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When Good People Do Bad Things

By Shlomo Maital

    Jewish people all over the world (there are nearly 16 million of us – half of them in Israel) have marked the holy day of Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement.  On this day, we fast (many do), and read prayers seeking forgiveness and redemption for the misdeeds we have done during the year.  We ask for a fresh start.

     Here is my take on the practical philosophical problem we all encounter daily. 

      Why do good people do bad things?  Why do WE do bad things?  How can we do better?

       Notice the assumption buried in the question.  Good people?  ARE people good?  Really?   Take a look around the world.  Yikes.

       Here is my argument.  Assume people are good.  All people.  It is a working assumption.  Sometimes we are proven wrong.  People do bad things to us.  So – is it a wrong assumption?

        No.  It is a working hypothesis, one to live by, one to enrich our lives.  Because – the alternative is to assume that people are basically bad, evil.  What a way to live!  I know people who knowingly or not make that assumption.  And – how super naïve can you be, when I live 100 kms. (60 miles) from Gaza City, which harbors Hamas, whom one can say are …bad.  Really bad. 

        I am an economist.  Economists assume that people ‘maximize utility’.  In short, act to maximize their enjoyment of things.  Egocentric.  And the pinnacle of this theory, embraced more or less by political leaders, is the Rotten Kid theorem by U. of Chicago Professor Gary Becker, Nobel Laureate no less.  Kids do selfless things for their families, not out of empathy and good deeds, but out of selfishness, because they expect to get a return for their investment.  Egocentric. 

         No, Prof. Becker.  People are good, people do good things, and not to get a reward. But because it is the right thing to do.  Economics is a house built on sand, because of its underlying, wrong assumption.  People are not driven by selfishness.  Some are. Most aren’t. 

        So, on Yom Kippur, I begin by reaffirming – that I AM a good person.  This is basic.  If you assume you are evil, the road is open to continue doing bad things. 

         But I also realize I have done bad things.  Hmmm.  When?  Why? What were they?  What can I, must I, repair?  How? 

         This sounds like a Sunday School lesson.  But in fact, it is a basic cornerstone of daily life.  You are a good person. You stumble. We all do.  It can be fixed. We can change. 

          Oren Harmon, a naturalist, has written a wonderful book titled Metamorphosis, describing the amazing changes that 75% of the world’s species undergo – like the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis, woven by a caterpillar!   Or the tadpole that becomes a frog.

          Humans too can undergo metamorphosis – radical change.  From bad to good.  It is very hard.  Just watch the Monarch butterfly emerge from its chrysalis!  Unfold its wings. Dry them.  Flap them.  Get ready to migrate from Northern US to Mexico – eating only, ONLY, milkweed pollen.  That butterfly is saying, what the hell just happened?  Well, I’d better get on with it.  My caterpillar days are over. I don’t even remember them.

           Jews are celebrating the New Year, 5786,  in Hebrew transliterated, Year Tash-Pooh.  Yes, it is the Year of Winnie the Pooh.  The naïve, ever-optimistic bear, who assumes people are good.  Cynics mock him.  But he comes out ahead in general. 

            Let’s re-read Winnie the Pooh and ponder about what he says, during the coming 12 months.  A start: “You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think”.  

          And – you are a better person, perhaps, than you think.