If we believe everything in the news media then being a human being is not something to be proud of.
Read, watch or listen to the news anywhere in the world and all you'll find are stories of bad humans doing bad things to themselves, others and the environment. We are constantly being trashed, slandered, vilified and misrepresented. So much so that if Being Human was a brand and you are genuinely, ethically and ecologically minded you really wouldn't be working for Being Human Inc. The testimonials on Glassdoor.com would read like a vision of working in Hades. But is it true? Are we all really that bad? Of course not.
Most of us realise that people working in the media are in the news business and they know that bad news gets our attention much quicker and for longer than does good news - it's just a fact of life. We humans love a scary horror story that makes us feel our own lives are not so bad after all. We can sit safe and smug in the knowledge that people are a lot worst of than us, or at least, knowing that we're not like those bad people. Good news just doesn't sell as well. In fact there's a website called Happynews.com. Looking at it today, the last update was five months ago.
But does the brand name of Being Human deserve such bad press?
Not if you believe the research outlined Steven Pinker's book The Better Angels of Our Nature. However, recent studies carried out by a diverse group of researchers from Harvard and Yale suggests that while we are not intuitively selfish creatures the truth about the human condition is not so clear cut. If we're not intuitively selfish then are we cooperative? The study seemed to reveal that the drive to cooperate only stabilises if there are rewards on offer for cooperative behaviours. So, it's not a given. Oh dear! This particular piece of research was conducted on 2,068 people so we may assume it was fairly thorough and we can only hope it was conducted with rigour. Even so, the evidence did not answer the question as to whether humans are innately good or bad but it did seem to suggest that we are an "overwhelmingly cooperative species, willing to give for the good of the group even when it comes at our own personal expense."
Personally, and regardless of what I see, hear and read in the news I have to believe we are fundamentally good. While human beings have done, and continue to do, many terrible things, we also have achieved and created a plethora of good and beautiful deeds. Our desire to survive through acts of creativity far out weighs our destructive impulses. I am very hopeful and still optimistic about the future of Being Human Inc so I for one will not be handing in my resignation anytime soon. And yes, I would still recommend this company to my friends.
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