Sometimes I really don’t know how to respond when people are shocked at humans being blatantly evil.
I feel that it’s horrifying. But I want to just say… you get that we do that, right? It’s not a breakdown or a dysfunction. It’s an adaptation. We all, more or less, tend to wall off empathy when dealing with our selected enemy or prey. Just like any other animal.
Given how nature often works, it’s actually more shocking how empathetic humans can be. Some of us have so much empathy we will avoid predation, or at least try to make our prey comfortable. That’s incredible. There is no other species that does that. Is there? I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure cheetahs don’t stress about the gazelles’ quality of life.
I feel like every scrap of empathy we have is a sort of triumph over the bewildered anxiety that comes with just being alive. Ignorance is our basic state, and violence has an appealing simplicity that can look like wisdom. So we hurt each other pretty much all time.
Which is horrible, because suffering is not nearly as limited as the minds that cause it. We get psyches that have never branched into other perspectives, bitterly indignant when their beliefs are challenged. And some of them blow up, causing damage that can take generations to heal. Mostly because we are just not very good at thinking past the information we are given.
But, you know. Maybe if we can stop saying people are “good at heart,” we can take more credit for how good we can make ourselves be.
It’s three in the morning. I don’t do quizzes.
I believe people are basically good.
I believe people are basically confused.
I would like a cookie.
