When "know thyself" isn't enough.

This post (source), written by a recently divorced man, reveals an all to common trait of men in our age. I understand this trait all too well because it was one I shared. That trait is a deep naivety of the true nature of the human heart. 

How does this manifest in the topic of the post? Dig deeper into the responses and you find that this OP's wife was "fine" until a work trip to Florida, then she dropped the divorce bomb. The OP here was blindsided by the demand and only after the divorce was final was the truth revealed. The ex had an affair and suddenly the OP wasn't good enough, attentive enough, giving enough. In truth, this man (like me an many others) didn't grasp that his partner had the capacity to choose to please herself to the detriment of their relationship. He did not imagine that she could see the "low maintenance" of their marriage as a bad thing and he did not imagine that this person would put her and her happiness ahead of their relationship and his feelings.

Why is this? As a born and raised in the "Christian" western culture, there has been a distinct whitewashing of the depravity of the human heart. We tend to believe that people say what they mean, and mean what they say. We accept the initial behavior of our friends and loved ones as being their true intentions and formulate an internal image of them from those inputs. We are taught to believe the best about someone and in many cases, the worst about ourselves. They are purely motivated and we are potential (and likely actual) evil people. 

How do we resolve this disparity between what we are taught and the reality of the depravity of the human heart? The answer is simple and complicated at the same time. The simple answer is "education". The hard answer is that the education must begin at home, extend to the schools, and be preached from the pulpits and public places. This need for comprehensive and fundamental shifts in the "humanities" is not going to happen anytime soon. As a culture we are so focused on the inherent "goodness" of select portions of our society that we fail to address the obvious lack of virtue in the heart of many. It is that malformed focus that allows these abusers to remain undetected until they strike.