From The Prager Show!
I recently devoted my biweekly column in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles to analyzing why most Jews believe that people are basically good despite the fact that this belief is neither rational nor Jewish. In a lifetime of teaching and writing on Judaism,
I have never encountered a single normative statement in 3,000 years of Jewish writing that asserted that man is basically good.
Why would liberals in general, and Jewish liberals in particular -- given the Jews' singularly horrific history at the hands of other human beings -- react so strongly against someone who wrote that people are not basically good?
In my original article, I offered one explanation: Since the Enlightenment, the secular world has had to believe in man (or "humanity") because if you don't believe in God and you don't believe in humanity, you will despair.
But one critic opened my eyes to an even deeper reason most liberals do not acknowledge that people are not basically good.
This is what he wrote:
"What a sad world it would be if we all believed as Dennis Prager that mankind is inherently evil."
And this is what I responded:
"I did not write that man is inherently evil.
I wrote that he is not basically good. And, yes, that does make the world sad. So do disease, earthquakes, death and all the unjust suffering in the world. But sad facts remain facts."
"A distinguishing characteristic of liberals and leftists," I concluded, "is their aversion to acknowledging sad facts."
First, as with my correspondent above, people on the left tend to be unwilling to accept the sadness and pain that recognition of such facts creates.
Leftism is often predicated on avoiding pain. That is a major reason why the left dislikes capitalism and free markets. Free markets create winners and losers, and the left does not like the fact that some people lose and some win.
This antipathy to having losers expresses itself on the micro level as well. Many liberals oppose children playing in competitive sports because they can lose -- sometimes by a big score.
That is why many schools now emphasize "cooperation instead of competition." They do not want children experiencing the pain of losing, let alone losing by many points. That is also why liberals introduced the absurd idea of giving sports trophies to all kids who play, win or lose. God forbid that only the winners receive trophies; the kids who didn't win may experience pain.
Second, the left lives by theories and dogmas into which the facts of life must fit. That is why left-wing ideas are usually wishful thinking.
The Dennis Prager Show