Themes for Personal reflection: Human Nature

"Natural" is today's buzz word. Following a tremendous, but still not serious enough, move towards environmental issues, the word "natural" became synonymous with everything that is good and right in every field. Natural substances in soaps and creams suddenly cropped up in every shop as a sort of guarantee of the effectiveness and goodness of the product. The fact that some natural phenomena like earthquakes and hurricanes, or natural substances like strychnine, or naturally occurring illnesses like rabies, are not particularly good for people has been glossed over by many who found in the word "natural" a perfect justification for concepts that are otherwise very difficult to sustain on moral grounds. On May 2nd 1990 Professor Michael Novak (one of the "gurus" of free market economy) told The Independent newspaper: "...Differences in the endowment of nature, in talent and in the pursuit of happiness exist and it is the first task of justice, and hence, of government, to preserve them." That is, not only the profit making companies are now dedicated to increasing the widening gap between rich and poor, between long and short life expectancies (perhaps "free market euthanasia" would be more appropriate?), but the Justice system and even Governments should be involved in the task of stressing these "natural" differences, without taking responsibility for contributing to create them.

In the same vein "Human Nature" has also been applied to justify a vision of human beings that betrays them. Since nature is used here to mean something fixed and unchangeable it is in direct opposition to the concept on intentionality. Human nature is used in general to imply negative aspects of people. Greed or violence are "explained" (with a sigh) because "oh, well, it is human nature". At the time of proposing solutions to human problems this concept is utilised to tell us that we need to find something outside the human being, like gods or market forces to guide us because human nature is bad. But who presents these solutions coming from "outside" humanity if not other humans, possessing the same "nature"?

This is the keystone of the future: being able to overcome a belief in the unchangeable nature of human beings which states that what has happened will continue to happen regardless of any efforts made and to develop faith in the possibility of change guided by clear images of better forms of organisation and the experience of intentional modifications in our lives and in history.

In market economies it is supposed that competition (dictated by the markets) will balance greed (human nature). However it is not unknown the situation where competitors reach agreements that benefit them and not their customers, neutralising in this way the control from outside (i.e., in the UK cars cost about 17% more than in the rest of Europe, by common agreement between manufacturers, because having the steering wheel on the right creates a captive market). This is one more example which shows that intentionality is the strongest force that regulates human behaviour, and that generally what is said to come from outside (or above) humanity as well as what is described as human nature are simply manifestations of somebody’s intentionality. In this context we could say that there is in fact no such a thing as human nature, in Silo’s words:

"Human beings are historical beings whose form of social action changes their own nature".

From this awareness stem both our freedom and our responsibility.

1- Discussion about changes that happened in history that nobody thought possible

2- Personal reflection about important changes in one's own life. Notes.

3- Plan for the week: pay attention to giving intentional responses to everyday situations, rather than the usual mechanical ones.