What Is Your Experience of Human Nature?
posted May 14th, 2007 at 9:03 am by Betty
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Dalai Lama recently made a visit to Houston. On the Rice University campus, he spoke about compassion and tolerance.
Among his many inspiring thoughts his words about the young generation of the 21st century stand out for me. He rather bluntly stated that his generation (and those of us who lived through the latter part of the 20th century), instead of solving the problems, “created more problems in some cases.”
Yet he is optimistic, he declared, for the “young generation will create new reality in the 21st century.”
I think by “new reality” he means the younger generation will create a new way of seeing and thinking and feeling in the 21st century; they will practice compassion and tolerance. I don’t know about you but for me, I want to be in on that new creation.
The Dalai Lama did not go into the assumptions he is making when he speaks of this hope. I refer you to his The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, especially Chapter 4 when he speaks of “Reclaiming our Innate State of Happiness.” In this Chapter he carefully sets out the new thinking about human nature that has arisen in recent scientific studies.
He first describes the old way of thinking about human nature and cites some of the philosophical and psychological giants holding the view:
Thomas Hobbes: “saw the human race as being violent, competitive, in continual conflict, and concerned only with self-interest.”
George Santayana: “wrote that generous, caring impulses, while they may exist, are generally weak, fleeting, and unstable in human nature but, ‘dig a little beneath the surface and you’ll find a ferocious, persistent, profoundly selfish man.’”
Freud: “claimed that ‘the inclination to aggression is an original, self-subsisting, instinctual disposition.’”
Contrast these views, the Dalai Lama suggests, with recent scientific studies “indicating that aggression is not essentially innate and that violent behavior is influenced by a variety of biological, social, situational, and environmental factors.”
Take the 1986 Seville Statement on Violence (drawn up and signed by twenty top scientists), for example, that refuted the idea that humanity is innately aggressive: while acknowledging that of course violent behavior does occur, these researchers categorically stated that “it is scientifically incorrect to say that we have an inherited tendency to make war or act violently. That behavior is not genetically programmed into human nature.” And they continued: while we have the neural apparatus to act violently, that behavior isn’t automatially activated. There’s nothing in our neurophysiology that compels us to act violently. In brief summary, the Dalai Lama says that “most researchers in the field currently feel that fundamentally we have the potential to develop into gentle, caring people or violent, aggressive people, the impulse that gets emphasized is largely a matter of training.”
And from psychologists today we hear refutations that humans are innately selfish and egoistic: C. Daniel Batson and Nancy Eisenberg at Arizona State University have conducted numerous studies that demonstrate that humans have a tendency toward altruistic behavior. And sociologist Linda Wilson has theorized that altruism may be part of our basic survival instinct - the very opposite of what earlier thinkers theorized when they said that aggression and hostility were hallmarks of our survival instinct.
When the Dalia Lama was at Rice, he emphasized the natural bond between mother and child. And in his Art of Happiness, he speaks of the “tendency to closely bond with others, acting for the welfare of others as well as oneself,” as deeply rooted in human nature. This need to form close social ties persists up to the present day. “Reaching out to others may be as fundamental to our nature as communication.”
I would like your input on your experience of human nature. Our Magdalene Community has found in the Gospel of Mary an optismitc view of human nature and our quest is to reclaim our true humanness. Some have told me this is pie in the sky but I don’t think so. Also, in our Community, we are aware that the Gospel of Mary was a stream of Christianity that got lost in the West though it possibly moved into the East. Let me hear from you on this.
This entry was posted on Monday, May 14th, 2007 at 9:03 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 14th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Sorry but I hit return and it submitted before I finished. So Part 2
In the Eastern Christian tradition, human nature is not so bad. Adam’s sin did not leave us lost and hopeless and helpless. It left us stunted or diminished, but still with the innate ability to help ourselves. In fact, we have to help ourselves according to the Eastern tradition, to reach deep within our soul and work to transform it into the image of God with the help of the Holy Spirit. This is a progressive and gradual process, but doable.
The Gospel of Mary is part of this conversation, and understands that each person has within a seed of the spirit. Given the right conditions, this seed will germinate, will grow into God’s Image.
May 15th, 2007 at 9:50 am
April, thanks for your comment and am looking forward to Part 2.
As you pointed out, there is much that we can learn from the Eastern Christian tradition. It is important for us in the West to open our ears and eyes to the thinking of early Christians in the East where not only the optimism of Greek philosophy played a part, but also (I think) a stream of Buddhism. Recognizing that we have the seed of the spirit within us may be the first step in opening up. That recognition is something of a paradigm shift in itself.
Those of us who were nurtured in the Western Christian tradition have all kinds of internal fears asscoiated with original sin thinking - the kind of thinking where sin is thought to be inevitably inherited by all of us. (this is where the church seems to side in with Hobbes, Santayana, and Freud) I marvel that it was St. Augustine who lived centuries after Jesus who came up with the notion of inherited sin. Can you imagine Jesus thinking about original sin when he is talking to the woman at the well or to Matthew the tax-collector, or to Peter, James, and John? I certainly can’t.
But because of that inherited sin legacy in the West, it may feel risky to step out and applaud the Gospel of Mary for its more optimistic view of the goodness in us. The Gospel doesn’t say that this goodness comes full-blown but, as you mention, we have a seed of the spirit for potential spiritual growth within us. As Mary Magdalene gives witness, if we struggle to strip away our darkness, attachments, ignorance and wrath, we experience spiritual growth. It is possible to know peace and rest. We play an active role in this.
Just as a conversation starter, I will throw out another idea: it occurs to me that the old original sin thinking is at the bottom of Limbo thinking in the first place.
May 15th, 2007 at 10:37 am
The positive view I have of human nature is NOT something that was part of my fundamentalist upbringing! I’ve come to have a much more positive view of human nature through my study of Sufism and my study of the Gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdalene. When the Kingdom of God is viewed as already within us all (rather than “added” within us when we accept Jesus and “get saved”), it changes the way we view our selves as well as others.
Great conversation! I love this blog!
May 17th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
I agree with you all that we come here with God within. I like to see the spiritual matters as a mirror of essential human life and would like to draw together both notions about original sin and God already within.
I mean that both are true. I believe we are born with heaven within (Jesus said that children are closer to heaven). Then we also have all the obstacles of practical everyday life, the strife to feed and clothe, prosper. This creates the problems for families of all humanity of the ages, to this day. As children we are carried along, but not much more (sorry to be generalizing to make my point). This creates the psychological barriers in kids/teens/young adults/old adults (in us), that result in fear and in some cases eventually violence. I am sorry to say, that at times I have been totally angry and yelling at my kids, creating a sort of fear (of “mommy getting angry with me - mommy does not love me?”). This is so common among parents/in parenting.
Original sin, that we inherit from our families, is in fact the psychological fears created from needs that have not been met. This creates a pattern in the line of families how to deal with things. This is my belief. For example the very common way of raising children by spanking them. (This is in fact forbidden by law in Sweden, since the 70s). That is a way of dealing with things that is inherited from the family line. (How many times have we heard this: “I was spanked, and I did not suffer from it - on the contrary, it was good for me.”)
Hope you see my point. Original sin for me is a way of dealing with things, a way to handle life: in a good or bad way, and this way is what we learn from our family line. Still, God is present within every one of us. That day, when the person says: “I was spanked and I do not want to do it to my kids, it is wrong.”, that day the spell of sin is broken - by love and courage, by the spark of God within.
Last, to really answer the question: I am convinced that the human race is born altruistic, good, loving, caring and with God/Heaven within. It is the experiences of fear that makes us the opposite. By letting Love/the seed of God expand within, fear and self-loathing will be gone.
Bless you,
Anneli
from Anneli
May 17th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Dear Betty, I also want to say Thank you for having this blog! Thank you for putting out all these questions and thoughts, that create these wonderful inspirational discussions! I always look forward to reading the questions and comments. Whats up next time? Thank you for letting everyone join in - this is very generous of you all! You must have such fun at your meetings in the Magdalene community.
Take care,
Anneli