We want to believe in good because we have to

One little piece of Carrie's blog post yesterday made me think:

"My entire life I have leaned toward the belief that most people when of sound mind, are generally good and try to have good intentions.  I fear, however, that having that conviction has allowed me to get bullied more than I should have been."

I would argue that we hold this belief about people because we must. No one really wants to live in a world where we assume people are douchebags. That's not a reality anyone wants to embrace. We'd end up letting all of the awesome people slip through the cracks. And then how would Carrie have met me? ;)