Why Why?

[Belacqua]

it could simply be that I'm  a nasty and bitter old cynic who finds it hard to see the good in people.   

You and me both!

Aristotle (which is where Dante gets his ethical system from) says that a good person is one who feels good from doing good. 

In this system, people who do bad largely act on mistaken premises. They think that what they do will get good results for them, though in the long run it will come back to bite them. Like if I think robbing a bank will make me happy because I'll have a lot of money, I'm ignoring the fact that I'll almost certainly end up in prison. Karma is a thing. 

I still test this theory a couple of times a year, when I'm in a bad mood and I think that a large box of donuts will make me happy. Someday I'll learn that it just makes me feel worse.

And of course it's our leaders' duty to set up a society in which doing good is natural for us -- where we don't have to harm ourselves to be altruistic. But now we have largely the opposite -- we live in a world where money rules everything, and the helping professions are the least well paid. The greatest rewards frequently come from hurting the most people, as the Sackler family can attest.

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Christ Incognito?

I haven't heard this phrase before. Is this something from theology? 

It fits really well with some of the mystical Christians I've studied.