Do you believe in the "innate goodness of man"?

Question

Or is society changing our opinions on this one daily?

Answer 1

For the most part, I believe there is innate goodness in everyone.

Watching my very young son growing, I think of this often, with hope and resolve that we are all conceived and born good with the ability to continue on that path. Occasionally, I question my motives for believing this from time to time, wondering if I believe this in order to circumvent a lower-lying fear that it may be possible for people to be born bad. But for what it's worth, here's why I hang on to that belief.

When I look at a photograph of a confessed murderer, I peer into his eyes and wonder what led him to become a killer. I'm almost sure that root causes lie primarily with enivornment. Several years back, I read several books on serial murderers, back to back. One of the common threads among these killers (mostly men), was environment. They came from broken homes with no father figure and the relationship with the mother was dysfunctional.

Which is why, in part, I believe that we are a product of our environment. When parents instill love in and establish boundaries for their children, when they keep lines of communication open, the child stands a greaterchance of growing up with values, empathy and a sense of personal responsiblity.

This means that parents have to actually be there and increasing socio-economic pressures make this difficult for some families to accomplish. Skyrocketing home prices and inflation contribute to this. But even worse, corporate greed trickles down to the consumer, who is made to believe that in order to have a child, one must have a 2,000 sq. ft. house with a great room, and an SUV or minivan to cart mom, dad, baby, exersaucer, playgym, portable highchair, stroller, Baby Bjorn, bouncy seat, pack-n-play and 35 toys around. Somehow my parents managed with a station wagon and five children, though admittedly, seat belt laws were a bit different then. Still, those pressures are conceived, not real.

My husband and I consider many of the above-mentioned items unnecessary and have opted to interact with our child, rather than stick him in a plastic babysitter. Put simply, we engage. We can't see the logic in having a child only to give him up to someone else to care for or something else to entertain him passively. This means much more work for us, but it's worth it, now and in the future.

The innate goodness of man? Sure, I take some comfort in that belief. But only good as long as it's fostered, and that takes commitment.

Answer 2

Yes, I believe in the innate potential of men and women to make a spectacular positive difference to the lives of others - be it on a personal scale or a massive public one. But the thing about having good thoughts and doing good things is there's often a gulf between the two that must be filled with action - and to do that one has to overcome the day-to-day insanity of life, and the innate apathy of man, so not as much of man's natural goodness translates into anything particularly meaningful as could, or perhaps should, happen.

The modern world is increasingly scary - we have 15 year olds stabbing each other to death and 14 year olds writing "murder manuals" and a general increase in disrespect for each other happening over here in the UK, but my wife has a great philosophy:
"As long as people are still getting married, there's hope for the world".
Questionable example, but the principle is good - as long as people are still able to hope, to find enough optimism about the future to dedicate their lives to making one another happy, then the degradation of society will always have a natural limit. I hope she's right.

Answer 3

I don't think people are any better or any worse than at any other time in history. The fact that we have so much knowledge of what happens on every square inch of the globe makes it seem more frequent.
I don't believe in the innate goodness of man by the way. Left to our own devices we are murdering greed heads and need to be taught right from wrong.

Answer 4

I believe in the innate goodness of man.

What I don't believe in is the innate goodness of MEN.

It seems to me that whenever people with similar ideas get together, they tend to want to push out or overpower anyone with different ideas.

It's some sort of sociological thing, I guess. A man, by himself, can be at peace with the universe. But as soon as another person enters the picture, things start to get... not so harmonious.

But regardless, I do think that this inner goodness can only be cultivated by a man, himself. No set of rules or beliefs will do it for him.

Answer 5

I still believe that there is innate goodness in all of us yes, it's just that the bad stands out more. Especially in the news media, bad/sad news seems to dominate and make "good news", while the few times they show someone doing some good it is tacked onto the last 2 mintues of a newsbroadcast or tucked well away in the lesser read sections of the newspaper... With the exception of the recent news about Warren Buffet's enormous donation of course.

Answer 6

Yes I do . People on the whole are nice, I am sorry for the exceptional . The conflict of good/bad has been there from the time unknown & will remain there till eternity . But the reason that mankind still exists is because still good weighs more than bad .
And what other reason can we attribute to this massive interaction . We ask question & give answers because we do believe that there are people who will give genuine answers to our question . Not just that, we also try to give appropriate answer . Everythng is moved by trust , which cant be there if we think that people are not good . Because there can be nothing more wrong than not having any goodness around/in .

Answer 7

I'd lie to you If I just answer "yes" or "no", there are few cases where this could appear to be true, but what I really know is that education can help greately to make it happen, of course, there's no guarantee that with a good education you can have "good" people, but it certainly helps.

On the other hand, it depends also in something we "carry in ourselves from birth", call it genes, inheritance, or whatever you want, but it will also affect us in a good or bad way.

The most important thing here, is that we have something called "Free Will", which allows us to decide what we want to be like and, in case of taking the wrong decision, we are able to change.

Answer 8

Innate meaning "born with goodness"?

Absolutely! I believe that God created everyone equally with the opportunity to become unequal. Or- the opportunity to CHOOSE. Define our own path, if you will. Also, I believe that our strongest power of influence as decent human beings is to lead by example.

I also believe very strongly in the power of influence that presently lies within our corrupt media sources and faulty currency system- the true "roots of all evil"- hence changing society's perception of what is pure.

Answer 9

I believe the innate goodness of man co-exists with the innate evil of man. Just like the yen and the yang, there can't be one without the other. Hence the reason all super heroes have super villains as their nemeses. Shoot, even God has Beelzebub. Good and evil can not exist without each other.

Answer 10

I believe in a combination of nature and nurture. I don't beleive that any human being is innate good but I beleive some posses the ablity to overcome hardship without malice. I think people inherit genetic dispostions from our parents and we learn coping skills from our role models. The clearest example I can offer for my arguement is with the developementally disabled when raised in an enviroment of support and positive nuture they function well with a higher social baseline then those who've been denied that. We're social creatures we need interaction and when we're denied that and left in isolation for whatever reason we become warped. This is complicated by genetic make-up which may predispose a human being to limited or poor coping skills. If innate goodness was the reality of man then the holocaust wouldn't have been so treacherous. The Third Reich under Hitler tapped into the insecurity of humanity in general and a nation speifically and used it to feul one of history's greatest tragedy's. Even in that people stood opposed at great cost to themselves and the same can be said for slavery for some reason people resisted it. I don't think history supports mans innate goodness but it does point to those people who throughout history showed thier humanity in the face of great odds. I think man is innately selfish and must be enlighted some of us have a base of nuturing that makes learning that easier.

P.S Say the word I'll be happy to get my shovel and help bary TGR after you burst every brain cell in his head with your super power mind meld kill with puns secret power.

Answer 11

Not necessarily. Granted, there are people who are absolute saints, dedicating their lives to helping others, even at the expense of the quality of their own lives. Yet, then there are those who have no problem squashing others to get what they want. The most extreme form we see as the tyrants throughout history, i.e. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, to name a few.

Considering the degree of misery in the world today, much of it as a consequence of human interaction, I must say that I disagree in the theory about the Innate Goodness of Humans.