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The older I grow, the more I realize that, in its barest essence, we are all 'good' human beings. But, thanks to self-help advice of the kind that aspires to te

The older I grow, the more I realize that, in its barest essence, we are all 'good' human beings. But, thanks to self-help advice of the kind that aspires to teach you to be 'powerful', 'assertive', 'effective', 'take no for an answer', we are fed ideas that we need to behave/talk differently to be successful. But, it is not what we should be striving for. It is meaningful connections. By treating others the way you would want to be treated yourself. That is all. Everything else follows this, including success at work. In most cases, anecdotally, this has worked for me except when I encounter people, so bought into this corporate powerplay myths that they have instead become people who have changed their basic identity to behave in a certain manner.

mr_overalls 7y ago
> we are all 'good' human beings I would say we're _mostly_ good human beings. The presence of a few bad actors and psychopaths, IMHO, is what prevents the benefits of universal altruism in society. Speaking personally, I was a much more trusting person before falling into a relationship in college with a very charismatic person who almost certainly had antisocial personality disorder. Your behavior patterns must allow for the presence of well-camouflaged exploiters if you want to survive and thrive in adulthood. I still strive to be a good person, but am more guarded and suspicious of others' intentions than when I was younger.
randrews 7y ago
I would say, other than a tiny minority of sociopaths, we're all good human beings to people we perceive as also being humans. There are plenty of people who are perfectly nice and decent who would think nothing of ripping off a giant corporation for a few bucks because it's a giant corporation and they'll never notice.
- westinghouse 7y ago
  You're opening a massive philosophical can of worms with that one.
- totalrobe 7y ago
  Corporations that have paid over $9 billion in wage theft penalties since 2000....https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdfs/wagetheft_report.pdf https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdfs/...
kiliantics 7y ago
If you read Marshall Rosenberg's book on Nonviolent Communication, you will see that it is not this "self-help advice" that prevents us from being "good". There are many causes that are pervasive throughout our social structures, language use, customs, etc. that lead to the "default" forms of communication which everyone tends to use being inherently "violent" -- i.e. our common modes of interaction are not based in an acknowledgement of our own and others' goodness and of the love we deserve to be shown by each other.
ergothus 7y ago
> we are all 'good' human beings. Barring a few exceptions, agreed, but: * 0.0001% of the population leaves a LOT of jerks in the world - jerks that tend to rise in power and influence by exploiting social systems made for non-jerks. > thanks to self-help advice Pretty sure the world had jerks and insensitive people prior to self-help advice. As _I've_ grown older, I've learned a lot about how "being a good person" is NOT about having good intentions. Treating someone a I want to be treated isn't enough, if that person isn't me. Someone telling me (male) to "smile more" gives me an inherently different experience than a woman that is told it. I've said that to people when I was younger, and my intentions were all rosy-good. But I made a bad experience. Being a good person is not "do I mean well". It is not "I should only have reactions based on what others intend, not how I actually feel about it". Being a good person means caring about the impact of my words and actions AND working to make those better. We won't always succeed (I certainly don't!) but we should try. Consider: When someone points out that we've offended them, our natural reaction is to defend our intent - we are worried about ourselves and how we are perceived. We are NOT first worried about the fact that we made someone feel bad. I think if we got over the idea that we're basically "good", and stopped acting like creating some small sadness in the world is a claim we need to defend ourselves from, if we just focused on reducing that number of small (and occasionally large) sadness/rage/jealousy/shame that we create, THEN we'd actually be "good". I'd rather treat people the way I'd want to be treated if I were actually them, than to treat them the way I would treat myself and expect that that should work for them.

mr_overalls 7y ago

> we are all 'good' human beings I would say we're _mostly_ good human beings. The presence of a few bad actors and psychopaths, IMHO, is what prevents the benefits of universal altruism in society. Speaking personally, I was a much more trusting person before falling into a relationship in college with a very charismatic person who almost certainly had antisocial personality disorder. Your behavior patterns must allow for the presence of well-camouflaged exploiters if you want to survive and thrive in adulthood. I still strive to be a good person, but am more guarded and suspicious of others' intentions than when I was younger.

randrews 7y ago

I would say, other than a tiny minority of sociopaths, we're all good human beings to people we perceive as also being humans. There are plenty of people who are perfectly nice and decent who would think nothing of ripping off a giant corporation for a few bucks because it's a giant corporation and they'll never notice.

westinghouse 7y ago
You're opening a massive philosophical can of worms with that one.
totalrobe 7y ago
Corporations that have paid over $9 billion in wage theft penalties since 2000....https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdfs/wagetheft_report.pdf https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdfs/...

kiliantics 7y ago

If you read Marshall Rosenberg's book on Nonviolent Communication, you will see that it is not this "self-help advice" that prevents us from being "good". There are many causes that are pervasive throughout our social structures, language use, customs, etc. that lead to the "default" forms of communication which everyone tends to use being inherently "violent" -- i.e. our common modes of interaction are not based in an acknowledgement of our own and others' goodness and of the love we deserve to be shown by each other.

ergothus 7y ago

> we are all 'good' human beings. Barring a few exceptions, agreed, but: * 0.0001% of the population leaves a LOT of jerks in the world - jerks that tend to rise in power and influence by exploiting social systems made for non-jerks. > thanks to self-help advice Pretty sure the world had jerks and insensitive people prior to self-help advice. As _I've_ grown older, I've learned a lot about how "being a good person" is NOT about having good intentions. Treating someone a I want to be treated isn't enough, if that person isn't me. Someone telling me (male) to "smile more" gives me an inherently different experience than a woman that is told it. I've said that to people when I was younger, and my intentions were all rosy-good. But I made a bad experience. Being a good person is not "do I mean well". It is not "I should only have reactions based on what others intend, not how I actually feel about it". Being a good person means caring about the impact of my words and actions AND working to make those better. We won't always succeed (I certainly don't!) but we should try. Consider: When someone points out that we've offended them, our natural reaction is to defend our intent - we are worried about ourselves and how we are perceived. We are NOT first worried about the fact that we made someone feel bad. I think if we got over the idea that we're basically "good", and stopped acting like creating some small sadness in the world is a claim we need to defend ourselves from, if we just focused on reducing that number of small (and occasionally large) sadness/rage/jealousy/shame that we create, THEN we'd actually be "good". I'd rather treat people the way I'd want to be treated if I were actually them, than to treat them the way I would treat myself and expect that that should work for them.