Goodness is so rare, it must be illegal. So why didn’t someone tell me?
It would be great to devote this column to praising good and worthy things, but alas they are far less common than the faults and ill will of mankind. Although there are cultural differences in the expression of virtue, the reality is that all people generally act in a primarily selfish and narrow-minded way. I guess that is why when kindness and generosity happen they surprise us so much.
Many of the kindest acts are not heroic, but momentary and small-scale. Like the problem I experienced the other day in carrying groceries to the car. I told the French shopkeeper I would be back to collect the remaining box – but as I reached my car I realized that he was behind me carrying it across the street to me. Such gestures are not just manners – like stepping aside to let someone else go through a door, but stem from an inner good-will towards others.
I am sure there are companies where people rush to help colleagues and expect nothing back in return. Where managers treat all their staff with utter respect and achieve complete loyalty in return. I am sure too that such business cultures can be cultivated by a strong and long-standing CEO. For, as the Jacobean play has it …“poisoned near the head, death and disease through the whole land spread”. Yet I guess most people would be bored in such a paradise and few have the strength of personality to subsume their selfish instincts in the interests of the common good.
Then, of course, there is the economic system in which we all work. Capitalism requires subjugation, surplus value and business rivalry. That is why the bully and the brute can be so effective at making profit if they can sustain their management style and create a sense of constant fear in those around them. Fear and respect are close cousins and selfishness can be a positive business quality if it is geared to an individual’s career and remains free from corruption. The monster needs charm by the gallon, but many people have learnt the art of impression management and can lay it on when they have to. So paradise is not really an effective business model and maybe goodness might as well be unlawful?
I guess that the daily experience of the falsity and harshness of modern workplaces is why people increasingly value non-social activities in their private lives. A number of studies in France, for instance, found that the reduction of the standard work week led to them taking more time to listen to music, reading and doing household things. Maybe the only way to make workplaces better places to spend our time is to carry a bottle of neurohormone oxytocin in our pockets. In an experiment conducted in Claremont Graduate University inhalation of this substance increased generous behaviours by 80%. I wonder if I can buy it in bulk online or is it sold by my local shopkeeper?