Human Nature

Human Nature

A lot of statements have been made throughout the years that war will always be around because it is a part of human nature. These words always upset me because I knew they were untrue, but I had been unable to refute them until recently. War is not human nature. If it were, we would not get PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from just observing war. Our returning soldiers would not have suicidal thoughts, or flash backs of the horrors they had seen.

It would be a huge evolutionary mistake to not be able to withstand something that is supposed to be part of our nature. Fortunately, while war has been endemic for humans, it is not because it is our nature. War, for lots of different reasons, has simply been our choice.

When allegations are made, that war is part of human nature, they are actually commenting on man’s ego nature. To avoid confusion with other definitions of ego, I will simply define ego as the part of us that desires power. I will talk about ego again, in more depth, at a later time, but for now I want to describe Human Nature.

The best example of Human Nature is people’s response whenever a disaster occurs in the world. When disasters happen, people from everywhere around the world want to help out. I saw this happen during Katrina, as well as the Tsunami, and the earthquake in Haiti. At my favorite coffee shop, Brew Bakers, many people were discussing how they might help out. Some decided to take time off and go to these places. A few even quit their jobs because their employers were trying to keep them from going to help. When this happened time and again, I wondered at what could possibly compel seemingly ordinary people to go to help others, they did not even know without any benefit to themselves.

Eventually, I realized that only something as deep as our own Human Nature could compel us in such a powerful way. What confirmed this idea of Human Nature for me was the positive feedback that seemed to be built in to helping others. That positive feeling clues us in that it is the right thing for us to do, and that it is in synch with a deeper aspect of our “being.” If it were not our nature, it would be easy to ignore.

You might ask yourself, if this is true, why then, do we not help each other more frequently? When a disaster happens, it knocks us out of ego long enough for our humanity to surface. However, since we did not consciously choose to be in our humanity, we generally revert back to our Culture of Violence after a while. I will discuss how ego keeps us separated from our humanity more thoroughly in the future. For now, I will thoroughly revel in the idea that is in our very nature to help each other out.
Dan
© 2010 Dan Amato