The thing is... I think people are good, basically? I think human beings, in general, are positively disposed towards other human beings, and inclined to help each other survive, if they can do so without risking what feels like their own survival. People, by default, are great.

It's systems that I have a problem with. Systems that fold around people, and almost from birth, begin slowly and patiently teaching them that empathy is not rewarded, that Rules are more important than people, and that only some human beings count as "people."

To put it more plainly, it's objectification that's killing us, in my view. The mental technology to look at another human being and see nothing but a thing, a line in a book, a dollar value the asset can or can not make you. Objectification, and systems that teach & enforce it.

The teaching of that objectification lies at the core of most human evils I have witnessed in my life time. Almost every time I have seen one human being hurting another or ignoring that pain, they first were taught to look at a human and see no person there at all.

And the thing that makes it so pernicious is that you don't have to set out to teach it at all. You only have to do it to someone to teach it to them. You only have to treat them like less than yourself, less than your family, less than a full thinking, feeling person.

You teach objectification by doing it to others. You teach objectification by showing the people around you that their human worth and dignity means less to you than The Rules and The System that you were given. You teach it when you look someone in the eye, and see nothing.