The Redemptive Self:Stories Americans Live

Abstract

Who are the good people? When you think of the people you know or have known, when you think of the people you never knew but wished you had known, when you list your family members or check out your Facebook friends or take an inventory of the notable people who show up in the news, on tele vision, or as characters in your favorite movies or novels, who stands out as really, really good ? Probably not the richest people, right? Probably not the greatest celebri ties or sports stars. And probably not those more-or-less pretty good folks out there—the ones who follow the rules, more or less, stay out of jail, try to be honest in most things, pay their taxes and hold down good jobs, the more-or less well-functioning, psychologically okay, pleasant-enough-once-you-get-to know-them men and women in your world, living decent lives, more or less, and working reasonably hard to get by. Who are the good people, and what criteria might you use to decide? My guess is that you would choose people who tried to make the world a better place . Th ese might include famous people who operated on a grand scale—Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, renowned religious, moral, and political heroes, or perhaps eminent scientists or doctors who made signifi cant contributions to the common good. But your list would also surely include people you have known personally—maybe a parent, a teacher, a coach, a dear friend, a neighbor, or some other individual, probably somebody older than you are, who has had a strong positive infl uence on you. My list of really good people will be diff erent from yours, of course, but I bet we will use pretty much the same main criterion in making our choices. Th at criterion is what psy chologists call generativity —and generativity is where this book begins.