Member-only story
People, in Concept and Practice
Our idea of people is saturated with cynicism, but where are all these terrible people we speak of?
There is a subject which is perhaps more discussed than any other, but whenever this subject arises there seems to be a break between how we conceive of it and how we actually experience it. That subject is other people. It is often said, “Well, that’s just how people are,” or “You can’t trust people.” There is this idea of “people” that is both nondescript and dark. It is a hazy conceptualization, and it seems to be colored with more human failings than virtues.
Yet, I believe that if I were to give to each reader a structured survey, and bring them to make a specific accounting of the actual people they encounter, they will find that this dark phantom they have imagined is nowhere to be found. We so easily say that people are bad, or can’t be trusted, or any number of unsavory things, but when you walk into this business or that and ask a question to the cashier, or greeter, or waiter, do you most often find a scoundrel seeking to trick or attack you? If you meander through the streets of your neighborhood and those around it, do you cross the path of one evil character after another — or do you mostly pass, without incident, individuals that are generally unremarkable and not too different from…
