Life 1.2 (Beta) The Good, The Bad, And The Deeply Held

I was listening to “This American Life” with Ira Glass on Chicago Public Radio … a good story about attempts to unionize a chicken processing plant in a backwater town in North Carolina …The folks working there are in one of the most horrible jobs in America and are primarily immigrant workers who have few options … The story focused on bringing a priest, pastor or rabbi into the mix and trying to appeal to the owner’s conscience rather than burning the place down as they are now do in France and Greece… it didn’t work.

I don’t know if that is good or bad in the long run. To me, unions are like socialism … good idea but “the human nature” cannot resist the temptations of power and greed … both are destined for the most corrosive and corrupt evolution of any of society’s tools.

Another aspect of the story had more meaning for me. The workers were overwhelmed and many became despondent but one of the organizers was quoted as believing, “people are basically good which means (they are) always just a conversation away from a conversion (to good)…” It caught my ear and at first seemed a foolish, strange and an improbable definition of humanity.

I am respectfully non-religious and have always believed that a person’s personality was fundamentally set; fixed by the age of 4. If a person is a little co-dependent shit at 4, you can get fair odds that the person will be a little co-dependent shit at 24, for example. I, the science and years of experience are probably right about this fact more often than not.

However, there is more to the equation than the simple facts. While many points of religious doctrine are troubling it is obvious that deeply held religious beliefs allow for a hope that we are "just a conversation away from a conversion to good." Truth is not as important to me as the fact that the guy in that North Carolina backwater, heading in for another day in a hellish job, gets up in the morning, maybe every morning, thinking/believing that it may be possible. He may be happier than I am. I have to respect that.