Basic Goodness?

A couple of weeks ago, I received a flyer in the mail from a magazine called The Sun asking me to subscribe to their publication.

The cover of the flyer had this picture on the front

with a caption that read:

Because the human heart hasn't changed.

I love this photo. 

I love its sense of affection, laughter and authenticity.  In fact, I'm so sure I will not get tired of it, I have taped it to the wall by my computer.

However the caption...The caption I am struggling with.  Well, maybe "struggle" is too strong a word, how about "grappling" with.

And it didn't start with this flyer.

Ever since I saw a YouTube Video of University of Wisconsin Neuroscientist Richard Davidson talk about the "Four Constituents of Well-Being" in which he shared upon his scientific research (and others') that suggests:

Human beings come into the world with innate, basic goodness.  When we engage in practices that are designed to cultivate kindness and compassion, we’re not actually creating something de novo—we’re not actually creating something that didn’t already exist. What we’re doing is recognizing, strengthening, and nurturing a quality that was there from the outset.

(Greater Good Magazine 3/21/16)

I've been trying to understand how "basic goodness" could be the natural state of human beings.

While I admit that my own perspective about the "basic goodness" of human beings is likely skewed due to 13 years of work in psychotherapy listening to men, women and children tell me about the horrific traumas they have withstood at the hands of the family, partners and cultural/religious authorities, lately I find myself more skeptical of this supposed hard-wired human trait because of world events like chemical weapons being used against civilians in Syria that I cannot wrap my head around- though I'm not sure that I want to claim that I can.

Looking at the revolting images of the men, women and children lying lifeless on the floor with foam dripping out of their mouth actually led me to think of the1982 movie Gandhi, and more specifically the Amritsar or Jallianwala Bagh Massacre on April 13, 1919.

If you are not familiar with this awful historical event, it is graphically depicted in the film when Colonel Dyer orders the British military to attack Punjabi (Indian) civilian men, women and children who were celebrating an annual nonviolent religious/cultural event.

It is estimated that over a thousand people were murdered and another thousand were injured during a 10 minute assault in a closed square where nobody could run to escape. 

What's more, after the massacre, it is reported Colonel Dyer had no remorse for this heinous act which is why he earned the nickname "The Butcher of Amritsar."

Attacks on humanity such as these make me nauseous.  Nevertheless, they are real, and they are happening. All the time.

Yet, here is the brilliant Dr. Davidson also saying that,

There is an increasing body of empirical science which firmly indicates that basic goodness is part of our human repertoire.  (Greater Good Magazine 1/4/12)

So the question is then: how do we hold both truths?

Perhaps the answer to this dialectical question can be found in this quote by a 20th Century Danish Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Niels Bohr:

Or maybe perhaps we can look to film for some answers (other than Gandhi that is).

Even something a lot lighter, like the 1998 movie Pleasantville.

Did you see this film? The basic plot is of 2 modern American teenagers who find themselves stuck in a 1950's mock Leave it to Beaver television show complete with black and white color and narrow-minded attitudes.

When I think about this idea of "basic goodness," the character who comes to mind for me is the "dad" played by actor William H. Macy. 

Of course if you watch the movie you see basic goodness come forward in nearly every single person in the mythological town.  (Remember, this is Hollywood.)

Sometimes it emerges very quickly in the form of an awakening (in the case of the diner owner played by Jeff Daniels and the "mom" played by Joan Allen), and other times painfully slowly (in the case of one of the two teenagers played by actress Reese Witherspoon).

But in the case of the father, I like to watch with sympathy and empathy as his character transitions over the course of the film; including a state of complete confusion when the only world that he has ever known is turned completely upside down because his wife and children are breaking the script of their lives that had him (the adult white male) as primary beneficiary.

I like to watch this white man very gradually awaken (a little bit) to basic goodness.

I've read that Dr. Davidson compares some of these "Constituents of Well-Being" in the neurocircuitry of the brain, like basic goodness, to our other human capacities like language.  

Which is to say, that all human beings have the capacity for language, but if language is not cultivated in the environment nor practiced in the life of the individual, it will atrophy.

Or in other words, if you don't use it, you lose it.

So a suggestion he makes is to regularly cultivate basic goodness.  He writes:

We might promote a more positive Outlook and remember our own basic goodness. And while formal meditation practice is one way, there are countless, less formal other ways. Try posting little reminders in your workspace that provide you with cues to remember your basic goodness, post pictures of loved ones that provide such reminders, listen to specific music that you love or inspirational talks that do the same. All of these practices serve the same basic function – priming our awareness to pause and reflect on aspects of our basic goodness.  (Greater Good Magazine 1/4/12)

I like that last phrase: priming our awareness to pause and reflect.

Let us all "prime our awareness" for basic goodness.  In ourselves.  In our relationships. In our homes. In our workplaces. In our neighborhoods. In our governments. In nations.  And in our world.

May it be so.