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OdiousOutlaw wrote

Human nature doesn't exist.

The word "selfish" has an overwhelming negative connotation, typically used against those who have harmed others to advance themselves; but this is not an incorrect usage of the word. It is not used to describe people who help others at all, regardless of the actual motives of that person. There is no motivation that exists that can't be perceived as selfish: "Altruism" rewards someone with feel good chemicals because empathy; for those without empathy that cling to some code of conduct, the act of "doing good" presumably becomes a satisfying abstraction, likely akin to completing a to-do list: something to maintain but is nonetheless satisfactory to complete because it feels like you did something you set for yourself.

Doing something to alleviate guilt is not selfless, but it's not bad to be selfish and it isn't good to be selfless, contrary to popular belief.

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[deleted] wrote

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OdiousOutlaw wrote

i can agree with all you've said there, or well, most of it. i think it's largely a semantic argument at this point.

It is. I vaguely recall the argument being considered unscientific (or something to that effect) because there's no way to disprove that altruism is selfish/egoistic in nature.

i'm more interested to hear what you have to say on human nature, i've heard that several times but never seen anyone actually elaborate on it.

Prepare for a wall of text, then.

My take on the issue might be different or the same as any so-called post-modernist, I dunno; haven't really read any. Beyond the fact that it's a clumsy appeal to nature to attach modern ideology to some nebulous often poorly defined idea of what a "human" is, beyond the bio-essentialism, beyond the collectivism, beyond the humanism, and beyond the vaunted universalism that European philosophies/ideologies espouse; there's simply no reason to believe in an immutable, innate, set of behaviors to a species as irrational and individualized as the human race.

Our brains categorize things and see patterns that may or may not actually be there, but we erroneously apply this thinking on ourselves and each other, in focusing on what makes one group of humans similar and another group different, we attempt to categorize in order to unify; this has the effect of "othering" the out-group. Historically, this has led to the dehumanization of many subgroups of people which leads (and has led) to the justification of the subjugation or extermination of other human beings who just were not "human enough". What is "human nature"? What's "human enough"? Well, history has taught us that these questions are often answered by whoever has the biggest stick or the loudest mouth. We know that ethnic minorities are human now, but even today you'll find someone who disagrees; you'd find more people who disagree in the past. But overall, polite society has deemed that "humanity" includes the not-white people. Because non-white people have displayed a sufficient enough "human nature" to become human. To most people as long as you assimilate into the dominant culture. Cool. We'll just dehumanize the next vulnerable minority.

So ethnicity alone doesn't dictate "human nature", it must be a cultural phenomenon! A human is only a human if they're compatible with a set of values that develop within a society after a certain period of time! How much time? I dunno, but it's definitely been enough time since I'm human and would never perform the inhuman acts committed by my countrymen 50 years ago. And I know that I'm human because I was raised in humane society A unlike those savages in society B, who are not human because they don't abide by the definition of natural human behavior that my society just so happens to embody. If this sounds recursive and self serving, that's because that's what any argument that hinges on "human nature" is.

So, I've ranting about how "human nature" has been used as crude rhetorical bludgeon, but that doesn't actually disprove the idea of an objective set of behaviors that resides within each individual human. It's actually pretty easy to do. Consider the existence of "stigma" in human socialization. Consider the very existence of the term "neurotypical" and that neurotypical individuals can have completely opposing ideals, experiences, and behaviors despite the fact that their brains are wired the same way. Consider the fact that mass societies require conformity in order to exist and the various forms of indoctrination and punishment it employs against the individual to suppress any idiosyncrasies that aren't sufficiently "benign". These things exist as evidence of the fact that none of are truly "the same". There is no "human nature" because humanity as a whole isn't an a single entity, but billions of individuals with their own experiences, feelings, values, behaviors, and oddities. Any similarities between billions of individuals are too broad to effectively use for an argument, especially not for what amounts to "why my worldview is the best and everyone agrees with me even when they say they don't, actually".

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