A Rational Explanation for Irrational Behavior
In the collection of distress patterns, latent and chronic, which has accumulated on each human lies a simple and adequate explanation of "what is wrong with people." The infinite variety of "bad" behavior and distress on the part of people becomes the literal and unavoidable result of the infinite variety of ways in which we humans are hurt. What is "wrong" with a particular person is a unique thing, the unique result of the unique distress experiences which he/she has endured and mis-stored, experiences which never exactly happened to anyone else.
This understanding immediately makes unjustifiable many old unworkable approaches to human misbehavior and distress. Punishment, reproach, shaming, ostracism, isolation, condemnation or enforcement have never worked well in dealing with human problems. Thoughtful observers of human relationships have noted this many times but have not succeeded very well in interrupting the quantitative practice of them in society.
The understanding of the distress recording mechanism makes plain why these old approaches cannot work.
We do not have human beings with inherent conflicts which they must learn to live with; we have consistent human beings warped into apparent self-conflict by acquired distress patterns which act contrary to their inherent rational nature.
We do not have bad people; we have good people acting bad when they are short-circuited by the emotional scar tissue which has been loaded on them by the environment.
We do not have people who purposely do wrong; we have non-survival behavior enforced upon innocent humans by the unhealed residue of damages done to them. We do not have mean, destructive, vicious humans; we have kind, constructive, loving humans compelled to mean, destructive, vicious behavior by unhealed distress of which they are the first victims.
We are not surrounded by un-understandable creatures, forever beyond effective contact; we are among people just as good as ourselves who can be understood easily where they are rational and whose distresses can be understood and gotten rid of where they are irrational.
We do not have a warped species of creatures who are inherently bent on mutual destruction; we have a divinely gifted species who create art, music, science, and beauty and make no negative moves except when "turned off" and acting as puppets whose strings are pulled by old scars of hurts, either of their own, or ones that have become congealed in a rigid social structure and culture.