DENNIS PRAGER

DENNIS PRAGER The belief that people are basically good is un-Jewish, untrue and destructive. One of the most widely held beliefs among Jews— that people are basically good—is not Jewish, not...

...Judaism holds that people are inherently neither good nor evil...
...If good is natural, then bad must be unnatural, or "sick...
...Thus, great cruelty is no longer deemed evil but "sick...
...How many evils would human beings have to commit in order to shake a Jew's faith in humanity...
...I suspect that there is no number...
...Why is it not true...
...Since people are basically good, the bad that they do must be caused by something outside of them...
...The less religious a person is, the more he or she needs to believe in humanity (which is one reason why so many Jews, the most secular of groups, hold this belief...
...How many more women have to be raped...
...Fourth, since society believes that evil comes from outside of people, it has ceased trying to change people's values PRAGER continued from page 60 and works instead on changing outside forces...
...For faith in humanity is the last belief that a secular individual can relinquish before utterly despairing...
...But if it does not, perhaps learning the destructive consequences of this belief will...
...People commit crimes...
...It is not better values they need, but better sex education, and better access to condoms and abortions...
...These people believe that the battle for a better world is primarily a battle between the individual and society...
...A society can survive the collapse of its economy...
...Yet, Jews commonly assume that this is the Jewish view...
...Thus, since Christianity believes in original sin, Judaism must believe in original goodness...
...Moral categories have been replaced by psychological ones...
...Learning that the belief in man's basic goodness is neither Jewish nor true ought to convince a serious Jew to abandon this belief...
...As I learned as a child in yeshiva, Judaism holds that each person possesses a good inclination (yetzer hatov) and an inclination to bad (yetzer harah...
...But in a free society such as our own, the battle for a moral world is primarily the inner battle that each one of us must wage against our nature and its yelzer liarah—precisely as I learned as a boy in yeshiva...
...If Jews realized this, we would see a major reorientation of Jews' religious, political and social attitudes...
...To believe that people are basically good after Auschwitz and the Gulag, and after the other horrors of our century is a statement of irrational faith, as irrational as any fundamentalist religious belief...
...To believe neither in religion nor in man is to conclude, as Woody Allen has in his great film Crimes and Misdemeanors, that "Life is a cesspool...
...great people make great societies...
...Only those who recognize that people are not basically good recognize the need to teach goodness...
...People are therefore not responsible for evil: It's not my fault that I mug old women, or that I cheat much of the time—_(fill in from the previous list) made me do it...
...b) Many Jews have accepted the underlying assumption of Western secular society—that man is basically good...
...How many more innocent people have to be murdered and tortured...
...Depending on who is doing the blaming, that outside force is the social environment, economic circumstances, parents, schools, television violence, handguns, racism, the Devil, government cutbacks, or even corrupt politicians ("How can we expect our children to be honest when the government isn't...
...Irresponsible men impregnate irresponsible women...
...While babies are born innocent (this is where Judaism and Christianity differ), and are certainly not evil, they are not good either...
...It is a much more difficult battle to wage than one against congressional cutbacks or the proliferation of handguns, but it is the only one that will make a better world...
...Great societies do not make great people...
...The most frequent objection to the argument that human nature is not basically good is: Aren't babies born good...
...There is no longer good and evil, only "normal" and "sick...
...One reason is that many Jews erroneously interpret the biblical concept, "Humans are created in the image of God," to mean that humans are basically good...
...And this is the antithesis of all that Judaism stands for...
...Just as no evidence will shake fundamentalist Muslims', Christians' or Jews' beliefs, no evidence will shake secular Jews' beliefs in humanity's goodness...
...The answer is, no...
...Why is it not Jewish...
...It is important to understand why...
...It is not values and character development that we need to be concerned with...
...c) Many Jews assume that knowing a Christian view on an issue is enough to know the Jewish view—by simply assuming it is the opposite...
...Judaism's battle with those who believe that people are innately good can be succinctly summarized...
...A second reason is that most Jews know little about Judaism...
...Visit any bunk of 15-year-olds in which one of the campers is particularly fat or short, or clumsy, or emotionally or intellectually disadvantaged, and you are likely to see cruelty that would shock an adult...
...it cannot survive the collapse of its citizens' moral values...
...In fact, babies are the quintessence of selfishness—I want mommy, I want milk, I want attention, I want to be played with, I want, I want, and if you do not do everything I want, I will ruin your life...
...There are times, ofycourse, when the battle for a better world must concentrate on evil emanating from outside the individual—as, for example, under a Communist or Nazi regime...
...One of the most widely held beliefs among Jews— that people are basically good—is not Jewish, not true, and destructive...
...the battle is between the individual and his nature...
...As for older children, having been a camp counselor and camp director for some 10 years, I can similarly attest to the impossibility of describing childen as basically good...
...This is, to be sure, normal behavior for a baby, but on what grounds can it be characterized as morally good...
...Third, neither parents nor schools take seriously the need to teach children goodness—why teach what comes naturally...
...A second terrible consequence of a belief in man's basic goodness is the denial of evil...
...Moreover, the Torah states that 'The will of man's heart is toward evil from his youth" (Genesis 8:21), and there is no normative Jewish source that asserts that roan is basically good...
...Therefore: (a) Many Jews assume that if they believe something strongly enough, it must be Jewish...
...It actually means that humans, like God but unlike animals, know good and evil and possess sanctity...
...Few things come more naturally to most kids than meanness, petty cruelties, bullying and lack of sympathy for less fortunate peers...
...Fifth, and most destructive of all, Jews who believe that people are basically good conclude that they do not need to feel accountable for their behavior to God, only themselves...
...This conclusion is quite logical...
...Animals do not know good and evil, and animal life is not sacred...
...Judaism believes that, especially in a free society...
...Why is it destructive...
...we need to change the socioeconomic environment that "produces" rapists and murderers...
...A belief in man's basic goodness leads to attributing all evil to causes outside of people...

Vol. 15 • February 1990 • No. 1


 
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