In reality, most people’s inclination to participate in highly social behavior is surprisingly strong and resilient, and occurring in even the direst of circumstance[1]. Despite this, our socio-political system seems premised on the assumption that nearly everyone is motivated to cheat and take unfair advantage whenever they can get away with it.
Assuming the worst of people punishes the vast majority of honest, caring people by making many of our public institutions unnecessarily miserly, begrudging, and oriented towards being mean and punitive. This is particularly prevalent in those institutions to which powerless people turn when they most desperately need kindness such as adult emergency shelters, food stamp centers, and public assistance offices. Our astonishingly inadequate social safety net is continually attacked by those who want to completely dismantle it, on the basis that we are all being taken advantage of by manipulative people who simply want to avoid hard work.
Assuming the worst of people also produces a culture where expressions of callousness and vindictiveness are regarded as normal rather than something to be alarmed at. Such misanthropic cynicism provides a justification for powerful people to act in ways that harm others. In a society where everyone is assumed to be selfish and manipulative, people who are capable of doing considerable harm to others can, and frequently do rise to positions of power.
If one believes that everyone else is selfish, greedy and looking to get away with whatever they can, when it comes to weighing a morally questionable decision it isn’t unreasonable for a powerful decision maker to think “If I don’t do this someone else will.” Sadly the toxic culture of cynical misanthropy results in powerful people applying this kind of rationalization to a plethora of decisions that wind up doing harm to workers, consumers, to the community and to the environment.
Given the stakes we face, humankind can no longer afford the damage that widespread misanthropy allows.
If we are to make it beyond the existential crisis in which we find ourselves it is essential that we replace our cynical misanthropic assumptions with an evidence-based appreciation for the limitless potential of our highly social nature.
[1] See article in Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-stress-of-disaster-brings-people-together/ Also visit https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-stories