People are good in bad times
That statement zipped pass me so quickly during my routine listen-in on a football podcast that I almost missed it. The statement was made in relation to the recent Chapecoense tragedy or more specifically, the outpouring of goodwill following it from related quarters to the football club.
I nodded. It made a lot of sense, for a moment. People do generally know how to react accordingly during awful moments. One only needs to harken back to the airline disasters in these parts in recent memory. The most inspiring acts of humanity were done during some of the darkest moments of modern history. The accompanying thought that came racing up along the initial statement is – That means people are fundamentally good.
But yet, humans have traditionally set almost-delusional low standards for itself to achieve. As a species, in which one of its shiniest trophies is civilisation, humans are often far too quick to pat itself on its back for doing the minimum. Even elephants have been known to mourn the death of a herd member or rush to the aid of its young and helpless. Last I checked we weren’t exactly pitching our role models against Elephantidae standards.
People who are not bad during good times.
That’s what we should be striving towards really. If I were to diagnosed the human condition within this context I would say that we are fundamentally hedonistic in some way, with occasional blotches of convenient amnesia. In other words, we basically forget quick but more importantly, we forget quicker when we are happy. Perhaps misery is just a check and balance that’s been built into the ecosystem of civilisation to reboot our personalities to bearable levels every once in a while, less we end up butchering each other.
adrianyapck 