A Humanist might say that people are on average good. I agree. People are on average good, but there are people who are on average bad. The average of all people is good. There are more good people than bad people. Some people are bad people.
Unitarian Universalism, the church in which I was raised, espouses the Inherent worth and dignity of every person. I think this still leaves wiggle room in that it says that no one is completely bad, but doesn't rule out that someone can be, on final summation, a bad person. Until we have a better system by which to quantify the goodness of people, it will have to be an article of faith where to assume the mean and median of Humanity's goodness. I still would like those figures to be on the slightly good side.
Unfortunately, it is a universal truth that it is easier to destroy order than it is to create it. Thus, if the dividing line between the good people and the bad people is good but too close to neutral, humanity can still dig itself into a cesspool. It may be that the bad people wield more destructive power than the good people wield creative power.
For instance, I recently have witnessed several art projects left in an incomplete state in the common areas of a college dormitory. For the most part, people were good, did nothing to actively harm these projects, and went a little out of their way to avoid damaging them. But, left out for long enough, about a week, something happened. Either a malicious or uncautious person happened, undoing much of the creative work. I don't know if there was evil intent in the destruction, but for the moment I will lump stupidity and incompetence as evils of people and be able to come to a conclusion that there was insufficient good to successfully create these works of art before humanity's evil destroyed them.
Incompetence and stupidity are very valid evils. Read through a history book and find out how many accidents precipitated greater disaster. Read through a war book written by a victor which outlines the blunders of the enemy. The victor likely had fewer blunders, and that was a contributor to the victory. If you can find a good treatment of the topic, read about the victor's blunders and the heroic creative (if war can be called that) acts needed to make up for them.
I think the balance of Humanity's goodness can easily be placed far on the good side, if you don't include incompetence and stupidity. I think those evils have been rising though, and the balance is falling dangerously close to the point where evil's destructive power outweighs the creative power of the people. This is what happens when a society becomes decadent and ultimately self destructive; the balance falls and the net creation of order is negative. Either creative output falls, or evils rise, or both.
I think the world today, at least as I see it in North America and the USA, is suffering mainly from rising evils. I think predominantly it is the passive evils of incompetence and stupidity. Statistics are kept pretty well on overt evils that the law deals with. These statistics say it has gotten worse, and sometimes a little better. I'm not alarmed by these statistics. Statistics are kept quite well on the creative output of people, all the better to tax it. These statistics are all on the up and up. Statistics completely miss the mood of the people. There are a few things, like how many millions of people watch "Beavis and Butthead", "The Tom Green Show", "The Man Show", "Jackass", etc. There is no way to tell what message people take away from "South Park", "The Simpsons", etc. There are a sort of statistic on how people are getting their basic education. These statistics worry many people, including me, but then some people complain that the tests are invalid measures. Oh well, they're better than nothing.
Suppose that an average American gets a High School education that leaves them in an overall mediocre state of education that is basically enough to get by but little more. Now be afraid that half the people are below average.
Bell Curve time: most of the people are pretty much in the middle of the distribution. The distribution is over a person's net Good-Evil contribution to the world. If the center moves even a tiny bit to one side, the effect is enormous. I suspect the distribution is not symmetric but has a long tail on the Good side. There are a few people doing much more than average Good in the world and they are what is holding the balance against the tendancy for Evil to get more work done.
The Moral Of The Story: move the center towards good by combating on a wide scale the evils of incompetence and stupidity. The war will be waged in public schools and mass media.
Good night.
Brian Olson
20010506 03:33:29 EST5EDT