Making good choices and accepted other people's choices.

I have a good head on my shoulders. How do I know that?  It's because I survived my first job with my integrity and wellbeing intact. What was my first job? I sold tickets to porno movies for the mob.  I was 16 years old! 

Now, some may argue that working for the mob selling tickets to porno movies when you are underage is itself – a bad decision.  And you wouldn't be entirely wrong. But in my defense, when I took the job, I didn't know that would be the job. Do I make good decisions? Yes, because I obviously handled what turned out to be a crazy job - quite well.  

The theater was a revival movie house. We showed more than porno movies. Just - we also showed slightly more porno movies than is legally allowed before you have to register as a porno theater. We got raided by the cops. A lot. The pornos we showed was almost all art films and cult films. It also turned out the theater was a money laundering operation for a gay mobster but that's another story.  

What I remember the most was how hysterical it was when young men, going to an art film porno on a Sunday morning, suddenly have to purchase a ticket from an obviously underage girl. They universally stammer their way into explaining why the movie they are going to see – wasn’t something they were PLANNING on seeing even though, that's totally what they had planned. They would make an excuse like - my girlfriend is shopping (even though there were no stores near us) and they had time to kill. What movies are available? Oh - it's a porno?  Oh well - might as well see it. Men, just so you know, you don't have to explain to anyone why you are going to a porno movie. The people selling tickets - don't care.  

Despite being surrounded by the mob, prostitutes (both male and female) and people doing drugs, and being head hunted by famous strippers to learn the trade, and being hit on, a lot,  I got through that job – without trying drugs. Without getting raped. Without having sex, without working in a sex club, and without going on any dates with questionable people, though there were a couple I seriously considered, including a concert pianist or the guy who went on to become a famous Oscar winning movie director both of whom – I liked. Despite everything I was exposed to and multiple opportunities to make questionable life choices, I made good decisions for myself.  

As for how this relates to Humanism. If you want to know why I am so completely non-judgmental when I meet people, it’s because – I’ve MET people.  You are almost assuredly pretty boring compared to some of the people I’ve met.   And I do love boring but interesting people so don’t think of that as an insult. If you are boring - I mean that you aren't making choices that create unnecessary drama and hardship for yourself or the people around you. I've seen PLENTY of that. I prefer boring over unnecessary trauma.   

(Note: If you want to learn how to make better decisions to avoid unnecessary drama and trauma - I have a course called Living Made Simpler that explains how I use the Humanist philosophy to making difficult decisions in all aspects of my life - https://humanistlearning.com/livingmadesimpler1/) 

The main thing I learned though – is that everyone I met, every single person I met, including the ones I knew enough to say no to, were human beings worthy of being treated with dignity. 

The other lesson? The reason I was ok through all of that, was because every single person I met, was ok with me saying NO.  Even the kind of scary, almost assuredly mentally ill guy that would come by on occasion to hit on me  – accepted me saying no to him. 

So – when we talk about rape, understand something important. People who don’t accept "NO" - ARE The problem and they are the exception. Because I’ve hung out with strippers, had extensive conversations with prostitutes brought by their Johns to see violent porno movies and other people of equally – interesting backgrounds.  And at no point, was I ever made to feel like I wasn’t safe or didn’t have control over whether I was ok with things or not. I knew what my boundaries were and kept them and my boundaries were ALWAYS respected.  It was ok for me to say no to people involved with the mob. 

Consent is everything. People who ignore consent are uncommon – fortunately – but they are ABSOLUTELY terrifying and do a tremendous amount of damage to everyone else.  

Making good choices, only works to keep yourself safe, if the people around you – respect your choices.  This is what we should be teaching – as normal. This is what I learned was normal selling tickets to porno movies for the mob. It must be ok for people to say – no thank you. I’m not interested in doing drugs, having sex or working at a strip club or whatever else I said no to.  If you want to do those things – have fun. But I’m not interested.  That was ALWAYS ok which is why it was ok for me to work there. 

Most people - accept consent as foundational to everything. Those that don't - are dangerous.  And when I say, accept consent. As soon as I said no, no one cajoled me or tried to make me change my mind. Never. If I said I wasn't interested, the conversation stopped there. Always.  Anyone who tries to make you change your mind, isn't accepting your no which means, they are dangerous. 

Why good intentions lead to bad outcomes

Having good intentions is not enough. Lots of bad things happen because people with good intentions - end up causing harm. How can we ensure that our good intentions will lead to good outcomes? 

Most people are good - or think of themselves as good. We are all the heroes of our own stories.  If we did something, it must be good.

The reality is: even well people with good intentions sometimes do harm.   Wanting to be good - is only half of being good. The second part is actually doing good things.

What is good? Helping people and reducing suffering. 

To actually do good - you must do good things. To do good things you must know what things you do are good and which are bad or not good.

This requires thinking and personal responsibility.   If someone tells you - you hurt them - it doesn't matter what your intention was, it matters that - despite your good intentions - someone was harmed.

Good people learn from their mistakes and work to fix them. 

Bad Information Leads to Bad Outcomes

My father was a computer programmer. He used to tell me - garbage in, garbage out. If you don't know what is true, or if what you think is true - is actually a lie - you can be manipulated into doing bad things for good reasons.  You may think you are helping, but you are hurting, because - you believe a lie.

And again - it doesn't matter what your intention is - it matters whether you helped people or harmed them. 

Propagandists use our good intentions to cause people to do bad things. We must all be vigilant against such manipulations, which is why Humanists are so intent on teaching people critical thinking skills.  Critical thinking helps people avoid common thinking mistakes and helps us learn what is true and what is false so that - we don't accidentally cause harm through our ignorance. 

Compassion Matters:

We humans take mental short cuts all the time. And part of those short cuts is that - if people disagree with us - instead of listening to them tell us why we are wrong - we assume we are right and they are wrong and they not only have nothing to teach us but that they are now our enemies for disagreeing with us.

When written out like this - it's easy to see why this is a mistake. It's much harder to recognize when you are in the moment.

How do I get past this?  With compassion. Anytime anyone disagrees with me - I have compassion for myself so that I don't allow my instinctual emotions to get away from me. I extend my compassion to the other person so that I can see that maybe they are giving me constructive criticism to help me. This helps me accept the information I don't like.  And finally - I have compassion for the people who are impacted by my behavior. This helps me focus on my ultimate goal - doing good - not just wanting to do good. 

To recap - the way to make sure your good intentions lead to good outcomes is:

1. Desire to do good
2. Understanding the truth so you can choose good outcomes
3. Exercising compassion with yourself and others - so you can correct your behavior if it turns out you made a mistake. 

Learn more:

Pretty much every course I teach on Humanist Learning Systems - teaches this methodology. Whether this is for your personal development or professional development. It's worth learning and practicing these skills. Because - wanting to do good is not enough. You have to actually do good things to be good. 

https://humanistlearning.com/jennifer-hancock/

How do humanists explain evil?

This may seem odd, but I’m not sure that Humanists have a concept of evil. Instead, we view behavior as self-motivated and either adaptive or maladaptive. That doesn’t mean we are moral relativists, it’s more that we view bad behavior through a more compassionate or understanding lens. Let me explain.

I don’t think of people as being evil. But I do judge behavior as good or bad.  I don’t think people wake up and think – today I’m going to do evil, though they may indeed act in a way that harms others.

So let’s start with morality. Good vs bad is a moral judgement. As a Humanist, I judge something as good if it helps people and bad if it hurts people. If it hurts a LOT of people, it’s REALLY bad.  The impact can be so bad that it is easy to view the behavior or action as evil.

But does that mean the person who took that action is evil?  That’s harder for me to accept. Most people don’t chose to do bad. They do bad things because they are trying to do good things. That isn’t an excuse obviously, but it is a way to understand human behavior.

I also think it isn’t helpful to view people as “evil.”  Labeling people as evil is a way to dehumanize them. This may help us in the moment emotionally distance ourselves from behavior we find abhorrent, but I think dehumanizing people does way more harm than good.

When we understand people’s choices as being rational to whatever ideas they hold, we then admit that we could be them.  That’s scary for a lot of people. But for me, recognizing that I too could have gone down that path – there but for fortune – helps me to recommit to not going down that path, whatever that path was/is.

The point is – as a Humanist, I don’t have a conception of evil even though I can look at certain actions as being evil.  How do people do things that are horrendously bad? Because they convinced themselves it was the right thing to do.  Even Hitler thought he was doing something good.
The onus is on us as individuals to make sure we don’t fall prey to bad thinking which results in bad actions which cause harm.  It is our responsibility to make sure we actually do good things and don’t accidently do bad things while thinking we are doing good.

Is this easy to do? No. But it’s our responsibility and we have no one else to blame. And that’s – a good thing.

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To learn more - get a free copy of my book: Jen Hancock's Handy Humanism Handbook

Critical Thinking and Humanist Values

You cannot think well unless you have a goal in mind. Having a goal requires you to have values.

The reason we try to think critically is so that we can make good decisions that will benefit us and hopefully others. I am a Humanist, so the framework in which I make my decisions is, good for me, good for my family, good for my society and good for the world in which I live. And yes, I do consider all of that when I make my decisions.

My point is that in order to make good decisions, we have to have some set of values that allows us to deem certain decisions good and others bad. Those are value judgements that require a value system.

Most of us make decisions by weighing the pros and cons. And again, that’s about what is good and what is bad and those are value judgements and we  have to have a set of values that help us make those value judgements.

Moral judgement isn’t enough though. We also have to know what is true. Here’s why. Moral judgements don’t occur in a vacuum. They are determined by what you think is true and false about the situation you are judging. If you mistakenly believe something is true that isn’t, your moral judgement will be flawed as well.

Humanism values critical thinking precisely because it helps us to not only organize and prioritize our values realistically, but also because it encourages us and reminds to base our decisions on what is true and to change our minds if we find out we are mistaken.  Our goal isn’t to be right or to be seen as right, but to do good.

And this brings us back to the question of what is good. Humanism bases our values on compassion. But it isn’t enough to have a value system, you also need to prioritize certain values above others so that when you have a tough decision to make you know what you consider to be ultimately good. In other words, what is your ultimate goal?  For me, as a Humanist, my ultimate goal or good is to live my life fully, love other people and leave the world a better place. This is what I aspire to.

Knowing what my ultimate good is helps me make difficult decisions precisely because when all other things are equal – I can use these goals as a way to decide which path to take and feel pretty good about it.

To learn more about how a Humanist combines compassion based ethics, critical thinking and personal responsibility into a holistic approach to life, consider taking Living Made Simpler at Humanist Learning Systems.