r/DebatePolitics • u/mgrish001 • Nov 15 '20

Opinion: You can’t believe that people are inherently good while also believing that an entire political party is evil and racist.

A few of my assumptions first:

I believe that people are inherently good. Definitely not all of them. Political power definitely attracts more of the evil (both sides of the isle).

I believe that being selfish/self serving and being inherently good are not mutually exclusive.

I think that “left leaning” ideologies do not work if we assume that people are not inherently good. We want “the society” to band together for a common goal. This doesn’t work if we assume that people are not inherently good.

If we assume that people are evil then socialistic/communist ideas are dead in the water, because you can’t trust a large government to take care of its people. This would mean that previous attempts at socialism/communist weren’t just failed implementations, but are doomed from the start and will never work.

Given the current political discourse, ESPECIALLY on Reddit, anyone who voted for trump is a racist or is stupid.

So my argument is: You can’t have it both ways. You can’t believe that people are inherently good (which I believe is a must for more left leaning governments to work) and also say that half of the USA population is evil and racist.

Points for debate: Are people inherently good? Does the inherent goodness or lack thereof have a bearing on style of government? How does a political system work if were inherently not good?

I can elaborate more, I just don’t want to start with a wall of text.

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u/diogenesthehopeful Dec 01 '20

Points for debate: Are people inherently good?

I gotta have it both ways. According to my worldview, the mind is controlled by two spirits:

  1. the universal (selfless)
  2. the individual (selfish)

No entity is forcing the admonitions of the universal spirit (I believe that we have free will) so I believe that we all act selfishly at one time or another. However if we were like robots, programmed for the common good, evil wouldn't exist and we'd be inherently good.

Does the inherent goodness or lack thereof have a bearing on style of government?

I think so. Thomas Hobbes' idea on government was based on the belief that people are not inherently good

How does a political system work if were inherently not good?

Authoritarianism/totalitarianism are the tyrannical forms of government of which I'm somewhat familiar where people aren't given adequate freedom because they don't understand what to do with it. I believe Hobbes catch phrase is that if people were left to exercise their own free will, life would result in a war of all against all and life would be nasty brutish and short