Thesis #5: Humans are neither good nor evil.
by Jason GodeskyAre humans essentially good, or essentially evil? This is one of the most basic, perennial questions in philosophy. Many identify our individual answers to this question as determing our political spectrum–conservatives believe humans are inherently evil, and require strict rules to make them good, while liberals believe humans are inherently good, and must simply be free to act on such goodness. Both positions are unrealistic. Humans are products of evolution, and evolution is unconcerned with such abstractions as “good” or “evil.” As Aristotle said, humans are social animals. We are neither “good” nor “evil.” We are only inherently social.
From the beginning of our civilization, our vision of ourselves has suffered from a sort of schizophrenia, pulled between these two unrealistic poles of good and evil. Plato posited that we each had an angelic spirit in our mind, and a bestial demon in our belly, with all our actions, emotions, and passions torn between them. This provides a foreshadowing of Descartes’ dualism, which remains a powerful idiom today, even though modern medicine has conclusively proven the strong interdependence of mind and body. Though I doubt it was a conscious modelling, it would be a mistake to overlook the obvious philosophical heritage this provides to Freud’s formulation of the id, ego and superego. This dichotomy was only made more severe by the influence of Zoroastrianism. Once adopted by Judaism prior to the splintering of Christianity, and later Islam, this vision of the universe at war between good and evil was combined with the ancient Greek concept of macrocosm and microcosm to only further this “bizarre superstition.”1 Even Jesus makes reference to this idea in the gospels with, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) In this vision, humanity itself is neither good nor evil, but only because each individual human is a spiritual battleground between the two. It is a vision of human nature that is not inherently good, nor inherently evil, but instead, inherently schizophrenic. Though widely accepted, it is a rather crude attempt to reconcile “the better angels of our nature” with the ugly facts of our history. Descartes’ dualism, once fundamental to the early practice of medical science, has since become an impediment. Neurology, psychiatry and biopsychology have all highlighted how closely knit the mind and the body are. In fact, any separation is now recognized as utterly lacking in any basis in reality.
Another concept, equally ancient, dismisses such ambivalence by simply claiming that humans are inherently evil. Perhaps the earliest formulation of this came from Plato, who argued that men act ethically only for fear of punishment. This sits well with the concept of “original sin” we find in the Abrahamic traditions. In Christianity, the inherent sinfulness of humanity necessitated the sacrifice of Christ, and subsequently, obedience to Holy Mother Church. On the other side, it is argued that altruism is an illusion, because every seemingly altruistic act is motivated by some selfish desire, even if it is only a desire for a feeling of self-fulfillment. Dawkins’ central thesis in The Selfish Gene is an argument grounding this concept in biology: that altruism arises as a genetic strategy of propogating itself.
This vision of humanity found its ultimate fulfillment in the work of Thomas Hobbes. “Bellum omnium contra omnes“–Hobbes’ “war of all, against all”–was the first word on the “state of nature.” It was a hypothetical then, a possible time when humans may have existed without government. Philosophers were only beginning to consider the possibility of the scientific method, and Hobbes was a strong proponent of the superiority of philosophical thought experiments. Anthropological data was only beginning, and even what little there was, was generally of the form of imperial apologia, describing the horror of barbaric pagan ways, and how desperately they needed the salvation of Christendom and European civilization. Hobbes’ “state of nature” owed much to the Christian conept of the inherent sinfulness of humanity, and much to the trauma of his own childhood. His mother went into labor prematurely when she became panic-stricken with news of the Spanish Armada’s approach, leading Hobbes to later remark, “Fear and I were born twins.” The individual human in the “state of nature” was, in Hobbes’ philosophy, a solitary predator whose cruelty was matched only by his cowardice. The result of such “anarchy,” in the traditional, pejorative sense of the word, was a life that was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
This idea of human nature is more often associated with the right side of the political spectrum. It argues that humanity is inherently evil, and that a just society is only possible when humans are compelled to act justly by the threat of force. This idea underlies our concepts of law, justice, and punishment at a very basic level. One might consider rhetoric of “deterrance” as a euphemism for this philosophy of terrorizing others into compliance. Hobbes is a powerful underlying current in the philosophy of the neoconservatives.
In counterpoint to this is the view that humans are inherently good. We might find faint echoes of this in Abrahamic mythology of humanity as the “crown of creation,” but Christianity has traditionally emphasized the fallen nature of humanity, over its exalted nature. The concept that human nature is essentially good is much more modern, finding its roots primarily in the changing strategies of colonial apologia in the 1600s and 1700s.
Where Hobbes’ “state of nature” was supported by the tales of cruel heathens and their primitive ways, with the obvious call to colonize those lands and save the savages by giving them Christ’s redemption and civilization’s benefits, by the time of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, imperial apologists had turned to a different strategy. Evoking the imagery of an Edenic existence, they wove a myth of the “Noble Savage.” The term “noble savage” first appeared in English with John Dryden in 1672, though it originated earlier, in 1609, with Lescarbot’s Histoire de la Nouvelle France. Lescarbot noted that among the Mi’kmaq, everyone was allowed to hunt–an activity enjoyed only by Europe’s nobility. This led Lescarbot to remark that “the Savages are truly noble,” thus referring to nobility of birth, rather than nobility of character. However, to trace the etymology of a popular phrase is a very different problem from the history of that idea it expresses. In this new form of apologia, indigenous peoples are presented as innocent, unspoiled by civilization. They are innocent, honest, healthy, moral people living in harmony with nature and one another. The savage is like the child, innocent of the “real world” and all its concommitant iniquities. And just as children must be protected by their parents, so too must these innocent savages be protected by more mature, worldly European powers.
In The Myth of the Noble Savage, Ter Ellingson argues that the myth of the noble savage was never widely believed–a straw man made to be universally debunked. She points to the racist work of John Crawfurd in 1859 popularizing the concept, attributing it to Rousseau to give it intellectual weight. I haven’t read Ellingson’s account, so I can’t speak much to it except that it seems to contradict the entire body of Romantic thought. Though Crawfurd may have been the first to introduce the racist messages of the “Noble Savage” myth of “ein Volk, ein Land,” the two ideas have become inextricably linked in Romantic philosophy. It became a primary basis for Nazi ideology in the 1920s.
Yet, these ideas contradict Rousseau’s own argument in many ways. The myth of the “Noble Savage” states that savages are innately good because of their race. Rousseau argues that all humans are innately good, regardless of race, and that we are “corrupted” by civilization.
This myth has been thoroughly debunked by writers, philosophers and anthropologists, who highlight the darker side of “savage” life. In War Before Civilization, Lawrence Keeley highlights the violence of Neolithic and horticultural “primitives,” and shows that, per capita, they experience more violent casualties from war than civilizations do. Another favorite criticism is the “overkill theory,” but this particular argument is deeply flawed: though humans were no doubt involved in the extinction of the megafauna, our contribution was likely no greater than any other alpha predator would have made. Tribal societies suffer from the same ethnocentrism as all other human societies. Tribal societies are not idyllic utopias, and their members are not angels. In the “state of nature,” humans are not always and invariable “good.” These arguments are sufficient to prove Rousseau wrong about the essential nature of our species.
If, then, Hobbes is wrong to project his own fear to the entire species, and Rousseau is wrong to project his idealism the same way, where does that leave the truth of who we are? If we are neither good nor evil, what are we? What manner of creature has evolution created in us?
In my study, I have identified several characteristics that I would call the essential hallmarks of “human nature.” If I had to sum them up into a single, pithy slogan, I would take Aristotle’s: humans are social animals.
- Society. Humans are social animals. In rare and extraordinary circumstances, in areas barely fit for human habitation, there have been collapses of even the simplest forager societies, such as among the Ik. This is an exceptional extreme of social collapse. In general, humans need some sort of society to survive.
- Culture. Culture is not unique to humans, but we have certainly emphasized it to an unprecedented degree. Our brains are hard-wired to recieve culture. The acculturation process can stir us as powerfully as genetic impulses. This is highlighted as simply as the old (useless) debate on “nature versus nurture.” To consider an analogue from the world of technology, Herbert Simon helped write the General Problem Solver (GPS) in 1957. Prior to this, programs were written to solve specific problems. This was perhaps the first instance of a more generalized approach: the GPS could be fed information on specific problems, and then solve them. It is the difference between a machine that is hard-wired to do a specific task, and a machine that can be programmed to do any number of tasks. This is the difference culture makes; it allows for another layer, and gives humans an adaptive edge. It also means that we have much less of an essential “nature” than other animals, since we more closely resemble Rousseau’s “tabula rosa.”2
- Egalitarianism. There are ambiguously gendered humans. This in itself shows a degree of sexual dimorphism among the lowest in the entire animal kingdom. Males are not significantly larger than females, and morphological differences are minimal, particularly when compared to many of our closest primate cousins. Male baboons are three times the size of females, and mandrill males sport distinctive coloring that make them almost look like an entirely different species. Sexual dimorphism throughout the animal kingdom is correlated with gender equality. Emperor penguins have as little sexual dimorphism as we, and they split child-rearing responsibilities evenly. This physical evidence strongly suggests that gender equality is part of human nature. Egalitarianism in general is supported by a total lack of evidence for any form of hierarchy in our species, except in cases of exceptional abundance and surplus (that is, after the Neolithic, except for the singular exceptions of the Kwakiutl and the burial sites of Sungir). This is further corroborated by the universality of egalitarianism among modern foragers. Even in hierarchical societies, in all times and places, there is a universal aspiration towards more egalitarian forms of society–even where population pressure and complexity will not allow for egalitarianism. Thus, it seems that we should consider egalitarianism part of human nature.
- Technology.. The genus Homo suffers from one of the most ridiculous distinctions in all of biology, thanks to the powerful force of anthropocentrism: we are defined by our tool use. Though other primitivist writers define themselves by a rejection of technology, even the most primitive societies use tools of some kind. Tool use, though, is a very different proposition from an almost messianic belief in the power of technology to save us from all problems. Technology is morally ambivalent, capable of good or evil depending on how it is used. Yet the creation and use of tools of some kind is a universal human trait, and one that figures prominently in our evolution. The creation of the first stone tools is strongly correlated to the exponential increases in cranial capacity that defines Homo habilis from Australopithecus afarensis. It is also strongly correlated to handedness (a rather unique quirk we possess in the animal kingdom), and another crucial aspect of human nature:
- Language. Though humans are not unique in their use of an advanced and nuanced communication system, there is little that can compare to the complexity of human language. Much of the human brain is hard-wired to use some kind of language. There is a “universal grammar” born instinctively in every human child. All human societies have some kind of language. The implications of this are far-reaching, from abstract thought to Wittgenstein’s philosophies.
- Story-telling. Australopithecines were almost certainly scavengers, competing in the African savanna–an environment where the emergence of “super-predators” had given rise to one of the most competitive ecosystems in the history of the planet. They could hardly compete with some of the other scavengers, such as hyenas and vultures, and so developed tools to get to a kill site first, grab the meat, and get out before other scavengers arrived. As tool use became more sophisticated, early humans began to hunt for themselves. This innovation required a range of skills, including story telling. Tracking has a great deal to do with weaving a story. The tracks, scat and other signs are, themselves, meaningless, unless one can weave that evidence into a narrative of the animal’s state, size and progression. This combines with human’s capacity for language and abstract thought to create a creature that tells stories. Scientific explanations of the Big Bang and evolution are as much stories as ancient myths and legends. Any narrative that links elements in a linear, causal line is a story. This article is a story.
What does this say to the essential question of whether humans are “good” or “evil”? Nothing. Humans are neither. We are not good, we are not evil, and we are not torn between the two. There are characteristics of human nature, but none of those characteristics can truly be called “good” or “evil.” We are what we are, and nothing more. We live more easily, and more fully, when we work with that rather than against it. That nature, though, is neither “good” nor “evil”–it simply is.
Footnotes
1 This refers to a favorite quotation of mine from Jonathan Ott which is quite relevant in the current discussion: “Any religion that requires faith and gives none, that defends against religious experiences, that promulgates the bizarre superstition that humankind is in some way separate, divorced from the rest of creation, that heals not the gaping wound between Body and Soul, but would tear them asunder… is no religion at all!” I originally found this quotation at The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension’s page on shamanism. Back.
2 Though it is also certainly true that human children are not born as such complete “blank slates” as Rousseau imagined. Children are born with a significant amount of information already in place; this leads to such universals as grammar. However, when compared to the detailed, instinctive behavior other animals are born with, there is a sufficiently significant difference to suggest that Rousseau was more correct than not. Back.
This article really trails off something awful at the end. I’ll definitely punch that up in the book.
In a way, though, it provides a preamble for the next three theses: “Humans are still Pleistocene animals” (#6), “Humans are best adapted to band life” (#7) and “Human societies are defined by their food” (#8).
It also occurs to me that I’ve only disproven the assertion that humans are good. The other two are analyzed, but not really refuted.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 2 August 2005 @ 3:56 PM
Hmm.. this doesn’t really have much to do with the focus of the article, but judging from a lot of other stuff that Jesus supposedly said, I wonder if his “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” comment hasn’t been misinterpreted by Christians to suit their own needs. If by spirit he means the divine, the oneness with Creation, the world beyond the physical, and by flesh he means the physical, logical world, then that might not imply a clashing of good and evil within the body, but a comment that access to the divine is achieved only by quieting the often distracting impulses of the flesh. That this is particularly difficult within the context of civilization, which focuses almost singlemindedly on developing the skills and senses of the flesh, seems to go along with that.
However, I have no idea what the context of that comment was, and who knows what was really said.
/tangent
Roxy
Comment by Raku — 2 August 2005 @ 5:20 PM
Although it doesn’t fit anywhere in this article, I’ve always considered humans to be more than the sum of their parts, making them inherently dangerous. It takes a highly organized, intellect-rich species with excellent communication and a “chronological” capability to really be able to tear some sh*t up. Every element is needed. Of course I can’t prove it, but I can’t imagine a species without the ability to understand cause and effect being capable of destruction on the scale that we’ve pulled off. I can’t imagine a species without the reciprocating high-intellect high-communication high-technology high-social organization traits being able to support what we can. Humans really are a unique species; not for any single trait that we possess, but for our peculiar and dangerous combination of them.
Excellent article.
Comment by Chuck — 3 August 2005 @ 7:08 AM
Doesn’t this whole debate kind of depend on how we define what “good” is?
Consider. Moral relativists often point to the fact that ethical systems differ according to what society you happen to be in. However, there is at least one thing that all of these ethical systems have in common. That is they promote peaceful relations within that society. So let’s forget for the time being the idealized Judeo-Christian notion of good and define it using the most basic characteristic we know to be associated with good. So “good” is simply that which promotes peace among members of society.
Now, as you’ve already pointed out, humans are social creatures. And I would just add that that isn’t a cultural thing. We’re born that way. Humans have evolved to be social animals because we are capable of surviving much better in groups than we are alone. That’s why we feel emotions like embarrassment and fear of rejection–to motivate us to maintain our position within the group. The “lone wolves” who weren’t afraid of going it alone were the ones who got themselves killed. So we’re all born with an inherent desire to protect our social relationships.
Thus, under our definition of “good,” humans are essentially good because we are all naturally motivated to promote peace among each other. That’s not to say, obviously, that people will never do something that is not good. There are other motivations (fear, greed, etc.) that come into play that under the right circumstances can be more powerful than the motivation to maintain peaceful social relationships. But even then, those people aren’t doing bad because it’s something they like to do. It’s simply preferrable to the alternative. No one does something bad just to do it and honk off his neighbors.
So under this definition of “good” (which I’ll admit, could well be argued), it does make sense to say that humans are essentially good. It doesn’t mean that all humans are “noble” or that humanity is the “crown of creation.” It just means that, all other things being equal, all humans will almost always opt to do the right thing.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 7 August 2005 @ 9:43 AM
It depends very much on what our definition of good is. So let’s use thesis #1, diversity is the greatest good. Do humans increase, or diminish diversity? Foragers, like any alpha predator, increase diversity. Civilization decreases it. Both are human, so neither “good” nor “evil” can be taken as inherent qualities of our species under the definition we came to in thesis #1. However, we can make such claims about specific human societies, but this no more reflects the nature of humanity than the quality of the software I use reflects the inherent nature of my beloved PowerBook.
As to your standard of maintaining peaceful relations within the group, there is something of a tautology to it. We are very adapted to maintaining peaceful relations within our groups–being social animals. One of those adaptations is a nearly universal, moral belief in the “goodness” of maintaining peaceful relations within our groups. And because we are so well-adapted to maintaining such relations, humans are good.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 August 2005 @ 11:54 AM
I believe that humans are inherently good, for that is how God had created humans to be. God created humans to be good, looking after the earth. Adam and Eve were simply influenced by Satan telling them that God was a liar. People are inherently good but are influenced but Satan or some other. Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau are a few well-known people who all had different opinions on this subject.
Taoism is another religion that relates to this subject, it is believed in Taoism that there can be no good, if not evil and no love, if not hate.
Comment by Cindy — 7 February 2006 @ 10:57 PM
Your understanding of Taoism is deeply flawed. Good and evil are very much a part of Taoism, as represented by the yin-yang. Rather than the Manichaen understanding we inherited from the Zoroastrians, however, these are seen as existing in balance, rather than conflict.
You’ll note that a discussion of Hobbes and Rousseau is central to the original article. While I can certainly fault Locke’s arguments on the same grounds, your own view of human nature is even more strongly predicated on a number of unprovable premises, such as the existence of G-d, the existence of Satan, the relevance of Divine Will, a specific account of Creation (even if we assume all the foregoing, how can we know G-d didn’t create humans to be evil?). Since I reject most of your premises, your conclusion means nothing to me–nor, I would venture, most people on this site. Given that many of us have rejected said premises after careful consideration, and given your sloppy initial treatment of them, I would advise against pursuing this further by trying to convince us of those premises. It’s unlikely to go well for you, and would be primarily a time-consuming distraction for us. I can’t see any good coming of it.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 7 February 2006 @ 11:08 PM
Jason? I think she does get that. She said, “there can be no good, if not evil.” Perhaps it would have been better phrased as “there can be no good, if there is no evil.” But that is just my opinion.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 7 February 2006 @ 11:21 PM
I was having a very hard time parsing that … I thought she was trying to say that according to Taoism, “good” does not exist.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 7 February 2006 @ 11:24 PM
Yeah, it was awkward.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 7 February 2006 @ 11:57 PM
I’m not sure whether this fits into this thesis or one of the previous ones (I’m just starting to read them and their discussions), or perhaps none, but I figured that I wanted to toss it out for possible use- Peter Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/mutaidcontents.html)
In it Kropotkin argues that humans are social creatures and that we are more apt to cooperate than compete. He sets this up by giving plenty of examples of this behavior in other species. Kropotkin comments that Darwin’s theory of evolution wasn’t taken far enough, and that people (incorrectly) tended to exploit it as being Hobbesian.
Comment by Mark Nagel — 10 May 2006 @ 7:16 AM
I had a vision when I read the closer to this article, where it says that human nature simply “is.” The vision was of a Buddhist monk asking the silly westerners what’s taking them so long. That particular nugget of insight has been part of many versions of Buddhist belief for quite some time.
I should note for the record that I am not being a self righteous Buddhist with this comment. I am actually not a Buddhist of any kind. In keeping with the theme of diversity I see on this website, it is my beleif that labels such as “Buddhist” are most often insufficient to describe the nuance of an individual values system, and that the attempts to conform to the closest label end up stunting spiritual diversity. And so I’m a happy little enigma who’s studied Buddhism and adopted some of their better ideas.
Comment by Nick — 19 October 2006 @ 9:49 PM
Those who believe that
murder is “neither good
not bad” can stop reading now.
Those who are still reading know
that certain actions can be good or bad. The constructive
thing to do is not to ask
whether human nature is
closer to “good” (by which the asker usually means,
are we closer to inherently
being beings who whose
actions are good
actions) or whether
we are closer to bad (by
which the asker usually means, is “human nature”
closer to being inherently
the kinds of creatures who
carry out actions, like
murder, that are bad) but
rather we need to ask which
social arrangements, institutions, etc , bring
out better behavior, harmony, etc, and which
ones bring out the worst.
Comment by Harel — 6 December 2006 @ 4:08 PM
That’s a ridiculous tautology. The simplest definition of “murder” is “killing that’s bad.” Murder’s always bad, by its very definition. The better question is, which killings are bad (i.e., “murders”) and which are not. The act itself does not change at all, and yet we all realize that there is such a thing as a justified killing. As animals, we kill several living things every day just to stay alive.
That is the ultimate point of this thesis, yes, but to get there, we first need to establish humanity’s basic moral neutrality, or else it doesn’t matter how well society is constructed—if humans are as innately bad as, say, Hobbes contended, then there is no possible arrangement in which they can be made good, and we should instead focus on the “salvation” of human nature from its “fallen” state. This thesis is my rejection of that line of thinking.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 6 December 2006 @ 4:14 PM
Jason - annoying nitpicky edit for the book version: The second footnoted reference should be “tabula rasa”, not “tabula rosa”.
How’s the book version coming along, btw?
Comment by raku — 11 December 2006 @ 12:24 PM
My plan was to start working on the book after the Fifth World beta was released. My plan was also to have the Fifth World beta out months ago.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 11 December 2006 @ 12:39 PM
Re. dualism, modern medicine, and the mind/body problem:
Jason, you’re advocating for what’s known as materialist monism, as distinct from mind/body dualism. However you might be intersted to know that even materialist monism is out of date in cognitive science. Do a keyword search for “David Chalmers” and “consciousness” and look for his rather long paper on the subject. It is difficult reading but it makes a fairly airtight case, based on empirical findings and logical arguement, for the “interactionist” theory of consciousness. Chalmers’ position, once regarded as somewhat radical, is coming to be more widely accepted; and in conjunction with Hameroff’s & Penrose’s theories (which are strictly based in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology), offers the potential of a real solution to the “hard problem” of the existence of consciousness in the first place.
Any ethical philosophy that seeks to make statements on the nature of humans, would do well to be aware of where cognitive science is going in this area.
Comment by gg3 — 28 January 2007 @ 5:26 AM
I don’t think you should use the Aristotle quote in the beginning of the article. I have only read the first few paragraphs but its clear that you don’t have an understanding of the greeks that merits quoting them. In particular, you bring one of his quotes, without bring up the Ethics, the book that precedes the politics. If you insist on maintaining that Aristotle thinks we are neither good nor evil, but social, you are an idiot. Plain and simple. If you pay attention to him you will realize that humans are by nature good, for the activity of a human is to be virtuous, anyone not being virtuous simply isn’t being human. I think its fair to point out that we are social creatures, but then you must say in what way we tend to socialize. According to Aristotle it’s because no man can fully provide for himself. We socialize out of need. So yes, are society as simply a society represents neither good nor evil. However, the best society, one made of good humans, is that by which we most fulfill our needs, that by which we are most social, that by which we are most human. To take the viewpoint that we are neither is to be lazy in your thinking and be full of cowardice in your quest for truth.
Comment by Anonymous — 7 March 2007 @ 1:47 AM
I realized I forgot to claim my statement. My name is Clint Richardson.
Comment by Anonymous — 7 March 2007 @ 1:48 AM
When Solomon asked for Wisdom, God responded he would grant his request and give him a “discerning heart” to tell the difference between good and evil. St.Paul claims Jesus was able to take his two natures and turn them into one “pure” one…a pure heart or a clear conscience? The Yin/Yang symbol perhaps is a good symbol with the idea that the material aspect of the body is always at odds with the spiritual aspect..not blended as the author seems to imply, but still having two natures but in actuallity only being one. This third nature (the pure one) would be considered the only true good as it is not tainted by evil. Confucius said he hated the good man of the villiage because they confused the people to what true goodness was. So the author is somewhat correct, but misses the third option. The two together in unison form the one.
Clearly, there is good in the world. The sacrifice one makes to help others goes directly against our selfish desires or our desire to stay alive. Then again, in the tale of Satan we are told he was the highest good (or Angel) short of God and it was pride that led to his fall. Pride and compassion are both human traits and two sides of the same coin that cannot be tied to animalistic behaviors or our material bodies–they are “spiritual” behaviors then. Wisdom is when we can recongize this and thus discern between good and evil. Ignorance is to say that there is no good. According to Socrates, ignorance is evil and the opposite of wisdom. Perhaps, pride would be in expressing our ignorance to others and humbleness would be to state…”then again I could be wrong…”
Comment by raider132@yahoo.com — 17 July 2007 @ 3:47 PM
Yes, manichaeists believe in good and evil.
I’m not a manichaeist.
Good vs. evil misses the point. Duality misses the point. It’s not as simple as that. That’s the point.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 17 July 2007 @ 3:54 PM
I think humans are not born evil neither good. i can say it’s in between because if all humans are born good it will be a different world and if humans are born evil it will also be a diffent world so i guess it between good ot evil.
Comment by Julius Bautista of Philippines — 12 October 2007 @ 8:01 AM
If humans really existed that god cannot. Humans sense their own inherent fiction and seek to destroy, reduce, consume, murder, everything in their path. Simply have the guts to look at how humans have treated and treat other sentient beings. From wildlife to pets to farm animals. The treatment is so beyond comprehension that even few humans can bear to look, as they don’t wish to be reminded of their complicity. Watch this without being moved and you can’t be alive and thus you don’t exist, for life is fully alive.
http://veg-tv.info/Earthlings
Comment by jwonto — 7 January 2008 @ 2:13 AM
That’s an excellent reminder of the kind of meaningless double-talk that so often follows from our contradictory concepts of right and wrong, jwonto. Look at the volume of rhetoric your example employs about eating animals. Certainly, civilization has treated non-human animals cruelly, just as it treats human animals cruelly, plants cruelly, soils cruelly, winds cruelly, and so on. But your case goes beyond that to things like hunting wild game for food, to the very nature of carnivorism, which certainly follows these concepts of “right” and “wrong” to their logical conclusions, and in so doing also reveals the hypocrisy of such purity.
After all, what alternative do we have but vegetarianism? But plants are people, too. They respond to “pain” (though they no doubt experience it differently), communicate with one another, eavesdrop on one another, and recognize their kin.
Thus, every animal kills to live. That rules every animal’s inescapable fate. We cannot escape that basic truth; if we try, we only serve to delude ourselves, and forget the responsibility that animal life comes with. Because we kill to live, we buy our lives at the cost of that sacred covenant to justify our existence, to give back more than we take.
Every animal gives back more than it takes; that veritably defines sustainability. Modern civilization, however, does not. That does not mean that humans have become innately fallen; even today, humans live in ways that give back more than they take. Humans created the Amazon rain forest and the Great Plains, and after thousands of years of harvesting salmon in the Pacific Northwest, more salmon lived there than before. That kind of legacy follows from a sustainable culture, and a thousand years of human life when every generation understands their place in a more-than-human world, acknowledges and respects other-than-human persons, and takes seriously the covenant that the animal’s dilemma creates, and gives back more than they take.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 9 January 2008 @ 12:59 PM
The era of the hunter-gatherer was not the social and environmental Eden that some suggest
Comment by waterclock — 10 January 2008 @ 6:59 AM
I’ll just copy-and-paste what I said about this article when void_genesis posted it to Fabulous Forager:
Comment by Jason Godesky — 10 January 2008 @ 7:32 AM
The warfare death rate of 0.5% of the population per year that Lawrence Keeley of the University of Illinois calculates as typical of hunter-gatherer societies would equate to 2 billion people dying during the 20th century.
That is a terribly deceptive comment.
A warfare death rate of 0.5% would equate to 1 person every 2 years for a 100 person band. Based on my reading of “The Forest People” it appears that a Pygmy band of 5 families has perhaps 30 people. so that 0.5% would equate to 1 person in the band being killed in warfare every 7 years.
Secondly, based on this
link:
Approximately 4,126,000,000 people have died during this century from all causes.
So, in fact, citing 2 billion deaths understates the case by a factor of 2.
–
JimFive
Comment by Anonymous — 10 January 2008 @ 10:02 AM
Full collation: Part 1, Part 2
Comment by Jason Godesky — 11 January 2008 @ 7:58 PM
WOW! Enjoyed your article and especially all the comments. What a diverse world we live in. Everything I read on this site is very deep and interesting. I am a simpleton and not much of an internet surfer but decided to look up some stuff about human nature. I’m in a small bible study group and asked the question if evil was in us “human nature” or is he/she/it a seperate entity as Hollywood portays it i.e. the devil, satan, the fallen angel, the enemy, etc. Are the sinful things we do completely in our control or does the “devil make us do it?” Any thoughts? Hopefully I am worthy of a response.
Comment by Carol Burwell — 21 February 2008 @ 3:31 PM
Sgëno, Carol, and welcome! I was once a devout Catholic, so I’ve gone to quite a few Bible studies in my time. As far as the Bible, the usual interpretation definitely tells us that, because of original sin, humans have an innately evil nature, requiring Christ’s salvation. I don’t see much way of avoiding that interpretation from Paul’s letters; but then, I never held Paul in very high regard anyway. But Daniel Quinn offers a startling interpretation of the Fall. He points out that we don’t really know good from evil. A lion chases a gazelle. Should he catch the gazelle? If you say yes, the lion calls it good, and the gazelle calls it evil; if you say no, the lion calls it evil, and the gazelle calls it good. Since we live in the world, we cannot help but choose good and evil from our own perspective. We can never know good from evil, for all the same reasons a judge can’t preside over a case where he knows the defendant. So, what sense do we make of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge? The tree doesn’t actually nourish them; it poisons them. G-d didn’t tell them to stay away from it as an arbitrary test that he’d punish with death; he told them to stay away from it the way you would tell a child to stay away from a bottle of Windex. The Tree of Knowledge nourishes G-d, but in humans, it simply puffs us up, making us think we know good from evil, and that we can decide who should live and who should die. But of course, then we always decide that we should live, and others should die. In Genesis, G-d punishes Adam and Eve with agriculture, but what do we mean by agriculture except determining what plants and animals should live, and which should die? Coyotes should die; cows should live. Grain should live, but crows should not get to eat them. Above all, we should live; anything else should die.
The story of Cain and Abel illustrates what happened next: Cain, the farmer, kills Abel, the shepherd, as the Agricultural Revolution spread, and farmers genocidally wiped out every other kind of human culture.
Quinn suggests that we need to spit out that fruit, and go back to live in G-d’s hands again, the way we did when he made us in the garden of Eden. His novel, Ishmael fleshes all this out in much more detail, and given what you’ve written here, I think you might appreciate it. If you share that with your Bible study group, let me know how it goes; I’d love to hear that story!
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 February 2008 @ 8:31 PM
Thank you Jason. I’ll look into that.
Comment by Carol Burwell — 23 February 2008 @ 12:47 PM