Are people really 'good'?
I watched ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ with my father today. I remember a character talking about how The Church was merely a social organisation that wasn’t really religious and merely political. It was followed by a laugh track.
It got me thinking about the institutions that promote morality. Schools, families, and other agents of socialisation teach us to be moral. To not lie, to not cheat, to not be selfish.
But aren’t such institutions sometimes corrupt in themselves? Aren’t people still lying and cheating?
A friend once told me it isn’t wrong to cheat, but it is wrong to get caught. All I could feel myself thinking was, Is guilt really internal? This guilt we feel after doing something wrong, is it simply induced by the prospects of punishment? Will we stop feeling guilty when the prospects of punishment don’t exist?
Yet, I see so many people lie and cheat despite the possibility of punishment. And what’s worse? No one cares. People are too preoccupied with the next big trend or the grilled cheese sandwich they ate last night.
So why should I turn myself inside and out for things I didn’t do? Was I conditioned incorrectly to feel guilty? I feel like a lab rat amongst careless people.