I just started Graeber's posthumous work, "Dawn of everything". Near the beginning, he compares the debate over whether humans are fundamentally good or evil as

I just started Graeber's posthumous work, "Dawn of everything". Near the beginning, he compares the debate over whether humans are fundamentally good or evil as akin to a debate over whether humans are fundamentally fat or thin. But then he goes on to say that these reductive simplifications that have been made about the nature of man, whether by Rousseau or Hobbes, are still useful because they take you down a line of thinking, and help you start a sketch of people. Afterward, you can fill in the details. I think articles like this are similar. Its obviously not correct. But people are nonetheless always making attribution errors - we assume our mistakes are because of circumstance (I didn't see him in my blindspot!) and other people make mistakes because of their disposition (he cut me off - what an asshole!). So its a useful reminder, despite its fundamental inaccuracy.