Is Human Nature Natural?
You hear what they say every day.
The lords of conformity — who wish to make peasants of us — insist that people’s lives can be manipulated infinitely because, they say, there is, at bottom, no such thing as a fixed and enduring human nature. We are not much better than monkeys.
Hear this as an attack on religion, since they mean we have no souls. And, by lacking a soul, your personal pretense, above other animals, to any special dignity… is snuffed out. By then the conformists got you where they want you, and don’t think for a second the idea doesn’t excite them. You can hear it in their voices.
Does human nature exist? Why even bother trying to defuse a loaded question? Fundamental good will, I’m afraid. Normal peoples’ mistake is we always hope taking conformists seriously will somehow bring them to their senses. It’s the touching good manners of our defeat, this solemn pretense of zombie training.
Does human nature exist? Gee, zombie, let’s see. What about the laughter of old folks? If there were no human nature, what else could possibly strike the dying as being funny? Do growing kids learn more about themselves from homework or from each other? Also, lest we forget, along with our religions, grandly getting swept aside by conformists are recorded History and all the world’s great treasures of Art.
They are quite sure in their own minds they are more rational than we. Please, conformists, abandon smug pretensions to science. Limping is not a triumphant new way to skip. Nor is taking yourself for a monkey the humane thing to do. Actually, the simplest proof of an authentic human nature in action must, by definition, show up when we least act like monkeys.
Before bothering to prove the obvious, let’s admit words alone can never establish our first and most essential fact, which is how normal it is for human nature to impinge on and constantly be surrounded by mysteries. What is naturally human is also supernatural.
For proof of human nature, however, all we need is a good example of humanity caught demonstrating itself. That means nothing a monkey might also do. Logic dictates, if we uncover even one uniquely human trait held in common always by all peoples everywhere, then conformists are mistaken.
I am thinking of a cliche. Each world language has its own version of this cliche. It is so universal, people barely notice saying it anymore. Which is odd, actually, because this trite little motto is a magic formula seven-million-years-old and everywhere still remembered because it has never failed us.
Seven million years ago monkeys began evolving into human beings. God only knows out of what thick-tongued chatter our magic formula first erupted, but erupt it did — this ritual exhortation which summons, out of animal darkness, that fabulous mythical beast, the natural man.
So, in English, to this day, we say: “Hold your head high.” “Stand up straight.” “Show some spine.” “Stiffen your backbone.” “Walk tall.” “Ten-HUT!”
This is not prayer, nor simply a call to calisthenics. More like pulling a finer soul down into oneself from above — and, please, Man, take better control of the nervous system of this half-monkey body!
It’s odd, if you say so, conformists, but undeniable nonetheless. Some immortal force of aspiration plucks us up, up! We are “the vertical mammal. ” Chinese traditionally call the crown of the head “point of aspiration.” And in both tai chi and yoga — ancient bodily exercises so sophisticated they broach the spiritual — a chakra or point of vital emphasis appears above the cranium. Even small children feel heaven or, at least, Neverland is up there.
What is it the vertical mammal has aspired to for so long that even now we discover mankind’s birth cry engraved in our speech like archeological stone? Anyway, this magic spell is the original, foremost and eternal essence of human nature. Case closed.
…Yet the tense and empty among us somehow overlook their immortal ghostly selves and see only monkeys. Very well, I answered your question, conformists, so now let me ask you.
Why did the monkey stand up in the first place?
Herbork 
What a wonderful image you’ve snared for this piece, Herb! (Can I “steal” it?)!
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Re: “Logic dictates, if we uncover even one uniquely human trait held in common always by all peoples everywhere, then conformists are mistaken.”
Er, NO – that would only reveal us to ALL be genetically pre-determined conformists LOL!
I’m pretty sure we ARE all animals, and therefore also all machines. My cat can imagine the future enought to become angry and so try to force it’s will upon me when it doesn’t get it’s treats delivered as scheduled on time. It can also anticipate a squirrel’s movements enough when it’s chasing one, to aim itself at where the running squirrel WILL soon be, and it knows enough not to aim at where said squirrel currently still IS. My cat also has a memory, so it can & obviously does experience consciousness as I do: it knows not only how to avoid immediate pain, but also to fear being potentially stepped on by us clumsy giants. It has hopes (usually, to perform the treat-summoning rituals correctly, and so be rewarded for same).. in that way, it can be said my cat has religion, too!
Our “fundamental good will” in trying to defuse these conformists’ attacks, IS a prime example of the binary basics we machine/animals work from: “Altruislm” is only the most coldly calculating, self-interested of all “emotions;” we are always – and quite instinctively, too – hoping to defuse potential enemies’ attacks by seeing them and objectifying them as our selves; as equally prone to the binary manipulations of fear (the memory of pain, projected to the future) and ‘greed’ or hope (the memory of the relief from pain and fear, as equally projected to the future) by trying to negate their own fears by making them (see the logic of being) safe, and to cancel their greeds by making them feel happy, respectively.
And the generalized, abstracted habit of doing this – turning our basic impulse to fight fire with fire, or fear-OF-you, into a somewhat detatched fear-FOR-you (without going so far as to self-enslave ourselves, as the masochistic liberals so-often do, by falsely spinning away their own right of self-reliant responsibility with this sort of puerile, circular ‘reasoning’ tautology: “If I Submit to your claims that you’re better than me, then it’ll all be your fault, and, since it’s then all your fault, none of it can be my fault, so I’m still better than you! Whee!” which of course ignores that the Submitting to the other is a choice, and even a choice to do nothing to defend one’s self – is still a choice!) is called “Love!” (For, is not making the beloved other feel “Safe & Happy” the very definition of ‘Love?’)!
Bottom line: people – like all machines (“and” animals) can be manipulated almost infinitely – we are all born tabula rasa, but the binary of pain/no pain, fear (of pain)/hope (of no pain) IS our most basic nature – because it IS, basically, at the root of ALL nature, and humans are only a sub-category of this ever-expanding universally existing principal.
That being said, it’s obvious that conformists are scared of thinking, because they’ve mistakenly spun their fears of the probems and mistakes which cause the pains they fear, into generalized, abstracted and idolatrous images of pain; they fear fear AS pain, and so always try to deny their fears, in stead of facing them to determine how to hope to solve the problems and avoid making the mistakes which cause the pains they really fear.
Being literal “psycho-paths” (thought-killers) they fear thinking itself AS pain, and so work to prevent them selves and all others from getting to hope; this embodies their favorite syndrome, the false “emotion” known as “jealousy,” where they seek to bring everyone else down to their lowest common denominator level, rather than risk the fear of having any actual hope of improving them selves (or allowing any others to do so, too).
This “Bringing Down” metaphor is an image of Submitting to ever-contracting fear and pain – to “inevitable” gravity (which is why moslems bang their heads into the ground to serve allah – of course, the joke is that they’re knocking on Hell’s ceiling to get Satan’s attention).
Hope and love are expansive, and, because the ever-expanding earth is causing the illusion of gravity (which force causes the most basic sensation of pain; to be feared) the opposite – “Up!” – is the ONLY direction which even our rudimentary array of binary senses can determine to be pain and fear-free; it’s the direction of Hope and Expansion.
(PS: You really should get around to reading Mark McCutcheon’s book, Herb)!
😉
I forgot to add:
(Fearing fear, they see hope as a false idol, not to be hoped for, but to be feared in itself, too)! While killing their own hopes, they can also pretend to be doing others a favour, by killing off their hopes, too! This they call “realism;” and it would be, if it were only the start (focus on the fear to discover the source of the mistakes and pain) of the two-part fear (of mistakes and problems causing pain)–>hope (of no pain) thinking process, rather than the short-curcuited end of all thinking, in stead! This automatic ‘Submission’ to inevitable defeat, pretty-much defines these traitors to rationality and civilization: they see being attacked (pain or be pained, attack first or be attacked first, eat or be eaten) as inevitable, “so” they pretend they are only honsetly and realistically “defending’ them selves by slanderously, pre-emptively, attacking their innocent victims first. Liberalism IS a mental disease, also known as “criminality.” In the past, defending making a mistake/causing a problem for others, in stead of admitting to it and so solving it, was called “Sin;” it’s really only turning basic negligence, into criminal negligence, by ‘owning’ the mistake in order to avoid the subjectively feared pains of being proven mistaken or wrong.