Dennis Prager on the Easiest Way to Discover if Human Nature is Good | Master's Program | PragerU

Heat. Heat. Hello, I'm Dennis Prager and I want to talk to you about the most important subject in life. Without it, life becomes miserable, sometimes even impossible. It enables us to love. It enables us to enjoy life. It more than anything else makes life worth living. What is it? Goodness. How we treat others and how others treat us. About 30 years ago, I made a wonderful video called for goodness sake with some of the biggest names in Hollywood and it's about goodness. And we went into the street and we asked random people, are you a good person? >> I consider myself to be a pretty good person. >> Yeah, I'm a good person. Yeah, I'm a good person. Of course, I'm a good person. >> And everybody said yes. Almost everybody thinks they're a good person. It's fascinating. >> If you don't rob and you don't kill, you're not a good person. You're just not a criminal. In order to be a good person, you have to do something positive. I'm thinking already and I haven't even begun. And I'll tell you why. I have to control myself on this subject. There is probably no subject that I speak on wherein I so don't respect the other point of view. I'm sorry if you have the other point of view. Doesn't mean I don't respect you. You might be a wonderful human being, but it it is so obvious to me what I am about to say that I should really spend a good part of this talk trying to explain why people hold what is patently wrong on this subject. The subject is is human nature basically good. It is so obvious that the answer is no that one has to ask how do people believe otherwise. So I Googled are people basically good? This is on the front page of the results on Google with this search are people basically good. Scientific American. Scientists probe human nature and discover we are good. CNN breaking news alert. People are inherently good and nonviolent. Really, people are inherently good and nonviolent. Psychology today. Are humans naturally good or intrinsically evil? No one can ignore evidence of actual evil in the world. But that does not compel us to see human beings as naturally depraved. BBC reports. Are we naturally good or bad? Ingenious experiments. They must have been ingenious. I'll say that. Carried out at Yale University looked at babies minds. Their results suggest that even the youngest humans have a sense of right and wrong and furthermore an instinct to prefer good over evil. To prefer good over evil means that you have to be aware of both and you have to be tempted toward the evil in order for the good to prevail. H how do you do that with a baby? So if babies are so good, how come so many turn out so rotten? So you'll say environment, but that's ridiculous. Who made them rotten and who made them rotten until you go back to the first baby? Somebody chose to be rotten at some point. The idea that babies are bad is stupid. The ideas that babies are naturally good is stupid. But as Orwell said, some things are so stupid only an intellectual can believe it. But let me make it clear at the outset. I have never said, >> nor do I believe that human nature is essentially evil. I don't think we're innately evil, but we're certainly not innately good. Now, this doesn't mean that people are basically bad. We are born with real potential to do good. If people were basically evil, then it would be absurd to appeal to goodness, right? There is too much good in the world that if we were really basically evil, why would we engage? Why would people engage in such good? But of course, the opposite is equally true. If we're basically good, how do you explain all the terrible things that people have done? So where did we get this idea that people are basically good? It's a it's a an enlightenment era idea 19th century 18th century France especially and one thinker in particular and that is Rouso Jeanjac Rouso he said people are basically good and then society corrupts us but here's the fun part was a bad guy. That is the irony of ironies. Rouso is the pillar upon which the idea that people are basically good stands. But he was pretty rotten. The guy had five children with women he was not married to, which is not here or there in those days. Nevertheless, he didn't care for one of them. Our basically good man Rouso did not take care of any of the five children he conceived. So listen to this. When a friend he greatly respected purchased for him a ticket to an opera, Rouso snuck away during the commotion in the lobby of the amphitheater, ran back to the box office and refunded the ticket. He took the money and ran. of the incident. He wrote, quote, there are moments when a man is seized by a sort of madness and should not be judged by his actions. Oh, there are more examples of what a rotten guy he was. When he was a tween, he urinated in a neighbor's kettle. Looking back on the incident as an adult, Rouso wrote, "The memory still makes me laugh." And then finally, Rouso abandoned a friend in the middle of the street after the friend had a seizure. Quote, "He was abandoned by the one friend on whom he ought to have been able to count." This is what Rouso wrote. Did the friend die? Rouso didn't even stick around to find out. The ability of people to fool themselves about themselves is infinite. So, here was a pretty rotten guy, but I have a good nature. I'm basically good. So are people basically good? The evidence is so overwhelming given the amount of cruelty in history. You you name the evil and how and I'll just show you how ubiquitous how common it is. Slavery for example, every civilization of which we are aware had slavery. We talk about it in terms of Europeans enslaving Africans. Africans had slaves of other Africans. Vast amount of it. and Muslims had vast numbers of slaves, Africans and whites in China, in Asia, Central America, and everywhere. Owning other people was the norm. It was the norm in Greece where you have some of the greatest thinkers about the human situation who ever lived. They didn't have a moral problem with slavery. This is built into people. I own you. If I'm if I'm stronger than you, I own you. And what about the Gladiator Games? People attended the Gladiator Games to sit in Rome in in the great coliseum and watch people tortured to death, eaten alive by animals, women raped by hyenas, people burned alive, gladiators fighting one another to the death, and people cheering themselves, going crazy and loving it. Well, what were these people? Basically, good people who somehow figured out a way of undoing their nature. Now, you'll say, "Well, that's ancient history." So, what? It's still human nature. Human nature is human nature. Times change. Cultures change. Hopefully, sometimes improve, but human nature doesn't change. And of course, in just the 20th century, the bloodiest century in recorded history, just communists alone butchered a 100 million people. Non-combatants. Non-combatants. And Hitler, the Nazis, the Germans, and their Holocaust. 6 million Jews, men, women, babies. And what about the medical experiments that Nazi doctors doctors performed on Jews and others in in the concentration camps? medical experiments on people without an anesthetic. What about the comfort women in Korea? The the mass every day the mass number of rapes by Japanese soldiers of Korean women who were captured when the Japanese captured Korea. Perhaps my most effective example though is not even visav human beings, treatment of human beings, but actually treatment of animals. Because you could argue with human beings, well, you know, people people stuff is complex, but with animals, it's just pure sadism. Let me give you a couple of examples. In a book titled The Enlightenment by Richie Robertson, what we would consider appalling cruelty to animals was commonplace. Cats were burned alive at festivals to entertain the public with their whailing. The atheist priest Jean Meslier reports with horror how peasants attach live cats to the top of an upright pole and light a fire at its base. quote to have the pleasure pleasure of seeing the violent movements and hearing the frightful cries that these poor unfortunate beasts are forced to make because of the savagery of the tortures. So, how do you explain that? Watching animals suffer bringing you pleasure. How do you explain that if we're basically good? These are not aberrations. These stories in Saxony in Germany, a favorite amusement was fox tossing in which a fox was tossed in a blanket until it died. Usually in the palace courtyard with the prince, ladies and gentlemen looking on. How's this one? I picked up goose pulling. This was in practice all over Europe and came to North America 17th to 19th centuries. The sport involved fastening a live goose with a well- greased head so your hand would slip to a rope or pole that was stretched across a road. A man riding on a horseback at full gallop would attempt to grab the bird by the neck in order to pull the head off. Look, I could all I could do is go on and on and on and on and on. There is good in human beings. If we didn't see reality, we wouldn't see the good that exists, too. But the bad is so ubiquitous that to believe that we're basically good. Okay, that doesn't make sense. So, here's the question. Why do people believe what is patently false? People who believe that people are basically good want to believe it. Because if people aren't basically good, who ho, that means we blame people for evil. That means we blame ourselves. And people don't like blaming themselves for the wrong they do. In other words, in a nutshell, people believe what they want to believe. And they want to believe that people are basically good. And of course, and this might be the biggest reason for why people want to believe that people are basically good, cuz they want to believe it about themselves. There's another reason as well why people want to believe. Because I am convinced if we're not basically good, the argument for a god is necessary. If we're not basically good, it makes the case for religious morality that much more compelling. Yeah, you're not basically good. So, here are ten commandments to make you a better person. And they come from God, at least according to those who believe it. That's a big deal. But if we're basically good, we don't need a God. And we live in a radically secular age. And people don't want to believe that we need a god. There's no question there is a religious basis or if you will anti-religious basis for the belief that people are basically good. The most famous figure of the French enlightenment voltaire was a very well-known atheist but he said the following for which he is fairly famous quote I want my lawyer Taylor valet even my wife to believe in God. I think that if they do, I shall be robbed less and cheated less. As I've often pointed out for those who who think that who think God is unnecessary for morality, I always ask them a question. I've asked this for dozens of years. Imagine you have rented a car and you're in a city that you're completely unfamiliar with and your car breaks down and it's midnight and you see 10 men walking toward you. Would you or would you not be relieved to know that they had just attended a Bible class? Voltater was right. He he wanted the people in his life to believe that that there was a God who judged them and a God who gave them commandments on how to be a better human being. You know, the most famous line from the Bible is probably, "Love your neighbor as yourself." But nobody quotes the end of the verse. Leviticus 19:18, "Love your neighbor as yourself. I am God. I'm God telling you to love your neighbor as yourself." That's a lot more effective than you're telling yourself, love your neighbor as yourself. So, what are the problems caused by the belief that people are basically good, there are really bad upshots? Well, one of them is we blame outside forces instead of the people who do evil. That is so common in in America at the time of this broadcast when we speak about murder in America. It is not the murderers who were blamed. It is racism, poverty, and guns, but not the murderer. Isn't that fascinating? I blame the murderer. You didn't control yourself. You have a malfunctioning conscience. That's it. End of issue. You are the reason. People go to therapy today and the therapists are frequently cohorts or conspirators with the patient in blaming their parents. You are not responsible for your irresponsible behavior. Your parents and upbringing are. Now, this is not to say that parents and upbringing have no effect on us. That would be silly. But the whole point of being an adult is that you control yourself and you are no longer just the product of your parents. Another one is the denial of evil. If good is natural, then bad must be unnatural or sick. I would say since World War II, people have used evil much much less to describe evil behavior. In fact, overwhelmingly it's called sick. But what if evil isn't sick? Some evil, I would acknowledge, is sick. But is all evil sick? If so, then a big chunk of humanity is sick. But that's why we now call it sick. We don't want to make a moral judgment. People don't want to make moral judgments with regard to real evil. They may make moral judgments about other things, but about real evil, they tend not to. It's very interesting development. And certainly they don't want, as I said, to be judged themselves. Well, if they're not judging anybody else and it's just sick, then you can't be judged. That's a relief. Parents and teachers who believe that people are basically good will not feel the need to teach children how to be good. Why teach what comes naturally? This is another terrible consequence of the belief that people are basically good. We don't teach goodness. Right? If you're naturally musical, we don't have to teach you much music. If you're naturally good, we don't have to teach you goodness. And that's exactly what has happened in parenting. Oh, for many decades now, children are not taught to be good. Children are just loved up and told how good they are. like the sign in in an elementary school class that I saw in the New York Times. The world is a better place because you're in it. That's the stuff that we tell kids. How about just making it a question? Is the world a better place because you're in it? I would have no problem with that sign. We want to teach children to think I've got to be a good person. And that's a tough road to hoe. By the way, if we're basically good, why do we have so many laws? Didn't ever strike you as bizarre? The reason we have so many laws is obvious. It's because people violate them. As I've often said, which would be the safer road? One road says speed limit and gives a number. Another road says speed limit. Just travel as your heart desires. People basically good. we don't teach goodness. And yet even the parents who don't think they teach goodness, and they don't, they still say to their kid, I hope at least they do, uh, say thank you. How many times has the average parent said to their child, "Say thank you. Say please." Now folks, if we're basically good, aren't we grateful whenever something kind is done to us? Wouldn't we of our own valition say thank you? Why do you have to tell a child literally thousands of times say thank you? Because gratitude, believe it or not, isn't natural. That's right. You even have to be taught this most basic human sentiment, gratitude. So parents and teachers don't teach kids how to be good. They teach them how to fight society, bigotry, intolerance, capitalism, racism, inequality, and and the whole list of alleged evils of the society in which they live. So, are they going to become a better human being? Look, there are certain times where you have to battle an evil of society. But sometimes the bigger problems are inside of you, not outside of you. Selfishness, greed, cowardice, conformity, laziness. You don't have to battle any of those traits in yourself. If you are naturally altruistic, naturally industrious, naturally kind, naturally courageous. Human nature is not courageous. Courage except for a very tiny number of people needs to be cultivated. All of these things need to be cultivated. That is my point. Another terrible consequence is therefore people don't battle all these awful parts of their nature. Who doesn't have that list? And you could probably fill in a lot more. My dad used to tell me all the time how lazy I was. He was right. As it happens, he was right. And it's a good thing he told me cuz I've spent my life battling laziness. I've done it fairly successfully. I still love playing more than working. But I work a lot. I've produced a lot, I think. And had I not known that I had to battle laziness, I'd have stayed lazy. How do you know how to be better if you don't know what to battle? But if you think you're basically good, there's nothing to battle. So, you won't get good. This is such an elementary point about life. Why isn't it obvious to everybody? We we who were raised in traditional religious homes and schools know we have to work on being a good person. It isn't easy. It's as tough to be a good person as to be a good pianist. And how much time do you have to spend practicing piano to be a good pianist? Well, that's how much time you have to spend practicing being a good person. It doesn't come naturally. Maybe in a handful of people it comes naturally just like it comes naturally in a handful of people to be a good pianist but 99% of us have to study piano and 99% of us have to study goodness. There's another bad consequence to believing people are basically good. We don't think wisdom is necessary. You can't be a good person without wisdom. It's not possible. Good intentions don't make good people. They're almost irrelevant. Very few people have bad intentions. When people believed that people were not basically good, they devoted their lives and certainly children's lives to teaching wisdom, learning wisdom. Wisdom is how to navigate life. It is how to pursue character, how to be a better human being. How many parents raise their children to be good human beings? They raise their children to be good students, good athletes, but not good people. Why would you do that? They're already good, right? They come out of the womb, as these studies show. Babies are are just saintly. So, how many kids are taught to battle their natures and be a better human being? And how many are given wisdom? We live in the age of non-wisdom and of anti-wisdom. The consequences are awful. >> I'd also like to thank uh Dennis Dennis Prager who's here tonight for participating in this evening's debate. I debated a rabbi in Los Angeles who wrote an article that people are basically good and it so disturbed me that an Orthodox rabbi >> would write such an article >> on everything. And on this particular topic, I think Dennis is totally and completely wrong. >> When the religious start believing nonsense that the secular believe, we're in trouble. I remember one of the examples he gave that to prove that people are basically good is during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He went there to his great credit. I salute him for doing so. And he was at the Polish border and he met a a Pole who had just left everything and gone to help Ukrainians. >> He said, "I'm here to help the refugees." I said, 'Why?' He said, ' Because there's people in need. When did you arrive? He said, 'The war started on the 24th of February. I was here on the 26th. >> And that was his example of see people are basically good. I don't I don't exactly understand. It's like saying, look at Beethoven. People are basically musical. that a handful of people will do something exemplary doesn't mean that the human species is basically good. And here's another sobering thought. Do you even know how good you are or anybody else is until you're tested? I I have watched you for hours. I asked a truly great man in my opinion, Jordan Peterson. >> I asked him a question. Do you think that we really know a person's character until they're tested? And he said, "No." He didn't even have to think about it. And that's very sobering thought. Most people are tested. Some are really big tests. Some are smaller tests, but most people are tested. I'll give you a almost everyday example. During a divorce, how do you treat your expouse? morally or unethically. That's a test. A friend of mine is is going through a divorce. He was married about 25 years and I knew his wife, a a truly sweet woman. I've all I always enjoyed being with her. And he said to me, you know, the worst part about what's going on now in the divorce battle is not the battle is not the money. He he he's been successful monetarily. It's that I I now think I didn't know my wife for 25 years cuz she was never tested. You got to work on your character. It's like it's like you got to you got to work out to have a a fit body. You've got to work out your character. But again, you don't have to do any of these things if you're basically good. The belief is nonsense and the consequences are awful. The most important question society can ever ask is how do we make good people? It's the single most important question. But you'll never ask it if you think we start out good. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.