Now before he explains what he means, Spike wants to clarify the terms good and bad, a bit. In Spike’s mind, good means caring about others. Bad means caring only about oneself at the expense of others. There are more specific goods and bads—like building homes for the homeless, or embezzling billions of dollars from a company and causing thousands to lose their pension plans—but those specifics are motivated by the basic principles of caring for others or caring for oneself.

There are some people who genuinely seem to be good using this definition: they have caring hearts and positive attitudes; they try to make life better for everyone around them. They may not perform charitable works, necessarily, but just being around them makes other people feel good. George Clooney strikes Spike as this sort of person. Aside from the fact that he’s concerned about the environment and the Sudanese, his disposition just seems very sunny. He appears to recognize the fact that he’s been handed the winning lottery ticket and he wants to take everyone else along for the ride. Plus he’s really hot.

On the other hand, there are some people whose outlook on life is consistently negative. These people seem to gravitate toward mid-level management positions where they can tamp down the spirits of their underlings by reacting to each new company policy with gloom and cynicism. We’ve all worked with these people. No matter what happens, they will always find the shit-stained lining. Spike considers these people bad because they spread their negativism and that is a form of selfishness.

But most of us are somewhere in the middle of these extremes (and those of, say, Mother Theresa and Jeffrey Dahmer). At times we feel warmth for our fellow humans, and at other times we only care about getting our own piece of the pie. We’re all motivated by a mix of self-interest and concern for others. That’s just our nature and it works out pretty well with the whole concept of the social contract, so long as we don’t swing too far one way or the other (yes, Spike does think that it’s possible to be too self-sacrificing).

So Spike doesn’t think that the issue is really whether people are good or bad, but rather why we behave the ways we do, and that gets back to the essence of human nature and Spike’s assertion that most people are just stupid. While that may seem harsh, here are 5 concrete examples to prove it:

1) People get angry in traffic jams — Back in the days when Spike had to commute to work, he saw this every day. Inevitably someone would get mad at someone else for pulling in front of them in a traffic jam, and then spend the rest of the ride swearing, honking their horn, and in some cases trying to get back in front of the person who pulled in front of them.

This sort of behavior is stupid on two levels. First of all, traffic jams during rush hour aren’t a surprise, so anyone with common sense would just prepare himself for it mentally and accept the fact that traffic is going to have to merge at various points and people will be pulling in front of him. More importantly, it’s stupid because getting angry serves no purpose, particularly when it’s directed at others who are stuck in the same circumstances. And in the big picture, whether you’re three cars ahead or three cars behind isn’t going to amount to a hill of beans. You’ll get where you’re going when you get there.

So why do people expend so much energy getting foolishly angry? Spike thinks it comes down to feeling a loss of control. People want to feel like they have control of their lives, and when they’re faced with situations that take away that illusion—like traffic jams, or waiting in line at the DMV— they feel helpless and need to vent their frustration. Spike finds the whole phenomenon rather silly since he knows that this is actually his world and the rest of you are just guests anyway, but that’s beside the point.

2) Man has a natural tendency toward entropy — Again, driving behavior is a great example of this. Imagine you’re travelling on a two lane highway in heavy, but steady traffic, and suddenly the road widens to 3 lanes for 200 feet before narrowing again. Is everyone going to stay in their lane and bide their time? Of course not. The asshole driving every third car is going to see the extra lane as his opportunity to get ahead and will pull out, even though he’s ultimately going to cause chaos for everyone else when he has to merge again in 10 seconds. Most people are extremely short-sighted that way. They don’t look at the big picture. They simply react in the moment and then suffer the consequences and force everyone else to suffer along with them.

3) People believe in magic — The most obvious examples of this are the lottery, credit card debt, and religion. People buy lottery tickets because they believe that their big pay day is just around the corner and that their sad lives will be magically transformed; people rack up debt because they believe that money will magically appear to pay it off before they go to prison; and people pray and give money to churches because they believe that all the horrible things they do on Earth will be magically forgiven when they die and they’ll receive eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven...despite the fact that there’s no evidence to support any of these beliefs. In fact, sometimes the evidence is to the contrary.

Sure, people win the lottery every day, but not nearly as many as play. The latest Mass Lottery commercial touts the fact that last year the state was able to give over $3 billion to Massachusetts cities and towns, all of it coming from the lottery. That means that no matter how many people actually won, collectively over $3 billion was lost. Continuing to play with odds like that is just stupid...unless the jackpot gets over $30 million and you have a really good feeling that you’re due to win.

Besides, Spike is a strong believer that even if you gave 100 people a million dollars tomorrow, by the end of the year 70 of those people would be broke, 20 would be in debt, 5 would still have exactly a million, 4 would have made a small profit, and 1 would have all the money lost by the first 90 people. So even if someone does manage to hit it big, it probably won’t make any difference. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

4) People are basically lazy — Why do most people’s circumstances never change? Because they’re too lazy to make a concerted effort to change them. Everyone loves to bitch and moan and blame their misfortunes on bad luck or the other guy. Very few are willing to look at themselves and ask what they could be doing differently. They’re content to just grumble and coast...or put their faith in magic and buy lottery tickets.

The only time most people make an effort is when they’re galvanized by tragedy, and even then it’s too often short-lived and rarely leads to any real change. Look at how quickly the outpouring of money and sympathy for the people of New Orleans turned to outcries in cities where people didn’t want refugees relocating because they were afraid of how it would impact their own lives.

Of course, what happened in New Orleans might have been avoided, as so many other tragedies might, except for one thing:

5) People don’t learn from mistakes—The human race seems to have been blessed with an unusually short attention span. If a baby sea lion wanders to the edge of the water and a killer whale suddenly comes flying out of the surf, the baby sea lion learns that he has to be careful next time he’s in the area. We build a city is a flood plane below sea level and it gets destroyed 3 years later, we build it again. And then again 80 years later...and possibly again 200 years later.

Maybe it goes back to the belief in magic, that circumstances will suddenly change or faith will win out, but humans seem to repeat their mistakes over and over again. Look at the tech boom and subsequent stock market bust in the mid-90s. People invested everything they had in hopes of making a killing and retiring early, and instead many of them ended up hopelessly in debt because they believed the good times would go on forever. Hadn’t the same thing happened less than a decade before with the junk bond market and Beanie Babies? Duh!

And still people haven’t learned. In the last few years billions have been thrown into real estate investment to capitalize on the dramatic rise in housing costs. And now if you take a drive down Harrison Avenue in Boston’s South End at night you’ll see that the majority of the windows in all the new condo buildings are dark...because no one lives there. Yet Spike is certain that as soon as the next “sure thing” investment comes along everyone will quickly forget the lessons we’ve learned and jump right on that band wagon.

So, Sarah, what you may see as people being bad, Spike just sees as people being stupid. At the same time, Spike accepts people’s foibles and frailties and has great respect for their nature to persevere and to rise up and help (for however brief a time) when others are in need. The rest of you are, sadly, imperfect, but Spike forgives you and even has a small spot of warmth for you all at times...like for a one-legged dog, or a gay Republican, or some other pathetic creature.

So as you head into the holidays, Sarah, embrace your fellow men and women. And try not to judge them harshly, or get angry or resentful toward them as you’re stuck in line behind a hundred of them hoping that magically the supply of Xbox 360s will hold out until you get to the front.

Best of holiday wishes,
Spike

DISCLAIMER: Spike and Online OffBeat take no responsibility whatsoever for advice given in Spike Sez. Submit questions at your own risk to spike@onlineoffbeat.com. If no questions are submitted, Spike will make them up.