If you are a student of history, you realize that human nature has always been a constant.
We should teach kids in K-12 "Most people are crap, but some of the crap people did amazing things and there were also a few non-crap people out there, of varying impact."
One of the biggest reasons I love Shakespeare (and other older literature) is that it really highlights how human nature hasn't changed. The good and bad of mankind, as well as the struggles we face, are largely the same as they were centuries ago. It really makes me feel a kinship with these people who died long before I was born, to know that they had to face the same kind of insecurities and challenges I do today.
They don’t really. People try and fit in publicly so that they’re seen to be good by their group, whereas fitting in to any group at any level in any age requires accepting some things that you know are bad and when things aren’t visible people commonly indulge in a lot of bad that even their group would publicly object to often with the moral license they feel they’ve earned from the performative good they do in public. Being a truly good person by our own standards is hard to the point of almost being impossible.
> People try and fit in publicly so that they’re seen to be good by their group
These statements are not in disagreement.
“People who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea [0]
> requires accepting some things that you know are bad
Light is the head that accepts one's own doing as "bad." Moreoften I think people face inner resistance stemming from the cognitive dissonance between the unknowable "own standards" and the very legible external standards.[1, 2]
Still, I don't think it is impossible. It just depends on the standards one sets. Some seem to be doing fine, being assholes. But I also suffer from setting my standards impossible high. But I cannot really change them without giving up myself.
This isn't snark, or self-righteousness. This view on humanity is merely a realization most religions and cultures have come to understand across human history.
> Some seem to be doing fine, being assholes
Even if their standards are incredibly low I wager they are failing at them all the time, and if they don't admit it then they are lying to save face, lying to themselves, and making excuses.
