The Myth That Human Beings Are Evil by Nature
The Myth That Human Beings Are Evil by Nature
Subtitle: Psychopathology of the Brazilian State
1. Opening — Fractal, 17 years old
Someone says:
“Human beings are selfish by nature.”
“Without rules, everything becomes chaos.”
“Without control, people become evil.”
You have heard this before.
And strangely, it can feel safe.
As if the world suddenly made sense.
But pause for a second.
When you help someone without thinking…
when injustice hits your body…
when you want to belong…
does that feel “evil”?
Or does it feel like something else?
Maybe the problem is not human nature.
Maybe it is the story we were told about it.
2. Deepening
The idea that human beings are naturally evil is not neutral.
It organizes the world.
If humans are dangerous by essence, then:
they must be controlled
they must be watched
they must be punished
they need someone above them
This legitimizes:
punitive States,
rigid hierarchies,
concentration of power,
permanent distrust.
This view became famous with Thomas Hobbes, who argued that without authority human life would fall into permanent conflict.
But this is not the only possible reading.
In Rutger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History, the central argument is direct:
human beings tend more toward cooperation and empathy than violence.
Bregman revisits historical events, famous experiments, and popular narratives, showing that many examples used to prove “human evil” were distorted or poorly interpreted.
Anthropology also points in this direction.
David Graeber and David Wengrow, in The Dawn of Everything, show that human societies have always been diverse:
some more egalitarian,
some more hierarchical,
some alternating forms across time.
There is no single fixed human nature.
There is adaptation.
Now neuroscience enters.
With Antonio Damasio, we understand that the mind is not separate from the body. It emerges from the interaction between body and environment.
The body learns:
to trust,
to cooperate,
to defend itself,
to attack.
What many call “human nature” is often adaptive body memory.
If the environment is hostile, the body closes.
If the environment offers belonging, the body opens.
So when society repeats that “humans are evil,” it creates a cycle:
distrust grows,
bonds weaken,
relations harden,
defensive behavior increases.
Then this behavior seems to confirm the original theory.
But it was produced by it.
That is social psychopathology.
Politically, this is decisive.
If you believe the other is naturally dangerous, you accept:
surveillance,
punishment as a foundation,
inequality as inevitable,
elites as necessary.
And you lose something central:
the ability to build “we.”
Without Jiwasa, isolation remains.
Without belonging, control remains.
3. Metacognition
Now bring this inward.
When you meet someone unknown, what appears first?
Curiosity?
Or distrust?
Does your body open?
Or close?
This is not pure nature.
It is learning.
Go deeper:
When you make a mistake, do you punish yourself automatically?
When someone else makes a mistake, do you judge quickly?
This may not be essence.
It may be conditioning.
And here is the turn:
if the body learned, it can relearn.
The question stops being:
“Are human beings good or evil?”
And becomes:
“What environment shaped this body?”
“What environment am I creating now?”
When you slow down, breathe, and listen…
the body leaves defense mode.
Something appears:
cooperation,
empathy,
curiosity.
Not as an ideal.
As a real possibility.
Without this, we accept any system of control.
With this, we begin to rebuild belonging.
And that changes everything.
Because a people who perceive themselves as capable of cooperation
will not accept living under permanent fear.
References in Didactic Order
Books
Rutger Bregman — Humankind: A Hopeful History
Shows, through historical and experimental evidence, that humans tend toward cooperation and empathy more than violence.Thomas Hobbes — Leviathan
Presents the classic view that humans are naturally violent, justifying the need for a strong State.Jean-Jacques Rousseau — Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men
Argues that human beings are not born corrupted, but shaped by social structures.David Graeber & David Wengrow — The Dawn of Everything
Shows the diversity of human social organization, challenging the idea of a fixed human nature.Frans de Waal — The Age of Empathy
Shows that cooperation and empathy have deep biological roots.Antonio Damasio — Descartes’ Error
Shows that mind and body are integrated, and that emotion is central to behavior.
Post-2021 Publications and Studies
Michael Tomasello (2022) — studies on cooperation and agency
Shows that cooperation is central to human evolution, not an exception.Decety & Cowell (2022) — empathy and moral development
Analyzes how empathy and morality are developed across life.Keltner et al. (2023) — social functions of emotion
Explores how emotions organize social relations and cooperation.Heyes (2023) — cultural evolution of cognition
Shows that human behavior is strongly shaped by culture.Whiten (2024) — social learning and adaptation
Shows how social learning deeply influences human behavior.Nature Human Behaviour (2025) — cooperation and trust studies
Indicates that trust and cooperation vary according to environment and social structure.
