By Nawar Fakhry Ezzi
Simple acts of kindness toward others, such as smiling or holding the door open for the person behind you, are most of the time spontaneous and do not require much consideration. However, the more complicated performing the action becomes, the more people start calculating whether the effort, time or even the money involved in the process outweighs the benefits as well as considering the possibility of being betrayed by the person claiming to need the help. Those who end up helping others usually end up taking the leap mainly because of their underlying faith in the original goodness of human nature.
The different responses to the refugee crisis by developed countries clearly illustrate such a situation on an international level. Some of these capable countries truly believe that all humans are essentially “good” and worth saving, while others believe that only humans who look like them are “good” and deserve the privileges that come with this belief. As a matter of fact, most of us, who are not saints or psychopaths, sadly do choose to be selectively good and believe in some people’s good human nature depending on our abilities, preconceptions and biases.
“Human nature” is one of the oldest topics discussed by philosophers, addressed in major religious teachings and recently even examined by scientists. Some philosophers, such as St. Augustine and Thomas Hobbes, argued that human nature is inclined to stray from the “right path” by nature and needs to be “straightened” by “divine intervention” or through social norms and civil laws. On the other hand, others, such as Plato and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, supported recently by a plethora of scientific studies, believed that human nature is originally “good”, but is corrupted by civilization and society.
In Islam, human nature is regarded in terms of “al-fitra”, which is the innate predisposition that humans were born with leading them to naturally choose righteousness and submission to God. Parents are the prominent factor in maintaining this predisposition or changing it in addition to other external factors. Thus, moral teachings and laws exist because of the inevitability of the alteration of “fitra” in order to maintain morality and stability on an individual and social level. Adults are left then with free will, which allows them to choose their own path within reasonable limits.
It seems like our belief in human nature nurtures our innate sense of compassion toward others or destroys it. For example, parents who are loving toward their children usually believe in the goodness of human nature leading them to nurture that goodness in their children while abusive parents would be on the opposite end of this spectrum. A study conducted by Everett Waters, Judith Wippman, and Alan Sroufe indicated that children who have a healthy attachment to their parents are more sympathetic to their peers when compared to children who have abusive parents.
If we apply this pattern to other social entities and institutions going all the way up to governments, we can assume that oppression, injustice, discrimination and totalitarian laws are based on a negative perception of the nature of some or all human beings, which in turn create many people who are less inclined to do good in the first place hindering the development of these places. In contrast, compassion, kindness, democracy, freedom, equality, justice, tolerance, acceptance of the “other”, and respecting human rights all emerge when individuals, societies, and governments have faith in the goodness of human nature leading to a more civilized country.
This is not equivalent to being naïve or living in anarchy, but it is rather finding the balance between them on an individual and social level. The laws and consequences of one’s “wrong” actions in any institution in society should be designed to maintain and regain a person’s original good nature, which might have been corrupted by bad parenting, social injustice, and eventually their own choice of the “wrong” path. When we build walls and isolate ourselves from others because of the belief that human nature is originally “bad” instead of extending our compassion and help to them, this will only lead to creating true monsters and lead us away from the “fitra” that we were born with.
The writer can be reached at nawar81@hotmail.com
