like these posts very much, M.J. Bubba. Thank you.
Mike H.: “Even if one assumes humans are inherently wicked, it seems to be a very weak kind of wicked that is easily changed for the vast majority of people brought up in (classically) liberal surroundings.”
No, it is a very grave kind of wicked. Living in a culture that expects and rewards good behavior, and provides uncomfortable consequences for bad behavior, we find it relatively easy to train up our children to live decent lives and do good. They grasp the Golden Rule pretty well. But it is easy to see that, if left to their own devices then it would be glaringly obvious what little stinkers they really are.
The thing is, there are also eternal consequences.
Let’s get personal. Mike H., think on your own thought life over the past week or two, and focus on thoughts you have had about other people: family members, neighbors, co-workers, cashiers, strangers, etc. How many times, when you thought of other people, did a thought cross your mind about some good thing you could do for them, some little act that would brighten their day or ease their road?
Now, how many times did you follow through, and actually do one of these nice acts?
Thought so.
Naturally, Paddy, M.J. , Tom et al, I was awake in the middle of the night thinking about this…
I thought: Maybe we are arguing not so much about the facts on the ground as arguing against complacency on the one hand, and despair on the other? Either might be an impediment not so much to correct thought as to positive action.
If the world is good and getting better…why do anything?
If the world is bad and getting worse…why do anything?
Some years ago, I went to the Holocaust Museum in DC for the first time (if you haven’t been, it is both worthwhile and extremely difficult). There is an exhibit on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Among other artifacts on view is a milk can used by the inhabitants of the ghetto to store and then conceal a collection of letters, records and narratives kept by the Jewish leadership to document the crimes against them and their heroic resistance to deportation and murder. (http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/permanent/secret-archives-warsaw-ghetto/explore-the-objects)
Stuffed full of precious papers, the milk can had been hidden within the ghetto wall like a time capsule. That a group of people surrounded by a merciless and apparently invincible enemy would bother to do this—to throw what amounted to a Hail Mary pass into the future, as if perhaps there might be people out there ready to receive it…this struck me as an act of extraordinary faith.
And, standing there that day in front of the milk can, I realized that their faith was justified. Here we are. Me, plus a bunch of other people standing there beside me that day, reading the documents, marveling at their courage, and grieving for the injustice and cruelty of their deaths.
I doubt the Warsaw resisters specifically pictured a Holocaust Museum, or a middle aged American lady staring at a milk can and sniffling into a tissue. Could they have imagined that citizens of Germany, the children and grandchildren of their tormentors, would be standing next to the American lady, and weeping too? (I found out they were Germans when they asked me to pass the Kleenex).
That moment was a sort of epiphany, and the Warsaw Ghetto milk can has become an icon in my head. If any one episode can serve to confirm the profound, disgusting and surely unalterable corruption of our species, it is the Holocaust (and of course, there are plenty more episodes to choose from). But if our brothers and sisters in the Warsaw Ghetto did not lose faith in the human future, if they were willing to fling that Hail Mary pass with even the faintest wisp of hope that human hands might just be waiting to receive it, who am I to despair?