Mt. Absolute Truth! This is the journey you will be taking when it comes to walking with Stuart Mayo Watt in his book ‘Are you born good – A mountain journey to the top’. With the idea of the terrain being the ultimate guide that takes a man to the ultimate truth – God! 

Similar to a mountaineer the author of the book finds himself testing different terrains to ensure that the reader reaches the top with him leading the way. 

So what is new in this book? Watt does not believe in Nietzsche’s idea of if a wolf eats a sheep, it is because it has to! 

Watt turns around and seems to blame the sheep for being ‘bad’ as well. The natural disposition of the internal soul being bad instead of being a product of society and circumstances is the central idea for Watt. 

Watt emphasizes how the human mind is trained to hide Mr. Hyde’s side of them by restricting the use of words for other people as well. Thus claiming that these words or rather adjectives remind us of our shortcomings or the truth that people are bad. 

However, hold on a minute, there is some discrepancy to this! Does Watt dismiss the idea that good things exist in the world or good deeds? 

No, he does not! He initially begins the book with the basic best deeds that everybody seems to do including him. However, he is not satisfied with them being good enough. The reason is that Watt states that these good deeds are done keeping in mind some sort of expectation in the shape of gratitude. A smile may be, the next person being nice, being excessively thankful, and the favor receiver showing his best to the favor doer all the time. 

The idea of receiving this is so engraved that he claims that human beings want to feel greater than thou, and hence their actions. These feelings are engraved in the child’s mind since the very beginning to give them the pleasure of being better than others throughout their lives.

All these theories aside here is the big question. Why is Watt such a strong advocate of humans being bad? 

The answer is beautifully explained in his own words. “…my position is coming from the recognition that God exists and wants what is fundamentally a ‘worshipful’ life from His creation, giving God the glory, not taking it for one’s use.”

Watt strongly believes that human beings are born with a lot of flaws – or as he says it they are simply bad. And God has made them this way to ensure that they follow a worshipful life. 

The quote mentioned further explains his thinking. He explains that when human beings do a ‘good’ deed to help God’s other creations, including humans, they should be doing it for God and not for gratitude. He believes that this is the ultimate truth and this is how nature has instilled the personality whether we follow it or not. 

Eventually, this helps give the credit to every good thing to God himself who in his belief deserves all the pride and credit for the best happening on the planet. 

Watt brings about an interesting opinion to this when he talks about a child. ‘A child is the father of the man’ – Wordsworth’s famous lines that mean that a child’s personality is the man he becomes known with Watt’s theories as well. Maria Montessori’s idea of the child being closest to nature further proves his point of man is naturally selfish. How?

Watt discusses how a child born has anger, aggression, and selfishness in its nature. Crying no matter how happy the people around him are or smiling no matter what others go through serves as a stance for his theory.

However, why is Watt overall trying to prove all this? He has a simple idea, which he mentions very early in the book. Man is not good – he is born bad! It is a bitter truth that nobody seems to digest very well. He believes that the social idea of being influenced by the environment and other people is the typical scapegoat of man. 

The reader ought not to find a way to escape Watt’s theory when he discusses the beginning of time. When Adam and Eve decided to be bad, the first thing that happened was Adam blaming Eve for the entire fiasco and Eve blaming the devil.

To reach the top

Yes! I have not forgotten about the mountain part of the book. It seems to play an important role in the metaphor of reaching the ultimate truth. That is what the climb is to Stuart Mayo Watt as well. He seems to have taken the first step – reaching the base or ‘picking the bible’. 

Every part of the terrain is a new revelation of the book. A new realization of what man goes through. The mountain of Christianity is a difficult but very important climb. Because this particular climb is the only way to reach the top and there is no other way. 

In addition, for those that refuse to take seriously or agree with his philosophy, there is no better way to conclude this than Watt’s own words. 

“As God’s truth gradually fades from the minds and consciences of leaders and the people they serve, when decisions are not grounded in the truth of Scripture, when moral absolutes become a foreign language, and false twisted forms of morality are embraced, people won’t be asking ‘what is truth’ they will be crying out in despair, GOD HELP ME!”

The writer’s narrative

The writer of this article picked up the book with the idea of disagreeing with everything the book stands for. However, one thing that the writer could not do is exactly that. The strong truths with proof from either divine scriptures or scriptures mixed with a bizarre but unignorably significant logic seem to bring everyone onto one page. 

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