What is Human Nature?
We’re currently in the middle of a cultural shift. The old ways of life are being challenged by the generation after them and have sparked what feels like an ideology war with a new and emerging progressive/socialist view of how our society should be, against the traditional conservative view of our society currently is. This battle of ideologies should live in a space with common ground, but sides of this struggle have doubled down, and the polarization has only increased the narrow perspective of one camp or the another. It seems a miss notion from either side stems back to human nature. In my last paper, I propose the idea of both ideologies working in harmony because they reflect different aspects of our nature. The complexities of humans and how we should collectively live doesn’t boil down to one camp but should be an understanding of both and a coexistence to maximize the reduction of suffering for all humans. To further my argument for the support for coexisting ideologies I need to dive further into what I believe human nature to be, so what is Human Nature?
The beginning of my journey to understanding human nature was finding the differences between human nature and traditional nature. Serval differences initially came to mind, but they all seemed to connect back to one defining difference: Humans have the highest form of cognitive abilities from any other species on this earth. Mostly importantly math, science, language (written and verbal) and conscious awareness of self has been the tools and building blocks to how we live, develop and separates us from traditional nature. Our self-awareness and ability for communication set the bar to how our nature differs and how we tackle its understanding. Humans no longer live for survival alone and with all the added elements above make the question of our nature a fascinating one. However, no matter how cognitively advanced humans may be, we still come with our flaws. Our weakness in the context of human nature is a strong miss understanding of our nature itself and how we mold our views of our development to fit with whatever vision of how one believes societies should be run and it’s evident in a widely popular belief of the “blank slate” theory.
The “blank slate” theory concludes all of human nature is learned through direct experiences of our environment, culture, and childhood. Humans are born with a blank slate, and everything is learned after birth. This theory fits with religious beliefs such as free will and the concepts of good and evil and it also molds well into conservative views of thinking of how we all operate in a capitalistic system. If we are a blank slate at birth and our free will and environment dictates our nature, arguments for inequality, wealth, and a better life are all predicated on how much hard work and sacrifice an individual is willing to put in and endure to accomplish these goals. A person’s quality of life is predicated on the individual, implying a person’s success (or lack thereof) is nobody’s fault but themselves. While on the other side of the coin, progressives use this theory as a means of discrediting science by believing any nature of behavior can only be learned or changed through culture. Genetics and our neurodevelopment play a pivotal role in our nature, which brings us to the second pathway to human nature, our connection to traditional nature explained through evolution.
Evolution gives us insight with our connection to the past and by studying the behavior of our genetic ancestries in traditional nature we can gain a better understanding of how it links into our human nature. Evolution is vital because it’s the missing piece to the human nature puzzle. Human development is riddled with mystery and questions the “blank slate” theory has no proposal of answering. For example, babies develop personalities of their own at very early ages. I’m not a parent myself, but I’m an uncle of a two-year-old, and one of my best friends has a child who’s almost two, and I see the varying complexities of different personalities of these two boys from favorite shows, to dietary likes and dislikes, their humor and stages of learning just to name a few. Evolution attempts to answer questions about our instincts of self-preservation, us and them thinking, tribalism by taking a deeper understanding of our genetic makeup and its relationship to our behavior. Neuroscience, in particular, has been a huge help in understanding human behavior finding new information about our neurological development which is the bedrock to understand our nature.
Neuroscience has given the mapping of the regions of the brain which are linked to emotions and impulses. We’ve learned the amygdala is the space in the brain for fear and anger, while the frontal cortex is the part of our brain responsible for reasoning and making the tough, but right decisions. We’ve learned the frontal cortex also is a recent (in evolutionary terms) development and doesn’t fully develop until age 25. Neuroscience has also shown us the active link between genetics and environment and how parts of the brain can between overdeveloped or underdeveloped mainly factoring in the balance between inherited genetics and childhood household. As I’ve discussed in my piece “What is Biological Luck?” I cover that our genetics and environment are out of our control. We don’t choose our mom and dad, nor do we choose our family, we are born into the situation we’re born into. My brain developed the way it did because of nothing but the luck of the draw.
Evolution is continual and once the merit of the “blank slate” theory comes into play is our way of life and culture does influence our nature which is why evolution and the slate theory work together to build human nature just as genetics and environment work together to make humans what we are. As we advance with technology and standard of living, humans are not solely driven by survival as traditional nature mainly tends to be. Our younger generation is tapping into the community aspects of our nature, which may have been initially rooted in survival, but as moved to focus on the welfare of how we all live. In a way, both theories aren’t absolute but work in coexistence with each other to build our nature. There is merit in holding people accountable for their success. In some contexts, it is up to the individual to put in the effort to change their situation. Same is true for the other side having merit in understanding a lack of success isn’t always on the induvial. Physical and mental fitness, class status, neurodevelopment can all be factored in changes of natures and how they affect individual success.
Human nature, in a nutshell, is the collective result of our genetics and environment working together in a harmonious relationship creating the blueprint of each individual's emotional dexterity, behavior, goals, and everything else which plays to our underlying nature. Our nature is in our roots to our ancestral past, our origins to our evolutionary instincts and or nature as humans isn’t one-sided or am I the only one?
The beginning of my journey to understanding human nature was finding the differences between human nature and traditional nature. Serval differences initially came to mind, but they all seemed to connect back to one defining difference: Humans have the highest form of cognitive abilities from any other species on this earth. Mostly importantly math, science, language (written and verbal) and conscious awareness of self has been the tools and building blocks to how we live, develop and separates us from traditional nature. Our self-awareness and ability for communication set the bar to how our nature differs and how we tackle its understanding. Humans no longer live for survival alone and with all the added elements above make the question of our nature a fascinating one. However, no matter how cognitively advanced humans may be, we still come with our flaws. Our weakness in the context of human nature is a strong miss understanding of our nature itself and how we mold our views of our development to fit with whatever vision of how one believes societies should be run and it’s evident in a widely popular belief of the “blank slate” theory.
The “blank slate” theory concludes all of human nature is learned through direct experiences of our environment, culture, and childhood. Humans are born with a blank slate, and everything is learned after birth. This theory fits with religious beliefs such as free will and the concepts of good and evil and it also molds well into conservative views of thinking of how we all operate in a capitalistic system. If we are a blank slate at birth and our free will and environment dictates our nature, arguments for inequality, wealth, and a better life are all predicated on how much hard work and sacrifice an individual is willing to put in and endure to accomplish these goals. A person’s quality of life is predicated on the individual, implying a person’s success (or lack thereof) is nobody’s fault but themselves. While on the other side of the coin, progressives use this theory as a means of discrediting science by believing any nature of behavior can only be learned or changed through culture. Genetics and our neurodevelopment play a pivotal role in our nature, which brings us to the second pathway to human nature, our connection to traditional nature explained through evolution.
Evolution gives us insight with our connection to the past and by studying the behavior of our genetic ancestries in traditional nature we can gain a better understanding of how it links into our human nature. Evolution is vital because it’s the missing piece to the human nature puzzle. Human development is riddled with mystery and questions the “blank slate” theory has no proposal of answering. For example, babies develop personalities of their own at very early ages. I’m not a parent myself, but I’m an uncle of a two-year-old, and one of my best friends has a child who’s almost two, and I see the varying complexities of different personalities of these two boys from favorite shows, to dietary likes and dislikes, their humor and stages of learning just to name a few. Evolution attempts to answer questions about our instincts of self-preservation, us and them thinking, tribalism by taking a deeper understanding of our genetic makeup and its relationship to our behavior. Neuroscience, in particular, has been a huge help in understanding human behavior finding new information about our neurological development which is the bedrock to understand our nature.
Neuroscience has given the mapping of the regions of the brain which are linked to emotions and impulses. We’ve learned the amygdala is the space in the brain for fear and anger, while the frontal cortex is the part of our brain responsible for reasoning and making the tough, but right decisions. We’ve learned the frontal cortex also is a recent (in evolutionary terms) development and doesn’t fully develop until age 25. Neuroscience has also shown us the active link between genetics and environment and how parts of the brain can between overdeveloped or underdeveloped mainly factoring in the balance between inherited genetics and childhood household. As I’ve discussed in my piece “What is Biological Luck?” I cover that our genetics and environment are out of our control. We don’t choose our mom and dad, nor do we choose our family, we are born into the situation we’re born into. My brain developed the way it did because of nothing but the luck of the draw.
Evolution is continual and once the merit of the “blank slate” theory comes into play is our way of life and culture does influence our nature which is why evolution and the slate theory work together to build human nature just as genetics and environment work together to make humans what we are. As we advance with technology and standard of living, humans are not solely driven by survival as traditional nature mainly tends to be. Our younger generation is tapping into the community aspects of our nature, which may have been initially rooted in survival, but as moved to focus on the welfare of how we all live. In a way, both theories aren’t absolute but work in coexistence with each other to build our nature. There is merit in holding people accountable for their success. In some contexts, it is up to the individual to put in the effort to change their situation. Same is true for the other side having merit in understanding a lack of success isn’t always on the induvial. Physical and mental fitness, class status, neurodevelopment can all be factored in changes of natures and how they affect individual success.
Human nature, in a nutshell, is the collective result of our genetics and environment working together in a harmonious relationship creating the blueprint of each individual's emotional dexterity, behavior, goals, and everything else which plays to our underlying nature. Our nature is in our roots to our ancestral past, our origins to our evolutionary instincts and or nature as humans isn’t one-sided or am I the only one?
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