Are People Basically Good or Bad?

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I’m pretty much of a news freak. Having worked much of my adult life as a journalist, I still read the local daily newspaper religiously. I read other national newspapers online. I watch the evening news on a national network. I read the news presented on my home web page.

I cannot NOT read it or watch it.I believe knowing what’s happening in the world is important. (Actually American news organizations provide very little news about “the world.” It’s only about us – the U.S.) 

But I must admit the news gets wearisome. It’s hard not to get the impression that the world is going to hell. I have to remind myself about news values – what makes something newsworthy.

A Break from the Normal

According to the textbook I used to teach journalism at a state university, there are two major criteria: that the news represents “a break from the normal flow of events, an interruption in the expected” (“Man bites dog”), and that it’s “information people need to make sound decisions about their lives.” 

When you’re repeatedly seeing or reading “interruptions in what is expected,” you’re going to see a lot of bad things, or what you may perceive to be bad. And if that happens over an extended period, you may get the idea that most people are dreadful.

But is that actually the case?

I’ve been reading the book “Humankind” by Rutger Bregman, a popular Dutch historian and author. He believes crises bring out “not the worst, but the best in people” and that points to humans’ inherent goodness.

Rutger Bergman
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He illustrates with the “stiff upper lip” of the Brits during WWII. London and other parts of England were subject to “the Blitz,” the merciless bombing that lasted from September 1940 to May 1941. Whole neighborhoods were obliterated. An estimated 43,000 British civilians were killed and another 139,000 were wounded. The Nazis’ intent was to break the resistance to a planned invasion.

But the British took it all in stride and remained determined and united in their resistance. Bregman quotes an unnamed historian: “British society became in many ways strengthened by the Blitz. The effect on Hitler was disillusioning.”

Yes, we may think, but that was “the greatest generation.” We are living in an age of self-indulgence where people think only of themselves. Anything bad that happens will bring out the worst in people, showing that humans are bad by nature.

That’s what Bregman calls “the veneer theory,” that humans have a veneer of civilization but when disaster strikes, it’s every man and woman for him/herself.

Bregman cites the Titanic catastrophe, the attacks of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina’s disastrous impact on New Orleans. In all three – and many more catastrophic cases – he writes, people reacted with overall kindness and sense of unity and solidarity.

So Much Solid Evidence

“Catastrophes bring out the best in people,” he writes. “I know of no other sociological finding that’s backed by so much solid evidence that’s so blithely ignored.” The conclusions we draw from the news are “consistently the opposite of what happens when disaster strikes.”

And now we have the pandemic and the brutal killing of an innocent black man by police. How have people reacted?

In the case of the pandemic, many have become bored and impatient with self-quarantines but overall people have shown selflessness, kindness and understanding.

As for the murder of George Floyd, there’s been a lot of positive activity. Young people, especially, have taken to the streets to show their support for people of color and demand that nothing similar is ever allowed to happen. Demonstrations have sometimes looked like partying, and there have been a few looters and destroyers, but overall, people have shown courage in their demand for change.

All this is important in our search for God. The Bible and traditional religious teaching insists that we are made in God’s image. When we reject that notion, we ARE left to our worst selves.