What is human nature? Is it primarily competitive or cooperative? Selfish or empathic?
Hobbes vs. Locke vs. Rousseau - Social Contract Theories Compared
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glgU6o4nZQc
"African Genesis", a 1961 treatise on the aggressive and violent nature of human evolution by Richard Ardrey, based on the work of anthropologist Raymond A. Dart (1953)
https://www.nationalbook.org/books/african-genesis/
Opening scene from "2001, A Space Odyssey", directed by Stanley Kubrick (1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avjdKTqiVvQ&list=PLZbXA4lyCtqoWYULgfzOGOYPu4un4VdIJ&index=1
Critique of Ardrey's thesis, by Stanley Lieberman (1975):
(1) Labeling any behavior as instinctive fails to explain its causes. Aggressive behavior exists in many diverse species, and is caused by many things. In insects, such behavior may be triggered by trace chemicals; in birds, by territorial defense, but only during the breeding season; in carnivores, by prey, but only if certain internal conditions are present; in apes, by a predator, but only if escape routes are not available and the troop is considered in danger; in man, by a mere verbal slur, but only if attack is an appropriate response in the individual’s culture, and only if the individual’s experience indicates that attack would be appropriate to the specific circumstances. If the murderous raids of the Brazilian Indians are explained in terms of instincts, how is the peacefulness of the Eskimos to be explained? True, man displays aggressive behavior. However, this does not imply an aggressive instinct. It implies the capacity for such behavior. Man also has the capacity for tenderness and love. Man’s aggressive behavior is learned and is based on his beliefs and principles. Since man’s ideology has largely been based on a disregard for human rights, is it any surprise that he acts aggressively?
(2) The development of a weapon two million years ago could not have played a major role in insuring man’s survival, since man’s ancestral line goes back closer to thirty‐five million years. Throughout most of this time, man had no tools and no weapons to help him.
(3) There is no evidence that early man’s principle food was obtained by hunting. In fact, the majority of his diet was composed of fruits, nuts, tubers, grubs, and rodents.
(4) Of all the primates, only the gibbon can be considered territorial. Furthermore, most behavior for apes is learned, since different populations, living in different areas, display different behaviors. A possible display of territoriality in one habitat is not present in another.
(5) No evidence of territoriality exists today among hunting peoples still living, for example, the Bushman, the Pygmy, and the Eskimo.
(6) Why do governments find it necessary to pass laws against immigration and treason and for a draft? If aggression and territoriality are instinctive, we would love our country and fight at the slightest provocation, real or imagined.
To accept Ardrey, is to blame biology for our destructive acts. Just as society is not responsible, neither are our genes. We must accept the responsibility for our actions. What we do, we choose to do.
"What Made Humans Human?", By Boycs Rensberger, NY Times Magazine, 4/8/1984
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/08/magazine/what-made-humans-human.html
"Dawn of Humanity", PBS NOVA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzLJAa5X4Fo&list=PLb2vEsuJ0-zEi_QKJdl3RWwt479vO0N0c
"A 15,000 Year-Old Bone", by Jeffrey Oak, Yale Divinity School Reflections
"Someone once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead what she considered to be the first evidence of civilization. She answered: a human thigh bone with a healed fracture found in an archaeological site 15,000 years old. Why not tools for hunting or religious artifacts or primitive forms of communal self-governance?
Mead points out that for a person to survive a broken femur the individual had to have been cared for long enough for that bone to heal. Others must have provided shelter, protection, food and drink over an extended period of time for this kind of healing to be possible.
The great anthropologist Margaret Mead suggests that the first indication of human civilization is care over time for one who is broken and in need, evidenced through a fractured thigh bone that was healed."
https://divinity.yale.edu/news/15000-year-old-bone-and-fall-2013-issue-reflections
"The Mirror Neurons that Shaped Civilization", TED Talk about mirror neurons by Vilayanur Ramachandran, 2009
https://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization
"The Empathic Civilization", Royal Society of the Arts talk by Jeremy Rifkin, August 2010
https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_rifkin_the_empathic_civilization
"This Is How You Live When the World Falls Apart", By Jon Mooallem, NY Times, 3/12/2020
The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 surprised everyone by showing that natural disasters can bring out more kindness than selfishness, as discovered by the Disaster Research Center at Ohio State.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-disaster-response.html
"Acts of Kindness are Really Contagious", interview with historian Rutger Bregman by Billy Perrigo, TIME Magazine
https://time.com/5838900/rutger-bregman-humankind-interview/