Comments

Human nature: is it good or is it bad? — 96 Comments

1. Great post. Lots to think about.

2. Breezily one might say: “neither wholly good nor wholly bad”.

   And yet how unsatisfying an answer to such a question, posed in such a preamble or context?

   I have some doubt, for instance, that Thucydides’ own opinion of humankind was as starkly Thrasymachus-like as the Melian-Athenian dialogue presented there would make him appear. After all, may he not have regarded the Athenian position as a terrible mistake, an unforced error of horrific proportion? Well yes, I think so.

   On the other hand, it was Thucydides who displayed the Corcyrean stasis, that great horror of politics dissolved into madness; against which stasis, Thomas Hobbes, Thucydides’ English translator, devised his system of rights and state power to prevent; and against which in its turn this Hobbesean *nasty, brutish and short* was the very analysis of human order (so appalling!) against which Rousseau revolts to devise his romanticism as a repair.

   But nature, echoes from over there! Ach, Hellenes.

   But God, resound the hills! Oy, Hebrews.

   And with these two we only just begin clonking heads together.

   Nor, so far as I can see, has Christianity made a successful reconciliation of them, try as it mightily did.

3. Human nature can be defined as what evolution wired into us. If our ancestors hadn’t been cooperative with at least their in group,we wouldn’t be here now. That’s contrary to claims we are born evil. We also have free will, which allows for some to act outside of human nature. Consequently we form governments and legal systems to minimize that.

   But those are the musings of a soon to be old man.

4. There are a number of ways you can come at this fundamental question.

   You can reach back and investigate the roots of our behavior in our most primitive biological imperatives, as does Jordan Peterson in his dense and learned book “Maps of Meaning,” or you can look at the practical examples offered by History.

   Either one of these approaches, it seems to me, yield the result that human beings are not perfect, but are “flawed,” are by nature—to one extent or the other, in one way or the other, at some time or other—aggressive and selfish beings who, on average will, as I wrote in a previous comment, “get into mischief if left to their own devices.”

   Looked at from another angle, people whose ideas and actions—if you believe the diagnoses of Freud and Jung—are driven far more by their deep biological inheritance and their unconscious minds, than by what they fool themselves about and believe is their conscious will.

5. The old cartoons–where there was a devil on one shoulder of a person urging one action, and an angel on the other shoulder urging a quite different action–are not far wrong.

   It seems to me that the aim of an education in Judeo-Christian moral values is to make the decision as to what course of action to take one that is so automatic that you never even get to the point where you look to the devil for his recommendation.

6. I’d say history has amply disproved the thesis human nature is entirely good. As well as the counter-thesis that human nature is entirely bad.

   My take is humanity is evolving towards greater good, but perfect good is not on the menu.

7. One of those directions, for example, could be the formation of small Utopian communities that don’t seem to do all that much harm to anyone (except perhaps some of their members) although such groups usually have a rather short life. –neo

   Those old enough to remember Amana refrigerators and Oneida flatware probably don’t know Amana and Oneida companies emerged from American utopian communities of the same names.

   Oneida, in particular, was based in part on fairly wild sexual ideas of free love, multiple marriage and intercourse without male orgasm.

8. “It’s an old old question: what is the nature of humanity? I can’t say whether Rousseau was the first to push the “good” idea (I doubt it), but he certainly was a big one for popularizing it and spreading it.”

   Your suspicion is valid. It’s Confucius & Mencius who were the first to give this idea: human nature is inherently good. Actually the teaching of whole Confucian school (mainly about morality) is based on this belief: human nature is inherently good. Look at Three Character Classic: a work that simplifies Confucianism for kids and had been taught in China since the 13th century. Usually it is the first work for kids after they can read.

   Some info from wiki about Three Character Classic
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Character_Classic

   I think generally people who believe human nature is inherently good tend to be on the left in politics and people who believe human nature is inherently bad, i.e., we are all born sinners, tend to be on the right side in politics.

9. Around 300 B.C. Chinese Confucian philosopher Mencius gave his opinion that the nature of man is good i.e.

   ” It is true that water will flow indifferently to east and west, but will it flow equally well up and down? Human nature is disposed toward goodness, just as water tends to flow downwards. There is no water but flows downwards, and no man but shows his tendency to be good. Now, by striking water hard, you may splash it higher than your forehead, and by damming it, you may make it go uphill. But, is that the nature of water? It is external force that causes it to do so. Likewise, if a man is made to do what is not good, his nature is being similarly forced.”

   On the other hand, another Confucian philosopher roughly contemporary with Mencius, Hsun-tzu, argued that the nature of man was evil i.e.

   “Man’s nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity. The nature of man is such that he is born with a fondness for profit. If he indulges this fondness, it will lead him into wrangling and strife, and all sense of courtesy and humility will disappear. He is born with feelings of envy and hate, and if he indulges these, they will lead him into violence and crime, and all sense of loyalty and good faith will disappear. Man is born with the desires of the eyes and ears, with a fondness for beautiful sights and sounds. If he indulges these, they will lead him into license and wantonness, and all ritual principles and correct forms will be lost. Hence, any man who follows his nature and indulges his emotions will inevitably become involved in wrangling and strife, will violate the forms and rules of society, and will end as a criminal. Therefore, man must first be transformed by the instructions of a teacher and guided by ritual principles, and only then will he be able to observe the dictates of courtesy and humility, obey the forms and rules of society, and achieve order. It is obvious from this, then, that man’s nature is evil, and that his goodness is the result of conscious activity…. ”

   “Mencius states that man is capable of learning because his nature is good, but I say that this is wrong. It indicates that he has not really understood man’s nature nor distinguished properly between the basic nature and conscious activity. The nature is that which is given by Heaven; you cannot learn it, you cannot acquire it by effort. Ritual principles, on the other hand, are created by sages; you can learn to apply them, you can work to bring them to completion. That part of man which cannot be learned or acquired by effort is called the nature; that part of him which can be acquired by learning and brought to completion by effort is called conscious activity. This is the difference between nature and conscious activity. ”

   I’ve always been impressed with Mencius statement that we need to first “rectify” ourselves before we can then go on to try to rectify our families, then our community, and then finally our nation i.e.

   From Mencius “The Great Learning”

   “The Ancients who wished clearly to exemplify illustrious virtue throughout the world would first set up good government in their states. Wishing to govern well their states, they would first regulate their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they would first cultivate their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they would first rectify their minds. Wishing to rectify their minds, they would first seek sincerity in their thoughts. Wishing for sincerity in their thoughts, they would first extend their knowledge. The extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things. For only when things are investigated is knowledge extended; only when knowledge is extended are thoughts sincere; only when thoughts are sincere are minds rectified; only when minds are rectified are persons cultivated; only when our persons are cultivated are our families; only when families are regulated are states well governed; and only when states are well governed is there peace in the world.”

10. I thinks that observers like Hsun-Tsu (“Man’s nature is evil”) confuse the nature of human beings with their activity. In the movie Starman Jeff Bridges plays an alien in a human body trying t return to his people. He remarks that human beings are at their best when things are at their worst. I think this goes directly to the nature of human beings, while conversely our activities over time become overlaid with the barnacles of life and living so that sometimes it’s necessary to dig really deep to uncover our true nature (hence the Starman quote).

11. I think this is not quite the right question.

    Rousseau, and pretty much every other thinker/religion all recognise there is something wrong with each person. In fact it was Rousseau’s own unhappiness that led him to think and write on the topic.

    So the real question then is what is to blame for our unhappy or imperfect state.

    Rousseau blamed everyone but himself. Confucius started with himself. As do the stoics. And because Rousseau blamed society, other expectations, those with power, Marxism, radicalism and identity politics surely follows.

    One more thing to be careful with is that the concept of the ‘good’ can be radically different between systems. Pride was considered good in Ancient Greece but bad in Christianity.

12. “And of course, another difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Christianity believes that accepting Christ as one’s savior is the way that leads out of the sinfulness of humankind.”

    Although that is the mantra of some evangelical Protestant denominations, it is not so simple with the Orthodox (Catholic, Eastern, and Anglican). Even most of the evangelical Protestant denominations admit that as a simplification that gets people in the door so-to-speak. Not wrong, but not the whole story.

    Observation of human nature before the “age of reason” (about 6 or 7 years old by orthodox reckoning) shows that selfishness and heedlessness predominate. However it is only the anomalous that go in for willful cruelty at an early age. Nurture of the young of other humans and at least fellow mammals seems to be also baked in to human and mammalian nature. Likewise, observation shows that conscience in humans is not merely a social construct and only reductionists place it as a mere outgrowth of the nurturing instinct. Sociopaths are said to lack a conscience, but we can only truly observe that they act and speak as if they don’t have one.

    Truly though, the belief that man is born good, seems to be nothing but shorthand for, “I get to act like a 2-year-old and do anything I want” to most of its advocates.

13. How can one ask if human nature is good without first defining what “good” is? As a previous commentator notes, history is replete with radically different answers to this question. By what right or authority do we advance our own view as the correct one?

    Consider this. We go to utterly extraordinary lengths to save human life, (as my friend with brain cancer will attest), but why?

    Because life is good.

14. I’m reminded of an observation by Andy Rooney, from one of his 60-Minutes segments, circa 1980 or so. He was talking about the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

    Democrats, he said, believe that people are basically good, but must be saved from themselves by their government. Republicans, he said, believe that people are basically bad, but they’ll be okay if you leave them alone.

    I like the internal contradictions in both definitions.

    It’s interesting to think of selfishness as a necessary stage of childhood, which (unfortunately) not all of us grow out of when we should. This leads me to the thought that, if we assume that people generally try to be good, but that we all have selfish impulses, then a workable system of government should be based on the common denominator, which is selfishness. If we assume that everyone will work for the common good, as the Socialists do, then we’re denying a fundamental aspect of human nature, and our system is doomed to failure. If, contrariwise, we assume that selfish impulses can be set against one another, as Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” does (and as the United States’ three branches of government are supposed to do), then you have a more stable system, with room for people to be good, without relying on them to be so.

    Alternatively, I suppose, I could quote that great 20th century American philosopher, Frank Zappa, who simply said: “Communism doesn’t work because folks like to own stuff”.

15. In Christianity, the (small-o) orthodox doctrine is that all men were tainted by sin as a result of Adam’s mistakes. And of course all were then saved by the sacrifice of God’s only son, Jesus. The doctrine that Man is born good and untainted by original sin is a heresy known as Pelagianism, after its main proponent, a fifth-century monk called Pelagius, who famously debated Augustine on the topic.

    If Pelagius were correct, Man would not need to be saved, and Christ’s substitutionary death would have no meaning. As Richard Niebuhr–the brother of Reinhold–somewhat tartly observed of contemporary liberal Christianity, “They want to lead a Man without sin into a Kingdom without judgment, to a God without wrath, under the ministrations of a Christ without the Cross.”

16. So, definitions. Indeed.

    Nature (phusis) is discovered somewhere along the way — we don’t know with specificity by who or when, how, in what circumstance, etc. — but we do know the word first appears in our record in Homer’s Odyssey, Bk. 10, when Hermes appears to Odysseus with the root moly and says it has a “nature” to protect Odysseus from Circe’s pharma-spells.

    The intervening millennia after Homer have seen us impart many new and varied meanings to our onetime greekish term. [A term, by the way, I was taught has no equivalent in the Torah. It isn’t just a missing term or word; it isn’t an active concept there at all in the Greek’s sense of these things.]

    Nowadays, far from being a term paired with and in distinction from nomos (custom, law, etc.), nature has grown (or shrunk) to encompass the infinitesimally small physics of the subatomic world and the cosmic vastness of the whole, the visible universe. All the things that are, so to speak. Gets to be rather distant from a touchstone of human behavior and desire, of moral and immoral doings.

17. Good or Bad? Yes. There are both. Alistair Crowley: ““Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be the Whole of the Law”. Jesus: “Love one another”.
    There’s no more “a human nature” than there is “the human being”.

    As time goes by, sometimes the Good Guys are in the majority (but hardly a large majority); sometimes the Bad Guys (quite often a large majority).

    The Good is often – but not always – found in religion, but I think it’s more likely to be found there than elsewhere. But even religions can go astray.

    There’s only the “my human nature”, which we develop over time, by experience, by practice.

18. I have preached it thus:

    Paul wrote in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

    Now, if we are typical Christians, eight of every ten of us here today don’t believe that. National surveys consistently show that 80 percent of Americans agree with the statement, “People are basically good.” However, the idea of humanity’s basic goodness is so incredibly full of self deception that it richly deserves all the derision we can heap upon it. If people are basically good, why did the last hundred years see two world wars, taking seventy million lives? Why did one of the most civilized, christianized nations on earth annihilate eight million Jews and other undesirables in concentration camps? If people are basically good, how did the most modern nation on earth come to drop two atomic bombs on foreign cities? Why are there drug networks stretching across the globe, profiting from untold human misery? Why have we polluted our planet and stomped countless species into extinction? How did gulags come to be established? If people are basically good, why are there suicide bombers? Why are there drone strikes?
    I won’t speak for you, but I will speak for me. I am not basically good. You do not have a good man for a pastor. Actually you never will, but I am speaking for myself. I am not a good man, I am a man redeemed from the pit of Hell by the person and works of Jesus Christ, in whom I place all my trust and by whom I hope one day to be found worthy of the calling to which I have been called.

19. Just yesterday I was doing research for a Sunday School lesson and came across this talk from Dallas Willard, a philosopher I greatly admire. He can be a little ponderous but has great insights:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArRHjUoatT8

20. I think that man aspires to be good, but runs into two problems. “Good” can be defined in different ways, and human flaws often overwhelm the fulfillment of aspirations.
    There is an additional perspective – that of the Stoics. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations are a good start. It’s been a while so others can correct me if I am wrong, but the idea is that all things in nature proceed in accordance with their nature. The tree is the tree, the flood is the flood, the tiger is the tiger, and man is man, all are acting in accordance with their respective natures. It is man’s intellect and perception that views things in nature as beautiful, ugly, good, bad, etc. Having said that, how should one conduct oneself to get along with all these different natural things and live the “good” life? Study the others’ natures, accept them, offer judgement and comment, but don’t let emotions or anger cloud your judgment. His example of a friend with bad breath is memorable.

    As to politics, I recommend a short but excellent work “Man, the State, and War” by Kenneth Waltz. He offers three analytical paradigms on why wars occur and critiques them. The first one is that war is caused by human nature. He finds that assumption and associated hypotheses logically and empirically problematic because if one variable – human nature – causes two different outcomes – war and peace – it’s not a very helpful analysis. It’s like saying I lost the race because I ran too slow. Policy prescriptions run from “cultural exchanges” and other micro efforts, to “universal education” and other macro/universalist policy remedies. Of course the rub there is that someone has to scale up the micro efforts or to decide what such a universal curriculum would be. Those prescriptions cause conflict. So, if human nature can’t explain conflict or offer pragmatic policy prescriptions, then there must be another variable, and that’s how Waltz comes next to the State. The state is the entity that can either enhance the good qualities of human nature or constrain the bad qualities. Again, the problem stems from assuming the perfectibility of human nature (communism for instance), or the imperfect, immutable nature of man and man made systems (the basis for the Federalist papers and our Constitution) as the way to go. This causes conflict between and amongst states based on organizing principles. Waltz then moves to then international system as explanatory, and critiques various theories within that paradigm (balance of power, etc.).
    Sorry for the rant.

21. That question drives me nuts. It’s not one or the other, is it? It seems plainly obvious we are both. I frequently hear people describe themselves as “basically good” because they try not to harm others. That’s a pretty low bar. More to my point, it displays some very muddled thinking on the matter. I am willing to concede that humanity possesses, and produces, much wonderful good. And also unimaginable horrors. No doubt this is an accurate reflection of our flexible natures. For those who think people are born good and taught to be bad, remember: we have to raise children to be good. But they seem to have no trouble being selfish brats all on their own. THAT is human nature, and that is what civilization, however imperfectly, seeks to quell.

22. When I taught middle-school English, the drama we were to study was the adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary (this is standard for 8th grade). It finishes with that famous line, taken out of context. I asked the kids if the story/facts presented in the play supported Anne’s assertion that “people are really good at heart”, or not. This was a tough question for them, because they all *wanted* to say yes (because they want to believe it themselves), but really, neither Anne’s story nor the play itself actually backs up the idea that people are good.

    Then I showed them the line again, in the larger context from the diary. Many of them were shocked at the gap between Anne’s intent and how here opinions are presented in the play; it borders on dishonest. This led to a class discussion on why the playwrights would misrepresent her words so much, in a play that purports to honor her life… and that led to a discussion of how much people *want* to believe the short version, but that reality doesn’t actually back that up.

    For many of them (13-14 year-olds) this was the first time they’d ever thought seriously about whether or not people are good, and what beliefs people hold on the matter, and they didn’t always like the conclusions they came to during the discussion. Like the playwrights, the kids *wanted* to believe the part where “people are really good at heart” to the point where they didn’t even register that *Anne’s whole story* pretty much negates that whole assertion. Its remarkable how much that *need* to believe it causes people to not even *see* reality.

23. Despite the options of my intellectual betters, it is rather simple, simpleton that I am, humans are capable of both great evil and incredible goodness. All one needs is a review of history and whart you witness in your daily lives. And no, there is no arc of history that human nature is headed for utopia. We are what we are. After hundred of thousands of years after our ancestors first walked the earth, humans can be sometimes extremely evil and sometimes with angels hovering on our shoulders. This will never change. No new thing under the sun.

24. Nice summary of the traditional Jewish opinion. Two comments:
    1. If you’re quoting an analysis of Hebrew words (which is amazing), let’s get it right: the root y-tz-r means “create”. So “yetzer” is both “how something was created, its nature” (as in Genesis 8:21) and “creative urge”. So the “yetzer ha-ra” is literally the “bad creative urge” or a creative urge that potentially can lead to evil.
    2. The Billy Graham quote jibes pretty well with Jewish doctrine. The biblical text links agency, morality, and conscience to the human power of speech (= abilities of abstraction, reflection, empathy, and past/future). In early aramaic translations of Genesis 7:2 the human/Adam becomes “a speaking soul” – and one translator makes this a reflexive verb: “a soul that speaks to itself”.
    3. For centuries Judaism did without most of this philosophizing, focusing on ethical behavior. Before leaving those first Genesis ur-stories, the idea of creation in Gd’s image is already tied to moral behavior to one’s fellow, who is your brother.

25. Alrighty then, three comments…

26. “Judaism relies on personal free will”
    In other words: Jews save themselves with their human efforts (?)
    If I remember correctly, in Judaism there’s some talking about a certain Messiah.

27. Solzhenitsyn nailed it, imao:

    “It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience; how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains . . . an unuprooted small corner of evil.

    “Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”

    —————————————————————————————

    “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

    “During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn’t change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.

    “Alas, all the evil of the twentieth century is possible everywhere on earth. Yet, I have not given up all hope that human beings and nations may be able, in spite of all, to learn from the experience of other people without having to go through it personally.”

28. Christians rely on free will, as well; the difference is that for Christians the Messiah is already arrived, while it’s not the case for Jews (who, I hope rely on God’s help, not on their will, to be enlightened).

    The fact is: for Jews the issue of salvation is somewhat suspended, because nobody can justify himself before God.

29. Humans (it is said) are created in the image of God.

    But sometimes they blunder:
    https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/20/jackson-cosko-democrats-data-theft

    (And then they have to cover up….cover up….and cover up some more.)

    File under: Multi-ply fig leaf.

30. Re: ” Human nature: is it good or is it bad?”

    Yes!

31. “…suspended…”

    Reminds one of the old joke: Jesus saves, but Moses invests.

32. Great post, great comments! I was going to leave the Solzhenitsyn quote, but I see it has already arrived.

    Laura, thanks for that story — and thank you for being that kind of teacher.

33. It’s an old old question: what is the nature of humanity?

    Walking amnesiacs.

34. And of course, another difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Christianity believes that accepting Christ as one’s savior is the way that leads out of the sinfulness of humankind.

    The thing is, people don’t actually know the Christ or Yeshua. It’s like somebody saying they value an opinion of Family member B, but they never talk to family member B nor do they ever take Family member B’s comments to heart.

    It’s a difference between state religious dogma and personal revelation or spiritual development.

    Judaism has a similar fault in that they are looking also for a messiah, but they don’t listen to the actual messiah or pay any attention to him. It’s a striking irony. What people pay attention to is their State religious dogmas and traditions.

35. Laura:

    It sounds to me as though you were an excellent teacher.

36. This is a crucial subject, but I’m a bit taken aback by this page’s emphasis on speculation by Judeo-Christian, Confucian, or Stoic thinkers, and by the dearth of references to the views of this subject from the Framers, who were able to implement their theories in the real world, to impressive effect.
    Only Scott, on June 22 at 9:38 pm, raises the view, which was the basis on which our republic has rested:
    “the problem stems from assuming the perfectibility of human nature (communism for instance), or the imperfect, immutable nature of man and man made systems (the basis for the Federalist papers and our Constitution)….”

    The Framers feared that human nature is immutably such that, when men get great power over others, great abuses will ensue.
    They thus strove to build a structure which ensured, that those seeking such power would be (at first peaceably) confronted, by others with countervailing power.
    For centuries, the structure they framed did so very much, to bring more peace/ prosperity to more people, than any other such structure ever built.

    By contrast, so much of the Left (certainly since Marx/ Lenin, arguably since Rousseau), has imagined that, somehow, Commies (or their equivalent) will wield power so much more soundly that men ever have.
    From what I can tell, every time such imaginings have been (consistently) tried in the real world, on any level above that of the Mormon ward or Hutterite colony, deployment of the Rousseauvian theory has had to be “adjusted” to accommodate reality , or the experiment has collapsed.

    I suggest, that this debate about human nature should hinge mainly on assessment of historical evidence.
    Alas, debating such matters with today’s (SJW) Lefties is most always inviting a barrage of ad hominems, straw men, and possible doxing.

    Our best hope is probably, to try to split open-minded lefties away from the ferocious SJW Left; this splitting process seems to be starting, with the emergence of the Intellectual Dark Web.
    For a peek or two at the IDW, see https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-blogs/2018/09/looking-for-enlightenment-on-the-intellectual-dark-web , and https://QUILLETTE.com/2018/08/17/a-closer-look-at-anti-white-rhetoric/ .

37. The qualities “good” and “bad” are purely human constructs. These terms are highly relative and only meaningful in the context in which they are applied.

    I have two separate answers to the question. The first is that humans are sufficiently good in that we we always eventually manage to defeat anarchy and tyranny (evil)… for a time.

    The second answer is from a biological perspective. And the answer is that we are perfect.

    We are as perfectly evolved as time has allowed. Humans are unique among the animals of this planet, in that we have no natural enemies. In order to remain healthy, as an organism, we must provide our own essential competition in order to cull the weak and the stupid.

    From a biological perspective, competition and cooperation are two sides of the same coin. Every conflict and crisis drives our race to make itself better.

    Our nature is that we are never satisfied and content for very long. No matter how pleasant and peaceful we make our circumstances, we will always manage to plunge ourselves into the next crisis. On the surface, this appears to be a human flaw. But from a long-term racial perspective, this is a feature, not a bug. We were not made to be lotus eaters.

    If you look at all of human history you will see that the long-term trend has always been towards the creation of ever larger and ever more complex social, political, and economic structures. With each collapse, we recover and reorganize ourselves faster and better.

    So, are humans good or bad? Neither. We are perfect.

38. aNanyMouse, yes! An excellent, essential comment. Thank you.

    They were extraordinary, clear-sighted humanists (as opposed to starry-eyed), except perhaps for Jefferson—though he had, of course, his own unique talents and intelligence—who, to his credit, adjusted to “reality” relatively quickly upon becoming president, at least as far as acquiring far-flung territories and fighting Barbary pirates were concerned.

    (Throw in de Tocqueville for a perspicacious—and admiring—analysis from a foreign perspective.)

39. We go to Christ for words of truth and life. He said why call me good? Only one is good. That one is God. We are told to repent.

40. Sharon on June 22, 2019 at 9:09 pm said:
    Just yesterday I was doing research for a Sunday School lesson and came across this talk from Dallas Willard, a philosopher I greatly admire. He can be a little ponderous but has great insights:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArRHjUoatT8

    Ha>
    Great Huxley’s Ghost!
    How did you ever hear of him?

    Speaking of whom:
    http://www.dwillard.org/articles/individual/attaining-objectivity-phenomenological-reduction-and-the-private-language-a

41. GOD made INSTINCTS man made laws

42. An atheist starts a tome by answering the question that good and evil are human constructs, meanders about revealing wisdom such as humans having no natural predators (no Polar Bears in the arctic, no Leopards or Lions or Tigers, or Bears for that matter in other places, no sharks in the seas, nor germs or viruses everywhere) and then finishes by saying humans are perfect. Fantastic.

43. Thinking about Jesus’ parable about the Good Samaritan and the question “Who is my neighbor?”, I believe the core difference between good and evil is the results of our actions – are they constructive or destructive of others. It gets down to how we perceive “us” and “them”. I also believe that for most people, constructive actions are a luxury – we can be “good” because we perceive ourselves as secure – physically, financially, etc. The more that security is seen to be threatened, the more likely we are to be distrustful of “them” and take steps to limit the threat.

44. Possibly relevant here, first there was the documentary “Seattle Is Dying,” ** now there is the shorter documentary, “Paradise Lost: Homelessness in Los Angeles”***

    ** See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw

    *** See https://hotair.com/archives/2019/06/19/paradise-lost-homelessness-los-angeles/

45. Roy Nathanson,

    This, “With each collapse, we recover and reorganize ourselves faster and better.” is not true.

46. om,

    Not to mention man. Man has killed more humans than all the other, predatory animals combined.

47. To Roy on “So, are humans good or bad? Neither. We are perfect.”
    I quite hope that this bit about “perfect” was facetious.

    To “om”, on June 23, at 4:18 pm:
    “An atheist starts a tome by answering the question that good and evil are human constructs,….”

    It sounds like you aim to tar atheists with dissing normal morality.
    Of course some do, but G.E. Moore wasn’t one of them.
    At Wiki’s entry on him, it has him as an ethical Consequentialist:
    “Moore, as a consequentialist, argued that ‘duties’ and moral rules could be determined by investigating the effects of particular actions or kinds of actions, and so were matters for EMPIRICAL investigation, rather than direct objects of intuition.” (Caps are mine.)

    To reiterate the drift of my comment above (on the Framers), I see no decent substitute for historical etc. empiricism.
    As long as folks like Moore are consequentialists, incl. being supportive of the Rule of (e.g. Constitutional) Law, I urge avoidance of gripes, vs. their views on how many Gods there are.
    Plenty of folks cite passages from their holy books, to back their grinding of Rousseauvian axes.

48. Ymarsakar — Jews are hoping and longing for a messiah, but we’re not holding our breath. As it says in the Talmud, “If you are planting a sapling and someone comes to tell you that the messiah has arrived, finish planting the sapling and then go and greet the messiah.”

    Regardless of professed religion, I believe many people, maybe most people, are atheists. If we truly believed that there was a God, who knows all and before whom one day we would stand to be judged, would we do the things we do?

    After all, how hard is it to be a good person? “It has been told you, O Man, what is good, and what the Eternal requires of you: only to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

    Piece of cake, right?

49. Normativity (norm-naïveté?) s the root of all confusion, contradiction and pontification and of course politics

50. Regardless of professed religion, I believe many people, maybe most people, are atheists.

    Why wouldn’t they be. Given the state of perpetual amnesia on this side of the Veil and the excesses human made religions and dogmas and philosophies of man from State Religion (Dogma), what options are people really given?

    In a few senses, the applications of Judaic Rabbinic philosophies on theology sounds more accurate than the mainstream christian sorts. That doesn’t include the Greek Orthodox, the Coptics, or the Apostolic churches (outside of Vatican’s Throne of Peter). The Coptic or Ethiopian christian church has a different set of scriptures. How does that work? Well, christians liked to call each other heretics and burn each other alive, back when the prize was Constantine’s State Power.

    Jews are hoping and longing for a messiah, but we’re not holding our breath.

    Did you see what the Orthodox and other more fundamentalist Jewish sects reacted when Ariel Sharon started giving up the Holy Land or the Promised Land to the Palestinians?

51. To explain what went on for those that didn’t get this from public education…

    Christianity was not exactly a unified religion. It was made from separate Gospels, like the Gospel of Mark vs the Gospel of Thomas. Some of the Apostles wanted to make a religion around Jesus. Others disagreed. Peter, the lead disciple of the 12, as well as James (that’s not a Hebrew or Greek name) brother of Yeshua, had their own ideas. Then there was Saul/Paul, who had his own take as well.

    Even if all the apostles and disciples agreed back when they were still alive on this plane, their followers would deviate within less than 50 years. It’s simple. Have you seen family squabbles turn poisonous over inheritance wills? Oh yeah.

    Supposedly there is this unified Holy Spirit that commands and controls the Faithful of the Church, the mystical body of the Christ. Not sure what happened to it when christianity became the official state cult/religion of Rome.

    No matter how good somebody’s ancestors philosophy was, the moment the State requires that one believe in it, gives it tax breaks, and punishes those who dissent from it, it becomes totalitarian. No matter what you thought about your father’s or grandfather’s idealistic dreams. They may be workable like capitalism, but the moment a bunch of Marxists or Leftists take control, capitalism becomes fascism pretty quick in totalitarian terms.

    When a bunch of Roman rapists, child molestors, greedy fks, and crazy megalomaniac consuls and Senators got control of a state religion like christianity, as Constantine wished to unite the Empire against Paganism, this improved the “Divine Right of Emperors” of Constantine. But it was a negative effect against christian sects that disagreed with the majority consensus. Good for the Empire that couldn’t get rid of this christian martyrs. Bad for the christian martyrs now that they have to fight the Imperial Borg without losing themselves to luxuries.

    So now Holy Ghost = Majority Consensus.

    Science is right whether you believe it or not. The scientific orthodoxy and consensus has said Global Warming is caused by man. Truth is right whether you believe it or not.

    Majority rules= righteous majority.

    Logically, that is a flaw, as the majority does not equal truth or righteousness. But humans will think whatever they want.

    Meanwhile in order to further Unify State, Empire, and Religion together with the Holy Ghost, Father, Son, a bible needed to be canonized. That means all the heretical works that detract from this State Totalitarian religious control scheme, needed to be destroyed and burned. Which they did.

    Even the Masoretic Jews were found out editing the Torah scrolls, burning the unaltered originals, and replacing them with the now adulterated “edited” versions of Deuteronomy 32. The Qumran scrolls still had the originals, that’s how we figured it out.

    In a sense, everything humanity has written has been altered and made nonsensical by the Veil. Just look at Shakespeare. Is that English? They seem to be using the same word pronunciations but…

    So some guy who thinks he knows English, finds a play by Shakespeare,d takes it as Gospel, and creates a whole bunch of laws and institutions based on it. And some of it may work. But did he understand any of it in newly crafted bible?

    Yeshua and the disciples didn’t carry around a bible. They didn’t have a bible. And not the English King James version either.

52. Humans are vessels or vehicles. Basically avatars. What is an avatar? It’s basically an online account. You exist outside of the computer and internet. To do certain things however you need an account, with login credentials perhaps, and other things attached to that account. On that account is your “avatar”.

    Look this up. It’s pretty simple… even for those here that are using the internet.

    It’s a kind of “email address”.

    Your email address is not generating the mail and names and personalities you are being given. Those are controlled by human writers, or human writers of AI programs that create spam. But to the email account or avatar, they only see the text and the program code, nothing more. THey don’t have cameras recording you, the human user.

    Thus in the same fashion, the brain is not the originator of consciousness. Humans did not evolve from random luck. The body was designed with specific hardware specifications for biological technology sufficient to house a Son or Daughter of God. Why? Well, why do people have email accounts. Why don’t they just visit in person or write a letter by hand…

    The body light vessel vehicle, which is closer to a space ship or space suit, is designed to house a certain Divinity or spark of the Oversoul, splintered and fractionated via fractal Word/Vibrations, on this plane of existence.

    There are gods that were once humans. Humans that were once gods. And gods that were never human. As well as gods that used to be human but are no longer human.

    The human does not know what goes on across the Veil because all data and cookies and caches are wiped after each use or just periodically. To be exact, each creation of a new account creates its own memory wipe.

    So scriptures are considered holy writ and the holy word or the Word of GOd, but god was not the one that wrote it. Humans wrote it. Now some say, well that’s because the Holy SPirit inspired humans to write it. Well, the Holy Spirit inspires me to tell you humans that you are wrong in a lot of things. See, it’s not a logical argument, because it isn’t about logic. It’s about memories.

53. Unfortunately, to humanity at least, there were some “bugs” in the scripting of the program and plan. Whether intentional or not. Entities got trapped in bodies that weren’t suitable, such as birds or fish or mammals. They became more and more forgetful and came to absorb more and more of the animal pov and thoughts. Until to the point where they became nothing more than an animal on a conscious and quantum level: the soul.

    As each age turns over, the multiverse undergoes a change. Numerous human civilizations tried to surpass this problem, but all have failed until 2012. The archaeologists have been forced to suppress data on human sites that are older than they should be. If a human site is too old, then it disproves evolution while supporting de-evolution.

    Scientists like evolution, the theory by Darwin, but they hate de-evolution.

    Yeshua was one of the agents that volunteered to be sent to help humanity recover their Divine memories and stop being human. That plan only partially succeeded. Those who believe in Yeshua are still human. They are not “saved”. They are still them. Maybe a little bit improved, but it is a patch, not an entirely different OS.

    Salvation? Salvation from what?

    There’s no logic there. There cannot be, given scripture as Authority.

    The problem with Authority is that it is illegitimate. Whether that Authority comes from human crafted words or from State religions or from Marxist economies.

54. And of course, we are now treated to additional tomes from Yammer, more fantastic stuff.

55. RufusTFirefly:

    How could other humans be predators to fellow humans (killing hundreds of millions in the last 100 years alone)? That would almost seem evil or without morality; no different than other animals, actually worse than other animals. Have to ask an atheist to cipher that one for me. /sarc

56. Yamarsaker,

    Speachless…

57. As long as one doesn’t demand perfect goodness, IMO it’s hard to deny an inherent goodness to humanity. We keep getting better and not just in terms of technology.

    As I keep saying, sixty-million years ago we were tree shrews. Now we have calculus, Shakespeare, Beethoven, modern medicine and the Sermon on the Mount. Deaths by violence have gone way down. Average human lifespan has gone way up. Yeah, we must be inherently evil.

    The trend is your friend.

58. How could other humans be predators to fellow humans (killing hundreds of millions in the last 100 years alone)?

    om: Other animals prey on members of their own species. No mystery there. We do too. However, because of our brains and tech, we can do it more effectively and horribly.

    Do you believe chimpanzees would be kinder and gentler than humans, if chimpanzees had guns and could use them?

    Humans are taking on challenges no other animals have. It’s been a rocky road, but if you’ll notice, we are getting better at it.

59. And yet history doesn’t seem to show this trend towards goodness, sweetness and light. Must be the patriarchy …..

60. And why would anyone believe humans were inherently good when all of human history shows the opposite?

    Richard Saunders: And that’s where we differ. IMO history shows we are inherently good, not inherently evil. Unless you insist on measuring our goodness against perfection.

    Your take reminds me of the liberal approach to America, to insist America is inherently evil because it doesn’t measure up to a liberal Utopia which doesn’t exist.

61. And yet history doesn’t seem to show this trend towards goodness, sweetness and light. Must be the patriarchy …

    om: Again. I say history does show a trend to goodness, unless one measures that goodness against perfection.

62. Genocide is a human phenomenon, one of those human “advancements” not manifested by other animal predators. Explain the “logic” of genocide.

63. om: Genocide is a straightforward extension of tribalism and technology. Other animals don’t have the option. We have noticed it’s a problem and we are doing something about it.

    Your turn. What about all our advances?

64. Sorry Huxley, I don’t buy your straightforward extension of genocide. And not to change the subject but there are of course the Holodomor, the Gulags, The Great Leap Forward, The Killing Fields, Rawanda (no doubt some tribalism there), all straightforward normal human social behavior?

    Who is this “we” you keep speaking of? I don’t notice much disapprobation in the worldwide community, is that the “we,” towards those who wish to exterminate Israel.

65. om: We is humanity. I tend to identify with my species as well as smaller sub-groups.

    I am satisfied with my response even if you are not. Remember that there are billions of humans and the 20th century genocides which you mention are far smaller. And the genocides have gotten smaller — assuming you care about actual numbers and the trend.

    I’m not surprised you won’t answer my question about our advances.

66. Huxley your Panglossian outlook is quaint, as if understanding of the natural world somehow is related to the question Neo posed: are humans inherently good or evil.

    But not to worry, the victims of genocide, man-caused famine, political mass murder were just small change in the march of progress. When you are talking billions of souls who is to quibble about the hundreds of millions? Progress is pretty damned cold it seems.

67. e: Oh for goodness sake! Indeed. There is nothing mysterious or Panglossian (I read Candide in high school) about my position.

    Even with the genocides so near and dear to your heart and om’s, we are still doing better than the good-old hunter-gatherer days when a quarter of males died in routine skirmishes with the tribe over the next hill.

    But so far neither of you seem to care about progress or facts, so long as you can go “Ooo. What about genocide?” with a certainty no different from liberals who insist that slavery or Abu Ghraib constitute definitive proof of America’s evil.

68. Huxley:

    I don’t know how my comment was attributed to “e.”

    Stick to the question and don’t brush aside history (it includes facts) with some facile tribalism and “Progress beats all.”

    It’s the nature of humans, not the sophistication of the tools that humans use or their understanding of the natural world that is the question.

    You seem to place a great deal of faith in human institutions and in some miracle of evolution of human morality (just appeared in the last 75 years somehow) when addressing the hard question of human nature.

    Genocide. Must have been those hunter gatherers up to their old tricks again. If only we could identify those with retrograde hunter gatherer genetic traits and selectively abort them, now that would be progress. /sarc

69. The Federalist (Madison, I believe), No. 10:

    […] The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

    The Federalist, (Madison again), No. 51:
    […] But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

70. The second Federalist quote from No. 51 ought likewise to have a blockquote tag, but somehow I failed to render it properly. So, apologies for that.

71. huxley, I live near the Oneida Community’s Mansion House. It is open to the public, in part. A few people live there, some of whom, at least as of a few years ago, were descendants of Community members. It’s an absolutely fascinating place to visit, with the old meeting room, the library and many explanatory historic exhibits — and quite beautiful, besides, with ancient trees, old gazebos in the grounds and a real sense of the strange, idealistic history.

72. James Madison, it seems to me, was the premier interpreter among our founders of Thomas Hobbes’ psychologic of political mankind; Madison there displays his superb summation of Hobbes insights in these two Federalist papers, along with his own additional synthesis of the then current necessities and potentials of the distinctly American politics as it stood before him.

    Now, I know that John Locke tends to get most of the credit for the foundation of our political-philosophical system, but it’s my belief that Hobbes did the better part of the hard work establishing rights contractarianism (fulfilling Machiavelli’s revolutionary project: q.v. “The Prince”, ch. 15).

    Backing Hobbes’ view, however, entails certain difficulties, not least of which that he denies that man is a “political animal (zoon politikon)” by nature in Aristotle’s sense.

    Why? Because men aren’t Christ-like loving and good to one another, but instead too awfully backstabby, nasty, opportunistic, etc., sort of the opposite of co-operatively political.

    Plus, of course, Hobbes needs to dispatch the Aristotelian rules which have been in place for over a thousand years in order to erect a new, (lower, down here where us peons live), approach to political things. There’s more surely, but I’ll leave it there for now.

73. Obviously neo’s post has generated a lot of brilliant discussion and this happens any time she pontificates on this topic. There is some great wisdom here.

    However, may I be so bold as to suggest the inherent and innate goodness or badness of humans is not really the nub of the issue? “Good” and “bad” may be subjective qualities, no? Sunni Muslims surely believe they are fighting on the side of good when they force heathens to convert. The Shia believe they are on the side of good as they oppose them. There were men who hunted run away slaves who believed they were doing good at the same time there were men and women (Harriet Tubman and many others) who helped slaves escape and believed they were doing good. The Roman Centurions apprehending, imprisoning and killing Christians believed they were doing good to protect the stability of their society, just as our lawmen believe they are doing good by apprehending and imprisoning those who disrupt the stability of our society selling illegal drugs. One need look no further than the illegal alien crisis that has been escalating in our country at least since Ronald Reagan’s amnesty. Whoever leaked the news of the pending ICE crackdown this weekend almost certainly acted out of altruism, just as most of the ICE agents preparing to execute the order are motivated by altruism.

    All here undoubtedly know the C. S. Lewis quote: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

    Men and women truly believing they were good, and working tirelessly in the service of that good, have wreaked incalculable tragedies upon humanity. So we see that many people who have acted out of “goodness” have done a lot of “badness.” But men and women truly believing they were good, and working tirelessly in the service of that good, have brought forth incalculable charities and wonders upon humanity. I don’t know whether all people are innately good or innately bad, but throughout history it has been easier to motivate huge numbers of people to endure difficulty and hardship when they are convinced they are working in the service of the good than when they believe they are not working towards betterment. Honeybees work tirelessly to make more honey than they will ever, personally consume as their drone compatriots devote their lives to generating air flow they will never benefit from and are willing to sacrifice their one life to sting any living thing threatening their hive.

    It often takes multiple generations to determine what actions are good or bad. Did FDR’s policies aid more Americans than they harmed? Whole academic careers and volumes are devoted to the subject.

    I agree with aNanyMouse that the most crucial question is not whether people are good or bad, but whether people live together in a system where they are free to pursue what they choose. Our nation’s founders understood that human nature is such that future generations would work to limit the freedoms of their fellow Americans. Whether out of personal greed, maliciousness or a desire to help does not matter. The best system is one that protects us from the will of the overzealous Reverend just as securely as it protects us from the will of the corrupt politician or greedy industrialist.

74. Everyone has the potential for good or for evil in them, and most people inhabit the middle, with little deviation—sometimes doing a little something good, sometimes doing a little something bad.

    But, then, there are those who inhabit the extremes of the Bell Curve.

    There are those who do extremely good things—lets call them “Saints,” and we remember and celebrate their names, the good examples of what they said and did, and the memory of them.

    Then, there are those on the other extreme, who do extremely evil things, let’s call them “monsters,” and, unfortunately, we often remember their names as well, and their bad examples, and we curse them.

    Our schools used to make moral judgments, to very explicitly and clearly point to examples of behavior, both “good” and “bad,” but they no longer do so, they are now mostly “non-judgmental,” with the results you see all around you.

    It was not that those lessons in moral values eliminated evil or even bad behavior but, it seems to me, they very likely lessened their occurrence and their severity; kept the damage down to a reasonable level.

    To judge by the carnage, “bad” then was far less “bad” in scope and severity than it is today. It was kids smoking in the boy’s bathroom vs. selling dope there, a fight with fists vs. gunplay.

    Now, with no such explicit teaching, with no guidance or standards of behavior, with, in many cases, no “boundaries,” everyone is floundering, and the field for bad behavior is wide open.

    It’s scope and variety going forward is, in essence, pretty much unlimited, finding ever new ways to “transgress”—some even celebrating such “transgression” as a good and healthy thing—as we stumble and shamble in the direction of Dystopia.

75. Rufus T. Firefly–Well said, I agree with your comment above, at 12:05.

76. We know there are angles and devils among us. I believe most people’s personal narrative is that they are good, or are at least attempting to be good and less bad.

    We each write a personal narrative of the world with ourselves as the central character of the story. Some of our narratives more accurately reflect real events than others’ narratives, but most all of us want to be the heroes, or among the heroes of that story. This is why victimhood has been so easily sold to so many. When they are not as externally successful as they imagine they should be they can alter their narrative to include powerful, external, malicious forces working to keep them from success.

    As others have already mentioned, the natural state is selfishness, at least when we are immature. A baby does not know, nor care if she wakes others when she is uncomfortable. She knows she has a need and it had better be met. Nor is she concerned whether the need is “good” or “bad.” Most humans living among other humans mature to be less selfish, and can even become so unselfish as to sacrifice their very lives for others. But many never reach that level. Sociopaths certainly do not.

    I think it boils down to how selfish or unselfish one is, and how closely one’s personal narrative reflects reality. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is convinced we are on the brink of Armageddon and all of humanity is doomed if we do not follow her Green New Deal. She is a superhero in her personal narrative, battling the forces of greed to save us from destruction. She also appears to be incredibly selfish, or self-centered, or both. Donald Trump is also immensely self-centered. It should be no surprise self-centered people often rise to the tops of organizations. They naturally see us all as bit players in the stories of their lives and don’t mind (or often notice) if others are hurt as they ascend the ladder to their rightful place on the hierarchy.

    Jordan Peterson talks a lot about the innate, hierarchical traits of humans (and all species) and Andrew Klavan expounds often and wisely on personal narratives, and the narratives of societies (a.k.a. “culture).

    The most good occurs when the most people are free to pursue their own self-interests when there are controls in place to ensure they do not impact the pursuits and self-interests of others. Personal narratives on “bad” and “good” will differ (see the Shias and Sunnis), but if a system is in place to disallow imposition of one’s beliefs on another’s, whichever narrative most closely matches the real world will eventually reveal itself as “good.”

77. Snow on Pine,

    I often joke with my wife that it’s all role as parents to give our kids strict limits on where the edge of the envelope is so they can push outside them! I agree that if people, especially young people, live in a society with few limits they will become very confused.

    My wife and I both attended public schools, but we sent our kids to religious schools for the reason you outline. When I was a child in the late ’60s and ’70s America had a pervasive, moral identity. “Truth, Justice, the American Way!” My teachers didn’t hide the truths from us, but we were taught that Columbus, Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln, Ford, Edison… all were heroic, despite their flaws. It permeated the culture. The movies. The T.V. shows. Heck, even the cartoons we watched. As our kids approached school age we no longer saw a common, shared, moral structure in general society so we sent our kids to religious schools so they would be educated within a moral framework.

78. “angles and devils…” I suppose some Angels can be rather obtuse.

    I really need to proof-read before hitting the, “Post Comment” button!

79. For most of human history, humans were hunter-gatherers. So, thinking like a hunter-gatherer, and leaving “good” and “evil” out of the discussion:

    1. Competition, aggression, and self-interest all contribute to my personal survival and comfort, provided of course that I exercise them rationally.

    2. Altruism and cooperation contribute to the survival of my group, and therefore to my personal survival and comfort, with the same qualification. Therefore I should be cooperative within the group but not to the point where I compromise my own safety.

    3. However, competition and aggression towards other groups may also contribute to the survival of my group, because other groups compete with my group. Therefore I should be cooperative with my own group (up to a point), but hostile to other groups.

    4. Furthermore, there are different levels of “other groups”; there’s a difference between how I should treat a member of a different family within my clan, and how I should treat a member of a different clan – “me against my brothers, me and my brothers against my cousins”, etc.

    5. unfortunately, reconciling all of these things is probably impossible.

80. I am noting with tiredness and sadness the predictable number of people here preaching that humans are some sort of evil plague infecting Earth. This attitude is much more prevalent among liberals than conservatives, but it exists throughout the political spectrum.

    As many times as I have encountered this phenomenon, it astounds me. To express such disdain and hatred for one’s own species? How can this be anything other than an expression of self-loathing? If this is truly how you feel, then I say this to you: You should not project your own self-hatred on to your brothers.

    As for me, I am a human being. The human race is the only species I can or ever will have. When forced to decide between humans or any other species I will always choose humans. If there is such a thing as “ultimate good” it is the survival and betterment of my species.

    While I sometimes despair of our species foibles, I remain immensely proud of our accomplishments, what we are, and what we will become.

81. “Backing Hobbes’ view, however, entails certain difficulties, not least of which that he denies that man is a “political animal (zoon politikon)” by nature in Aristotle’s sense.”

    The main problem with Hobbes from my point of view, is that if taken literally, no such creature as Hobbes describes would have formed any communities, or would have had any contract-making impulse to do so, in the first place. I don’t see what mechanism would get you from A to B. It would have involved a changing of the being’s nature … if you admit that the being, as a member of a single moral species had a coherent and ‘species-wide” animal nature (in the teleological sense) in the first place.

    If you do not admit that, then there is no “man” in any real moral sense, and certainly no psychic unity of mankind (and there probably isn’t anyway).

    Hobbes’ story of the development of human community is obviously ahistorical, though some of his defenders proclaim it was not meant as history per se, and amounts really to little more than a compact of convenience among devils … there being no reason for any contracting member to take it seriously when it can be evaded, or when you can cheat undetected.

    But then I see Hobbes, like Marx and Rousseau, as such unattractive characters personally, that I tend to have difficulty appreciating their real insights while simultaneously dismissing their humanity. They are the kind of guys who if you met them in the woods and got the drop on them … would not emerge again.

82. Roy Nathanson:

    Who here said humans are a plague upon the earth? Misdirection.

    The question, again, was “is human nature inherently good or is it bad.” I doubt there are many green/reds commenting here.

83. I have a more nuanced attitude towards people

    They are not “inherently” either, though they certainly seem to tend certain ways from the start. But they certainly make choices and those choices can reflect or guide their future choices and perceptions.

    Thus some people learn early the schadenfreude of enjoying the suffering of others, and continue to do so, others see the suffering of others, feel empathy, and reach out to help or ease the pain. Which way you will go is why you’re Here.

84. By the way, it is logically possible that Aristotle could be right about some people, but not right about all populations of human beings. Aristotle deployed some categorical statements in examples of syllogisms which he definitely applied to all men (as he saw all men), which we would not apply to all men.

    It is not a pleasant thought by our standards of course; but I don’t know that the sheer possibility of interbreeding tells us all we need to know about the “nature” of what we define as members of mankind, or perhaps better, “like-kind” and potentially “like-kind”.

    Christianity got us past that … but now that Christianity and the sonship of all mankind is considered passe and superstitious, we are left seeking other grounds for not smashing the faces of annoying people whenever we can get away with it. …

    How far can one stretch a definition until it becomes meaningless?

    Here is what is for many an insulting question to consider, which emerged when I was debating a militant atheist (I had no theological position to advance) who liked to tweak the Christians among the firearms use rights advocates whenever they spoke of derivative rights.

    So, in passing, I mentioned that I granted as per his stipulation and so far as he at least was concerned, that the soul did not exist. And that therefore we would assume that he in particular at least, as a consequence, had no soul. And that as we developed our definitions of worthwhile fellows deserving of community membership … etc etc.

    He became outraged. He erupted (if you can erupt in writing) and said that if anyone was saved, then he was saved too; and if he was not, then he would personally ride me down to hell if it came to that.

    And, most importantly for the discussion here that if anyone had a soul, then he had one too.

    I asked him how he knew his conditional was true; given what he himself had already said about the chaotic naturalistic origins of humankind. How then did he know (in a non-essentialist reality) that if others had a soul, then he necessarily had one too.

    Never got an answer.

85. @ Rufus at 12:05 pm, on “many people who have acted out of “goodness” have done a lot of ‘badness.’ “:

    Indeed! And, it gets more complex, when we factor in the complexity of human motives, in so very many situations.
    While many open-borders backers may well actually care for the “victims” of Trump’s policies, many of his backers suspect that much of the open-borders crowd is much moved, by disdain for white Americans, and by an aim for these whites to be replaced by browns.
    Even if most open-borders types don’t fervently aim for that, how does one persuade Trump backers that, nonetheless, open borders won’t figure, in due course, to effectively RESULT in white replacement?

    So again, rather than us stewing about good vs. bad motives, let’s concentrate on likely consequences.

86. As it happens, from what I’m seeing, Trump backers tend to suspect that many open-borders ELITES really hate whites, and that their flock are more motivated by actual concern for the “victims”.

87. aNanyMouse,

    You are correct, and white loathing (and/or white guilt suffering) folk are likely a percentage of open border backers, and some are likely Democrat party loyalists who are motivated by a desire to import Democrat voters at any cost, I would guess the greatest majority are altruists who believe they are eliminating or alleviating suffering.

    Rather than have to go to the trouble of living in a country south of the U.S. and directly helping the indigent. And rather than having to donate my own money to fund a charity staffed with workers already doing that. And rather than having to open my own home, or neighborhood to illegal immigrants…

    … I can still feel noble by voting that others take money from others to fund others who do that work.

88. Roy Nathanson–I see no overwhelming consensus in the comments here that “humans are some sort of evil plague infecting Earth,” rather the acknowledgment that men have flaws, are not perfect, and are unlikely “unperfectible.”

    Unperfectible, I would think, unless changed and modified/shaped/warped extensively–as the Communists claim they are trying to do—by changing men’s socio-economic conditions, thoughts, and behaviors, but finding men “perfectible” not even then; we are, after all, stubborn, resistant creatures, and are what we are, down to the core.

    Or modified/improved as some of those on the cutting edges of genetics, science, and technology seem to want us to be—in this case changes that may be so profound that their subjects may no longer qualify as being fully “human.” **

    If you want to sample such an attitude of hate for humanity, search for some of the extreme environmentalist’s comments, about how they see the human race as indeed infecting and despoiling pristine mother Earth, as raping Gaia.

    ** There were reports of a Canadian psychiatrist, Dr.Ewan Cameron—reportedly at one time President of both the American the Canadian Psychiatric Associations, no less—who, as part of the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program, performed some extremely gruesome, damaging experiments using what he called “psychic driving,” in which he put psychiatric patients in sensory deprivation tanks, and bombarded them with loud music for hours on end, with the aim of erasing their memories and personality—their basic programming—so that he could then reprogram them however he wished.

    See https://newspunch.com/canada-mk-ultra-settlement/ and see https://www.inverse.com/article/47055-why-are-canadians-suing-over-mk-ultra and see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_driving

89. Rufus, related to “party loyalists who are motivated by a desire to import Democrat voters at any cost…”, I’d much appreciate anyone who could recommend a place (on the web) where someone does real justice to this electorate-demographics strategy.

    On somewhat related aspects of electoral strategy, see J. Rosenberg, on why top Dem strategists (incl. Carville) pushed Obama (2011) to drop pretense of seeking white working class votes (for sake of appeals to underclass, + affluent suburbanites & “educated” professionals), at http://www.discriminations.us/2011/11/now-its-official-democrats-abandon-white-working-class-voters/ .

90. Blast from the past – looking at some old posts on WWI history, this seemed relevant to the debate.

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/57011.html#comment-1005159

    OBloodyHell Says:
    April 3rd, 2018 at 10:12 am
    Excellent piece. I do tend to concur that that war, and its aftermath, is what is destroying the West.

    I strongly recommend reading “What We Lost In The Great War”, a now 25yo article from American Heritage magazine.
    http://www.americanheritage.com/content/what-we-lost-great-war

    I believe that the Classical Liberals of Europe, so proud, so arrogant, went into that war believing they were God’s chosen, that they were a “better man” whose destiny was to bring The Enlightenment” to the rest of the world.

    Seeing that they could be just as stupid and savage and senseless as humans had ever been, they turned on themselves, their rage becoming self-hatred, and morphed into PostModern Liberals. PML targets the very underpinnings of the West, Christianity and the Inheritance of Classical Greek Thought and ideal. It is a social cancer aimed at the destruction of The West and everything it stands for. And it has been very poorly opposed for a century, now.

91. Snow on Pine,

    I never said that there was any such consensus. However, some were dragging out that old argument that any species that commits genocide must be evil. In fact there are examples of animals engaging in mass annihilation of competing tribes, but this is besides the point.

    In any case, virtually everyone commenting missed the original point I was making. Richf was going for the same target I was, but approached it from a different angle. He was simply ignored, while I was mocked.

    Sigh…

92. Huxley,

    Rereading your comments in this thread, we are pretty much on the same page.

93. AesopFan:

    Your comment from 12:09 is apt.

94. The Talmud notes that without the yetzer ra (the desire to satisfy personal needs), man would not build a house, marry a wife, beget children or conduct business affairs.

    … command a starship …

95. ** There were reports of a Canadian psychiatrist, Dr.Ewan Cameron—reportedly at one time President of both the American the Canadian Psychiatric Associations, no less—who, as part of the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program, performed some extremely gruesome, damaging experiments using what he called “psychic driving,” in which he put psychiatric patients in sensory deprivation tanks, and bombarded them with loud music for hours on end, with the aim of erasing their memories and personality—their basic programming—so that he could then reprogram them however he wished.

    That’s so crude, Snow. We and they have made great progress since then, don’t worry. Now the slaves pay to be enslaved and they enjoy being slaves. Success!

96. Neo,

    I believe you’ve read the classic, “Lord of the Flies” by Golding (and seen the movie based on the book). Before I came to America, I was told this is a must reading by college and high school in America. I don’t hear people mentioning this book very much today. I hope you can write a piece of review on this book. I think the main theme of Lord of the Flies” is inherent evil of humans, demonstrated by a group of kids in an isolated island. This is one of a few books that influence me so profoundly. Thanks in advance.

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>