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“Daily news reports of various crimes actually affirm and support the humanistic insistence that humans are essentially good. It is, paradoxically, the fact that we read of horrific things in the news on a daily basis that bolsters an abiding faith in humanity. Indeed, there is no greater evidence for the veracity of humanism than the daily news. How so? Simple: it is because the news reports on what is rare, what is unusual, what is out of the ordinary. That’s why murder and rape are headlines: because they are notable exceptions to otherwise decent, everyday human behavior. If humanity were naturally, intrinsically evil—if people’s default position were bad, immoral, unethical—then the newspaper would look very different. It would be replete with shocking, unbelievable headlines such as: ...“Couple Takes Morning Walk Every Day Around Their Neighborhood Without Incident!” … But we don’t see such headlines, because they are the mundane, all-too-expected stuff of cooperative, communal, daily human life.” — Phil Zuckerman