With a general election imminent, I was reminded the other day of one of the United States of America's most brilliant and humane politicians, Adlai Stevenson, the type of politician who wouldn't get far today.




Born in1900, Stevenson challenged Eisenhower twice for the presidency, but lost out both times.  After losing in 1952, he remarked in his speech conceding defeat:
"I'm too old to cry and it hurts too much to laugh."
After failing again in 1956, he said:
"I think the American public suspect any politician who has a sense of humour".


He became a well respected man in Washington, and a great admirer of Eleanor Roosevelt, of whom he said:
"She prefers to light candles than curse the darkness."


He was one of the few reasonable voices in Kennedy's Cuban missile crisis, urging restraint when all the hawks were busy promoting military force.  How right Stevenson was.


He made many comments about society, two of which are my favourites - both profoundly true, in my opinion:
"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."
"Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely."

Last week, I wrote about being human.  But that was looking at mostly positive aspects of our nature, as my friend Kent reminded me in an email.


The issue of whether we are born good or evil is a huge one, which has puzzled the minds of many.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others claim the former, i.e. we are born naturally good and it's only conditioning and  repression that warp our natures and create evil.
The Christian religion claims the opposite, that we are born with 'original sin', i.e. evil, and that only parents, teachers and priests can set us on the path of goodness. 
"But what about serial killers, child murderers, rapists, Hitler, Saddam Hussein ?  Surely they are proof that our human nature is evil?" 
"But what about Martin Luther King Jnr., Gandhi and most people?  They're good people."


If you examine the childhoods of serious criminals, Hitler, Saddam, and other monsters of history, you will find childhoods of immense cruelty, hate and neglect.  But if you study the childhoods of basically good people, you will find loads of love, support and freedom.  As a teacher, I have seen living proof of this - all the children I taught reflected their parents and upbringing, from the best to the worst.


I don't believe that there has ever been a 'born criminal'.  For good or evil, our childhoods are vital in establishing who we are for the rest of our lives.  Which is the best argument I can think of for giving new life the best chance possible in life.

Recently, I was involved in a discussion about what it means to be 'human', and it got me thinking about the subject.
The human race likes to think of itself as superior to other species and therefore the strongest.  Yes, we have developed sophisticated languages, are self-reflective, appreciate humour, build cities.  But the word 'human' is a synonym for 'weak' in most contexts, e.g.
"I know I shouldn't have eaten those chocolates, but I'm only human!"


The OED defines human as "showing the better qualities of humankind, such as sensitivity".
Human also means compassionate when used in the sense of reminding others why we should feel for a persecuted and unpopular person:
 "Because he's a human being!"


Diversity in the human race is vast, but we are still all connected through the experiences of human loss, joy, pain, love etc.  Unfortunately, many people look for the differences between groups of humans rather than the similarities.


We are all an extension of the animal race, but, as Toynbee pointed out, that tiny biological difference makes for a huge leap into another species.  Which is why the law of the jungle - 'survival of the fittest' - applies itself mercilessly in the jungle, but should not be applied in human society.  We are too human to revert to animal when it suits us. 
Bertrand Russell said of a good human society:
"Competition belongs solely on the sports' field".  It's worth contemplating the consequences of such a world.

A while back I wrote about Miss Enid Campbell, the mad but colourful head of my infants' school in the 1950s.
On the day before we broke up for the Easter holidays, Miss Campbell contrived a scenario that drove us wild with excitement.
The school had a broad front, with tall doors of wood from the floor to halfway up, and then glass panels to the ceiling.  At playtime, Miss Campbell would lock all these doors.  She had already enlisted some boys from the last year of the primary school, hoping that by the age of 11 or 12 they had learned the truth about the Easter Bunny.  Inside the school, one boy would hold up two giant, furry ears on sticks, visible through the glass and bouncing up and down like a giant rabbit.  The other boys would place an Easter egg in each of our desks.
At the end of playtime, Miss Campbell would rush into the playground, shouting:
"Children! Children!  I can't get into the school.  Someone has locked all the doors.  But who?"
Of course, we would all look towards the doors, see the bouncing ears, and shout:
"It's the Easter Bunny!"
Hysteria ensued, all of us convinced that the Easter Bunny was in our school.
Then Miss Campbell would say:
"My purse is inside.  Do you think he'll take it?"
Of course, we would answer as one:
"No! He's a good rabbit!"
When all the eggs were distributed, the doors were unlocked and the ears disappeared.
We would enter our classrooms, delighted to receive a chocolate egg each, and extra delighted that it had been given to us personally by the Easter Bunny.
Such an imaginative, generous act was typical of the extraordinary Miss Enid Campbell.