You may wonder, how looking at the world today, dare I say that human nature is good? Well, because of two reasons, the first is that I believe so, the second reason is why I believe so.
Humans are very malleable creatures, we respond to our environment, to stimulation and to manipulation. We live mainly in a state of ignorance, the majority of us have no access to education and the education we do get is mediocre. Thus our true nature as such, is rarely actualised; it’s rarely seen as what it could be. The reason why, to me, things appears so bad and dominated by the ‘evil side’ of us is because of fear. Fear is the tool that enabled 'primitive' man to survive, to be aware of dangers, but it has also stopped the modern man from fully flourishing.
Fear has become conditioning and we have not yet learnt to drop it. Underneath it all, the human spirit is good, it’s undeniable that we strive for goodness as a whole. That’s why things like universal peace are so appealing, because we are creatures that thrive in peace. We have created war out of fear, but that doesn’t make us bad. Even the politicians who declare these mentioned wars go and give themselves a Nobel PEACE prize. Why? Because they have to show a good side, even characters who are moved primarily by greed have to put on sheep costumes in order to appeal to others. Because we are fragile and compassionate by nature. We care. Our bodies are fragile and we are sensitive. WE are not predators. We are biologically quite weak but our strength lays in that we are primarily emotional and intelligent.
Thomas Hobbes said man is the wolf of man, and how right he was, but he forgot to add, man is the friend of man, woman is the mother of man, humans are the lovers of humans. Who causes you pain? People. Who relieves you from that pain? People.
Take the example of a child, pure and innocent, old enough to talk yet young enough to not have been schooled to hate. In a child you see a tendency to play, to interact, to discover and create. He gets taught evil. You can say people are born with a personality, yes, but people considered evil, have a history of having evil done to them. Evil is not intrinsic, because it’s not life affirming and we are a surviving species.
I propose you an experiment; say one generation of children of the world are given good living conditions, food without poison, a well rounded education which doesn’t consist of memorizing things like our current education consists of. These children are taken on trips to see natural wonders, they are taught to respect animals, and they’ve had a stable home with present parents. I say one, only one generation that has these conditions in the whole world and you will see human nature; the goodness of human nature. We are evil because we are scared, because we suffer so badly.
We need to evolve in other aspects than technological, we need to care for each other, and that to my view, is the next step. We live in a world which sits half way between ignorance and primitive living and the modern world, we are a stone throws away from enjoying watching public executions and a stone throws away from visiting other planets. We sit half way between the past and the future, here in the present. We are not at the top of our capacity; we haven’t experienced the full capacity of human nature. But I can see, I can feel, a capacity for love, for understanding, for growth toward a world of philosophers and free thinkers. Human nature is ever changing and ever evolving, evolving to perfection and what is that? Goodness.
That’s why I believe human nature is good.
Eliza Veretilo
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Human Nature' Issue 36
