I often think about naive optimism that is present in country music. The main song that comes to mind is one in which the main line is, “I believe most people are good.” While I enjoy the general feel of positivity that this song has and country music tends towards, I am not sure that I agree with the idea that most people are good.
But we need to make some distinctions. Aquinas talks about what he calls “the normal course of virtue.” His idea is relatively simple. In an environment where the group expectation is that certain behaviors are encouraged and others discouraged, most people most of the time will conform to the group expectation. Thus, if a culture within a particular group promotes virtue, most people will behave according to expectations. However, this is not necessarily virtue in the highest sense and it might not be holiness.
For example, it may be a social expectation in a region that a person attend Sunday worship. That happens to be the case in my region. Thus, if a person chooses not to associate with a Church and make Sunday worship an integral part of their social life, they risk suspicion and being ostracized. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Group conformity is a powerful mechanism for forming habits and forming people early in their spiritual life.
The challenge becomes that to truly live out the Gospel, sometimes it is necessary to go against the group dynamics and the norms, especially if the norms go against the moral or natural law. Likewise, many people will do the right thing as long as it doesn’t cost them anything, be that ego, wealth, power, social standing, or their health. A kind of mediocre Christian will do the right thing is so far as it requires no sacrifice.
This is where I have learned to concern myself more as I mature as a priest in the sins of omission. Early in the spiritual life we tend to focus more on the sins of commission and for good reason. Chastity is hard enough for most people, especially in our current climate, and we tend to give ourselves a pat on the back if we are not falling into habitual sin in regards to the sins of the flesh. Yet, we never consider the full implications of failing to act when justice and courage require us to.
I believe the main reason for this is that most cases of injustice often are somewhat ambiguous. As I get older, it is not always clear who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. Sometimes the good guy has a crippling fault and our natural sympathy towards them causes us to overlook the injustice. Sometimes their is a bond of natural affection which leads us to rationalize their actions and look the other way. It is easy to hold people accountable when we don’t like them. It is much harder to do when we have a great deal of affection for them.
Then there is the sins of omission which are the result of a weak will and a soft character. Standing up for what is right, especially when others disagree, is profoundly difficult. People naturally want to conform and want others to think well of them. A person that is not willing to conform to the group is often severely unbalanced, but that is not always the case. As I get older, I have come to realize that true holiness is not the norm, but a particular kind of outlier. It is a person who lives by principles, but also who has taken the time to learn those principles in a deeper way.
Therein lies true freedom. The saint is the person who peers into the depths of God and lives by his law above all else. Thus the saint is not simply the person who rebels against norms from a place of ego, but a man who lives by something greater through which he stands out from the norm. Yet, when the group is good, he doesn’t oppose it. When the group is malformed, he does oppose it but not from a place of disordered passion and rebelliousness. Rather, he moves with the spirit and refuses to conform to this world.
Yes, most people are good when they are surrounded by good people. But the saint learns to be good even when they are surrounded by the wicked or in situations where most good people fail to be great.