This truly amazing photograph shows human nature in its infancy.
Notice the focused eyes of the young predator, the cruel
grasping hands, the undisguised intent to capture
and control the prey, the open mouth ready
to devour, to satiate his never-ending
hunger for food, possessions
and unlimited power (lust
comes later).
Much.
Give me a break. The toddler just wants to play with the kitty.
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Agree with anti-neolib, just a baby doing what it would do regardless of what was in front of it. Human nature is learned, not hardwired from birthc.
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Interesting comments! Very maternal.
Keep in mind this could’ve been a baby photo of Hitler. Or Stalin. Or Nixon. Or George Bush. Or Sharon.
Must be some hardwiring surely.
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…or Carl Sagan. Or Lt. Ehren Watada. Or Peter Benenson of Amnesty International. Or Albert Camus. Or Hannah Arendt.
It does cut both ways. The real question is: How do we raise our children? Do we raise them to extol the vices of someone like Bush or the virtues of someone like Carl Sagan?
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Hardwiring comes in later in the form of parents, friends and society.
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On the other hand you could interpret the photo as showing what I suspect our feline cousins have probably always known – that humans are there to pick up after them.
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Ikiru, Naming all the “geniuses” that the humanity has gave birth to won’t prove that humanity is good. They may as well be the exceptions that proves the rule : humanity is destructive, egomaniac, ego-centered, sociopathic.
Hitler was a nobody. We overestimate him. We tend to forget that he had millions of followers who did what they did because they chose to and because they enjoyed doing it. He wasn t there in every camp and every country to perform those horrendous actions himself. There were millions of “nice” guys doing “nice” things for the fun of it.
The geniuses that you mentioned and that contributed to the “progress” of humanity may as well have been miserable husbands, controlled by vicious habits which they could not or want to control, and many many many other wonderful aspects which their public figure will never reveal. We re good at presenting public figure and idealizing it in good or bad far too easily.
Look around you, in your family, in your office, in the supermarket, on the TV, everywhere: can you deny humans are highly disturbed and disturbing creatures?
Innately or not, will it make a difference?
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I think that most people underestimate the true extent of the dark genetic ‘hardwiring’ that we all carry within us just as most people have difficulty accepting the real truth about themselves.
Cheers.
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Adina, i agree that the world contains its fair share of nasty little vermin but it also contains a whole lot more good and decent people. If you only look for the bad that is all you will ever see.
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David…what a darling picture, yet so true of our basic nature. This is why it’s important for parents to use all that we have learned throughout history to civilize our children appropriately and teach them to understand and channel their aggressive natures into positive, productive, enjoyable outlets.
Love that photo!
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Marion, the problem is that what we wish we were and what we are are two different things. Cheers.
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Dear Lucy, there sure are wonderful people around, nobody denied that. But the equation is simple. If the wonderful people would outnumber the disturbed, ignorant, greedy ones, the outcome would be different then what we are experiencing today and what the history has experienced throughout the ages. I would love to sit on my porch in the suburbs sharing pie with the neighbors decorating the Christmas tree and marveling how beautiful and generous humans are. But that is utopia. Most of the people who have a benign vision of world are indeed wonderful, peaceful creatures. That is why it is difficult for them to grasp the whole abominable picture that more realistic people do see. I love blind optimism myself, but I have to surrender to facts. Singularities are not potent enough to substantially affect the final outcome.
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Sorry Adina, but i don’t recognise the world that you describe where we are all looking for ways to screw each other over.
Having a pessimistic view of human nature will always blind you to the good that we do. There are wars, genocides and murders going on but there are also acts of kindness and people doing good going unreported which are drowned out by the people doing bad. It is a question of your perspective, a pessimist will always see the bad and end up with a warped sense of humanity as will an optimist. The truth will be somewhere in the middle but it is always the pessimist who ends up full of hate and with the bitterest feelings. During your average day, count the random acts of kindness and it will outweigh the times you want to dismay for us all.
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LucyP, that s the beauty of democracy. You can choose. So read your own reply. Feel free to label me as a “mind terrorist” who’s trying to “dismay” “all of YOU” with my “hatred and bitterness”. While I m being judgmental and pesimistic, you are wonderful and kind trying to improve my mindstate. I ve told you optimists are nice, peaceful people. Maybe I ve been wrong.
PS. I start to believe Holocaust did not exist, only Hitler did it.
Humanity is doing great, earth is evolving, pollution is a mere illusion, species disappearing and forests perishing come on, just wood, and the random everyday acts of kindness (giving seat in the buss and 1 dollar for charitable events from your chair at the comfort of one sms away) will make our planet a paradise to live in soon.
You made my day.
Thanks.
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Humanity is doing great, earth is evolving and the random everyday acts of kindness will make our planet a paradise to live in soon.
There you go Adina, that’s the ticket. I knew you had it in you somewhere. Keep it up.
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To paraphrase Simone Weil, “If there is no such thing as good, then what does evil deprive of us?”
I can sometimes despair of the way things are too, but cynicism alone is nothing but whinging. If life is really that pointless, then it doesn’t matter what human beings do to themselves or to the world around them.
Where this blog is good, it raises questions and I can sympathise with the bitter cynicism here. However, if it REALLY were that final, that irreductible, that nihilistic, then we ought to all just kill ourselves. But I don’t think anyone here REALLY believes that, as tempting as it may be.
“The temptation shared by all forms of intelligence: cynicism.” ~ Albert Camus
Working for change means acknowledging the good and the bad in people. But if you see only good or only bad, then that’s not being a “realist.” Either of those options are mindless.
What good changes have been made over the decades and centuries takes a lot of time because there’s a lot of resistance to it– from people with power, sheer immorality and the shunning of human responsibility, and also good old fashioned human idiocy.
Change doesn’t happen overnight. There are no easy answers. Nothing but hard work, diligence and tonnes of patience. If you don’t have any of that, then you’re just as much in the way of progress as “mindless optimists.”
I am stuck in the US, a country that truly makes me sick inside. But I’ll be damned if I will give in to cynicism. There isn’t a lot I can even really do, but I do what I can, devoting what money & time I can to Amnesty International. Maybe others want to focus on something environmental, like Greenpeace, or who knows. Pick what you’re most passionate about and do your small part.
Both despair and hope are irrelevant. Work for what is right, regardless of “success” or not. Otherwise, to put it rudely, “put up or shut up.”
Like it or not, one’s human responsibility toward oneself and others does not depend on someone else, any god, any group of people, or any external factor. There is only one person responsible: yourself. Anything else is lying to oneself.
That said, I will have to recommend a film from my moniker, Akira Kurosawa’s film, “Ikiru,” which looks unflinchingly at the good and the bad of humanity, and doesn’t shy from the huge obstacles in the way. I cannot recommend a film more highly than this.
Peace
[/soapbox]
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WOW.
LucyP, Ikiru, I never said we should sit and do nothing.
Can you deny that the first step to recovery is admitting of having a problem and never underestimating how big the problem really is? If conscious awareness is cynism to you, so be it.
But then…. Condescending and snobbing remarks like: “i knew you had it in you”, “keep it up”, and then labels such as irremediably “cynical” and then finally, the ultimate communist-fascist statement: do as we think it s right or “shut up”…. amazing.
But now, I think I ll let you then change the world for the “better”.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
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Quod erat demonstrandum. Latin is all Greek to me.
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