Paul Sassone

What is human nature?

Are we naturally good and generous?

Or, are we naturally bad and selfish?

Humans have been debating this for centuries. So, don’t get your hopes up that I can give you the answer.

All I know is we are constantly confronted by this question, this dilemma.

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t read in the papers or see on TV or summon up on our smartphone a story about a child who has been killed or injured, but whose family is too poor to afford medical care or a decent funeral.

Often, the child is the innocent victim of gang warfare. But not always.

The latest tragedy I saw on the news involved a little girl who was going to the store when some guy in a pick-up truck lost control and hit the child, pinning her between the truck and a building. She suffered horrendous injuries. She needs massive medical care, care her

family cannot afford because they are poor.

What often happens in cases like this — if there is enough publicity — is that a fund is set up usually online and donations are sought.

What then often happens is that people’s hearts are touched and they donate, often thousands of dollars.

And when we read or hear about his generosity we feel good. People are basically good, we tell ourselves. Look at how they give money to help a child, a family, they don’t even know.

And there is much truth in that.

But, then, I can’t help asking:

How can it be that there are people so poor they cannot afford medical care for their injured children?

How can it be that there are people so poor they cannot afford to bury their dead children?

What does it say about us that we permit thousands, millions, to suffer and languish in poverty? That the only way for these people to receive the help they desperately need is to have the  — it’s horrible to put it this way — good luck to become the subject of a news story or TV news segment?

What about all the sick, injured, dying who don’t make it to the news, the papers, the internet?

Why are our hearts not touched by their plight?

As I said earlier, I don’t have the answer.

There is plenty of evidence that we humans are good and generous.

But it also can be shown we are bad and selfish.

How to minimize the latter and maximize the former, is the question.

How do we give more scope, more action and power to — as Lincoln

memorably said — the better angels of our nature?

It’s worth pondering.

–Looking for good, generous in human nature–