What’s Fishy with Human Nature?

I read this unlikely fish story.  In Guernsey, UK, on July 12, 2012, Mathew Clark stole a 13-pound bass from a local aquarium which he entered in a fishing competition and won the top prize money of £800. There are countless shenanigans throughout history – this is not the worst or most despicable – but this may typify the different sorts of misdeeds, uncomplicated they may seem, the motivation simple, clever yet seemingly unencumbered by guilt or the benefit of the basic ethical scruple, or regard for any kind of socially established norm of behavior.

Granted fishing is the most fraught with tales of fish tails, this incident would have had an entrancing ending if Mr. Clark’s intentions went as planned.  You see he envisioned winning the contest, keep the fish alive and later return it to the aquarium.  Not entirely implausible to pull because he used to work there.  Unfortunately, the fish died.  Obviously, Mr. Clark did not think it through very well, especially for someone who used to work at a place whose business it was to keep alive all of its fish and other water creature residents.

Everything would still have worked out for Mr. Clark if not for a keen eyed fish lover who saw the picture in the papers – Mr. Clark grinning as he held the winning catch during the awards presentation.  The person recognized the bass from the aquarium.  Needless to say, Mr. Clark’s fishy misdeed smelled and he was promptly arrested and put to jail and assessed a heavy fine.  Mr. Clark stunk like rotten fish.

Here was a case of a miscreant not thinking things through while another had the presence of mind to think through a most improbable connection by mere happenstance.  Now, what are the odds of that happening?  Of all the tall fish tales this one is true.

So, what is it about human nature that is both noble and corrupt that seems to come up in equal doses in every generation.  Perhaps not exactly in equal doses but let’s throw in a number, for the sake of argument, say, 10%.  If we review history, settling on the 10% number, it appears that no matter what generation we pick, there will always be 10% of miscreants whose deeds will come in a variety of ways and motivation.

There was always a Bernie Madoff in generations past and there will continue to be Bernie Madoffs in the future.  For this musing I will set aside the truly evil side of humanity by not dwelling on the likes of Atilla the Hun, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. They will take up an entire discussion although, just the same, we will always have the likes of them in future generations in the same dosage as many of their kind had done in generations past.

Explaining Mr. Clark and Bernie Madoff seem simple enough based on the simplest of all motives - greed. Of course, as we all know, it is more complex than that. As our world gets more sophisticated so do the methods employed by anyone who is corrupted or has the will to commit corruption.  In the Old Testament though, simpler times by today’s standards, there was a complex story of Esau who sold his birth right to younger twin Jacob for a bowl of stew.  What Esau did was supposed to be a big no-no in those times because he sold a solemn and spiritual right for something as “basic” as food that was of temporary value, although Jacob was not an exactly honorable brother to manipulate his brother.  And then Jacob and their mother later made it even more complicated when they conspired to deceive Isaac the father at his deathbed by having Jacob pretend to be Esau to get the elder’s blessing.  The story exemplified how one seemingly trivial low point in human nature, simple as it may have begun could escalate into something complex. Mr. Clark may have nothing more in his mind than a few hundred pounds of spending money, and Mr. Madoff may not have been thinking hundreds of millions of dollars in the beginning, except perhaps for a higher social prestige, lavish parties and expensive art work.

There was a B-movie, with a 2-star rating, that reminded me of how one little trickle of a white lie could cascade into an unstoppable waterfall.  A guy called in to his boss with a little lie for not coming to work one morning.  He lied that he was taking care of a sick daughter at home.  Granted he was quite unhappy with his job he didn’t exactly want to quit.  He doubled up on his excuse next time he felt like not showing up for work again by telling that his sick daughter was now at the hospital.  So the one simple lie has taken a life of its own as he lied to his wife as well, doing his routine task of taking his daughter to a baby sitter every morning, but never said anything about not going to work. The third time he called in to his boss for not coming in his boss fired him over the phone.  Then, again bereft of any thought process, he doubled up his lie further by telling his boss that his daughter just died at the hospital.

His daughter was perfectly fine but his boss softened immensely when he went back to work the following day; his boss spoke kindly to him and later took up a collection for him from very willing co-workers to help him out.  One morning a kind co-worker went as far as to bring a home-made quiche to his home.  His wife opened the door to greet the co-worker but his quick maneuver saved the day for him as he shortened the visit without alerting his clueless wife but to the bewilderment of his co-worker.  Of course, as always with cases like this, things unravel rapidly with devastating consequences.  This was fiction but how many have we seen in real life where one simple lie intensified to more lies and ultimately to a disastrous resolution, shattering lives and reputation or sometimes resulting in violence.

What is it then about human nature? The term is sometimes used to mean that it is inherently natural for humans to do the wrong thing, or that at least the path of least resistance being the easy thing to do is not the right way, inferring that to do the right thing is the more difficult one. Of course we do know that human nature is predominantly that of doing the right thing.  I’d say ninety per cent of the time.  Unfortunately, it is the ten per cent that gets the sensational coverage in the media.

We should settle on the fact that it is the inherent goodness of humanity that took our world to where it is today. History showed us that despots and oppressive regimes of empires and governments did not last for a long time.  However, in every era of history including the present one, there is always the ten percent.  In truth, every civilization happened to be more “civilized” than the one it preceded.  From the Magna Charta to the Geneva Convention to International Laws, humanity had been progressively recognizing and condemning man’s inhumanity to man and continues to strive to make our world a better place.  Perhaps it will take us a while to get the 10% (if that is the number, others may view it to be higher) down to zero but the direction points positively from one generation to the next; at least, we hope so.