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The Bully Pulpit

~ (n): An office or position that provides its occupant with an outstanding opportunity to speak out on any issue.

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Tag Archives: human nature

How the Greek Conception of Human Nature Can Shape Your Politics

14 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by jrbenjamin in Interview, Political Philosophy

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Tags

classics, Conservativism, Denis Diderot, French Enlightenment, Greek History, Greek philosophy, Greek tragedy, Greeks, human nature, interview, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Philosophy, Thucydides, Victor Davis Hanson

Roman Bust

“I don’t think I would think the way I do if I hadn’t had an affinity for the writings of the Greeks. I think the idea the Greeks had, the tragic view of the world — that there are limitations in the human experience: we all age, we all die, we don’t demand utopian perfection given the brief time we’re on earth — has made me more realistic about things.

So when you see a war, for example, you don’t ask who’s one hundred percent good and who’s one hundred percent evil. There is good and evil in the world, yes, but it can sometimes be very difficult to understand that you have to go to war even though you won’t always be in the right.

The Greeks were much more realistic about the fallibilities of human nature. That’s had a very profound influence on me…

The idea that people are predictable across time and space, as the historian Thucydides said. That they have appetites and urges which are often identifiable. That people seem to respond to status and honor and fear, and that civilization — whether it’s religion, or custom and tradition, or politics — tends to save us from our selves.

It’s a very different view from the Rousseauian, Diderot, French enlightenment idea that we’re born into the world perfect human beings, but that religion or the family or the government repress us and ultimately ruin us.”

__________

Victor Davis Hanson, checking off the important boxes in the first minute of his three-hour-long C-SPAN In-Depth interview in 2004. If you want to read Hanson, pick up his acclaimed study of nine pivotal battles in history, Carnage and Culture. I just ordered my copy.

Watch Hanson’s answer (along with the other two hours and fifty-nine minutes) below.

Then move on:

  • An illuminating passage from Arthur Schlesinger’s biography of RFK — how the Kennedys read the Greeks differently (and how Robert took solace in them after Jack’s death)
  • A summary: the Christian worldview vs. the Greek worldview
  • How ancient Greeks partied

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Does the Mind’s System Reflect a Judeo-Christian View of Human Nature?

26 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in Psychology

≈ Comments Off on Does the Mind’s System Reflect a Judeo-Christian View of Human Nature?

Tags

behaviorism, cognition, Freudianism, human nature, neuroscience, Psychiatry, psychology, science, Sigmund Freud, social constructionism, Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, the brain, the mind

4-format43

“The mind is modular, with many parts cooperating to generate a train of thought or an organized action.

It has distinct information-processing systems for filtering out distractions, learning skills, controlling the body, remembering facts, holding information temporarily, and storing and executing rules. Cutting across these data-processing systems are mental faculties (sometimes called multiple intelligences) dedicated to different kinds of content, such as language, number, space, tools, and living things.[…]

More generally, the interplay of mental systems can explain how people can entertain revenge fantasies that they never act on, or can commit adultery only in their hearts. In this way the theory of human nature coming out of the cognitive revolution has more in common with the Judeo-Christian theory of human nature, and with the psychoanalytic theory proposed by Sigmund Freud, than with behaviorism, social constructionism, and other versions of the Blank Slate. Behavior is not just emitted or elicited, nor does it come directly out of culture or society. It comes from an internal struggle among mental modules with differing agendas and goals.

The idea from the cognitive revolution that the mind is a system of universal, generative computational modules obliterates the way that debates on human nature have been framed for centuries. It is now simply misguided to ask whether humans are flexible or programmed, whether behavior is universal or varies across cultures, whether acts are learned or innate, whether we are essentially good or essentially evil. Humans behave flexibly because they are programmed: their minds are packed with combinatorial software that can generate an unlimited set of thoughts and behavior. Behavior may vary across cultures, but the design of the mental programs that generate it need not vary. Intelligent behavior is learned successfully because we have innate systems that do the learning. And all people may have good and evil motives, but not everyone may translate them into behavior in the same way.”

__________

From Steven Pinker’s epochal The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.

More from SP:

  • On Feminism
  • On the F-word
  • On Sarah Palin

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Why History?

12 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in History

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Tags

American History, Barbara Tuchman, David Mccullough, history, human nature, National Book Awards, Time, Winston Churchill

David McCullough

“History shows us how to behave. History teaches, reinforces what we believe in, what we stand for… History is — or should be — the bedrock of patriotism. Not the chest-pounding kind of patriotism, but the real thing: love of country.

At their core, the lessons of history are largely lessons in appreciation. Everything we have, all our great institutions, hospitals, universities, libraries, this city, our laws, our music, art, poetry, our freedoms, everything is because somebody went before us and did the hard work, provided the creative energy, provided the money, provided the belief. Do we disregard that?

Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude. It’s a form of ingratitude.

I’m convinced that history encourages, as nothing else does, a sense of proportion about life, and gives us a sense of the relative scale of our own time on earth and how valuable it is.

What history teaches it teaches mainly by example. It inspires courage and tolerance. It encourages a sense of humor. It is an aid to navigation in perilous times… Think how tough our predecessors were. Think what they had been through. There’s no one in this room who hasn’t an ancestor who went through some form of hell. Churchill in his great speech in the darkest hours of the Second World War, when he crossed the Atlantic, reminded us, ‘We haven’t journeyed this far because we are made of sugar candy.'[…]

But, I think, what it really comes down to is that history is an extension of life. It both enlarges and intensifies the experience of being alive. It’s like poetry and art. Or music. And it’s ours, to enjoy. If we deny our children that enjoyment, that adventure in the larger part of the human experience, we’re cheating them out of a full life.

There’s no secret to making history come alive. Barbara Tuchman said it perfectly: ‘Tell stories.’ The pull, the appeal is irresistible, because history is about two of the greatest of all mysteries — time and human nature.

How lucky we are. How lucky we are to enjoy in our work and in our lives, the possibilities, the precision and reach, the glories of the English language. How lucky we are, how very lucky we are, to live in this great country, to be Americans — Americans all.”

__________

David McCullough, speaking at the 1995 National Book Awards.

Although in the three weeks since my last post this site’s been been mentioned by Buzzfeed and my generous pals at TheDish, I’m in the process of winding down for the summer. I had planned to write a few words to explain this move, but the simple reason for it is that I’ve been short on time. I’m not sure when I’ll be back to writing on here more frequently, but it will probably be a matter of months, so keep your eyes out.

David McCullough

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Hooman Majd Talks Human Nature in Style

21 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in Interview

≈ Comments Off on Hooman Majd Talks Human Nature in Style

Tags

Aging, Dress, Fashion, Hooman Majd, human nature, humanity, interview, Life, meaning, Mortality, Paradigm Magazine, Philosophy, Significance, Style

Hooman Majd

“I definitely think that I’m my own critic, for sure, and not society. Although it does affect me, how society views what I do. I won’t deny that; I think that anyone who says it doesn’t is lying.

I do think about my own insignificance, sure. I can be interviewed or have somebody write an article that mentions me or whatever. And for a moment you think, ‘Wow, I’ve done something good.’… But then at the end of the day, I know it doesn’t matter. I’m not that significant. Even if I were famous, even if I were better known — either as a writer or as a celebrity — I still wouldn’t be that significant at the end of the day.

But mortality, yeah, you can’t help but think about it from time to time. You certainly think about it in terms of your family. As you get older and you start losing either friends in some cases, to unnatural deaths or disease, or family to old age; it makes you understand you’re getting closer… And it’s a little depressing, sure. It’s depressing.

But you just try to be logical about it, and say, ‘Well, do the best you can while you’re alive. (laughs) And try to enjoy it. Do the things that you enjoy, do the things that you want to do.’…

I’m not so sanguine about the nature of human beings. I’m not sure we’re an animal that’s particularly good… I’m not an anthropologist, but you see things — after so many thousands of years of advancement in culture, in technology, in thought, in theory — and you see people acting the same way they acted ten thousand years ago, before civilization. And you think maybe humans aren’t meant to live in harmony. I hate to say that. I would like to think that we could progress, that our brains could get to a point where we understand that we have to save our planet and we have to figure out how to live together without killing each other…”

Hooman Majd

__________

Hooman Majd, speaking at his home in Brooklyn in an interview with Paradigm Magazine.

A lighter add-on from another recent interview:

Interviewer: You’re definitely looked at as a very cool older guy that younger guys like myself would like to eventually grow up to emulate in terms of your looks and style — what tips can you give guys like me for aging gracefully and staying cool in the process?

Hooman: You’re very kind. That’s very flattering and I don’t want to sound like I accept all that praise, but if I were to accept that praise, I think I’d say be honest to yourself about what you’re comfortable with. There’s nothing worse than forcing yourself into anything — whether it’s an opinion or a political position or clothing — because you feel like that’s what you’re supposed to do. Be comfortable in your own skin. Sometimes you’ll see a guy in sweatpants and a New York Jets sweatshirt and the way he carries himself makes that cool. If I did that, it would be totally uncool because that’s not what I’m comfortable in. That’s not saying all slobs can look cool even if they’re comfortable, but there’s something about the way you carry yourself and the honesty with which you present your image to the world, and clothes and style are just a part of that.

Read on:

  • Dworkin dissects what we mean when we talk about living ‘a life of value’
  • Chomsky delves into the question ‘Is there a universal human nature?’
  • Cornel West preaches: “There must be some standard for human life that gets beyond… fleeting cultures and changing nation states and contingent civilizations and empires.”

Hooman Majd

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What’s the Point of Reading History if You’ll Just Forget It Later?

20 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in History

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dale Favier, English History, European History, Facts, history, human nature, memory, Norman Davies, Poland, The Pond Water of History, understanding, Wisdom

Map of the World

“When I was young and foolish, I thought I could learn all of history and have it all available in my head, or at least a lot of European history, or at least a lot of English history. Now I know that almost all this stuff will fall right back out of my head again. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not worth doing. There is another kind of knowledge building up, a synoptic sense of what people have done and will do, what sorts of organizations have succeeded, what sorts have failed, and some of the common notions of why. It’s all terribly vague and unsatisfactory, and the more you read the more you realize how variable and subjective the notions are, but as it accumulates I find that I’m far less likely to be fooled by the demagogues and politicians of the moment. I’m no better at predicting the future than anyone else, but I recognize the rashness of betting on my predictions better than most. History has a way of wriggling out of what people expect.

And there is a sense one gets for the fullness, depth, complexity of any one place and its people. It’s like looking at pond water under a microscope: suddenly you become aware of the incredible richness and diversity referred to — but also concealed — by a name like “water” or “Poland.”… That, too, is worth knowing: and you gradually obtain the conviction that the parts of the world that have not yet been given thousand-page histories by an Oxford or Harvard don are every bit as diverse and complex. You may not have looked at them yet through the microscope; you don’t know what’s there; but you know that if you did, they would resolve into new worlds and new constellations of sub-worlds. That, I guess, is what you really gain by reading these fat narrative histories: a sense for just how large the human universe is.”

__________

Dale Favier, writing about his experience reading through Norman Davies two-volume history of Poland, in his blog post “The Pond Water of History”.

By the way: I found this gem on TheDish, my favorite site on the internet. I encourage all of you to read and subscribe.

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What Was the American Founders’ View of Human Nature?

03 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in History, Political Philosophy, Politics, Speeches

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Abraham Lincoln, American Government, American Politics, Charles Krauthammer, founding fathers, General Philosophy, Government, human nature, Mark Leibovich, Plato, political philosophy, politics, Robert P. George, Ronald Reagan, Rousseau, Winston Churchill

The American Founding

Robert George:

“The American Founders famously supplied constitutional mechanisms to remedy what they called the darker motives of man. And with their rather Presbyterian view of human nature, the founders’ hope was that we could correct for some of mankind’s defects through principles and institutions that would check the thirst for power, and would prevent government from becoming oppressive or tyrannical.

At the same time, they were under no illusions about the possibility of having a successful scheme of ordered liberty without there being some substantial virtue in the people themselves. And they knew, crucially, that virtue could not be ordered by the government. It couldn’t be produced by the economic system. It couldn’t be dictated by a judge.

They knew that the virtue needed for constitutional government, for ordered liberty, would be provided by individuals themselves, with the assistance of what we call the institutions of civil society — beginning with the family, the marriage-based family, and all the other institutions that are influencers and shapers of people.

Our Founders themselves understood their work, their project, as an experiment. And experiments can fail. And they understood that. Republics, after all, had been tried time and time again throughout the course of history; and they had failed, and most societies had given up on them.

This is why Lincoln, in giving his formal explanation for why he didn’t simply let the South go, famously said that, what is at issue in this contest is not simply whether republican government would last on the North American continent. No, he said, what is at stake is whether government of the people, by the people, and for the people — republican government — would perish from the Earth.

Because if it were tried, and then failed within less than a century, the lesson for all of humanity, at least for the indefinite future, would be that republican freedom simply doesn’t work. We have to go with another theory: some kind of benign authoritarianism is the best that we can do.

Robert P. George

And republican government, as I say, requires a certain kind of virtue in its citizens… The Enlightenment French philosopher Rousseau famously said that, ‘Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.’

Well, is man born free?

There’s a certain profound sense in which we human beings are not born free. We are born into a form of slavery, and the whole project of a life is to liberate oneself from that slavery.

What I have in mind here goes back to a thinker who was not especially friendly to democracy, and depending on how we read his Republic, not especially friendly to freedom. But Plato had something important to say about character and character-formation: that the project of a human life is overcoming what is perhaps the most abject form of slavery — the slavery to one’s own desires, the slavery to one’s self.

As Plato himself put it, the goal is to achieve a proper order in the soul so that the rational element of the self has control over the appetitive element. A good life, in this framework, is one in which wisdom has the whip hand, harnessing reason to bridle desire and control the big I-want.

And our parents, and our religious institutions, and our schools (when they are healthy) are all about the business of soul-shaping. The goal of those institutions is getting the little baby, who is all absorbed in want satisfaction, to grow to be a responsible human being who is master of himself, who has control over his own desires. And when that works, then you have got human beings who are fit for freedom in the full political sense, who can be entrusted to be the guardians of their own liberty, who can be entrusted with republican government, who have the virtues that are necessary for ordered liberty.”

Charles Krauthammer’s response:

“I appreciate what Robbie is saying about the necessity of virtue. But to me, the lesson of the American experiment is precisely the opposite.

The Declaration does not speak about the pursuit of virtue or the exercise of reason. It speaks about the pursuit of happiness.

The premise of our republic is that we would have an economic system based on, essentially, capitalism, as described by Adam Smith, where everybody is pursuing their own ends but the invisible hand works it out. And Madison translated that into a political free market, where he said that the greatest guarantee of liberty would be the multiplication of factions, all of whom will be acting in their own narrow self-interests. And if you could construct a system in which the factions would compete against each other, and prevent coalitions of a majority that would crush the other side, you could then have the same kind of invisible hand working itself out.

So I would say, unlike a lot of other political systems, which are based on the notion of the virtue of the individual, the American system is constructed in a way that it requires it the least. In fact, to me the American system was and is the most realistic in understanding the fallen condition of the human being and expecting very little of the individual, but understanding that if you can construct the system — which they did ex nihilo, and it has endured for a quarter of a millennium — you don’t have to rely on virtue of the individual, because if you did, no republic would ever be possible.”

Charles Krauthammer

__________

My transcription of an exchange between Charles Krauthammer and Princeton law professor Robert P. George on the subject of what was the American founders’ conception of human nature.

Pick up good works from both: George’s Conjugal Union: What Marriage Is and Why It Matters and Krauthammer’s Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics.

This conversation took place in June, at the 2013 Bradley Symposium in Washington, DC. The question considered and debated by the various speakers and panelists was “Are We Freer Than We Were Ten Years Ago?”; Krauthammer, who gave the event’s keynote address, supplied his answer in the form of an autopsy of the GOP’s 2012 bid for the White House. His comments were refreshingly even-handed yet searingly critical of the Right. Although I often disagree with him, Krauthammer has a seriousness, a knack for self-criticism, and an understanding of political philosophy that make him worth listening to each time you hear his papery and discerning voice.

I plan on posting and writing more about his Bradley talk and exchange with George in the future.

In the meantime, read an anecdote Krauthammer cited in his speech, about Winston Churchill talking political philosophy in the restroom. Then check out Ronald Reagan’s letter about what the founders meant to him, or read Mark Leibovich’s recent interview about how their vision has been corrupted by today’s Washington:

Winston Churchill

Churchill in the Restroom

Ronald Reagan

The American Founding according to Reagan

Mark LeibovichA Political Culture that Rewards Cowardice

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Steven Pinker on Feminism

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in Debate, Science

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

biology, cognitive science, discrimination, Elizabeth Spelke, feminism, feminists, gender, gender discrimination, gender relations, human nature, men, Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, women

Steven Pinker

“I am a feminist. I believe that women have been oppressed, discriminated against, and harassed for thousands of years. I believe that the two waves of the feminist movement in the 20th century are among the proudest achievements of our species, and I am proud to have lived through one of them, including the effort to increase the representation of women in the sciences.

But it is crucial to distinguish the moral proposition that people should not be discriminated against on account of their sex — which I take to be the core of feminism — and the empirical claim that males and females are biologically indistinguishable. They are not the same thing. Indeed, distinguishing them is essential to protecting the core of feminism. Anyone who takes an honest interest in science has to be prepared for the facts on a given issue to come out either way. And that makes it essential that we not hold the ideals of feminism hostage to the latest findings from the lab or field. Otherwise, if the findings come out as showing a sex difference, one would either have to say, ‘I guess sex discrimination wasn’t so bad after all,’ or else furiously suppress or distort the findings so as to preserve the ideal. The truth cannot be sexist. Whatever the facts turn out to be, they should not be taken to compromise the core of feminism.
..”

__________

From Steven Pinker, in his debate with Elizabeth Spelke on the topic of Science and Gender. You can find more of Pinker’s thoughts in his superb collection Language, Cognition, and Human Nature: Selected Articles.

Since his breakout book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Pinker has outlined and continually advocated a conception of human nature which I find extremely compelling. It’s foundational claim is that we are not plastic in the way twentieth-century behaviorists would suggest. Human nature is not malleable in any robust sense of the term; but instead it is very rigidly pre-programmed by our biology, which is — perhaps not intuitively — the reason for our complex abilities and variations. The fact that, say, we are wired to acquire a rigid grammatical structure in childhood, and hence speak a language, is what allows us to communicate in such a wealth of information, emotion, and ideas to others. Of course we are plastic in the sense that we learn the language of our childhood environment (I’m not writing this in Japanese, after all), but our ability to internalize grammar emerges from our biological make-up, which we do not choose. (Pinker, who studied in the M.I.T. linguistics department under Chomsky, uses this example among others to emphasize his point.)

Pinker delineates and actively patrols the fine line separating gender distinction from gender discrimination, and for that reason, his debate with Spelke is worth reading or listening to.

More from Pinker, one of our clearest and best communicators of cognitive science:

Steven Pinker

The F Word

Steven Pinker

The Better Angels of Our Nature

Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin

Hitler, Stalin, and the Power of Ideology

Boston Marathon

The Psychology of Terror

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What Else Distinguishes Us?

26 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in Philosophy, Religion

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

artificial intelligence, Deep Blue, Gary Kasparov, God, human nature, humanity, intelligence, man, Ravi Zacharias, Who Are You Really?

Ravi Zacharias

“When Gary Kasparov was playing chess, years ago, against IBM’s Deep Blue, and he was asked why he was so nervous about playing the match with the computer, he said, ‘Because I’m afraid that, if I lose, we would lose human dignity.’

I lost my dignity when they came out with calculators; he’s talking about computers.

So before he played Deep Blue, he decided to just prepare and prepare and prepare. And Dr. David Gelernter — who was one-time professor of Computer Science at Yale — he wrote this article in Time magazine.

He said, ‘The idea that Deep Blue has a mind is absurd. How can an object that wants nothing, fears nothing, enjoys nothing, needs nothing and cares about nothing have a mind? It can win at chess, but not because it wants to.

It isn’t happy when it wins or sad when it loses. What are its after-the-match plans if it beats Kasparov? Is it hoping to take Deep Pink out for a night on the town? It doesn’t care about chess or anything else. It plays the game for the same reason a calculator adds or a toaster toasts: because it is a machine designed for that purpose.

No matter what amazing feats they perform, inside they will always be the same absolute zero. No computer can achieve artificial thought without achieving artificial emotion too…

In the long run I doubt if there is any kind of human behavior computers can’t fake, any kind of performance they can’t put on. It is conceivable that one day, computers will be better than humans at nearly everything. I can imagine that a person might someday have a computer for a best friend. But that will be sad — like having a dog for your best friend, only sadder.

The gap between human and surrogate is permanent and will never be closed. Machines will continue to make life easier, healthier, richer and more puzzling…’

Now listen to this line. He couldn’t resist it:

‘And human beings will continue to care, ultimately, about the same things they always have: about one another and, many of them, about God.’

You know, unwittingly he picked the two greatest commandments. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength, and all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself — on these two hang all of the laws of the prophets.

What else distinguishes us?

What else distinguishes us?

You know we talk so much about sexuality, which is a symptom, an expression. You will never be able to answer what’s right about sex until we answer the question what does it mean to be human.

What does it mean to be human?

We must answer that first.

And, ladies and gentlemen, we are living in a world so bereft of wisdom. We desperately need young men, young women with wisdom.

Wisdom in marriage. Wisdom in raising children. Wisdom in how we organize our time. Wisdom to keep the body in the best shape we can keep it in. All these things demand wisdom.”

__________

From the only pastor (and one of the few people) I always enjoy learning from and listening to: Ravi Zacharias.

Watch this excerpt, and Zacharias’s transition to the topic of wisdom, in his sermon “Who Are You, Really?” posted below.

 

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Is There a Universal Human Nature?

22 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in Interview, Philosophy, Psychology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Axel Schiøtz, Bach, Charlie Chaplin, cognition, evolution, free time, human nature, Noam Chomsky, Pablo Casals, psychology, Work

Noam ChomskyYou have argued that any stance one takes on political, economic, social or even personal issues is ultimately based on some conception of human nature. Why is this?

Any stance we take is based on some conception of what is good for people. This conception will tacitly presuppose a certain belief as to the constitution of human nature — human needs and human potential. You might as well bring them out as clearly as possible so that they can be discussed.

According to your view of human nature, all human beings possess certain biological functions endowing them with common mental capacities. How do you defend this position against postmodernist critics who argue that there is no such thing as human nature, and that all attempts to define it are guilty of reading other cultures in the light of Western perceptions and values?

Not even the most extreme postmodernist can seriously argue that there is no such thing as human nature. They may argue that the exact properties of human nature are difficult to substantiate — this is certainly correct. However, it is impossible to coherently argue that an intrinsic, universal human nature does not exist. This amounts to the belief that the next human zygote conceived might just as well develop into a worm or a crab as a human being. Postmodernists might limit their assertion to denying any effect of human nature on our mental make-up — our values, our knowledge, our wants, etc. This also makes no sense.

The postmodernist will argue that a child growing up in New York will develop a certain way of thinking, and if that child had grown up amongst Amazon tribes people she would have developed a completely different way of thinking. This is true. But we must then ask how a child could develop these different consciousnesses. In whatever environment it finds itself, the child will mentally construct a rich and complex culture on the basis of the extremely scattered and limited phenomena it is exposed to. That consideration tells us (in advance of any detailed knowledge) that there must be an extraordinary directive and organizational component to the mind that is internal. We can begin to see human nature in terms of certain capacities to develop certain mental traits. I think we can go further than this and begin to discover universal aspects of these mental traits which are determined by human nature. I think we can find this in the area of morality.

For example, not long ago I talked to people in Amazon tribes and I took it for granted that they have the same conception of vice and virtue as I do. It is only through sharing these values that we were able to interact — talking about real problems such as being forced out of the jungle by the state authorities. I believe I was correct to assume this: we had no problem communicating although we were as remote as is possible culturally.

Are you suggesting everyone agrees about the nature of vice and virtue?

In fact I think they probably have a very high measure of agreement. One strong bit of evidence for this is that everyone — Genghis Khan, Himmler, Bill Gates — creates stories of themselves where they interpret their actions as working for the benefit of human beings. Even at the extreme levels of depravity, the Nazis did not boast that they wanted to kill Jews, but gave crazed justifications — even that they were acting in ‘self-defense’. It is very rare for people to justify their actions by saying ‘I’m doing this to maximize my own benefit and I don’t care what happens to anybody else’. That would be pathological.

But I think you would agree that not all cultures are equally viable from the standpoint of promoting human fulfillment and well-being? Are you wanting to argue that your understanding of human nature can give us a kind of objective understanding of the conditions of human flourishing?

Now we’re taking an essentialist position which the relativist would contradict. I’m not willing to go that far. We can develop a stronger conception of human nature through drawing on Enlightenment thinking on the issue.

This has support from some of the sciences, but is mainly founded on a philosophical investigation into our hopes, intuition and experience, and an examination of history and cultural variety. There are needs for conditions which allow the flourishing of human capacities. Insights from the Enlightenment show us that people need to exist in free association with others — not in isolation, and not in relations of domination. There is a need to replace social fetters with social bonds. Therefore any social structure that involves relations of domination — whether it’s the family, a transnational corporation, gender relations — has a very heavy burden of proof to bear. It must demonstrate that the benefits it provides outweigh the restrictions it imposes on human capacities. If it can’t demonstrate its legitimacy, it should be dismantled.

Do you think that different social and economic circumstances either block or reinforce certain dispositions — that, for example, whatever there might be in the way of a natural tendency towards selfish and aggressive behavior is reinforced by the capitalist market society?

There’s no doubt about it. Let’s take Germany, for example. In the early 20th century Germany was the most advanced area of Western culture — in music, the arts, science. In the passage of a few years, it entered the absolute depths of human history. Small changes in German society allowed people like Joseph Mengele to flourish rather than people like Einstein and Freud.

Granted the truth of what you say about our distinctively human capacities for freedom and co-operative action, how come we are so open to that kind of manipulation and deceit? How come we remain both globally and locally so caught up in oppression?

It’s a serious question. Why are we born free and end up enslaved?

Is there a case here for viewing social factors as more determinant than biological factors?

You can’t say which factor is more decisive. They interact. Take the example of puberty: small changes in nutrition can modify the onset of puberty by a factor of two, or even terminate it altogether. Or the visual system: in a kitten you can destroy the neural basis for vision simply by not presenting pattern stimulation in the first couple of weeks of its life. However, does this mean that the environment is the decisive force? No. Puberty is a process which human beings undergo at a particular stage of maturation because that’s the way they’ve been designed. You don’t undergo puberty because of peer pressure. Likewise, human limbs will not develop into wings rather than arms or legs. The genetic component determines strict limits within which variation is possible. I believe the same is true of our social and mental development.

How do you see the relationship between work and free time in a more liberated society?

Polls in the US, Germany and elsewhere have shown that people value free time over material goods. Therefore, there are major propaganda efforts to reverse this. One reason over a trillion dollars a year is spent on marketing in the USA is to try to undermine our natural tendency to want free, liberated time.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve just finished a few important books. One is Ha-Joon Chang’s Bad Samaritans, a penetrating and expert study showing how and why standard doctrines concerning economic development are dramatically refuted by the historical record and have caused severe harm when applied. Another is Peter Hallward’s Damming the Flood. The “flood” is Lavalas, the popular movement in Haiti that won the first democratic election in this tragic country, a victim of French and US torture, and the savagery of a small elite, since it became the first free country of free men in the hemisphere. Hallward’s deeply informed account of what he sees as “neo-imperial sabotage” by the traditional torturers explores the background of the coup of 2004 and the persistence of “the flood” in a country that is a microcosm of imperial savagery and heroic resistance, however one interprets recent events.

What are you currently watching?

My wife and I used to be movie addicts, but I’m now pretty much reduced to what the grandchildren want to see. All-time favorite? The one movie I sat through twice was Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, so maybe that qualifies.

What are you currently listening to?

If some ancient equipment could be rehabilitated, I’d take out some wonderful old records of Axel Schiøtz singing Schubert Lieder and Pablo Casals playing Bach solo cello suites, reviving memories of more light-hearted days when my wife and I backpacked through Europe to the Prades festival, 60 years ago.

__________

From two interviews with Noam Chomsky — one from his website, the other from the Christian Science Monitor.

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