In a society which is predicated on competition and really, very often, the ruthless exploitation of one human being by another, the profiteering off of other peoples problems and very often the creation of problems for the purpose of profiteering, the ruling ideology will very often justify that behavior by appeals to some fundamental and unalterable human nature. So the myth in our society is that people are competitive by nature and that they are individualistic and that theyre selfish. The real reality is quite the opposite. We have certain human needs. The only way that you can talk about human nature concretely is by recognizing that there are certain human needs. We have a human need for companionship and for close contact, to be loved, to be attached to, to be accepted, to be seen, to be received for who we are. If those needs are met, we develop into people who are compassionate and cooperative and who have empathy for other people. So the opposite, that we often see in our society, is in fact, a distortion of human nature precisely because so few people have their needs met. So, yes, you can talk about human nature but only in the sense of basic human needs that are instinctively evoked or I should say certain human needs that lead to certain traits if they are met and a different set of traits if they are denied.~Gabor Gabor Maté
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 04:42:00 +0000