Commentary: Most people 'do the right thing'

Chris Stewart/Staff Photo Amelia Robinson, Dayton Daily News columnist

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By Amelia Robinson, Staff Writer Updated 1:45 PM Monday, January 30, 2012

Sometimes you need a reminder that humans aren’t always jerks and are often more than humane.

My most recent reminder came when a Facebook friend posted that a stranger had returned her wallet.

The money, cards and family photos were still there.

When this Facebook friend first mentioned the wallet had gone missing the reaction was overwhelmingly pessimistic.

The general consensus was that this poor woman might as well sell the farm and go into witness protection.

A car would be purchased with her credit. Her house would be robbed. Pigs would sail and chickens and turtles would direct traffic at the nation’s airports.

But the wallet came back and all is good as far as I can tell.

People shouldn’t have been that surprised that the wallet was returned.

Most people are basically decent and will do the right thing.

Nearly 75 percent of people returned the 100 wallets containing a small amount of money, fake $50 gift certificates and IDs deliberately “lost” as part of a 2007 experiment by Wallettest.com.

The golden rule reigns despite all the viral videos showing people doing far from the right thing or standing by doing nothing while wrong is done.

A video from last year showed a mob of teenagers viciously beating another kid outside of a Chicago school.

Another shows a University of Alabama fan pressing his genitals on an unconscious Louisiana State University fan while others watch and laugh.

The immediate thought after watching videos like these is “what in the (blank) is wrong with people?”

Stories like these scream louder against humanity than positive ones scream in its favor, but they are not the norm.

They overshadow stories like the one involving Michael Casey.

The Massachusetts man did more than the right thing recently when he pulled an 87-year-old woman out of her burning car after she crashed it into a tree.

And ironically enough, both the beating story and the LSU story mentioned above ultimately involved people who did the right thing.

In both at least one of the suspects were turned in by a relative. In the case of the beating, a sheriff’s deputy turned in his own 17-year-old son. In the other case, a sheriff turned in his second cousin.

These stories and those that make you shake your head even harder don’t tell the whole story.

Most people will step in to help a person in need.

It is just sometimes hard to remember that fact.

Contact this columnist at arobinson@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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