The people physically close to you probably want what's best for themselves and those around them. The people you talk to online, the people who produce mass media, and the people who write your school textbooks? Never. Drop. Your. Guard. The average person doesn't want to hurt you, but these aren't the average person.
Heck, the mass-media people don't even need to want to hurt you to hurt you, as Michael Crichton once said:
> Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. […] You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
> In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
> That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say.
I agree, and have often said the same thing. As the old saying goes, people tend to judge others by their actions, and themselves by their intentions. What the vast majority of us really want is happiness and health for ourselves, our families, and our communities. It's easy to have a civil disagreement with somebody when you keep in mind that they really do mean the best, but cynicism has taken over a lot of peoples' mental images of each other.