I don't disagree with that assessment of individuals, LH, but if we're talking about the collective, we can't exclude the few who mess it up for everybody. And as long as they exist, then we have to assume the larger entity (i.e., the society in question) is going to act evil and needs to be treated as evil.

We can still be nice to individuals and hope they will be nice to us, but we have to be prepared to deal with those who don't share those values. Never mind the school analogy — think about what's going on in the world right now. Seems to me a few radical Muslims and radical Christians and radical Jews are making things difficult for everybody. And now, god help us, the Buddhists are trying to spread their views so we can have more dissent about beliefs.

Yeah, we really need that....

One other point re the goodness of man.... How do you judge "goodness," since, as long as there are scarce goods (food, shelter, etc.) to be distributed what is "good" for one group; is "bad" for another. Are we all gonna be one big happy family of Earthlings?

I'm not gonna hold my breath for that....

cheers,

david