To attempt a summary, the first four are all partially true, and as such will resonate to a certain degree with almost everyone, and very strongly with some. This explains their ongoing popularity. However, being only partial truths, they overlook other important facets of the soul, and if they are embraced as though they were complete explanations will invariably blind adherents to other aspects, which will then become quite powerful in potentially destructive ways. A partial truth, in other words, generates a Jungian shadow out of that which it excludes.
Dabrowski's conception, by contrast, includes all of these views and integrates them at a higher level, while leaving it open as to which perspective is most useful to understand the motivations of any given, actual human, at any given time in their soul's journey.
The idea that humans are all at different levels, with different innate capabilities for development, seems intuitively correct to me. I've often recognized kindred spirits, not on the basis of shared beliefs or life experiences, but by seeing their developmental orientation. Conversely, many others seem incapable, or at any rate uninterested, in development. I think it's important not to moralize that, however. There's a temptation to think oneself 'better' than others, more 'spiritually advanced', if one has experienced Dabrowskian disintegration, and they have not; but this is a trap, and indeed a sign of immaturity. We all have our roles to play, and all of those roles are necessary.
I think people organize spontaneously, as is seen in war and the aftermath, people automatically organize society, they don't have to be told how. That is not moral or not, it is anarchic, in the sense that most people prefer order to chaos. It requires some kind of moral code though, with corresponding taboos, do unto others what you would want others to do unto you as example. It would be that moral code that holds the society together, but does seem to devolve into war.
In my experience maybe one in ten aspire to any higher moral or spiritual understanding, but those tend to be like guides for others. Most people I think value morality for it's utility, for maintaining order. If there are few models, if the guiding morality is lost, we get the kind of Institutional rot we are seeing in America and the West generally. The woke phenomenon I have sometimes described as the embodiment of chaos, a destructive instinct not dissimilar from militant jihad.
Glad I took your advice: "I highly recommend checking out Dąbrowski’s theory, see: Kazimierz Dabrowski, Personality-Shaping Through Positive Disintegration, Red Pill Press, 2015"
A very interesting article about the development of theories about Human Nature. Each original theory lacks many elements in my opinion, but it is important to understand the historical background and the development of the first 4 theories to appreciate the last one.
The first 4 theories are oversimplified one way or the other, but it is important to understand them for their historical content. And obviously we need to understand them to explain why any of them alone fail to explain the human nature.
I am quite impressed with the last theory that is the most comprehensive. I think we all have capabilities to be bad and good. Many basic and advanced societies understood that. We have examples of “bad and good wolves” in each of us. It is up to each individual to keep them in balance: I can’t quite remember the exact quote, but it goes something like that. “Which wolf wins? the one which is fed the most within you”. This feeding could be internal and it could be external, in my humble opinion. It definitely comes from within you and it clearly comes from the external stimuli such as the environment and the society we live in.
But I venture to state that the predisposition to being bad or good consists of 2 elements:
1. Genetic predisposition that goes back to 2 groups of humans: hunters and gatherers and violent raiders who lived by attacking those at peace.
2. Environmental upbringing: when you are treated well, you learn to be good, when you are abused, you learn to become abusive.
The genetic and environmental influences in one’s personality are in a constant struggle throughout one’s life. People with similar experiences, for example brothers and sisters who lived in similar environments and have similar genetics, can turn out totally different.
I am rather surprised to read you suggest that Smith doesn’t see or grasp human’s dark side, Luc. I fear you might be using a less valuable summary and not the text itself, for Smith very clearly addresses the point that there are bad people who do bad things at many points, and even why others are so often given to admire the evil behavior.
Thank you for this article! I would like to see brain science weigh in on this topic, but as you say, bias can (subconsciously, often) direct research and interpretation of findings. Trauma responses play a big role in behavior, thoughts, & emotions, too--we see this in the majority of hospitalized mental patients. There is evidence now that mental illness is a trauma response (trauma can be physical or psychological) but this in no way excuses harmful behavior! It looks like the human condition would improve if we change our child rearing practices the right way (giving Alice Miller a nod here).
Very nice Luc. I thought that this was a new one and I had somehow missed it. It popped up in my notes which I still don't understand at all. Anyway,
It has been a long time since I read Leviathan but I remember being impressed with it. Particularly how he predicted the central problem of representative government so succinctly: The interests of the representative and the interests of the constituency will never align. And can't help but wander how much he is right about unlimited personal rule having the advantage because the sovereigns interests will align more closely with the nations interests the more absolute the rule. Lately I am thinking that our post-Enlightenment anti-authority schtick is a deeper part of the problem. I wrote this the other day as a comment on Christian Ethics in the Wild https://myleswerntz.substack.com/p/social-power-anatomy-of-an-elusive which is a decently interesting substack but not enough interaction.
'My 3 year old is officially at the point where it is no longer feasible to place things out of her reach, make it impossible for her to do the things that she wants to do. Which means that she increasingly has to not do harmful things by choice and she actually preferred having it physically impossible to do what she wants to do versus being expected to not do things that she can because she shouldn't.(to the surprise of zero parents) I say that to say that authority doesn't really fade away, it only changes, and there can be quite as much compulsion in persuasion as in physical force.
I think that what is needed is the recognition that power(over others) comes from God.(Power /is/, Power is not God =>Power is a created thing) Power cannot then, in itself, be bad. This conforms to Scripture since we know that all 'authority' is ordained by God. A world without authority is only a chicken without a head, it is a symbol of maturity or evolution in exactly the way that Cheyne-Stokes breathing on the death bed are a symbol of maturity.
Since we know that God has not given all authority into any hands but His own, even in a subordinate way, but has distributed it among various holders, it follows that the church has a legitimate field of authority and that just as seizing authority that does not belong to her is an error so is not using the authority that is or ought to be hers. We can assume that God did not create any authority without also creating a place for it to legitimately act as that would be inconsistent with His provision for all other created things, for foxes dens to live in and rabbits and such to hunt, for each created thing a home and a way of life that fits its nature. Therefore the authority that He did create ought to be used by its legitimate holder and not left idle.
The Church has erred greatly in not using its power properly. In fact, the whole modern age and its troubles might well be defined as the period in which the church has abdicated the use of her legitimate authority, largely to the State or the Secular Experts of various kinds. All of the recipients of the Church's power, having no divine remit to use that power have made colossal asses of themselves with it. The cure is for the church to repent of her fearfulness, legitimate as it may seem, and use power in faith.'
Even people who proclaim to detest philosophy carry around some caricature version of one of the above theories of human nature. Contradict it and they'll let you know how you just don't get it and that humans are in fact such-in-such a way. You've done a magnificent job here of explaining the nuance of how there is some diversity within what constitutes human nature while keeping it simple enough to be conveyed with startling clarity in just a few paragraphs. Just brilliant, thanks Luc!
I think the “noble savage” concept is dangerous - because it means that people who are subjected to it can only fail to live up to it in reality. Fact is, they’re people just like everyone else, and failing to recognise that some people in a community might have problems or flaws can leave them in a parlous situation. I am percolating a post on this…
Strange than none of these theories recognize the role trauma plays in human society. Traumatized individuals cause more trauma, to themselves and others. Increased trauma levels in a culture spawn increased violence. It’s very difficult in the modern era to see humans as we really are because almost everyone is wounded by various kinds of trauma, narcissistic manipulation, and dehumanization (which typically goes unrecognized). We can only know what human nature is truly like if we heal ourselves of trauma.
These seem to be the dominant secular views of "human nature." They don't include the religious views. I can't say I am intimately familiar with any of these views, but I know the Vedic view of course does include a past life element that the secular views leave out. The Abrahamic story includes the concept of original sin. This would be useful to a group trying to justify the use of Earth as a spiritual prison, but I've never bothered to study it closely.
My teacher, who discovered the existence of past lives by a research method, often told us, "Man is basically good." He meant by this that the spiritual being is actually invested in the concept of being right, or doing good. He used this basic urge to explain various human behavioral mechanisms, such as the tendency of many criminals to assist the police in catching them. He also used this datum to explain why human beings had become so spiritually powerless over time, being convinced that some of the mistakes they made in exercising their spiritual powers were "bad."
Though beings may indeed have innately different capabilities, including their inclination towards self-correction, the more important datum regarding spiritual beings is that they are immortal and thus death, and behaviors associated with it like murder, are artifacts of the game of biology and not innate to the spiritual experience.
This apparently confused some beings so thoroughly that they never learned to play or accept the game of human life as most beings did. These are our psychopaths. In the context of human life, they are extremely destructive. In the context of spiritual life, they are immature and childish, but not natively bad.
As I have mentioned before, the scientific finding that people are immortal beings who reincarnate totally changes our understanding of "human nature" and psychology. When reasonably reliable tools can be found to consult human memory, information can be recovered that is totally inaccessible by any other method. Anyone on this planet who attempts to piece together a long-term history of the beings who now dwell here, must rely on one or more of these tools. This work could be considered "psychic research," particularly in a world of conventional science which looks down on these methods. My scorn, as you might imagine, is directed towards conventional science.
To attempt a summary, the first four are all partially true, and as such will resonate to a certain degree with almost everyone, and very strongly with some. This explains their ongoing popularity. However, being only partial truths, they overlook other important facets of the soul, and if they are embraced as though they were complete explanations will invariably blind adherents to other aspects, which will then become quite powerful in potentially destructive ways. A partial truth, in other words, generates a Jungian shadow out of that which it excludes.
Dabrowski's conception, by contrast, includes all of these views and integrates them at a higher level, while leaving it open as to which perspective is most useful to understand the motivations of any given, actual human, at any given time in their soul's journey.
The idea that humans are all at different levels, with different innate capabilities for development, seems intuitively correct to me. I've often recognized kindred spirits, not on the basis of shared beliefs or life experiences, but by seeing their developmental orientation. Conversely, many others seem incapable, or at any rate uninterested, in development. I think it's important not to moralize that, however. There's a temptation to think oneself 'better' than others, more 'spiritually advanced', if one has experienced Dabrowskian disintegration, and they have not; but this is a trap, and indeed a sign of immaturity. We all have our roles to play, and all of those roles are necessary.
I think people organize spontaneously, as is seen in war and the aftermath, people automatically organize society, they don't have to be told how. That is not moral or not, it is anarchic, in the sense that most people prefer order to chaos. It requires some kind of moral code though, with corresponding taboos, do unto others what you would want others to do unto you as example. It would be that moral code that holds the society together, but does seem to devolve into war.
In my experience maybe one in ten aspire to any higher moral or spiritual understanding, but those tend to be like guides for others. Most people I think value morality for it's utility, for maintaining order. If there are few models, if the guiding morality is lost, we get the kind of Institutional rot we are seeing in America and the West generally. The woke phenomenon I have sometimes described as the embodiment of chaos, a destructive instinct not dissimilar from militant jihad.
I'm recording and posting my video/ blog on you later today, Luc, called The Tonic Gnostic. This essay will make a great addition to it!
Glad I took your advice: "I highly recommend checking out Dąbrowski’s theory, see: Kazimierz Dabrowski, Personality-Shaping Through Positive Disintegration, Red Pill Press, 2015"
Could be just what I need to step up my progress.
Houston, we have a psychosociologic/philosophic calculation problem!
A very interesting article about the development of theories about Human Nature. Each original theory lacks many elements in my opinion, but it is important to understand the historical background and the development of the first 4 theories to appreciate the last one.
The first 4 theories are oversimplified one way or the other, but it is important to understand them for their historical content. And obviously we need to understand them to explain why any of them alone fail to explain the human nature.
I am quite impressed with the last theory that is the most comprehensive. I think we all have capabilities to be bad and good. Many basic and advanced societies understood that. We have examples of “bad and good wolves” in each of us. It is up to each individual to keep them in balance: I can’t quite remember the exact quote, but it goes something like that. “Which wolf wins? the one which is fed the most within you”. This feeding could be internal and it could be external, in my humble opinion. It definitely comes from within you and it clearly comes from the external stimuli such as the environment and the society we live in.
But I venture to state that the predisposition to being bad or good consists of 2 elements:
1. Genetic predisposition that goes back to 2 groups of humans: hunters and gatherers and violent raiders who lived by attacking those at peace.
2. Environmental upbringing: when you are treated well, you learn to be good, when you are abused, you learn to become abusive.
The genetic and environmental influences in one’s personality are in a constant struggle throughout one’s life. People with similar experiences, for example brothers and sisters who lived in similar environments and have similar genetics, can turn out totally different.
Philosopher kings and their productions.
I am rather surprised to read you suggest that Smith doesn’t see or grasp human’s dark side, Luc. I fear you might be using a less valuable summary and not the text itself, for Smith very clearly addresses the point that there are bad people who do bad things at many points, and even why others are so often given to admire the evil behavior.
Thank you for this article! I would like to see brain science weigh in on this topic, but as you say, bias can (subconsciously, often) direct research and interpretation of findings. Trauma responses play a big role in behavior, thoughts, & emotions, too--we see this in the majority of hospitalized mental patients. There is evidence now that mental illness is a trauma response (trauma can be physical or psychological) but this in no way excuses harmful behavior! It looks like the human condition would improve if we change our child rearing practices the right way (giving Alice Miller a nod here).
Very nice Luc. I thought that this was a new one and I had somehow missed it. It popped up in my notes which I still don't understand at all. Anyway,
It has been a long time since I read Leviathan but I remember being impressed with it. Particularly how he predicted the central problem of representative government so succinctly: The interests of the representative and the interests of the constituency will never align. And can't help but wander how much he is right about unlimited personal rule having the advantage because the sovereigns interests will align more closely with the nations interests the more absolute the rule. Lately I am thinking that our post-Enlightenment anti-authority schtick is a deeper part of the problem. I wrote this the other day as a comment on Christian Ethics in the Wild https://myleswerntz.substack.com/p/social-power-anatomy-of-an-elusive which is a decently interesting substack but not enough interaction.
'My 3 year old is officially at the point where it is no longer feasible to place things out of her reach, make it impossible for her to do the things that she wants to do. Which means that she increasingly has to not do harmful things by choice and she actually preferred having it physically impossible to do what she wants to do versus being expected to not do things that she can because she shouldn't.(to the surprise of zero parents) I say that to say that authority doesn't really fade away, it only changes, and there can be quite as much compulsion in persuasion as in physical force.
I think that what is needed is the recognition that power(over others) comes from God.(Power /is/, Power is not God =>Power is a created thing) Power cannot then, in itself, be bad. This conforms to Scripture since we know that all 'authority' is ordained by God. A world without authority is only a chicken without a head, it is a symbol of maturity or evolution in exactly the way that Cheyne-Stokes breathing on the death bed are a symbol of maturity.
Since we know that God has not given all authority into any hands but His own, even in a subordinate way, but has distributed it among various holders, it follows that the church has a legitimate field of authority and that just as seizing authority that does not belong to her is an error so is not using the authority that is or ought to be hers. We can assume that God did not create any authority without also creating a place for it to legitimately act as that would be inconsistent with His provision for all other created things, for foxes dens to live in and rabbits and such to hunt, for each created thing a home and a way of life that fits its nature. Therefore the authority that He did create ought to be used by its legitimate holder and not left idle.
The Church has erred greatly in not using its power properly. In fact, the whole modern age and its troubles might well be defined as the period in which the church has abdicated the use of her legitimate authority, largely to the State or the Secular Experts of various kinds. All of the recipients of the Church's power, having no divine remit to use that power have made colossal asses of themselves with it. The cure is for the church to repent of her fearfulness, legitimate as it may seem, and use power in faith.'
Even people who proclaim to detest philosophy carry around some caricature version of one of the above theories of human nature. Contradict it and they'll let you know how you just don't get it and that humans are in fact such-in-such a way. You've done a magnificent job here of explaining the nuance of how there is some diversity within what constitutes human nature while keeping it simple enough to be conveyed with startling clarity in just a few paragraphs. Just brilliant, thanks Luc!
I think the “noble savage” concept is dangerous - because it means that people who are subjected to it can only fail to live up to it in reality. Fact is, they’re people just like everyone else, and failing to recognise that some people in a community might have problems or flaws can leave them in a parlous situation. I am percolating a post on this…
Strange than none of these theories recognize the role trauma plays in human society. Traumatized individuals cause more trauma, to themselves and others. Increased trauma levels in a culture spawn increased violence. It’s very difficult in the modern era to see humans as we really are because almost everyone is wounded by various kinds of trauma, narcissistic manipulation, and dehumanization (which typically goes unrecognized). We can only know what human nature is truly like if we heal ourselves of trauma.
These seem to be the dominant secular views of "human nature." They don't include the religious views. I can't say I am intimately familiar with any of these views, but I know the Vedic view of course does include a past life element that the secular views leave out. The Abrahamic story includes the concept of original sin. This would be useful to a group trying to justify the use of Earth as a spiritual prison, but I've never bothered to study it closely.
My teacher, who discovered the existence of past lives by a research method, often told us, "Man is basically good." He meant by this that the spiritual being is actually invested in the concept of being right, or doing good. He used this basic urge to explain various human behavioral mechanisms, such as the tendency of many criminals to assist the police in catching them. He also used this datum to explain why human beings had become so spiritually powerless over time, being convinced that some of the mistakes they made in exercising their spiritual powers were "bad."
Though beings may indeed have innately different capabilities, including their inclination towards self-correction, the more important datum regarding spiritual beings is that they are immortal and thus death, and behaviors associated with it like murder, are artifacts of the game of biology and not innate to the spiritual experience.
This apparently confused some beings so thoroughly that they never learned to play or accept the game of human life as most beings did. These are our psychopaths. In the context of human life, they are extremely destructive. In the context of spiritual life, they are immature and childish, but not natively bad.
As I have mentioned before, the scientific finding that people are immortal beings who reincarnate totally changes our understanding of "human nature" and psychology. When reasonably reliable tools can be found to consult human memory, information can be recovered that is totally inaccessible by any other method. Anyone on this planet who attempts to piece together a long-term history of the beings who now dwell here, must rely on one or more of these tools. This work could be considered "psychic research," particularly in a world of conventional science which looks down on these methods. My scorn, as you might imagine, is directed towards conventional science.
To a lot of Leftists the good - evil dichotomy is:
Collectivism (good) - individualism (evil)
I am reading a book which says that is a false dichotomy. The real one is:
Coercion (by Leftist big government) is evil- cooperation (in systems of voluntary exchange, like a free market economy) is good.
Makes sense to me.