Innate Goodness, and Why I Don't Care

Are humans innately good? Are humans innately evil? I ought to have an answer for this. After all, a nice vague definition of humanism would be that I "believe in humanity." Seems I ought to have a firm grasp on what I believe in, and where humanity stands on the moral compass matters. I've been challenged on this point of humanism by Christians, who insist that the evil in the world proves humanity's evil. What tidal waves say about God's innate moral compass, they don't tend to say. But let's be honest here: the idea that man's tendencies are innately immoral form a key part of standard Christian doctrine. They say we live in a fallen world, where original sin travels by bloodline, and their philosophy supports it. After all, isn't evil simply the absence of God? Clearly, then, only divine intervention provides any goodness at all.

I find all this a bit ludicrous, and take a more optimistic viewpoint. However, one subject must be broached when discussing any philosophy of human moral behavior, theistic, pessimistic, optimistic, whatever: the Holocaust. I'm not invoking Godwin's Law, here, I'm serious. Something about the Holocaust sets it far apart from other examples of mass violence. People will talk about Genghis Khan's death count, or Stalin's purges. If they really like to pull the whole "not so different" thing on Western culture they'll bring up Indian removal/smallpox. What sets the Holocaust apart, though, is the pointlessness of it. Jews (and gypsies and homosexuals and others, I know) were not threats to the Reich.The death camps were secrets, so no political power was gained as with the initial demonization of the Jews compared to Stalin's purges. Jews were already so persecuted as to lack significant property holdings--this was no land grab or economically-motivated genocide, like Indian removal. In the later years of the war, the Holocaust impaired the German army logistically--trains that could have carried troops to the front lines were instead packed full of undesirables. Hitler knew that effect. Hitler's commanders were aware of it. Yet the death camps remained open and operating even while they crippled the war effort. And for what? To punish, for crimes that never happened. To "cleanse", as if a group of people were a stain merely for common heritage.

It's not  hard to make the logical leap from "if Holocaust, then human beings are bastards." How else do we explain it? How else do we come to terms with the fact that hundreds of apparently normal individuals willingly participated in the mechanistic extermination of strangers never shown to pose a threat to them and with no promise of material gain? What lurks in the hearts of men to permit that?

It's not hard to make the logical leap from "if charity, then human beings are kind-hearted." How else do we explain it? How else do we come to terms with the fact that millions of apparently normal individuals willingly participated in the physical reconstruction of Haiti, in the service of strangers never shown to offer an advantage to them and with no promise of material gain? What shines in the hearts of men and women to promote that?

Each of those paragraphs describes the same species. Certainly, differences exist. Nazi brainwashing is exactly as destructive as it sounds. Yet, many in Nazi Germany resisted the treatment of Jews. Many risked their lives, despite growing up in the same society. They were outnumbered, true. But this only proves my point: a potential for good exists in all circumstances. Let me quote Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett for a moment:

It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.

Thinking of people as "innately good" or "innately bad" reflects a very mystical view of the world in which "good" and "evil" are concrete, objective terms that are directly reflected in the laws of reality. In truth, life is not so simple. Good and evil are often commingled and difficult to untangle. Humans are, according to all available evidence, products of gradual biological evolution rather than being imprinted with divine fire or passing along an inherited original sin. Possibly unique among all animals, human intelligence rises to the point that a nebulous concept called "free will" becomes applicable. Humans aren't innately evil. Nor are they innately good. They are innately people, and that means they can act in uncountable different ways, sometimes at the same time.

I'm not a humanist because I believe that people are just naturally awesome. I'm a humanist because I believe that people can be good if given the chance. I'm not a humanist because I believe this will always happen. I'm a humanist because I believe it can. In an Orwellian nightmare world where no relationship was valued and no life had worth, I would still be a humanist, so long as I had the courage to realize the power, not of human virtue, but of human potential. And courage is exactly what it takes. If we were innately good, we could only conclude that any problems will solve themselves. If we were innately evil, we could only conclude that any problems were unsolvable. An innately human humanity, though, must face its demons not as overlords, but as surmountable challenges, and then ask itself: What's stopping us?