Chapter 8

Inherently Good

 “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!”

 – William Shakespeare, ‘Hamlet’

 Evil is very pervasive in our society and all over the world. But, this is not normal. It is an aberration.  It is not normal because we are born good.  We are going to restore the Jamaica back to normalcy by the Goodwill Revolution.

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was jailed for 26 years. He witnessed the brutality and oppression of his people for decades in which they were treated like dogs, herded in their own land like cattle, denied even the status of human beings and a slew of other vicious repressions because they were black,. But they overcame it. In the words of Nelson Mandela, in his farewell speech from Parliament, “Historical enemies succeeded in negotiating a peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy because we were prepared to accept the inherent goodness in the other”. This inherent goodness of man was a source of power for this liberation and the peaceful transition of South Africa from these horrors of apartheid. Unfortunately, the money-hogging rat race undermines this inherent goodness of man, but the goodwill revolution strengthens and reinforces it. This inherent goodness is the source of power for the goodwill-to-all revolution.

Good or Bad

We are all born good.  This is one of the strongest reason why  the Goodwill-to-all Revolution will succeed.  I know that philosophers have long pondered the nature of man. Is he good or bad?  Fundamental to the goodwill revolution is the conviction that people are inherently good.

The evidence is abundantly clear that we are all born good.  Why else do we care about things like fairness and justice? We do not want justice only for our relatives and friends, we want justice for all. We do not want to see people suffer, go hungry. We would like to see all workers make at least a living wage. We don’t want to see children go hungry, not just our child, but any child, Why? Because it is our nature to be good.  We are inherently good. It is natural for us to care about others.

We care about people we don’t know and people who don’t even exist. We go to the movies and care for the plight of the make-believe hero. So, we love happy endings, because in happy endings good usually triumphs, or  the homeless person gets fed, or the sick person is healed or justice prevails. We do not just want these good things in the movies, but we hunger for them in our lives. And very important, we are not selfish to want good things just for ourselves, but by our very nature, we want them for all.

Conversely, we despise and hate evil. Why? Because we are inherently good. Because we are inherently good, we hate and abhor evil.  We hate and abhor the bully. We hate and abhor the abuse and exploitation of the weak and innocent. We hate and abhor murder, robbery, child molestation, kidnapping and all those vicious crimes committed against anyone, friend or foe. It is natural to hate evil acts and the people that commit them. It is natural to hate the bombing, killing and destruction of millions of  men, women and children in war. It is natural for us to hate torture and human degradation.

Doing an evil deed is not just clear sailing. Before we can do it, we must contend with our basic instinct which tells us not to do it, our conscience. Conscience opposes the evil act and exerts pressure to try to prevent it. Unfortunately, conscience does not have veto power, and so it can be overcome. But even after overcoming conscience and committing the dastardly deed, human nature runs into more opposition from remorse and guilt.

After committing an evil deed, guilt is our innate goodness trying to make a breakthrough and reassert itself.

But alas, these instincts for good are not indestructible and like the UN can be rendered completely irrelevant. But their very existence is another bit of evidence that mankind is inherently good.

All our institutions are based on the inherent  goodness of man.

Democracy depends on the inherent goodness of man.

Justice - The jury trial is based upon the inherent goodness of man.

All the good qualities we seek such as fairness, equality, freedom, equal opportunity, and peace depend on the inherent goodness of man.

Not only is man naturally good but he wants to do good. He does not want to do evil. Evil goes against the grain. Even the robber probably does not want to rob. Even the 9-11 terrorists probably did not really want to murder those hundreds of innocent people in the World Trade Center in New York. Before or after these acts, the perpetrators are compelled to justify. In so doing, they are saying “these horrible acts are really good because…” Why do they have to? Because they don’t want good people to despise them. They don’t want good people to consider  them evil. They go to great lengths to justify these evil deeds as good. So, for evil deeds to gain acceptance, they must masquerade as good.  This is but another powerful reason that we are inherently good and the primacy of this good nature which must be satisfied. The bottom line is not only do we not want to do bad things, but we also do not want to be perceived as doing bad things. So I believe that Israelis and Palestinians, Hindus and Muslims, Irish Catholics and Protestants, Tutsis and Hutus, and many other bitter antagonists that imperil our world today, do not really want to kill one another. It is unnatural.

We still feel inside a sense of outrage when we see injustice, but we do nothing about it. We still feel a compassion for genuine poverty, misery and misfortune in others, but we do nothing about it. So at a movie, we are moved by a touching and moving make-believe story. This fake story might even be better than reality because we do not have to do anything about it. And, that’s the problem, which makes us want to even deny our feelings of goodwill, or to even fight against them. We deny them and try to embrace apathy, insensitivity, because we feel helplessness to do anything about it. Why bother?

The obvious question the arises, “If man is born good, why does evil prosper?” Because we have created a society that has deviated from man’s natural inclination for good. We have created the money-hogging rat race. We have created a society rooted in the love of money. The love of money is the root of all evil. Yes, we have s created a deviant society which has diminished man’s inherent goodness for the love and addiction to money.

What ever happened to being “fair”? The rat race has pretty much killed it or at least made it pretty irrelevant. A popular phrase these days is, “Where is it written that I need to be fair?” How cynical! Answer is, “Here”. It is written here in the goodwill revolution. It is a primary requirement of the goodwill revolution.

 In the rat race, good is often a handicap.  So, this natural force to do good within us is suppressed. It is relatively dormant, but it is still there waiting to be released.

Let’s liberate it.  We intend to establish a beachhead of the Goodwill-to-all Revolution in Jamaica.

Don’t fight that feeling of goodwill. The goodwill revolution taps into that goodness of man. It is a source of power. It is that source of power which waged the greatest revolution in American history and won against tremendous odds. And I do not mean the revolution against the British. No it was a revolution that pitted ordinary people armed and united by goodwill against unjust laws, against police terror, violent mobs, even vicious dogs, a most formidable enemy indeed. It was the civil rights revolution of the sixties.  White people of goodwill fought against a system that bestowed upon them a wide assortment of special privileges. White people of goodwill endured violence and insults of others of their own privileged white kith and kin to join with blacks in the fight. Black and white people of goodwill fought together against segregation. Black and white people united by goodwill died together against segregation. Black and white people of goodwill fought against a system that denied black people basic civil rights. And, they did not do it for money. On the contrary, many lost money as they lost work time, even jobs. They did not do it for prestige as many faced ostracism, ridicule and worse. No, they did not do it for these typical prizes of the rat race. They did it for their sense of justice, fairness, because of their inherent goodness, a most powerful and natural force. This is the force that will propel the goodwill revolution.

The good news is that in this new goodwill revolution, Jamaicans will not have to face the perils that the battle of the civil rights revolution in America required. Different times require different methods. This goodwill revolution will create a society that reinforces man’s inherent goodness instead. We need the Goodwill-to-all Revolution.  Revolution is not easy. It will be a tough battle but it will place no one at risk of any physical harm or arrest. So, for the Goodwill Revolution, nature is on our side.