The Planetary Problem of Bad Faith

A culture steeped in bad faith action and communication cannot meaningfully solve problems. How can we evolve beyond these divisive ways?

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I used to play a lot of public parks tennis, with a lot of the same players regularly.   We played doubles with a lot of trash talk.  But I always prided myself on calling the lines as I saw them.

The rule in tennis is, if you don’t clearly see it “out” you have to put your palm down and call it good.  It can be painful, but if you don’t do it, it’s technically cheating.

One of the regulars was a very colorful guy with a lot of bravado who was impossible to dislike.  He could irritate you badly and you’d think about it later and just shrug and laugh.

One day we were partners, as we were frequently, and it was a very close match which we both really wanted to win.  But he just could not lose, and on a big point he turned to me and said, “if it’s close, call it out.”

I was appalled.  This was a sacrilege to a sport I loved.

I told him I would call it as I saw it, and he was very annoyed.  I forgot whether we won or lost but it dramatized a problem we face today.

Was my friend a bad person?  Was his plan evil in any sense? Or more to my way of thinking, was he ignorant and conditioned in a way that made him oblivious of how things should be?

Or Who is to Say?

When you watch professional sports, the announcers snicker with appreciation if an athlete puts one over on the other team, or if he fools the referees. 

So, the standards of our time are always changing and many people also believe that they are living in a harsh environment and need to cut corners.  Maybe they have a family to support.

Eckhart Tolle says there are no evil people – just unconscious ones and that may be.

But clearly there are still actions that make a sane person realize that they are made in bad faith:

I would cite Hypocrisy as an indicator that someone is not acting in good faith. Completely contradicting beliefs, you have articulated would make someone at best not trustworthy.  Which statement of such a person then is to be believed?

Not long ago if the press exposed the blatant hypocrisy or bad faith dealing of a politician or judge, they resigned. But not now; they get a PR firm specializing in reputation resurrection and often even double down.

Double Dealing – Conflicts of Interest

In our capitalist system, there used to be institutions that tried to enforce ethics in business and politics. At this point, we have seen blatant conflicts of interest in our Supreme Court, and we have witnessed for a long time that what is called “lobbying” is actually bribery.

A former US president is on trial in four separate venues after having gutted as many institutions of law and regulation as possible during his tenure. Was it in bad faith? Will our judicial system survive to hold people from all political sides accountable? Or can the entire system consciously evolve into one that serves all of the people?

How is one to relate to others and society when standards are constantly changing and there are constant conflicts with the opinions and beliefs of others?

If It’s All One It’s All Good?

Nondualism (spiritually?) bypasses the problem by simply saying all is ONE and so the judgment of bad faith is a product of an illusory separate “person.”

That may be well and good but what happens if you’ve been defrauded and count upon the LAW to set things right?

Again, in our system, the court’s judgment may depend on how much legal talent you can afford.

But are we really doomed to live in such a completely transactional world?

Much of what people deem “sacred” or moral is linked to organized religions which had for centuries imposed various behavioral codes on their adherents and often on their conquered subjects.  Our neo-liberal secularism has all but crushed those beliefs and standards.

I would submit, however, that the problem of bad faith among some humans is now existential and must be called out and addressed.

Bad Faith Has Brought Us to the Brink

One example I would cite is the obvious fact that the fossil fuel industry had carried on a deceptive public relations campaign using fraudulent academic “research” to stop regulation. Another obvious area is the NRA and arms industry which has allowed weapons of war onto our streets.

The one common denominator in all of these problems is that certain people have simply ignored the needs of others or the community and have acted in bad faith without accountability of any kind.

How do we begin to deal with this basic aspect of human decency when it is lacking in people who ascend to power?

“We’re in a democracy and we have to vote.”  That is a great concept but plainly it is not working.

This goes directly to the shift or transformation that many have described as dropping our egoic self-serving conditioning and recognizing our intimate connection to a higher intelligence – Life, Being or if you must, God.

We have actually identified many of the issues that lead to blatant bad faith – they are generational and familial trauma and abuse.  If you’ve been abused the need for safety can make you abuse others.

But not all people succumb to such instinctual forces and have used their reason to observe the inter-connectedness of everything beyond the reductionist abstractions of our language of labels and a supposedly “objective” science.

Good Faith is Clearly Evolutionary

Many are using the principles of science to notice the complexity and interdependence of all Life, as was described in the recent piece on “Fabulous Fungi” – a life form that is neither animal nor plant but is like the microbiome of the planet.

And of course there are many activist organizations trying to impress a belief in “Wholeness” over “Separation” in a myriad of ways and venues.

Eckhart Tolle and others have also said that our survival as a species is not guaranteed.  We have caught a glimpse through our science of the true scale and vastness of the universe in which our planet has sustained life.

“Captain Kirk”, William Shatner described his personal sense of sadness and shame when looking at our planet from the vastness of space and realizing how precarious our situation currently is.

Movies and the media have not changed many minds, and often seem to work as resistance to the changes needed, glorifying values of consumerism and egoism.

It’s Up to Each Individual

As organizations like AA have found, to actually change one needs to recognize the need and no one else can do it for anyone else.

But still, at a minimum, our society must use a fair and equitable justice system along with – unfortunately – a form of forceful enforcement – to identify and root out bad faith actors.

And, somehow, we need to restore values that bring healthy shame to blatant bad faith. We must create a sense of community where human connection is a felt value.

Massive external forces seem to also be at play on levels and in dimensions we barely comprehend but every wisdom tradition emphasizes a personal responsibility to others and also to the environment, and these are obvious and sacred values that we need to weave into our individualistic and capitalist system.­

Bad faith actions are ultimately a path to chaos and entropy, and at odds with the evolutionary forces of Life as it seeks to evolve as Consciousness.  Relativism needs to give some way to an absolute – which is the alignment with the forces of Nature, and Life, itself.

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(Tom Bunzel was a contributor to Collective Evolution and now writes for The Pulse.  His new book "Conversations with Nobody: Getting to Know ChatGPT" – a book written with AI, about AI and giving a taste of AI, is available on Amazon.)