Rob, I think your observation of the left's "rosy" view of human nature is actually identical to the "billiard-ball theory". However, while their view of criminals certainly appears rosy, it takes on a more cynical tone with respect to heroic figures.
At the center of this theory is the idea of blank slate equality. If everyone is the same, there are no criminals or heroes. When it comes to criminals, anyone would do the same if they were in their shoes. When it comes to heroes, explanations of selfish ulterior motive and social pressure are used to dismiss the idea of human greatness.
Dedication to blank slate equality ultimately requires an extreme cynicism that denies good and evil. In this view, criminals and heroes are selfish just like everyone else, except that heroes' self-interest aligns with that of the majority, whose power labels it as "good", whereas criminals' self-interest opposes power, which labels it as "evil".
When society trains people to see themselves as pushed objects rather than choosing agents, it weakens the very faculty that allows endurance, reform, and dignity. You don’t free people by removing demands. You free them by strengthening their capacity to meet reality.
You are not responsible for the hand you’re dealt. You are responsible for how you play it.
Stop excusing behaviour and start reinforcing habits. Stability is built through daily discipline, not policy slogans.
What are the criminal rates in Mormon communities? Among the Amish? I only ask because I am advocating a partial resettlement of America into quasi-religious communities (small towns and structured neighborhoods) with strict qualifications for membership: only married couples, demonstrated skills, savings, etc. It would be a kind of segregation, I suppose, not by class but rather by shared beliefs. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0C9HKW
"So in their world, the only reason someone would harm another person is because there must be some deeper, understandable explanation—poverty, mistreatment, oppression, some kind of external force. And based on their own experience, they generalize outward: everyone must be like that. If someone commits a crime, there must be a story that makes it morally legible."
I have long noticed this tendency among my upper-middle-class, well-educated, Nice White Lady friends.
About fifteen or twenty years ago, there was a lot of publicity about the extremely high teen pregnancy rate in a neighboring town, which is mostly working-class. My friends all assumed that it was due to ignorance about contraception (despite the schools offering the same mandatory comprehensive sex education curriculum that all schools in our state must have), or on religious fundamentalists (the town does have a large Catholic population, but most tend to be of the cultural type, as in "We're Irish Catholic/Italian Catholic/Portuguese Catholic and we go to church on Christmas and Easter and that's about it," as opposed to the sort of people who read papal encyclicals and Pope John Paul's "Theology of the Body"), or due to financial barriers to obtaining contraception (ignoring the fact that there is a low-cost clinic in town, and that condoms were available for free in the nurse's office at the high school).
Now, I happened to have three friends who grew up in the town in question, and were working-class, and who all got pregnant in high school or as young single adults. All of them said it was considered pretty normal and expected to get pregnant in high school or shortly thereafter; first you got a boyfriend, and then at some point you'd have a baby. It seemed like the natural order of things, because that's what most people did.
To them, things like going to college, having a "career", and getting married were things that only rich people did. One friend told me "Growing up, I didn't know anyone who was married. The first wedding I ever went to was my own." They knew about contraception - is there any human being alive in the U.S. today who doesn't know about condoms and the Pill? - but they often didn't bother with it. Sometimes that was due to impulsivity or from being drunk; in other cases it was because they kind of wanted a baby and thus didn't really feel the need to actively avoid pregnancy.
My nice upper-middle-class friends simply could not envision any sort of circumstances that would result in them getting accidentally pregnant as a teen or an unmarried young woman. When they were teenagers, they knew that pregnancy would interrupt their education, make establishing themselves in their careers very difficult, so they were very vigilant about avoiding it. Likewise, as young adults, they were focused on their careers; and they planned to get married with a big fancy wedding and start a family eventually when they met "the right guy." Being a young, single mother is something that is Just Not Done by upper-middle-class people.
The idea that some girls just might not particularly care about getting into a Good College, and might be content with a retail job or working as a nursing assistant, and might be inclined to do what all their friends are also doing (i.e., having babies) was pretty much unthinkable to them. So they assumed there *had* to be some sort of extenuating circumstances, because the only way such a thing would have happened to *them* would be if they were forced to live in a religious fundamentalist cult like in "The Handmaid's Tale."
I live in Sweden. Around here some of the talk that has made a great deal of difference here comes from the poor members of ethnic minority groups who have remarked that it is racist to expect, due to identity politics, that they would stand in solidarity with the dangerous violent criminals who share an ethnicity with them rather than with the law-abiding of all ethnicities who resolve their inevitable disputes peacefully. They are unhappy that they seem to have been used as a threat by politicians .... fund this, fund that, or we will unleash the criminal underclass upon you. Sweden already has a generous welfare system, free language classes, and free apprenticeship programs for practically all the trades. And the people who live in the 'vulnerable areas' are asking, not for more welfare but for less criminality. It has been a tough road, but we have now bi-partisan agreement that this problem cannot be fixed by simply throwing more money at it. People don't join criminal gangs as a last resort .... often it is their first choice, the high-status glamorous and violent life they have always wanted.
Personally, I think we should consider adopting something like the caning that is done in Singapore, which my friends from Singapore say is effective, not because of the physical punishment, but because of the humiliation. I'd cane white collar criminals who have abused their government positions as well. But humiliating criminals is considered too barbaric at present.
From psychological point of view, we can only see the end results and get some conclusions. Theoretically good points, but from practical point of view how did we get here with 2mil people in the prisons, and third world places in big cities.
Year ago I had the chance to listen to Gary Null saying that 70% of mental problems are due to toxic chemistry, related to chemicals in food. On the same line, back in 2005, I had the chance to go to the shop of the guy who was feeding the automatic dispensing machines in the Cincinnati Public Schools. All the products he was selling were nothing more than solid form of toilet-cleaning solutions. Nobody was challenging this aspect. No wonder that kids being fed for at least a decade are reacting in a different way than those who have good food. Only after those inner city kids reach the prison, finally they eat some decent food. On the other hand, they make now car parts in the shops instead of car license plates...
Also when Mr Mangual ponders “how do policy makers produce policies that generate prosocial behavior leading to good outcomes for children” (paraphrased), yes there absolutely is a way:
The three pillars of character virtue development i posit to be:
1. Observing Ego (Freud) also known as mindfulness or self-reflection.
2. Personal Boundary growth: how to say no, hear no with grace, and to husband one’s own resources, respecting others.
3. Constructive decisions in one’s agency of self: “win/win” vs “win/lose” decisions whenever possible. To help one’s self not at the expense of others, and often “on the same team as others.”
These used to be taught by religion (likely the root cause of the new Gen Z/Alpha religious renaissance), but doesn’t have to be solely taught via religion or by good people in two parent married households.
Science can also teach it via a synthesis of Freud, Kohut, Seligman, Vaillant and referencing Aristotle, Kant and other predecessors.
Rob, I think your observation of the left's "rosy" view of human nature is actually identical to the "billiard-ball theory". However, while their view of criminals certainly appears rosy, it takes on a more cynical tone with respect to heroic figures.
At the center of this theory is the idea of blank slate equality. If everyone is the same, there are no criminals or heroes. When it comes to criminals, anyone would do the same if they were in their shoes. When it comes to heroes, explanations of selfish ulterior motive and social pressure are used to dismiss the idea of human greatness.
Dedication to blank slate equality ultimately requires an extreme cynicism that denies good and evil. In this view, criminals and heroes are selfish just like everyone else, except that heroes' self-interest aligns with that of the majority, whose power labels it as "good", whereas criminals' self-interest opposes power, which labels it as "evil".
When society trains people to see themselves as pushed objects rather than choosing agents, it weakens the very faculty that allows endurance, reform, and dignity. You don’t free people by removing demands. You free them by strengthening their capacity to meet reality.
You are not responsible for the hand you’re dealt. You are responsible for how you play it.
Stop excusing behaviour and start reinforcing habits. Stability is built through daily discipline, not policy slogans.
What are the criminal rates in Mormon communities? Among the Amish? I only ask because I am advocating a partial resettlement of America into quasi-religious communities (small towns and structured neighborhoods) with strict qualifications for membership: only married couples, demonstrated skills, savings, etc. It would be a kind of segregation, I suppose, not by class but rather by shared beliefs. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0C9HKW
Great discussion.
"So in their world, the only reason someone would harm another person is because there must be some deeper, understandable explanation—poverty, mistreatment, oppression, some kind of external force. And based on their own experience, they generalize outward: everyone must be like that. If someone commits a crime, there must be a story that makes it morally legible."
I have long noticed this tendency among my upper-middle-class, well-educated, Nice White Lady friends.
About fifteen or twenty years ago, there was a lot of publicity about the extremely high teen pregnancy rate in a neighboring town, which is mostly working-class. My friends all assumed that it was due to ignorance about contraception (despite the schools offering the same mandatory comprehensive sex education curriculum that all schools in our state must have), or on religious fundamentalists (the town does have a large Catholic population, but most tend to be of the cultural type, as in "We're Irish Catholic/Italian Catholic/Portuguese Catholic and we go to church on Christmas and Easter and that's about it," as opposed to the sort of people who read papal encyclicals and Pope John Paul's "Theology of the Body"), or due to financial barriers to obtaining contraception (ignoring the fact that there is a low-cost clinic in town, and that condoms were available for free in the nurse's office at the high school).
Now, I happened to have three friends who grew up in the town in question, and were working-class, and who all got pregnant in high school or as young single adults. All of them said it was considered pretty normal and expected to get pregnant in high school or shortly thereafter; first you got a boyfriend, and then at some point you'd have a baby. It seemed like the natural order of things, because that's what most people did.
To them, things like going to college, having a "career", and getting married were things that only rich people did. One friend told me "Growing up, I didn't know anyone who was married. The first wedding I ever went to was my own." They knew about contraception - is there any human being alive in the U.S. today who doesn't know about condoms and the Pill? - but they often didn't bother with it. Sometimes that was due to impulsivity or from being drunk; in other cases it was because they kind of wanted a baby and thus didn't really feel the need to actively avoid pregnancy.
My nice upper-middle-class friends simply could not envision any sort of circumstances that would result in them getting accidentally pregnant as a teen or an unmarried young woman. When they were teenagers, they knew that pregnancy would interrupt their education, make establishing themselves in their careers very difficult, so they were very vigilant about avoiding it. Likewise, as young adults, they were focused on their careers; and they planned to get married with a big fancy wedding and start a family eventually when they met "the right guy." Being a young, single mother is something that is Just Not Done by upper-middle-class people.
The idea that some girls just might not particularly care about getting into a Good College, and might be content with a retail job or working as a nursing assistant, and might be inclined to do what all their friends are also doing (i.e., having babies) was pretty much unthinkable to them. So they assumed there *had* to be some sort of extenuating circumstances, because the only way such a thing would have happened to *them* would be if they were forced to live in a religious fundamentalist cult like in "The Handmaid's Tale."
I live in Sweden. Around here some of the talk that has made a great deal of difference here comes from the poor members of ethnic minority groups who have remarked that it is racist to expect, due to identity politics, that they would stand in solidarity with the dangerous violent criminals who share an ethnicity with them rather than with the law-abiding of all ethnicities who resolve their inevitable disputes peacefully. They are unhappy that they seem to have been used as a threat by politicians .... fund this, fund that, or we will unleash the criminal underclass upon you. Sweden already has a generous welfare system, free language classes, and free apprenticeship programs for practically all the trades. And the people who live in the 'vulnerable areas' are asking, not for more welfare but for less criminality. It has been a tough road, but we have now bi-partisan agreement that this problem cannot be fixed by simply throwing more money at it. People don't join criminal gangs as a last resort .... often it is their first choice, the high-status glamorous and violent life they have always wanted.
Personally, I think we should consider adopting something like the caning that is done in Singapore, which my friends from Singapore say is effective, not because of the physical punishment, but because of the humiliation. I'd cane white collar criminals who have abused their government positions as well. But humiliating criminals is considered too barbaric at present.
From psychological point of view, we can only see the end results and get some conclusions. Theoretically good points, but from practical point of view how did we get here with 2mil people in the prisons, and third world places in big cities.
Year ago I had the chance to listen to Gary Null saying that 70% of mental problems are due to toxic chemistry, related to chemicals in food. On the same line, back in 2005, I had the chance to go to the shop of the guy who was feeding the automatic dispensing machines in the Cincinnati Public Schools. All the products he was selling were nothing more than solid form of toilet-cleaning solutions. Nobody was challenging this aspect. No wonder that kids being fed for at least a decade are reacting in a different way than those who have good food. Only after those inner city kids reach the prison, finally they eat some decent food. On the other hand, they make now car parts in the shops instead of car license plates...
Also when Mr Mangual ponders “how do policy makers produce policies that generate prosocial behavior leading to good outcomes for children” (paraphrased), yes there absolutely is a way:
The three pillars of character virtue development i posit to be:
1. Observing Ego (Freud) also known as mindfulness or self-reflection.
2. Personal Boundary growth: how to say no, hear no with grace, and to husband one’s own resources, respecting others.
3. Constructive decisions in one’s agency of self: “win/win” vs “win/lose” decisions whenever possible. To help one’s self not at the expense of others, and often “on the same team as others.”
These used to be taught by religion (likely the root cause of the new Gen Z/Alpha religious renaissance), but doesn’t have to be solely taught via religion or by good people in two parent married households.
Science can also teach it via a synthesis of Freud, Kohut, Seligman, Vaillant and referencing Aristotle, Kant and other predecessors.
IMO.
Thanks for a remarkable talk.