People are Born Bad and Have to Be Taught to be Good

A lesson America has forgotten                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 [Open in browser]( [People are Born Bad and Have to Be Taught to be Good]() A lesson America has forgotten [John Hawkins]( Sep 10 This meme that has been floating around [on Facebook has more than 200,000 likes](. When you read through the comments, it’s pretty clearly being looked at as a shot at Christianity. The majority of comments seemed to be, unsurprisingly, from atheists. Here are some fairly representative comments from those people: "I met a man like that once, the only thing keeping him from hurting others was that his religion told him not to, those folks are truly terrifying that they even exist." "As an atheist I hear this often. "Well how do you live without morals and values?" As if living in fear of burning for eternity is the only thing that could make a person have values." "You can still have morals and not have faith. If you need a book to tell you how to be kind to people, you are the problem!" There are problems with this way of thinking that are worth addressing because they’re part of an important lesson that our ancestors understood very well, but that many modern Americans seem to have forgotten. To begin with, we’re a fallen species. All of us are born bad. All of us have a natural tendency to be, in the words of the meme, a “piece of sh*t.” You don’t think so? You think babies are innocent little bundles of light and joy? Well, when a baby is hungry or poops his pants, what does he do? He screams until you take care of him. Is he thinking about whether that’s convenient for you or not? Is he worrying about your life or how mama feels right now? Is he going, “Mama sure did look tired. Maybe I shouldn’t wake her up at 3 AM just because it would be better to let her sleep?” No. He’s only thinking about himself and what’s good for him. There’s a reason you have to teach babies to share. There’s a reason my next-door neighbor had to teach their very small child that it was wrong to hit their dogs. It’s because babies are born as raging narcissists and like dogs, they have to be given rules, boundaries, and limitations to thrive. Speaking of dogs, my last two have been some of the sweetest-natured animals you will ever run across. I like to say that “They love everybody and everything.” Of course, there are a number of squirrels, cats, frogs, and birds that would probably take exception to that statement because both of those dogs absolutely LOVE to chase smaller animals. I think that’s largely because they take pleasure in terrifying smaller, weaker creatures. What do you think dogs are doing when they play with a squeaky toy if not simulating smaller animals crying out in pain as they bite into them? A friend of mine who lives on a farm had some dogs that started doing the real thing with goats. They would get loose and chase the goats so they could clamp onto their ears and enjoy their terrified screams of pain. Do you really think human beings have better and kinder natures than dogs? Most people certainly don’t and I’m with the majority on that one. Across the board, across cultures, human beings tend to do whatever they can get away with and come up with the justification afterward. For example, do you really think there’s anyone in history who didn’t understand the moral implications of slavery? Do you think there were really people anywhere that didn’t look at a slave and think, “Wow, it would suck to have someone capture me, force me to work for them without pay, and hurt me if I don’t do what they tell me?” Yet, where did it happen? Almost EVERYWHERE from the dawn of time until Christians in Britain and the United States decided that they needed to try to put a stop to it. By some estimates, there are still [40 million slaves in the world TODAY](. You don’t think people know that’s wrong? Getting beyond slavery, even when people know what they’re doing is bad AND they face severe punishment, they still often do bad things. They’re cruel, they lie, they steal, they cheat, and they even sometimes kill innocent people. This is the nature of human beings. In fact, the real mystery is not human beings behaving badly, it’s human beings that don’t behave badly. Why are there good people at all if it’s not their nature? It all comes down to a single word... Keep reading with a 7-day free trial Subscribe to Culturcidal by John Hawkins to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives. [Start trial]( A subscription gets you: Paid subscriber only posts & special bonus posts. Have input into the topics I write about. A weekly Q&A session once we hit 100 members. A members only forum at 500 members. © 2022 John Hawkins 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 [Unsubscribe]() [Get the app]( writing](