Humans are messed up

I learned something about human psychology while watching Casablanca last night on TCM. Who is the most likeable character in that film? It's not clear to me whether it's Bogart's Rick or Claude Rain's Captain Renault. Bogart is, of course, the reluctant hero, but Renault is the charming knave. The idealistic resistance leader, Victor Laszlo, isn't even in the running. There is no preachy hypocrite in the story, but if there were, he would certainly be the villain.

So let's get this straight: We love a man who has no principles and flaunts the fact. We love a man who is cynical about ideals, but who affirms them in the end. At an emotional level, we are indifferent towards a man who has high ideals and lives by them without fail (a person who, by the way, is not found in real life). And we hate anyone who sings the praises of high principles, but who is inconsistent in following them.

I'm sorry, but humans are messed up.  Have we always been this way?

Human nature and political orientation: There seem to be two contrasting images of people on the political right. In a textbook on conservatives, you are likely to read that these folks believe that humans are naturally inclined to do bad things. People are always going to be that way to some extent, says the conservative, and institutions of social contral (if not God himself) are the source of any moral actions that can be wrung out of fallen Man.

But one can easily find among Americans who call themselves conservatives the idea that if society will only let people freely do their thing, social cooperation and order will spontaneously emerge. If you find any trouble among people, chances are that an alien, oppressive government is the culprit. In other words, human nature, if undistorted, freely gravitates toward order and cooperation.

I suppose the first view is the conservative one, while the second is libertarian, but you can find both views on the right, and I'm wondering if they offset each other making the right side of the political spectrum no different than the left on the question of the goodness of human nature.

General Social Survey respondents were asked the following question: "On a scale of 1-7 where would you place your image of the world and human nature between the two contrasting images: human nature is basically good (=1); human nature is fundamentally perverse and corrupt (=7)." I've listed the means below by race and self-identified political orientation (N = 11,254):


Mean human-nature-is-bad score

Extremely liberal
Whites 2.99
Blacks 3.99

Liberal
Whites 2.81
Blacks 3.36

Slightly liberal
Whites 2.98
Blacks 3.64

Moderate
Whites 2.98
Blacks 3.52

Slightly conservative
Whites 3.02
Blacks 3.63

Conservative
Whites 3.28
Blacks 3.73

Extremely conservative
Whites 3.83
Blacks 3.79

All whites 3.04
All blacks 3.58

Overall SD 1.67


Let's mention race first. Blacks are clearly more cynical than whites: roughly 1/3 of a standard deviation difference between overall means. Whether this has something to do with the experiences of blacks in this country, I don't know. As mentioned by a reader regarding the earlier post on trust, the American ethnic groups with the least trust also have the highest prevalence of antisocial members, and people might form their views of human nature, not based on outgroups, but based on the people with whom you interact the most.

Turning to politics, it's really extreme conservatives, among whites anyway, who think that people tend toward evil. They match up best with what we think of as the conservative take on human nature. Generic conservatives have a view that is a bit darker than average, but everyone else has a rosy view. The real exception to this pattern is extremely liberal blacks: they even outdo hardcore conservatives. Anti-white ideology might magnify the pessimism among these folks.