Grace Notes: Cooperation and Kindness

Everywhere around me I see these embellishments, human beings acting as grace notes, brightening the lives of those around them.

Volunteers organize bags of food during a food distribution at St. Bartholomew's Roman Catholic Church in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens on May 15, 2020, in New York City. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images

In high school, many of us read William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies,” the story of British schoolboys whose airplane crashes on a deserted island, at which point nearly all of them swiftly lose the veneer of civilization and become murderous savages. The novel suggests that most human beings, removed from laws and social constraints, would become depraved beasts.

Perhaps.