No one thinks they're the bad guy
My mental model for understanding why things happen in the world
No one thinks they’re the bad guy.
This is central to my worldview and informs my mental model of how other minds work, and thus why things happen in the world. But it’s surprising how many people I speak with who are absolutely certain that there are people out there who know they are doing evil and think of it that way. They insist that there are people out there who think to themselves, “I am an evil person doing bad things in the world, and I will continue to do so because that’s the kind of person I am.” Oh, and also usually because capitalism.
I just don’t think anyone thinks that way. Maybe there are amoral people in the world, those to whom the concept of right and wrong, good and evil, just don’t really occur. Or, they think the concepts are not worth considering. But these are few and far between. By and large, I think people think they are doing the right thing most of the time. The thing may actually be bad—but they don’t think of it that way.
A terrorist thinks that by murdering civilians, they are fulfilling their holy mission as God intended. A colonialist thinks they are bringing civilization to people who could materially (and maybe morally) benefit, and also that they are helping to spread their own culture, which they truly believe to be superior. A missionary, quite literally, believes they are saving immortal souls from eternal damnation. The CEO of a large, multi-billion-dollar company probably believes their company is solving a key problem in the world. If it’s a gigantic oil company, for example, maybe they think, “I make a product that helps millions of people around the world get back and forth from work so they can make a living and take care of their families.”
Yet as much as I point out that everyone has a good justification (at least a story they tell themselves) for why they do what they do in the world, others are certain these people are deliberately obfuscating. They insist the CEO of a large oil company knows they are doing evil and simply continues to do it. They insist a missionary is there for other purposes, perhaps to support the work of an evil capitalist or colonialist, and that the religious mission is only the ostensible purpose (in other words, they argue strong religious beliefs are not sincerely held). They insist the colonialist knows and conceives of what they are doing as extractive, rapacious behavior at the expense of the weak and is simply using the guise of “bringing civilization” as an excuse. And they insist that the terrorist who murders innocent people was most likely tricked into being a terrorist because they are uneducated, or was recruited to do so because they were poor and had no other choice (even if interviews and data about the communities where terrorists come from don’t bear this out).
Anyway, I think all of that is quite patriarchal. It is patriarchal to say, “I don’t think you think what you say you think; in fact, I have determined that you think something else.” It is also patriarchal to say, “You only think what you think because you’ve been misled or tricked; if only you had the same information and capacity for thought that I do, you wouldn’t think that.”
But I think it’s important and useful (not to mention respectful) to take people at their word, and I think it’s a mistake to assume that the reasons people tell us for doing things are not actually the reasons. You’re not some all-seeing master who can decide whose motives and ideas are arrived at honestly and whose aren’t. Besides, I wouldn’t want someone else to do that to me! I would want them to take me at my word. I would want them to accept that I’m doing the things I do for the reasons I say I’m doing them. Not because I’ve been tricked or I’m trying to trick you.