What Do You Believe?
(Dana C. Ackley, Ph.D.)
Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau had an argument. Well, as much of an argument as two people can have who were not alive at the same time. Their argument is one that has resonated throughout human history, up to and including today.
And by the way, you have taken a stand on this argument, even if you have not yet articulated it to yourself. Conscious or not, the stand you have taken has had a major impact on how you live your life.
The Question: Are people basically good or evil? Spoiler alert. The answer is “yes.”
Rousseau argued that people are basically good; Hobbes came down on the other side.
Let’s imagine that Hobbes and Rousseau are alive today, having found work as network commentators.
Hobbes: “Rousseau, you are an idiot! How could you possibly believe that people are basically good? Open your eyes and look around you! Headlines abound 
with stories of human depravity. We go to war all the time. Women get raped! Children are sold on the black market! And speaking of the black market, your name and passwords are on it, (well, the dark web, but you know what I mean!) just waiting for an enterprising thief to use them to take what is rightfully yours. People, left to their own devices, are evil!”
Rousseau: “Hobbes, you fool! Your narrow view of people blinds you to the truth. Of course, your summary of today’s headlines is accurate. People are obviously capable of doing terrible things. But what do the headlines not say? When was the last time you saw a news story that said: ‘330 million Americans went to work and school today. They took care of their families. They showed countless acts 
of charity and love today.’ News sources are full of terrible stories because that is what people watch and read.
Hobbes: Yes, because they’re evil, and they like to read stories about themselves!
Where do you stand? Which of our late “news commentators” do you find more persuasive? What has led you to your conclusion? How does that conclusion impact your behavior and your life?
You might have based your decision about whether people are good or evil on your own life. If people have largely treated you well, you may find Rousseau more convincing. If you have had a hard life at the hands of others, Hobbes’s opinion might have more appeal.
“But not so fast my friend!” (As Lee Corso would say.) It’s not that simple. Two other factors are involved.
First, it isn’t what we experience that determines our view of people. It is how we interpret those experiences, what we make of them, that leads us toward Hobbs or Rousseau. Let me illustrate.
When I was a psychotherapist, I worked with many people who had had difficult childhoods, full of abuse, mistreatment, and other bad experiences. Some of those individuals developed a very negative view of people. They were constantly on guard against more mistreatment. I found their expectations to be reasonable. They had powerful data that indicated that people will act badly unless constrained from doing so.
But then there were the others. They too had had terrible experiences. They had been hurt, physically and emotionally. And yet, they came to my office with beliefs about people that Rousseau would appreciate. They were well aware that people can do bad things. But they also had concluded that most people are basically decent.
It benefits us to reflect on the meaning of our experiences to ensure that we have come to the best conclusions. And by “best” I mean conclusions that will help us lay the groundwork for safe, happy, and fulfilling lives, for ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities. More on that in a moment.
The second factor in shaping which side we take on this debate is other people’s beliefs. If people we respect feel that people are basically good, we may think so too. If people we respect feel that people are basically bad, we may be tempted to agree with them. How come? We have an inborn need to belong – to a
family, to a group, to a religion, something that binds us together, so we don’t feel alone.
In today’s media age, sometimes that means we look for belonging in politics.
We all have favorite news sources and public figures that we feel are “telling it like it is.” But are they? Or are they just looking for votes and selling ads? The need to belong sometimes overwhelms our willingness to engage in critical thought.
Consequences: Does it matter who you agree with? Hobbes? Rousseau? What difference does it make?
Answer: What you believe on this question will go a long way toward determining how your life goes.
Have you decided where you stand? Or maybe just realized where you stand? As I said earlier, whether you’re aware of your decision or not, you have made a decision. And your decision is guiding your behavior in ways you may not recognize.
Well, nobody likes to hear that! It can feel like an insult to our intelligence. But humans are complex. There are many, many factors that influence the way we think and feel. We can’t attend to all of them all the time. Some factors do not rise to the level of our attention. Especially when they have become assumptions upon which we rely. Otherwise, our world becomes too complex for us to handle.
One way each of us often uses to reduce complexity is to see what we expect to see. To illustrate, consider this exercise that I’ve done with many executives.
I’m in their office. There is a bookcase behind them. I ask them to turn around and count the number of red books on the shelves. Sure enough, they can! Then I ask: “Without looking, how many green ones?” They don’t know. They weren’t looking for green ones.
This is called confirmation bias. Again, our world is very complex. We can’t focus on everything all at once. We are constantly having to pick and choose which things are relevant. Red books, not green books.
When it comes to looking at people, things get really complicated! Which behaviors are relevant? Those with Hobbesian views are going to be on the lookout for bad behavior. Reasonably, they want to protect themselves. They are likely to find it. We tend to find what we are looking for.
Rousseau aficionados are more likely to notice when someone does something nice. Unlike many of today’s news commentators and politicians, their recognition of basic human decency isn’t an afterthought. It’s their headline.
And there is more. It isn’t just that we find what we expect. We tend to bring out in others the behavior we expect from them. And, again, we usually do so without being aware of it. An untrusting person is often prickly, hard to deal with. People they deal with will sense the mistrust and “return the favor.” People who expect to be treated nicely tend to treat others nicely. Sure enough, that gets reciprocated.
Will Hobbes people and Rousseau people make mistakes? Absolutely. There are some people we shouldn’t trust. And there are people who will surprise us, by treating us well if we give them the chance.
Implications: Regardless of what we expect from our fellow humans, we’re all better off with more good behavior in the world and less bad behavior. We can 
probably at least all agree on that. If so, what can each of us do to help tip the balance? Well, that depends on where bad behavior comes from, including yours and mine. If we can discover the source, we may be able to stop bad behavior before it gets out of control.
To be clear, there are some basically evil people in the world from whom we have to protect ourselves. There are lots of theories about what makes someone basically bad. I’ll leave it to others to answer that question.
But what makes the rest of us do bad things?
The vast majority of bad behavior stems from allowing our amygdalae to control our actions. For those of you who are new to my writing, the amygdala is a part of the human brain that scans the environment for danger. It was honed during the primitive part of our evolutionary journey to identify and protect us from the
constant physical threats to our survival that existed in the primitive world. (We’ve been evolving for 50,000 generations. Recorded history is only 240 generations.)
We don’t live in the primitive world anymore. But the human amygdala hasn’t figured that out. When the amygdala sees what it believes to be a threat, it generates the fight or flight response. Most human bad behavior arises when the amygdala misperceives someone’s behavior as a threat when it isn’t. The amygdala is terrific at identifying physical threats like charging tigers. But it is terrible at reading complex human behavior. Its default response is “Threat! Be careful!” The powerful emotions of fear and/or anger take hold, too often overcoming human judgment. Listening to our amygdalae without using critical thought will lead us to miss out on a lot of great people.
The amygdala gets swept up by headlines, crafty politicians, and insane social media writers, all of whom get something out of inflaming us. (And we get something out of it too. Outrage is satisfying and addictive! I wrote a blog post about that very topic! The Allure of Outrage – EQ Leader, Inc.)
Our defense is to build our capacity for emotional intelligence, a set of skills that can tame the amygdala and make way for critical thought. That’s why I wrote A 
Little Book to Save Humanity https://theeqpress.com
Another book to consider is Humankind, by Peter Pregman. Pregman presents lots of data on the Hobbs/Rosseau debate that you may find interesting and encouraging. When I read it, I was annoyed at first, because, despite being Dutch, Pregman writes in English better than I do. Then I learned he had a translator. Thank goodness! My amygdala went back to sleep.
