What is human nature?

[GSLeloo]

The deeper and deeper we go into the Holocaust the more confused I get. Not a confusion as in I can't understand the information but confusion as in I can't fathom how this could happen.

We studied cults, we studied human nature, we studied group mentality, we studied what it was like in that part of the world and what kind of mindset existed. It's just so hard for me to understand how anyone could do that to another human being.

I don't believe you can blame it on following orders and I don't believe that it can be excused in any way possible. These people took pleasure in harming a fellow human being, pleasure in throwing a baby up in the air and using it for target practice or freezing jews to death to see if they could bring them back.

So that leads me to my question. What is human nature? Is human nature in the end just a desire to harm another person? Would anyone in the situation of that Nazi soldier act the same way or is it dependent upon something else? What is the truth about humans?

[Bobmuhthol]

I can't believe Americans are fighting in Iraq. They must take pleasure in it. Society is ending.

[GSLeloo]

I wasn't referring to Iraq... In fact for now I am avoiding that because it's so messed up on both sides that I don't know what to think. But looking at the Holocaust as a case study for human behavior... it leaves with a lot of questions. I mean, there were bad Jews and there were good ones and there were bad Germans and good ones. But which outweighs which? Which is stronger and which is the natural impulse?

[Artha]

Using what is possibly the worst period of time as a case study for something doesn't strike me as a good idea.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<I wasn't referring to Iraq>>

My comment was stated mockingly.

[Ravenstorm]

Ask your teacher about this:

http://www.prisonexp.org/

Raven

[GSLeloo]

I think it's the perfect way to study human behavior. You put people in the most extreme situation, a situation in which one person could make a difference, one person could stand up and say no and help the others. And in this situation you see how the majority act. What you get to see is the true evil in some and in others complete heroics and indifference also. You see people that will risk their lives to save strangers and people that will essentially condemn others to death to save their own skin. But what is the norm?

[Back]

Originally posted by GSLeloo
What is the truth about humans?

Dang, GSLeloo. Thanks for making me think again. I'm going to say its based on survival of the fittest.

But my real answer is that none of us will know the answer to that question until we cast off our physical vessels.

Some good reading on the subject. The Vedas, Socrates, Freud, Nietzsche, Descarte, Marx, Einstein... and so on and so forth, what have you, as it were, and ad infinitum...

[FinisWolf]

:sarcastic tone:

Read my signature.

:regular tone:

That my lady Leloo, is human nature in its simplist form. Of course there will be those that do not agree, I understand that, and thats fine by me.

What all the situations like that to me seem to boil down to, and seem to me like its been this way throughout the history of mankind, is that humans want power, wealth, and respect.

Those three things are entertwined, in order to have power, you need respect and wealth, in order to have wealth you need power and respect (subjective respect), and in order to have respect you need power and wealth. -- One could argue, well, I have respect, and all I do is work at 7-11 as a clean-up person. Sure, I can agree with that, but you get the amount of respect waranted by such a position, and the amount of wealth that is waranted by the same position. -- It is my belief though, that you (Leloo) are not refering to minial respect, but rather the grander respect that deals with the rich, the famous, and the powerful. the respect that leads to making decisions for a country, a state, and if Hitler had it his way, the world.

Now, on top of that simple version of human nature, all societies have moral coding (instinctual and/or learned), and this is what I think you are truly questioning, not human nature, but the morality of the people you speak of, and it is morals that shape us all, not our basic instincts (human nature).

This is random jumping thoughts based on education recieved, and goes much deeper and much farther. It is not a simple question you ask.

Crappy Example 1:
If instincts ran man, when they got horny, they would screw randomly (rape), but our morals for the majority teach us and tell us that that kind of behavior is not ok, so in general, we do not act this way, though our instinct says you want sex.

Crappy Example 2:
Another thing to question is what moral decisions were made. To steal from my philosophy instructor:

{You live in Germany, under Hitler's rule. You are a Jew, and you have a family of Jews hiding in your attic.}

Now, Hitler's SS militia knocks on your door and asks if there is anyone hiding in your domicile. What do you do? Do continue to hide them? Do you point them out?

I am guessing that you said that you would continue to hide them. Which, with the information you have is a morally correct decision. However, ...

{[Here's the things that may effect your moral decision] You know, that if you point them out, they will be killed. Further, you know that if you do not point them out, you and your family will be killed if the SS militia finds out.}

Now, whats the morally correct decision? Gets difficult, huh? Save yourself and your family? Save the family thats hiding? ... ... ...

Anyway Leloo, good question, my short form answer, human nature is your base instincts with morality stacked on top, and the situation you are having to live in that decides what your human nature at the moment is.

Finiswolf

[Bobmuhthol]

Hand me a pistol and put me in one of those situations, someone will be walking away without a kneecap. Does that make me evil? Oh well.

[Kitsun]

Leloo, you're asking questions that could take several million pages, years of analysis and come to absolutely no definitive answer.

Human beings are as diverse as snowflakes, everyone has a different drive. Environments surrounding people have large impacts upon the direction of the drive.

If you want to study human nature as a whole, you're going to have to measure the extremes. People can be unbelievably nasty but they can be good too. Thats probably why we're still around. Just remember, also, that the extremes don't give a true picture of the whole.

[i remember halloween]

the human mind is a very easy thing to warp and control. there is your answer.

[TheEschaton]

I think the main sticking point in human nature is the idea of Self vs. Other. Animal nature, which we've not overcome (and this is not a debate on whether it is good or not to overcome such) dictates that Other is always less good, though not necessarily bad, than Self.

And this just repeats itself on larger and larger scales. At the most miniscule scale, you have person vs. person. "I was just defending myself."

Then you have the family as self. "Normally, I wouldn't do that, but if that guy did anything to my family....he'd be a dead man."

Then you have maybe community, etc, etc. "West Coast, baybe!"

Then nation, "Those damn Arabs, we Americans know what civilization is."

And the last Self vs. Other stratification is that of the abstract idea. This is what arises when we ardently defend that democracy is the best idea in the world....because we ARE a democracy. This is pro-life vs. pro-choice, etc, etc.

Now, that's animal nature. I cannot see human nature as being divided from that completely. However, as humans, we have choice. And that choice allows us to reject the animal nature, and work towards something better.

I dunno, I have a headache. Hitler and the Nazis - they were afraid of the Other. They didn't want to think their problems were due to something they might of done.

-TheE-

[FinisWolf]

Originally posted by Artha
Using what is possibly the worst period of time as a case study for something doesn't strike me as a good idea.

What time would you suggest? The forms of human nature Leloo speaks of has been going on since the begining of time. Compared to Hitler its on a lesser scale for the majority, but if you study egyptian periods, its pretty ugly even then, or you can go even further back (pre-egyptian) and the human nature that Leloo speaks of is still just as ugly. Even today, atrocities are commited, some that we actually learn of, and others that some would prefer would never get out.

So name a time Artha. Or even a specific subject. Perhaps Crusades? Pre-egytpian, egyptian, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea? Their all ugly.

Finiswolf

[GSLeloo]

To answer your "kill them by pointing them out or kill your family by not" if we're looking at the situation in the 1940's and a Jewish family hiding more Jews, neither had a chance. So he could choose to hide them or to expose them but neither would save himself. In fact, if you were not Aryan, if you were Polish, gypsy, jewish, homosexual, handicapped, or old, you were basically not guaranteed to live in any way.

That's one thing that truly confuses me. You have these Jews in the ghetto. And then you have the Jews that become traders, that become police in the ghetto and are cruel to their fellow people just so that the Germans would maybe save them. And of course they wouldn't because the master plan was to kill all the jews and not have any left. I don't really believe in god or a heaven and a hell, but I do believe that people like that will get what's coming to them in the end.

[Artha]

So name a time Artha. Or even a specific subject. Perhaps Crusades? Pre-egytpian, egyptian, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea? Their all ugly.

How about the Italian Renaissance?

[Bobmuhthol]

Hitler isn't the only person who thinks Jews should be killed. A prime example: Osama bin Laden.

[FinisWolf]

You didn't answer the question though, you started to. You even put yourself in that time period. What is the correct moral answer if you were in that situation?

Finiswolf

[GSLeloo]

Oh no, Hitler wasn't the only one who wanted the Jews killed. That's one thing we studied, how deeply anti-semetic that area was even before Hitler came to power. Before Hitler decided on extermination he tried emigration but the nations of the world didn't want the Jews. One country did because they wanted to whiten up their country but most did not want them. Australia, I believe it was, actually said "we don't have a race problem and we don't want one"

[Artha]

You didn't answer the question though, you started to. You even put yourself in that time period. What is the correct moral answer if you were in that situation?

Uh...what question? You challenged me to name a time that wasn't ugly. The Italian Renaissance was not ugly.

[Xcalibur]

I believe the humane nature is very simple: survival and pleasure.

We raise our children using pleasure as a satisfaction and way to encourage them to repeat some behaviors.

We prefer good food to bad food.

And we prefer beautiful people to ugly people.

There's detail, but that's just a résumé of what I think it is.

[Bobmuhthol]

This thread has inspired me to listen to Final War-Tales of Honor again.

[FinisWolf]

Sorry Artha, not you, Leloo. I figured if I posted quick enough that would be apparant, again, my apologies. And, I just got a chuckle at your suggestion, because I know nothing of that topic, but it did bring to mind the Renaissance as related to art, hence my chuckle, since to me it does not even compare.

Finiswolf

[GSLeloo]

Oh! Um.. what was the question? Sorry I missed it too.

[Back]

I'm thinking that the development of religion is the problem with humans. Hey, I have no idea if beavers worship the great treestump, or whatever... I can't talk to goldfish, but the common thread that I see in this thread, is that humans have superimposed some kind of supernatural rule on things... without ANY shred of evidence.

My conclucion. Religion is an abstract created by less fit animals to control the others.

[FinisWolf]

Leloo~

What would you do if you and your family were the ones hiding that family? What is the morally correct answer?

Finiswolf

[GSLeloo]

I thought I answered that? I guess not... I believe in your situation both myself and the family in hiding were Jewish. In that case we were both damned. Even at the sacrifice of myself and my family, I don't believe I could turn another over to death. I couldn't do that to someone else because the situation could be too easily reversed and if I were the one hiding, I would want someone to protect me rather than point me out.

[GSLeloo]

And I just finished reading that link someone put up, it is very interesting. You can see similar actions in the book "Lord of the Flies". Despite the fact that these are civilized children, they lose it and they become something entirely different.

he was a doucebag (hitler.) I know the motto is "never forget" but in special circumstances I think some things can should be forgotten. All that shit about history repeating itself is shit under these circumstances, anyone or anybody who would try to pull shit like that again is just going to be sniiped or lost in a desert.

[Myshel]

I don't think any of us can honestly answer these questions sitting in the comforts of our homes. Until your faced with life and death situations, its easy to say I would do this and that.

A friend recently was held up at gun point and was almost shot because she was frozen with fear. She couldn't even talk she was so scared. If she hadn't have thrown up her hands and dropped her wallet that was tucked under her arm, she is convinced the lunatic would have shot her.

So until your facing a horde of soilders training lugers on your and your loved ones, how can anyone honestly say what morals would win out. Survival is a very strong instinct.

[GSLeloo]

Um I don't think you can say that it will never happen again because I believe to certain points it already has. Genocide did not begin with the Holocaust and it won't end with it.

Sorry to get all technical but isn't genocide the end result of the COMPLETE systematic destruction of a culture or "race"?

The only actual genocide that I can see being carried out successfully these days would be total death of a small people. Maybe something like cults that kill all of its 16 or 12 members?

[GSLeloo]

The holocaust was an attempt at the genocide of a race. Just because it didn't end up being succesful in the end doesn't mean that people won't try and do it again.

Wasn't there an Armenian genocide in like 1880-1900?

[Bobmuhthol]

My history knowledge is a little off, but wasn't the Holocaust the murder of Jews? Jews are not a race. However, it was genocide, because Jews are a group.

[Hulkein]

Well if you want to be technical, their race is Hebrew.

The word 'Jew' can connotate both group and race.

The holocaust was also the murder of a lot of other people, too.

[Edaarin]

If you take any introductory psychology class, you'll learn about Philip Zimbardo's prisoner experiment. Hell, it's been all over the news lately what with the prisoner abuse. To paraphrase Prof. Zimbardo, "Put good eggs in a bad situation, they come out bad eggs."

You should also read up on Milgram's experiment on obedience. Quite shocking (sorry, bad pun).

[Back]

Genocide seems to be intimately tied to religion. (http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004050518110002778729&dt=20040505181 100&w=RTR&coview=)

An interesting point I found in the above article is that they are considering it genocide because women and children were killed.

What I think is absolutely absurd is the notion that one person can be better than another based soley on a supernatural concept.

[Edited on 5-15-2004 by Backlash]

[Artha]

You have to tie it to something to make people as a whole accept it. You have to make your subjects (for lack of a better word) dehumanize the opposition for them to accept the destruction of the opposition.

[FinisWolf]

Originally posted by Myshel
I don't think any of us can honestly answer these questions sitting in the comforts of our homes. Until your faced with life and death situations, its easy to say I would do this and that.

A friend recently was held up at gun point and was almost shot because she was frozen with fear. She couldn't even talk she was so scared. If she hadn't have thrown up her hands and dropped her wallet that was tucked under her arm, she is convinced the lunatic would have shot her.

So until your facing a horde of soilders training lugers on your and your loved ones, how can anyone honestly say what morals would win out. Survival is a very strong instinct.

Exactly, but you can pre-train your mind to your reactions based on the morals you carry, whether you are able to perform under the circumstances is another issue, but readying your mind is a start, and contemplating such things is a start.

Finiswolf

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by GSLeloo
I think it's the perfect way to study human behavior. You put people in the most extreme situation, ... what is the norm? You see how that doesn't make any sense, right?
which is the natural impulse?The natural impulse is love.

The people who dominate history are different, because they're as Finis described: lusting for power etc. Which is why Kitsun is also right:
Human beings are as diverse as snowflakes, everyone has a different drive.
Originally posted by Leloo
Wasn't there an Armenian genocide in like 1880-1900?Close, it was during WWI.

[GSLeloo]

I just remember the Armenian Genocide cause they were talking about it on MTV and how Rage Against the Machine wanted it recognized by America as a genocide but America basically won't out of fear for our alliance with Turkey.

And I think technically he killed the Jews, Homosexuals, Gypsies, Poles, Handicapped, and Retarded for basically two reasons, one was because they did not fit into his plan for a master race and the Thousand Year Reich (sp?) and the other was because he needed "Living space" for his master race to thrive in. He also used the fact that the area was very anti-semetic and hated Jews fora really long time.

[Nakiro]

If you want to know what human nature is, take everything you've been taught about how to treat a person and forget it.

Did someone teach you to say please, thank you, to share, to be polite, to not harm others?

These are the things that we learn, and they are the things that go against our nature. No child is born with these qualities, and this is because these qualities go against our nature.

Thus our nature is to be selfish, to be only selfconcerning, and to put interests before all other things, including the safety and well-being of others.

[GSLeloo]

I was never taught to be polite or to share. My parents let me give myself guidelines. I will share with people but I'd rather offer than be asked. I believe my life is not worth more than the life of another and is worth less than the lives of a group. I believe it is right to help people, even if it means you must sacrifice yourself.

[Nakiro]

Originally posted by GSLeloo
I was never taught to be polite or to share. My parents let me give myself guidelines. I will share with people but I'd rather offer than be asked. I believe my life is not worth more than the life of another and is worth less than the lives of a group. I believe it is right to help people, even if it means you must sacrifice yourself.

If your parents told you such things, they are flat out lieing to you.

[GSLeloo]

What do you mean? See... they told my brother to share and my brother basically was pushed over at school. So with me they didn't teach me to share. It's true, you can ask my brother, I refuse to share with him. I only share when I want and I prefer to offer. I hate being asked.

[TheEschaton]

Your parents are piss poor parents, then, if they can't teach that "to share" doesn't mean "to let people walk all over you", and then giving up when it failed the first time.


No offense, or anything.

-TheE-

[Edited on 5-16-2004 by TheEschaton]

[Nakiro]

Originally posted by TheEschaton
Your parents are piss poor parents, then, if they can't teach that "to share" doesn't mean "to let people walk all over you", and then giving up when it failed the first time.


No offense, or anything.

-TheE-

[Edited on 5-16-2004 by TheEschaton]

:thumbsup:

[GSLeloo]

I don't know, it sounds pretty weak but I feel I turned out well enough on my own. I wasn't forced to share, I learned to do it. I kind of prefer that I was able to come to it all on my own rather than be forced into it. Personally I think it speaks better on who I am as a person.

Well if you want to be technical, their race is Hebrew.

Uh, I'm going to have to politely disagree with this one.

Like Bob said, jews aren't a race. You can be any four of the modernly "defined" anthropologic phenotypical traits (I think you mean Semitic, not Hebrew) and one day, convert to Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Bahai, etc. Being of a theism does not define your racial qualities.

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by Stanley Burrell
Like Bob said, jews aren't a race. You're right in that converting to Judaism doesn't change your "race". There is, however, a Jewish race (12 tribes, and all that).

[Meos]

Human nature is to spread your seed... money and power make it easier to spread your seed. War and violence of the most straight foward ways to accomplish these goals. That is all.

[FinisWolf]

Originally posted by Nakiro
If you want to know what human nature is, take everything you've been taught about how to treat a person and forget it.

Did someone teach you to say please, thank you, to share, to be polite, to not harm others?

These are the things that we learn, and they are the things that go against our nature. No child is born with these qualities, and this is because these qualities go against our nature.

Thus our nature is to be selfish, to be only selfconcerning, and to put interests before all other things, including the safety and well-being of others.

Nakiro~

I think you would enjoy speaking to a previous Professor of mine. At one point he had stated that many things we do as humans goes completely against natural human nature. Such as using the bathroom in a toilet, wearing clothes, etc. Basically anything that we have been taught that did not come with us naturally from the womb.

Finiswolf

You're right in that converting to Judaism doesn't change your "race". There is, however, a Jewish race (12 tribes, and all that).

Hmm...

Haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure that the Kohains and Levites don't all share the same stereotypical traits.