The Great American Think-Off is a public debate that has been
going on for twenty years. Each year a topic is chosen and people are asked to
submit their arguments in 750 words or less. Two pro and two con advocates are selected and they go to New
York Mills, Minnesota to debate the subject.
This year’s topic was “Man: Inherently good or inherently
evil.” Readers of Hell on Earth, a love story—and you know who you are,
are well aware that everyone on Earth has some bad trait or they wouldn’t be
here in the first place. But that doesn’t make them evil. So I took the
inherently good side of the argument.
I didn’t get chosen as one of the four finalists but this was
my entry. Feel free to comment or offer your own opinions.
Mankind Is Inherently
Good
We question the inherent goodness or evilness of mankind not
because we have questions about his general construction but because we observe
his deeds. If mankind only performed good deeds nobody would ever question his
goodness and if he only performed bad deeds no one would even suspect that he
might be inherently good and simply behaving badly.
But because man does perform random acts of evil, his inherent nature is
continually questioned. Ironically, this ongoing self-inspection is the
unlikely answer to the question it presents; but before we get ahead of
ourselves let’s look at why man performs evil deeds.<
