What’s Wrong With Being Naïve?
When I was young, I was often called naïve. I had to look it up in the dictionary, and found that it means “Lacking wordliness and sophistication; artless; simple and credulous.” The way people used that word, it sounded like a bad thing, but I couldn’t figure out why. What exactly is so bad about being naïve?
Then I visited my cousin in Pennsylvania when I was about ten years old, we went for a walk, and he convinced me that he didn’t know how to find the way back to his own house, so I earnestly tried to help him figure it out. He laughed and laughed, and I felt annoyed and embarrassed and vowed to become less naïve. I didn’t want to be fooled. Thankfully, that was just a harmless prank. Imagine if I had been exposed to true evil: I would have been a sitting duck. I saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire, about a pair of boys in India who lose their parents and are trying to scrabble together a living. And then a kindly stranger approaches them and offers them a coke, and I thought “Uh-oh! Run away, kids! Run away!” Sure enough, that stranger was not their friend, and lead them into a life of crime. A few years later, the boys made their living stealing shoes from people who visited the Taj Mahal, and I’m sure the boys felt like those naïve people who left their shoes out were suckers tho deserved it, and they were the wise and sophisticated ones.
My life turned out very differently from theirs. I have been in a few dicey situations, but nothing terrible has happened to me. I’ve had a few things stolen from me, but otherwise haven’t been the victim of a crime. I acknowledge my privilege, and I do not fault the people who live a less fortunate life and end up very hardened as a result. Still, I tried to become more worldly and sophisticated, but I had to remind myself to do that, sometimes unsuccessfully.
Here is a recent example: the context is that I was in Philadelphia for a business trip, and after the business part was over, I took the rented car up to Bryn Athyn, PA, where my brother lived. Well, I tried to. I used to live in Bryn Athyn and went to college in Philadelphia, so I thought I knew the way, but I overestimated my navigating skills, and before long I found myself on a tall bridge looking down at a river. I knew that had to be the Delaware River, which meant I was driving into New Jersey. “Simple”, I thought: “Once I cross the river, I’ll just turn around and come back.” When I tried that, though, I discovered that the bridge from Philadelphia to New Jersey is free, but the bridge from New Jersey to Philadelphia costs $5, and I didn’t have cash. I went up to the toll booth with credit card in hand, and she just said, “You’ll have to find an ATM somewhere.” “Where?” She didn’t know, so I turned around and started driving through Camden, New Jersey. It’s a rough town, and it was very dark. I wandered for several miles before I found a convenience store – the kind with bars on the windows and counters – and got my cash. The people in the store were very interested in me and wanted to become my friends right away, but I got out, and when I walked out to my car, I was relieved to see three police officers out there. I asked them how to get back to the bridge to Philadelphia, and they told me to go three miles down this particular road before I turned around. I walked to my car and got in, and then I heard a knock on my window. It was shabby looking man who looked homeless and destitute, and something in my head told me to just drive off. But I’m a naïve person, so I rolled down the window.
What did the man say? He didn’t ask for money; he didn’t threaten me; all he said was, “Actually, if you take that side road there, it will cut two miles off of your trip.” That was all, and he walked away. I still had the choice of whether to believe three uniformed officers of the law or a homeless man, which partly meant deciding whether that man had good motives or not. I chose to believe him and followed his suggested route, and sure enough, in two minutes I was back across the river and half an hour later I arrived safe and sound at Jonathan’s house. The story could have turned out very differently, of course, and I would hardly blame anyone for being suspicious of that man. All I can say is: I’m glad I trusted him.
There are two reasons I’m glad I assumed the best. One is that, in this case, it turned out to be true, and I benefitted from his advice. The other reason is a little deeper: it’s because decisions like that, decisions to assume the best in people instead of the worst, keep me from becoming a hard-hearted, suspicious person.
The Dilemma--Protection or Soft-Heartedness?
We often face that dilemma: to be suspicious, or naïve? It is good to not make assumptions, of course, but on a practical level, it’s hard not to have any at all. Think of it as a choice of your “default” position: do you default to being suspicious and wary, or do you default to being “credulous” and naïve? And just because your starting position is one of those doesn’t mean that you can’t decide to opt for the other. Think of it like the American legal system, where we have the principle of “presumption of innocence.” It is written into our law: jurors should presume that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Many juries do find the defendant guilty, of course, but should only get there because the evidence propels them to change their presumption. There are other countries in the world where it works the opposite: you are presumed guilty unless you can prove your innocence.
And I also know that, despite what the law says, many jurors come into the courthouse presuming guilt instead of innocence. And outside the courthouse, the presumption of guilt is alive and well. In the court of public opinion, people are often quick to “cast the first stone.” The internet seems well-suited to turning people into an angry mob, quick to assume the worst. Just last week, I saw an article entitled “Why You Should Assume Everyone Is Stupid, Lazy, and Possibly Insane.”
I can hardly blame people, since the internet has also exposed to us just how many people have bad motives and are intent on harming you. If your cell phone rings and you don’t recognize the number, what is your response? Is your first impulse that it is a legitimate call, or that it’s a scam call that you shouldn’t answer? If your impulse is the second one, odds are you are right. If you receive an email that says there is a problem with your bank account and you need to re-enter your bank account number, social security number and birthday, don’t do it. You need to protect yourself – and I can add, if you fall for one of those scams, you not only bring suffering on yourself, but you also make it worthwhile for the scammer to keep trying it on the rest of us. If everyone was good at spotting those scams, they would stop attempting them and we would all be better off.
So, being suspicious is an important way to protect yourself. Imagine seeing a hungry animal, and if you offer it food, look at how that animal will react to your outstretched hand with food in it. Of course that animal will be wary and cautious! That’s a basic survival skill. It’s really no different for humans: if a stranger offers you food or drink, you might not want to gulp it down without thinking.
But there is a cost to that. There are situations where you are starving or dying of thirst, physically or spiritually, and you call out for help. And sometimes, like the Good Samaritan, the person who comes to help is a stranger. And like the Good Samaritan, they would have given you everything you need – but you turned them down, and chose to starve instead. You were suspicious of the very person who could have helped you most.
And there is another cost: if you teach yourself to default to suspicion, you come to look at others with hatred and scorn. If you think the world is full of evil people out to rip you off and harm you, that’s what you will see all around you. It’s like someone visiting a city, and choosing to go straight to the worst slum and stay there. Soon the world will look like one big filthy slum, and you will miss the beauty in the world.
And if people do manage to get beyond your barricades and make friends with you, sooner or later you will drive them away. Think of Ebenezer Scrooge, who has an employee who is loyal and who works hard, but all Ebenezer can see is someone who is trying to rip him off. Did you ever wonder why Bob Cratchit kept working for him? The whole point of A Christmas Carol is that Scrooge has slowly turned his heart to stone. And yes, he has amassed a fortune and successfully protected himself against anyone who might steal it – but at what cost?
The other day I biked past a playground that I used to take my children to, and for a second I wanted to pause and sit on a bench and enjoy the sight of children playing. But I know that when a 60-year-old man goes to a playground alone and watches children, people will assume the worst. I’m okay with not being able to go there alone – but I also think about the parents of these children, who automatically assume that everyone is a pedophile. Has that turned their heart to stone? If they teach their children, “Never talk to strangers,” are they also teaching their children to look at the world as full of evil? They may feel they are protecting their children, but on a deeper level, teaching children to assume the worst in people may cause them more spiritual harm.
Choose the Heart of Flesh
In the reading from Secrets of Heaven, the contrast is stark, and the question worth pondering is, which type of person do you want to be? The type who “see[s] nothing in their neighbor besides that neighbor’s evil. If they see anything good in the person, they either dismiss it or put a bad interpretation on it.” Or the type who “hardly even notice[s] evil in another but pay attention instead to everything good and true in the person. When they do find anything bad or false, they put a good interpretation on it”?
Which one was Jesus? Well, there were times when he called out hypocrites, so he did not think that everyone around him was good. But as the reading from Mark pointed out, he spent a lot of time hanging around sinners. There is a story from Luke 7:36 where Jesus was dining at the home of a Pharisee and a “woman who lived a sinful life” came washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. The Pharisee is horrified, and asks, “Don’t you know what kind of woman she is?” And Jesus’ answer was, in effect: of course I do – and I also know that, despite the life she had led, she has a good heart. Was Jesus naïve? If so, why is that bad?
Curiously, there is modern evidence that being naïve and trusting is good for you. In 2010, two researchers named Nancy Carter and Mark Weber did a study about lie detection, and they correlated it with how trusting people are. And you might think that trusting people are bad at spotting liars, but their research showed the opposite. To quote their study, “Contrary to lay wisdom, high trusters were significantly better than low trusters were at detecting lies. This finding extends a growing body of theoretical and empirical work suggesting that high trusters are far from foolish Pollyannas and that low trusters’ defensiveness incurs significant costs.”
Significant costs: the untrusting people think they are protecting themselves, but in the end it is the opposite. They may assume that people who are telling the truth are lying – which can be just as bad, if not worse, than assuming that people are telling the truth. And, I would add, they have turned their hearts to stone in the process.
So this week, think of the phrase from Ezekiel, and pray that your heart of stone may be turned to a heart of flesh. A heart of flesh is soft and vulnerable, and may look unprotected. But your spiritual task is to assume the best in people, choose to trust them, put a good interpretation on everything they do. The person who cut you off in traffic; the person who said something insulting to you; the politician who seems corrupt; the celebrity who seems selfish; the family member who neglected to do a chore; the friend who didn’t show up for a get-together: for just a week, put energy into interpreting what they did in the best way. In other words, get a little practice being an angel.
READINGS
Old Testament Reading: Ezekiel 36:24-28
“‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
New Testament Reading: Mark 2:13-17
Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Secrets of Heaven #1079(2)
Where neighborly love is absent, self-love is present, along with hatred for anyone who does not cater to oneself. That is why people who lack neighborly love see nothing in their neighbor besides that neighbor’s evil. If they see anything good in the person, they either dismiss it or put a bad interpretation on it.
People governed by charity act in an entirely different way. These differences form the distinction between the two types of people, particularly when they enter the other life. Those who lack all kindness radiate hatred from every pore. They want to examine and in fact judge everyone and crave nothing more than to find evil, constantly bent as they are on condemning, punishing, and torturing others.
Those who are guided by kindness, on the other hand, hardly even notice evil in another but pay attention instead to everything good and true in the person. When they do find anything bad or false, they put a good interpretation on it. This is a characteristic of all angels—one they acquire from the Lord, who bends everything bad toward good.
