More good than harm

[nancylebov]

Here's a notion I've been playing with: some 80% of people do more good than harm.

Entropy is constantly grinding away and people need a great deal of reliable maintenance. If some large majority of people weren't contributing to the human race, we wouldn't be here.

When I say "more good than harm", I mean something undramatic. By definition, the vast majority of people and actions aren't exceptional. What people do for themselves counts--if you think that doesn't matter, contemplate how much has to be done for someone who's incapacitated. Just turning yourself over in bed is doing a little bit for the great human enterprise.

Furthermore, most of that good isn't heroic. Getting yourself hurt much while helping out has to be unusual, or again, the human race doesn't make it.

I'm talking about net advantage--many and perhaps most of the people who are doing more good than harm aren't necessarily doing well in all areas of their lives. They might be really good with their families, but useless or mildly negative at work, or perhaps the other way around.

The reason I think all this is worth saying is that I see all too much punditry to the effect that a great many people are just awful. They waste resources, they're irresponsible, they're vicious, they don't pay enough attention to politics and when they do at least half of them are wrong, and they bring too many items into the express checkout line.

There's certainly plenty that could be better, but I think having some respect for what's already somewhat good is easier on the nerves, more based in truth than general condemnation, and less likely to have unintended consequences. It's even possible that epople are more apt to hear advice from someone who doesn't seem to hate them.

Addendum: It can still be more good than harm even if you get paid for doing it. Or even if you get paid well for doing it.

Comments

[kressel.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. Think about how much politeness you encounter on an average day. Even people ignoring you and letting you mind your own business while they mind theirs are doing something polite. Kind interaction would be greater still, but there's something to be said avoiding confrontation.

[jimtbari.livejournal.com]

I'd guess it to be higher than 80%, actually. 90-95%, maybe even higher.

[crazysoph.livejournal.com]

Good points to remember, both that we can focus overmuch on the bad in people, and that even low, non-heroic levels of good are building the foundation of our continued existence.

Just curious, had you already seen this Live Journal post on how small favors matter (http://www.livejournal.com/users/janni/245442.html), or would this be a case of parallel thinking? I'd just read that other piece last night, thanks to its appearance in Patrick's Particles over at Making Light (http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/).

Crazy(and cheered by the commonplace kindnesses she's received)Soph

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I've seen it, but it's a case of somewhat parallel thinking--I've been meaning to do the "More Good than Harm" essay for quite a while.

[kiya]

This is one of the important truths of my religious beliefs, fwiw.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Could you expand on that?

[kiya]

I can give it a whirl.

The relevant concept is one called "ma'at"; this is commonly translated 'truth' or 'justice', which are stabs in the right direction. (The word is also the name of a goddess who embodies same.) Ma'at is also right action, and . . . one Egyptologist translated it as "the force which brings people together into communities".

So there's this thing.

One of the religious obligations is to support ma'at against entropy, pretty much; that upholding ma'at, this social force, needs to be an active thing, something that gets grit in its gears that can be cleaned out. This is an obligation of both gods and humans, and it is enacted at multiple levels -- religious ritual and proper behaviour in the rest of life, as a force for personal health, societal/social health, healthy interaction with the universe.

It is general belief that everyone has the capacity to do this, that the heart is also the seat of ma'at. One can get out of touch with this guiding force and wind up acting badly and to the detriment of self, community, cosmos; too much grit in the gears. This can be fixed; there is a true self that is a fitting seat of ma'at in there somewhere, because nothing is designed broken.

So the "most people are positive influences maintaining society against entropy" translates, to me, as "most people are adequately aligned with ma'at, which makes sense, because that's how people are put together to start with".

[kiya]

A slightly different expansion is a short essay that I was finally provoked into writing for my site.

The idea that the masses are unreliable and bad....

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

...tends to be a class bigotry. I noticed that even with my neighbors the semi-professional thieves, most of the time they were tending their children, taking in people who needed temporary care, and generally not stealing, which only took up a small fraction of a given month.

I've been trying to explain elsewhere if a person has a choice between being poor and uneducated and having a personal relationship with a meme that says the poor are blessed and every human being is uniquely valuable by the entity that made the universe, or being poor and uneducated and being told that the lives of the poor, along with most other people's, are meaningless biological surges, which meme is going to win?

I also think that Sturgeon's Law is crap, too, and more an excuse than something that's been true of all cultures all the time.

Re: The idea that the masses are unreliable and bad....

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

In re the semi-professional thieves: the percentage of time someone spends on bad activities isn't all that relevent to their net good/harm, though it's also worth remembering that there's more to people than their worst moments.

In principle, if you believe that what people do is meaningless biological surges, then you should believe it of all people, not just most. I don't know if anyone manages to be that consistant.

Do you have anything in mind as an alternative to both religion and (philosophical) materialism? I think believing that giving centrality to what people actually experience is a strong contender. (Science is weird in that sense--it's based on the premise that ordinary perception is unreliable, but what it does is give priority to a very few visual, instrument-mediated perceptions.)

As you may know, Sturgeon's law was originally a defense against people who'd denigrate science fiction based on a possibly inaccurate version of its worst examples. In that sense, it works very well rhetorically--I can't imagine "You're looking at the worst 10%" being nearly as effective an answer.

Are there any handy answers to general attacks on literary fiction? I realize it's a different situation because literary fiction has the problems of high status rather than the problems of low status.

I agree that 90% of everything (even in art) generally isn't crap.

Here's an interesting corollary to Sturgeon's law: 10% of everything is at least worth looking at.

Re: The idea that the masses are unreliable and bad....

[zenlizard]

Marc & I figured out that it's the last 90% of Sturgeon's law which is subject to Sturgeon's law, because you can just say "90% of...", and it's understood.

Re: The idea that the masses are unreliable and bad....

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

I think many people who are insecure in their tastes blackbox whole categories. I've got colleagues who ask for my fiction for a literary magazine; I've got colleagues who say that they just can't read science fiction (and they're not being snarky and dismissive and they have tried to read s.f.). I think there's a strong tendency in s.f. to write things that if taken to RL would lead to fascism -- the Emperor of Everything novels -- but there are good and badly done examples of those. People who consider those sorts of novels to be problematic (and the objection is primarily based on non-esthetic reasons) won't like that sort of s.f., and probably won't understand novels that deliberately play with that s.f. convention anymore than someone who wasn't ever going to read Jack Chick tracts would appreciate parodies of those.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the 80-20 rule, where 20% of one's customers generate 80% of your revenue. No time to figure out how it maps. Back to the grind.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

The timing of this is interesting...

You posted this when I was reading a book that had a character say that the world has been going downhill these last 1000 years due to people valuing material things over spiritual (which I disagree with; in fact I'd argue the exact opposite), and now this morning I see this comic strip (http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/archive/images/pearls2036630051025.gif) in the paper.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Which book?

Did the character have any specific examples in mind?

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

Which book?

Diane Duane's Wizards at War (http://www.livejournal.com/users/kgbooklog/20206.html)

Did the character have any specific examples in mind?

No, it was just thrown out as something the reader is expected to agree with. I just re-read those bits, and found that I may have swapped the cause and effect, but I still disagree with the claim that the world has been gradually getting worse "these past couple thousand of years" and that spiritual things should be valued over tangible things.