Well also my conception of humanism, which is concrete and grounded in more than optimism, is under elaborated. I think it’s hard to argue that dark triad personality disorders, and the negative expressions of them, are purely inherent traits. Our society seems to breed narcissism within people. Meanwhile there are many people who struggle with these traits and still manage to not do too much damage to other people. Ive known people with clinical diagnosis of psychopathy that were able to manage it with medication and therapy. They still might blow up for seemingly no reason, or be like scarily competitive, but they could also be loving (albeit difficult) husbands and fathers, hold down a good job, be productive.

I think your definition of corruption is interesting, “intentional action outside the intended purpose of a system.” What influences such action? This is what I mean about decentering the human: the system is created by people, workers of all kinds. You are able to conceive of the individual and the system as separate things, but not how the system is made up of the reflective thought and productive activity of people. Your definition can account for abstract objects, but not their histories or the inherent relationships that create and sustain them.

I accept that there is a certain self discipline associated with doing good rather than doing evil. And I accept that we can reach some kind of consensus on what objective good and evil would be. But we have to question why some people develop that discipline and others do not, and the answers are verifiably linked to social and economic factors. I’m someone born with privilege, and my ability to develop myself and act to create positive change is itself a social privilege afforded by things like my race, gender, upbringing, etc.,

Until you are able to account for the fact that the system is made of the productive activity, time, reflective thought, experience, and effort of living breathing people, rather than conceiving of only static objects, you won’t be able to formulate or concretely understand any actual theory of change.

That’s not a dig at you, it’s not an imperfection. Its quite literally how we are taught to think because it underwrites the domination of a minority over the suffering of a majority. We all start out there, but some of us change, because people are capable of change. which means society, made up of people, is capable of change.

In order to change your views beyond a socially imposed limiting perspective, you’ll need to start having new experiences, develop the ability to authentically reflect and criticize them, and through that reflection and criticism, take action to change something in our shared material reality. This reflection in action is what is meant by praxis.