Are People Good, Bad, or Somewhere in Between?

Stefan Veljković, Writer & Translator |

Some of the greatest minds that have ever breathed argued that civilization presents a convenient facade for the human race. They claim that – without civilization, institutions, and culture to curb our ambitions – we would gladly engage in destructive, vile, and tyrannical behavior.

For instance, the father of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud, asserted that we are “nothing but a band of murderers.” Was he right? Or are people good by nature?

The Elephant in the Room

For a long time, I was a staunch advocate of the every-man-for-himself and survival-of-the-fittest schools of thought, but maybe not as adamant as Mr. Freud. Yet, the signs of our vicious behavior appeared everywhere around me: war, starvation, fraud, dying children, you name it.

What’s more, I gleefully ridiculed all those who made the case against such a disgusting image of humankind. I rallied with my fellow cynics against the gullible dupes who thought the world was fixable or not irreparably deranged. God, it felt so good!

In fact, the data was overwhelmingly on our side. Just look at the 20th century and all the affliction we have caused to each other. World War I? A senseless bloodbath. World War II? Even worse.

“How then is it possible that you ask such a question, Stefan? Are people good, bad, or somewhere in between? Really?” my well-intentioned readers might inquire. Maybe not all 8 of them, but at least some.

In any case, the answer to this question seems unequivocal. Yes, people are horrible creatures born into this world to kill, rape, destroy – take a quick break – and then kill, rape, destroy anew. Rinse and repeat.

It’s so unmistakably apparent until it wasn’t. Are people good is a difficult question to ask, but let’s get to it since you’re already here.

The Harmless Killing Machines of WWII

The Second World War often surfaces as the prime example of humanity’s inhumanity (pun intended). Gas chambers, massacres, mass rape, exploitation of forced labor… the list is endless. Okay, not really endless, but you get my point.

The bloodthirsty Germans wreaked havoc on many nations of the world, with the Brits at the center for some time. You would expect that the prime cause of death of British soldiers would be enemy soldiers, but look at the analysis by John Ellis, who compiled The World War II databook:

Chemical weaponry: 2%
Explosions, blasts: 2%
Landmine, a seemingly harmless object filled with explosives: 10%
Bullet, anti-tank mine: 10%
Mortar, grenade, aerial bombardment, hand grenade: 75%
Enemy soldiers: 1%

If you already haven’t noticed, one thing connecting all British victims is that the enemy killed them from afar. So they weren’t annihilated in close combat but perished due to someone pushing a button, throwing a bomb, or planting a landmine.

To top it all off, thanks to what we currently refer to as crystal meth, the German troops managed to occupy Paris in 1940. The Nazi’s top generals had to figure out how to dampen people’s natural repellence toward violence, so they just gave them methamphetamine. It worked!

Similarly, American officers forced their subordinates to engage in cruel exercises in the Vietnam War camps. In fact, they forced soldiers to shout “KILL, KILL, KILL” to the point of exhaustion. Therein, they attempted to diminish any sense of empathy for the enemy.

Thus, for the US troops stationed in Vietnam in the 1960s, the question are people good would result in this answer: Yes, except for the Vietnamese.

As author Rutger Bregman brilliantly put it: “Killing in wars is something that is mostly done from a distance. The entire development of the military technology could be described as a process of increasingly expanding the distance between frontlines of the warring sides.”

That’s because we don’t like to watch as we erase another human being from existence. Simple as that.

But how have we come to create such a gruesome self-image in the first place?

Why We Think That All People Are Inherently Evil?

Of course, we often opportunely forget that we belong to this club called the human race. When we ask ourselves ― are people good? ― we tend to think of others, not ourselves.

We imagine other people’s inclinations, desires, wrongdoings. Because it’s never us who do the bad stuff. It’s always somebody else.

If you just look at the news, everything will become evident. We are a disgrace. Oh, wait, maybe that’s it – the goddamn news!

Information about the most unspeakable acts plagues our newspapers and TV channels. What are we supposed to think after reading a breaking story about a construction company-induced fire laying waste to a Brazilian favela? Or how about a mother burying her newborn after she couldn’t stand the baby’s crying?

Or maybe you should read the news piece about the hundreds of African children who starved to death this year just because some mega-rich business execs didn’t want to give up on one billion dollars from their bottomless treasuries.

It’s only after ingesting this information that you can tell me all about how humans are great. Are people good? Fuck no!

I wish it were as simple as that. Actually, what about all the progress we have made in the past 100 years or so?

World literacy used to be around 20%. Today, it’s approximately 85%. More people can read, write, and consequently get better jobs and live longer and healthier lives.
Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scores have been rising at a rate of about three IQ points per decade. Yes, we’re getting smarter.
In 1900, women could only vote in New Zealand. Today, they can do so in every country where men can vote – except for the Vatican. But who cares about those guys anyway.
From 1800 to 1950, child mortality worldwide has halved from 43% to 22%. Since 1950 the mortality rate had declined five-fold to 4.5% in 2015. So, small children aren’t dying nearly as much as they used to.

Hopeful Data in Action

Of course, you don’t expect all of that hopeful data to get the most attention. Not on social media or anywhere else, for that matter.

As an article from Vox’s Max Roses states: “The media is overly obsessed with reporting single events and with things that go wrong and does not nearly pay enough attention to the slow developments that reshape our world.”

So, how do you escape the vicious cycle? Want my secret advice?

“Oh, yes, please bestow your wisdom upon us, my liege,” my pesky readers are heard cheering in the background.

Well, here it is. Firstly, cut your daily news intake by 100% immediately. If the news is essential, it will get to you through family and friends. Resist FOMO.

Secondly, read in-depth articles and books that provide detailed data and give you a better, more nuanced perspective. Lengthy articles and books take longer to write and publish, so it’s more likely that they skip the everyday hype that daily news outlets are subject to.

How Many Human-Like Species Have We Killed?

But what about the period in time when news didn’t exist in its current form? Say, a few thousand years ago. If we were to suddenly travel to the year 180,000 BC, are people good there? Are they better than us?

Our school system teaches us that our ancestors engaged in perpetual warfare before seeing the light at the end of the tunnel called civilization. That all those who lived in the last 200,000 years were more or less war-mongering barbarians who slaughtered, raped, and killed everyone on their path.

In fact, it is practically common knowledge that hunter-gatherer societies were particularly fond of violence before they invented agriculture some 12,000 years ago and started settling in places rather than constantly being on the move. But from where do we get this perception anyway?

According to the book War, Peace, and Human Nature, “The fact that there is extremely limited empirical evidence of any warfare among past hunters and gatherers is pushed to the wayside as an intellectual inconvenience.” How opportunely that we chose to ignore this fact!

Long Gone

Scientists have established that at least five other hominids lived alongside us some 50 thousand years ago. These include homo erectus, homo floresiensis, homo luzonensis, homo denisova, and homo neanderthalensis.

So, where are they now? Extinct! The logical conclusion is that we wiped them out.

However, the highly probable theory that experts overwhelmingly accept posits that we, homo sapiens, were more adept at handling the harsh climate of the last Ice Age that persisted until about 11,700 years ago. And we were the only ones to survive it because ― and check this out ― we developed the ability to cooperate!

Okay, not bad. So, it turns out we aren’t serial genociders. Woohoo!

For some strange reason, it’s easier to believe that we are evil by nature. Alternatively, trying to get to the bottom of the question – are people good? – implies that we need to override our intuitive thinking and change our beliefs.

News flash: We’re remarkably lousy at that but let’s give it a shot.

How to Be a Better Homo Sapiens Immediately

All this brings us to the initial question with historical implications: Are people good, bad, or somewhere in between? And can we do something about it? I’m glad you asked!

To be better at being human, we need a life vision, something to strive for, habits, goals, or whatever gets you out of bed in the morning. (Hopefully, it’s not the annihilation of nations as with the Nazis.)

If you start from the premise that most people are mostly good, decent human beings, it’s more manageable to enhance their existing nature. So, here are two practical techniques to become better.

Apply the gravestone technique. There, you think about what you’d like your gravestone to say about you. A caring father and loving husband? Inspirational teacher? The most devoted doctor in the world? A prolific writer who everyone wanted to quote? A person who offered the best advice ever?

Once you decide on what you want your gravestone content to state, act in that direction. It will help you behave in ways that are conducive to being a good person. And I’m not saying that you already aren’t one.

Practice the Wikipedia technique. There, you try to imagine what people will write about you in the popular free encyclopedia. And then just behave accordingly.

It doesn’t mean that you need to go into a vicious cycle of agonizing about perfecting your next step in life. But think about it occasionally to see if your behavior syncs with what your Wikipedia page will declare one day.

These two simple yet effective techniques will help you focus on what truly matters and the ultimate footprint you’ll leave behind.

Are People Good All the Time?

But surely not all people are good constantly? That’s not what I said.

A tiny minority are terrible at being human, while the vast majority usually make decisions that they can live with. Actually, scratch the latter.

The Nazi generals slept pretty soundly after their extermination campaigns. Likewise, most dictators probably didn’t even think twice at the sight of their troops’ pillaging operations.

What matters here is not how they felt and if they could live with their decisions. Because, ultimately, many of them thought that they were doing the right thing:

Exterminating the Jews, Roma, and others because they are filth poising the Arian race,
Killing the gays, as they are desecrating the sacred temple called the human body,
Amassing wealth for the God-chosen ruling family because the underlings exist for the very purpose of serving the king, president, father of the nation, whatever.

They all had reasons to justify their actions. But the thing is that their justifications weren’t good enough for most people.

In fact, the vast majority of people were worse off for their rulers’ actions. Hence, we can’t reasonably maintain that their deeds were justified just because they had good intentions. Because virtually anyone can profess to have good intentions and insist that they want “only what’s good.”

Final Thoughts

When in doubt, simply scan through Sam Harris’s idea about the worst possible misery for everyone. Because, if there is such a thing, we should strive to diminish it so as to have morally and intellectually satisfying lives.

If there is something like the worst possible misery for everyone, that means that there is also something like the best possible well-being for everyone. So if we agree there are such things as these two spectrums, we can work to alleviate one and enhance the other.

Finally, I love when I get to say that some insanely famous and brilliant person was wrong. Sorry, Mr Freud, but we are not “a band of murderers.” You should have curated your news feed better or at least assumed positive intent. So, are people good? Heck yeah, we rock!

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