on life and human nature
In the past week, I’ve had heated two debates with two different guys - their position: “war/rape is human nature” - my position: “hell no, it’s dominant culture, not human nature” (basically, see here). Human beings as a species wouldn’t exist after all these years if violent, brutal warfare were more a part of human nature than cooperation. Indigenous “warfare” looked nothing like warfare today. There is a cold, sinister distance to warfare today - dropping bombs from 10,000 feet is not inborn human nature. It is cowardly and inauthentic and the people who perpetrate these sorts of acts are compensating for some “missing” within. I firmly believe that. The shit going down in the world today is not blank slate human nature.
I just read Rowan’s post, “Death By a Thousand Cuts”, and can relate to the horrific sense of hopelessness she expresses. I can’t speak for her, but what keeps me going is my spirituality, which in a nutshell is this: there is consciousness awake to itself and it manifests and makes up all life. Consciousness is immortal and omnipresent; it exists within and without biological form. These living forms that we are and that make up the biosphere are here playing a game, the lila of “life on earth”. If humans fuck this biosphere and drive all earthly life to extinction/annihilation, it ends the game. Consciousness doesn’t die, but ceases to exist in earthly biological life form. The way I see it, ecological sustainability is about preserving the game; social justice, creative self-expression and love are about enhancing the game as I define “enhancement”. That’s what this form I call my self is up to. (If anyone’s interested, I can write another time about my spiritual influences.)
Evolution (in the Darwinian sense) springs from a “being” of cooperation, not warlike competition. Biological forms are able to evolve, which basically means increase chances for survival, by cooperating and adapting with the earth’s processes and other biological life forms around them. The past 5,000 years of human history are a super-tiny fraction of human life on this planet. Civilization as we know it has not proven itself to be sustainable. Homo sapiens lived for a long time pre-civilization and it was not brutish - most anthropologists will explain to you that indigenous people had much more leisure time than we do today, their social structures were extremely egalitarian, and they were wise about keeping their population (carrying capacity) down. Along these lines, see John Zerzan’s thought-provoking essay, “Future Primitive”.
Men in particular seem to be attached to the idea of war as human nature (not Jeremy, thank god). It frustrates me, but at the same time I understand it as part and parcel of patriarchy. The dominant culture conditions boys/men to believe the falsehood that they must fuck other living things over to survive (and women believe this too, but maybe not to the same extent). I cannot imagine what it’s like to believe that humans are inherently violent and warlike. It’s a terribly ignorant thing to believe that in the light of human history, and it also strikes me as very sad. How do people who believe that conflict is the basis of life get by? I can’t imagine how one ever finds true joy in living inside that belief. Talk about true cynicism.
I’m not sure where to end this post. Let me just wrap up by saying that in the micro place, I am full of despair about the state of the world and what so many people are doing to end the game. In the macro, I get that if life in this form doesn’t make it, it’s just the end of the play. In that macro sense, I get that the purpose of my life is the action of playing a game that lights me up - that brings joy and wonder to myself and others. I go through each day two-headed/ two-hearted in this sense. It enables me to be capable of both tremendous despair and tremendous surrender.
birty said,
January 30, 2005 @ 12:59 pm
I think you’re right, Emily. Our nature is to cooperate.
That doesn’t mean we won’t naturally resort to violence when we must, but without all of these fucked up cultures and institutions that warp our nature, I think we’re mostly a peaceful species.
I’ve always likened us to the animals in their rituals of territory protection. Think of mountain goats. They have devices built in their culture to settle disputes, but they don’t destroy one another through those devices. “We’re just going to batter each other with our gigantic horns for a while,” they say. But they can walk away when the dispute has been settled. One of them isn’t left dead in a heap of blood and bile.
Somehow, we’ve co-opted those same sorts of devices in our culture.
Cleis said,
February 1, 2005 @ 1:38 pm
I read this post last week and got all worked up about the “it’s in our nature to rape” bullshit. I couldn’t even comment. I tell my students that whenever someone claims that something is human nature, they should be very suspicious. Especially if that claim is used to justify oppression and domination and to get the oppressors off the hook.
I know a little bit about your spiritual influences but would always like to hear more.
Jeremy said,
February 1, 2005 @ 2:03 pm
God is everything and everyone and not some dude with a long beard sitting on a throne; modern religion is largely about getting people to do what they are told by the local ruler.
brad said,
February 2, 2005 @ 4:49 pm
I’ve been reading Derrick Jensen’s book, “A Language Older than Words,” which I highly recommend. He talks about this very point quite extensively. A lot of male anthropologists have used their research to, if not justify patriarchy, war and dominance of women, then to at least justify being apologists for those things.
But, as Jensen points out, to reach the conclusion that violence and male power are “human nature,” scientists have to ignore evidence of a large number of pre-civilization cultures that rely on cooperation, gender equality and nonviolence.
Jensen quotes 17th Century Jesuit priest Paul Le Jeune, who “upbraided an Indian man for the sexual freedom his wife enjoyed. … The Indian responded, ‘Thou hast no sense. You French people love only your own children, but we love all the children of our tribe.’”
As a culture it is easier for us to interpret history as a justifiqation for our actions and our state of conflict with the world than it is to acknowledge the need to change if we are to survive.
: : : birty : : : said,
February 24, 2005 @ 7:27 am
Remember That Warm Fuzzy Feeling?
It wasn’t that long ago that I was writing about everything falling into place. In the last week or so, that feeling has crumbled. I guess I spoke too soon; I got too cocky. Life has a tendency to balance…
COLLEEN said,
March 17, 2009 @ 4:28 pm
I don’t ordinarily reply to posts but I liked this and wanted you to know it.