Evil From Our Youth?

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late. – Thomas Sowell

Sowell is actually explaining a biblical verse: G-d resolved: “Never again will I doom the earth because of humankind, since the desires of the heart of man are evil from his youth.

Which suggests – perhaps heretically – that the Torah foreshadows even the great Thomas Sowell.

If good in the Torah means “constructive” (as I have argued recently here), then its contrasted opposite word, evil, means “destructive.” And every little boy, finding it much easier, instinctively prefers destruction to construction. It is easier to break than to build, and far more satisfying, at least in the short run.

In which case, our “evil desires” are a result of youth. The Hebrew easily can be understood this way – “from his youth” as a causal connection. It is being young that makes us selfish and destructive, not the mere fact of our existence. The added qualifier “from his youth” is both explanatory and a limit on how our desires may actually not be evil for our entire lives.

This makes sense to me. Every animal is inherently selfish, looking out, in one way or another, for Number One. It is society and upbringing, guidance and leadership, that can help us grow into altruism, into loving others, into investing from ourselves in relationships like marriage and family, communities and neighborhoods. Until we have grown out of being children, we are incapable of making informed conscious choices that are elevated above the selfish desires of children and our own animalistic inclinations.

In the Torah, man is not inherently sinful or a sinner. We are, each of us, ultimately valued by the sum of our choices, not the mere fact of our existence.