Human nature: decent, indifferent or rotten to the core?

Do you think the majority of people are basically decent - caring, empathetic, considerate, tolerant and willing to help others? Do you think they're indifferent - too self-absorbed, narcissistic and entitled to give a shit about anyone but themselves? Or are they dirty, evil, rotten to the core motherfuckers who actively seek to make others lives miserable? Of course, there are probably all of these represented in any large group of people and some people may, at times, fit into any one of these categories, but I'm talking about the average person, most of the time - people who, in most aspects of their lives, fit under the bell curve within one standard deviation of the mean. Explain why you think what you do.

I used to think most people were basically decent, even though I've been burned several times in my life as a result of thinking like that. I was able to maintain that belief by telling myself that these rotten or indifferent pricks were the exception rather than the rule. After what happened to me today, I'm revising that thought.

I commute into a city of about 4.5 million people. I take a regular (above ground) train into the city and have been catching the subway (el, tube, metro...underground train) rather than walking 35 minutes uptown to where I work since I messed up my knee a bit skiing last week. This morning, the train pulled into the crowded station and I stepped back against the wall to let other passengers get off the train before I attempted to get on. When the door chimes sounded, indicating the doors are closing, I had to move forward to get on so I didn't miss the train. Just as I did, a guy plowed right into me and knocked me to the ground just inside the door, as it was closing. My right leg found no purchase and plummeted down the gap between the train and the platform all the way to my hip. Very painful and kind of frightening with my left leg in the train, ass on the floor of it, my whole right leg jammed between the train, which was about to leave the station, and the platform, with the door trying to close and hitting me each time it did.

Of the 50 or more people on the train and a crowd of others outside on the platform, not a single person offered to help me get my leg unstuck. Not a single person held the door so it would stop hitting me. Nobody pushed the emergency stop strip to alert the driver. The guy who barreled me over didn't even slow down. I managed to get my leg out from the 5-inch gap by myself and was on my hands and knees, in obvious agony, on the floor of the train as the doors closed and the train took off. Nobody offered to help me up. To her slight credit, one woman asked me if I was ok. I was a bit in shock and hurting so I said yes, but wasn't really very ok at all. I got myself to my feet and was leaning against one of the plexiglass walls near the door. Nobody offered me their seat. They all just sat or stood there watching like I was some character on a reality fucking tv show. I had to go several stops before a seat became vacant so I could sit down.

Only one person out of all those people showed even the slightest concern. My new estimate: 2 in 100 people are decent. The rest are indifferent or rotten to the core. It matters not.

 

It's a little to complex to say this with only 3 choices. It does depend on the situation and the people involved. I thought much the same as you do until I had a house fire. The amount of people that stepped up and helped me, went totally out of their way to help, has had me re-think this whole thing.

 

Maybe it's a city thing.

 

Human nature is to breathe eat drink sleep excrete procreate protect and extend.

Everything else is human behavior. We could say behavior is helpful or not, but to say that it is evil distorts apprehension and calls for the wrong remedies.

 

If I saw that happening to someone, I'd bloody well help them. Stop the doors from closing. Alert the driver. Ask if I could help them up. Something. I can't even fathom just sitting there gawking and doing nothing, ffs.

 

Not sure what you mean...extend? It is part of the nature of human beings to be social. Living in social groups has certain requirements and compromises. We eat and drink and all the rest but we also must help others do so if we wish to be part of that social group. Our behavioral patterns are part of our nature as human beings as well. I'm not convinced your distinction is meaningful.

 

Extend means empathy right? To help others! What needs remedied?
Am I the only one who voted?!

 

Yes.

 

thats unreal! if that happened here everyone would be up ta help ya and you'd had your choice of seat and people to talk to you till you felt better. the guy that knocked you over,was he going in or comin' out ?and did he know he was after knocking you down?

 

That is a horrible story, Joan.

I think there is a disconnect in society. I don't think people are bad or indifferent. I truly believe the majority of people are good, but because society has become so fragmented the human race as a whole has gotten lost.

I would have helped you

 

Yes I am sorry this happened to you as well. Are we being conditioned to be weirded out by touching one another or what?

 

sorry that this happened to you

if it's an consolation, I think that I would have tried to help had I been there

 

He was exiting the train I think. I don't know how he couldn't know. He hit me like a ton of bricks and I yelped when I fell. I think the coffee I was carrying spilled on his arm too. Gotta be some kind of oblivious to have not noticed any of that.

 

Thanks. I don't really think people are wholly good or bad either. My poll was kind of hyperbolic. I'm a little pissed off...or shocked or something and my leg hurts in several places.

 

well in the case,i hope you had no milk in that coffee.the reason i was asking was he going in or out was cos if i was in the train too later,he'd have had to apologise to you or get thrown off the train.hows your leg now ?

 

I moved back out of the city at the end of last summer after living there for 4 years and every day when I go back there to work I feel like I've stepped into the twilight zone. I'm glad I don't live there any more. I didn't like it at all. If there was some place I could work out here in the hinterlands I'd be all over it. Alas, there aren't very many places in the entire country (Canada, btw) that I could do what I do for a living. Certainly nothing out here.

 

Badly bruised and sore in several places. My whole body weight jammed it down all the way to my hip, into a space that's only about 4 or 5 inches wide. I'll recover, but I'm too old to have that kind of thing happen with impunity. Going to be sore for a bit I expect. Thanks for asking roamy.

 

have you ever considered doing some kind of work from home maybe .would that be a possibility? then you leave the city completely behind you.

 

every so often when I'm in the city, I see people playing the "run into people" game, usually hitting them from behind.

those people suck

I hope that guy's penis falls off and he's stung by many bees, btw

 

Not sure what I could possibly do at home that would keep my bills paid. It's pretty expensive to live here. Half my income goes to pay for housing. My husband died this past fall and I have a small pension but that wouldn't even cover half the cost of this place.