Painting: ‘Samson and Delilah’ by Jose Etxenagusia, 1887.
“Very simply, bad is stronger than good. We respond more strongly to things that could hurt or harm us than to things that could benefit us,” said Catherine Norris, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Swarthmore College…. “Survival is really the top goal of any individual…”
— from “Your brain is biased to negativity. Here’s how to be more positive”, by Katherine Kam in The Washington Post, May 6, 2025.
If you’re hiking in the woods, and you happen to come across an especially colorful butterfly… and at the same moment, you notice a mountain lion coming down the trail in your direction… you’re most likely going to focus your attention on the mountain lion.
This tendency, to focus on potentially negative situations instead of on positive situations, has been confirmed by psychological experiments, which I assume were funded by the federal government. In fact, probably funded by the Defense Department, if I know anything about federal funding.
The Defense Department is all about focusing on negative situations, which helps explain why they get the biggest annual budget out of the federal government’s discretionary spending. Very simply, bad is stronger than good.
Common sense also tells us this. But science is stronger than common sense.
But I have to question the idea that “survival is really the top goal of any individual.”
The fact that we even have a Defense Department suggests that “defending an idea” is really the top goal of any individual.
There are so many ideas worthy of being defended, with one’s life if necessary. I have a few in mind. I bet everyone does.
One of the key ideas that needs defending is “Bad is stronger than good.” How many times have we read, or heard someone say, that “Love conquers all” or “All you need is love”. But these people are not necessarily talking about “good”. They’re talking about “love”, which as we all know can be sometimes be good and sometimes really, really bad.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying “bad is better than good”. That would be a silly statement. Only “good” can be “better”. Although usually, it’s not. “Good” is usually just mediocre. Like, butter from grass-fed cows is “good”. But it still tastes pretty much like butter.
The idea worth defending is that “bad is stronger than good.” People can get confused by this idea because they think “stronger” is “better”.
Whiskey is stronger than beer, for example. But no one in their right mind would claim that whiskey is “better” than beer, if anyone in the bar was drinking beer. That would be looking for a fight.
And a stronger smell is hardly ever “better” than a faint smell. Occasionally maybe… but not often. I actually can’t think of an instance where that’s the case.
Even in situations where “stronger” seemed to be “better”, you have to follow the story to the very end.
Take the famous Israelite Samson as a good example. Borrowed from the Book of Judges, chapters 13-16.
An Angel of the Lord appears to Samson’s mother and proclaims that she will soon have a son who would begin to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines. Good so far. When Samson grows into a man, he’s visited by the Spirit of the LORD, which in those days bestowed superhuman strength, apparently. He subsequently performs amazing feats such as slaying a lion with his bare hands, and killing 1,000 Philistines with a donkey jawbone. He becomes the judge of Israel, which I take to mean something like “President”.
Things are getting better. Also, he likes women, and women seem to like him. Seem to.
But his strength depends on a Nazirite vow to never cut his hair, and eventually his lover, Delilah, learns this secret. Turns out, she’s a double agent for the Philistines, and she orders one of her servants to cut Samson’s hair while he’s sleeping. Things go downhill from there. His eyes get gouged out, and he’s forced to mill grain in the prison at Gaza City.
Not so good, at this point.
In the end, he miraculously gets his strength back. This happens when 3,000 Philistines call him out of prison and make him perform at a feast in the Dagon Temple, and after praying for renewed strength, he wrecks the supporting columns and everyone dies, including himself.
Was “stronger” a good thing? Probably not, if you were a Philistine.
This might not be the best story to support my theory — or the theory of Catherine Norris, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Swarthmore College — that “bad is stronger than good.”
But it’s still a darn good story.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.