A Lesson on People

Here's a key lesson I've learned about people...

People are fundamentally good.

I know that its an age old question that has been pondered by philosophers for centuries. They've often asked if man is fundamentally good and noble or is he fundamentally evil and corrupt. My answer is that man is fundamentally cooperative and wants to do, what he considers to be, good.

We have to recall that man is fundamentally a monkey and is, at his core, ruled by the same principles as all animals pursuing certain key goals

1. Survival of the self
2. Survival of the species
3. Perpetuation of the species

Like all animals, man interprets these priorities and brings them into action in ways that are appropriate to himself. All organisms do this; a violet pursues these goals by having natural immunities, turning as it grows to find the best sunlight, sending out roots to find nutrition and spreading its seeds; lions do it by killing prey, defending against predators, nursing cubs, and developing mating strategies to ensure survival. The violet cannot use the techniques of the lion nor can the lion use the techniques of the violet. For them to do so would be suicidal.

Likewise, man must use the techniques available to him. Since we have such massive brains, what is an appropriate way of living for us is far more complicated than what is appropriate for animals. One of the complicated survival mechanisms we have is our social drive and our communication skills. The social drive is one of the reasons we have the need to have moral codes: simply put, we need to agree on certain standards of conduct to allow us to know what the rules of cooperation were. These rules would vary from culture to culture and society to society but they are always there.

Essentially, moral codes of conduct are ingrained in us so we all want to do good. It doesn't mean that we always do good...but we all want to do good, whatever that code of good behavior is.

I've known a lot of cynics who would disagree with me. Frankly, for a time, I didn't think man was essentially good either. Frankly, I was a bit of an asshole when I was younger so its no surprise. I've noticed something about those cynics though; in general, they aren't happy people and happiness is my ultimate measure of success. Sure some of them may have made more money than me or maybe they got prettier dates than me etc. True, some of them had greater success than I did in certain areas of life but the one trait they had in common was that they simple were not happy people.