Am I naive?

[forsyth]

I'm beginning to wonder if part of some of my problems is I always assume people are reasonable and halfway decent and will try to do the right thing if they have the chance and it's not something that hurts them. Evidence that I'm fundamentally wrong about humanity seems to be mounting, though. Which is really pretty depressing.

Comments

[frustratedpilot]

It's the composition fallacy. Assemble reasonable and decent people into a group and the group can do awful things. We're living at the mercy of collectives that have no intrinsic moral compass or ethics. You are NOT wrong about humanity...just that humanity has a blind spot when it comes to this kind of activity.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Torture was actually not the main thing I was talking about in this instance. Or even politics at all. Though that's part of it, of course.

[evilcarp.livejournal.com]

You have to allow for the fact that not everyone agree on what "the right thing" is.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Hmm, a point. Which means the real challenge is convincing people of what the right thing to do is.