suggested book on human nature

[Goffredo]

Hi guys<br>
seen the heat that the present world situation is causing I flag to you all a very stimulating book I've read.<br>
<br>
THE BLANK SLATE, The Modern Denial of Human Nature<br>
by Steven Pinker,<br>
published in 2002 by Viking Penguin Group<br>
<br>
I know it has been translated in Italian so I am sure it is in other european countries too.<br>
<br>
Mr. Pinker is a cognitivist that studies the way evolution has hardwired our brains and the way we percieve and interpret the world and act accordingly. Not all software that some ideology can dream up can actually run on that hardware; i.e. the brain is no like a computer (a true general purpose machine). The brain instead has certain hardwired functions that we evolved, including the capacity to design computers and feel marvelous emotions such as moral outrage and love. These cannot be overwritten easily and the only way to avoid BIG problems is to know how we tick rather than deny that we are made certain ways or try to shape us in others, or speak in outdated ways about why and how wars against Saddams or crime should be or should not be fought.<br>
<br>
Mind you the book is not perfect (little stretched out here and there) and in some points I find it slightly ambiguous (but then maybe I've been exposed to too much psychobabble and wishy-washy ideologies). I think the book gives a heathly cold shower on many topics that include violence and war.<br>
<br>
WARNING!! It is a challanging read, not because it is difficult. Actually Pinker writes very smoothly english and is very talented. The book is an attention grabber! But it is challanging because it will shake almost all your views of US (not U.S. but us humans). He quotes Pogo: "We met the enemy and them is us".<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[JRSCline]

Sounds great. In the "nature" versus "nurture" debate over human behavior, I've always subscribed to the nature camp.<br>
<br>
I think we are born with a basic personality (nature), and parenting and socialization (nurture) can only smooth the edges of this personality, not radically shape whom we truly will become.<br>
<br>
As a result, I also tend to think that humans are intrinsically selfish, violent creatures, and war is a natural outgrowth of the fact that our individual survival drive has been channeled over the thousands of years of civilization into the fluid establishment of identity groups.<br>
<br>
Has anyone read Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel?"<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Jenny<br>
<br>
<p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

In the psychiatric language, young children are considered "polymorphic perverts".<br>
In oth er words they don't know it's bad to kick the dog until their parents --or the dog-- tells them it's a no no..<br>
But humans are not basically selfish. If they were we wouldn't be here.<br>
Consider this little fable:<br>
Once upon a very long time there were only two tribes of humans on Earth. Let's call them the Ougl and the Beagl. The Ougl were selfish people so, when they saw one of the Ougl being attacked by a huge cave bear, they all fled in separate directions. And got eaten mincemeal by all what Mother Nature could invent in terms of mean things with claws and teeth.<br>
When a Beagl, on the contrary, was attacked by that same bear who though he had a pretty good thing going, they all bunched up with their lousy spears and scared out their loincloths as they were they stood there together and killed the bear.<br>
We are the descendants of the Beagl. The Ougl got wiped out out quite fast.<br>
Humans are basically cooperative. We spend definitely more time building things together and making life a bit more comfy than we spend blowing up each other.<br>
And if indeed we are violent, it's also because of the things with claws and teeth. If we hadn't been we would have been eaten. But since Mother Nature is pretty well organized, human societies have also devised means to limit inter-human violence to a level that does not threaten the extinction of the species.<br>
Until we've invented the nuclear bomb. But that's another story.<br>
I found all this in a very excellent book by John Keegan called "A history of warfare". By far his best and the other ones are memorable too.. <p></p><i></i>

[richsc]

I'd be tempted to compare it to the 1970's book "Naked Ape" by Desmond Morris. <p>Richard Campbell, Legio XX<br>
<br>
</p><i></i>