The story we are told about human nature is that man is inherently self-interested, pleasure-seeking, sinning and utilitarian – doing the minimum to get the maximum benefits for oneself, and that this nature is driven by a life that is nasty, brutish and short. Indeed, all we have to do is take a cursory glance over history, and we’ll see the world stricken with crime, wars, genocide, power games, and greedy, greedy people taking advantage for themselves, to the detriment of everyone else (*cough* Bernie Madoff *cough*).
But maybe we are overlooking something. I heard an interview with Jeremy Rifkin, which you can listen to here, in which he discusses his new book The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. You can read the first chapter of it here. I haven’t read the book yet, but the interview alone blew me away. Rifkin talks about evolutionary biology and a wealth of science coming out now that suggests that human beings may not naturally be so self-interested. In fact, what really drives humans is our need for social contact. We are social beings and we engage with others through our ability to empathize. (This makes sense right? Why else would we love literature and movies so much except by our ability to empathize with the main characters for example? Why else would we need love and affection, friends and family in our lives if that weren’t so? But that is not our view of ourselves, especially not where politics or religion is concerned.) What we see when we look at history is not actually the norm of human behavior, but rather the product of historians who are interested in power games and struggles, in wars and who has power and who doesn’t. In short, historians are interested not in the norm of human nature, but in the aberrations. People helping each other with their daily survival needs, people talking kindly to each other, people working together…none of this is interesting.
If you are unconvinced, think for a moment about our news. Our news is filled with the Iraq War, Afghanistan, political scandals, intrigues, anything that involves sex, blood or mayhem. Saying hello to your neighbor and giving money to the homeless is not newsworthy. So if you consider what is deemed “interesting”, you see it is the stuff that is different, outside the norm of accepted behavior. Thus what we have of recorded history is what was “news” of the time. In the historical research I’ve done, (looking into ancient Greece and ancient Persia for example) it is far easier to find records of warfare, technology, and kings and their courts than it is to find out the social ceremonies when people invited guests into their homes. We might have records of what they ate and how they worked, but it’s harder to find out how they greeted each other and how often they had time to socialize. As it was put in the interview, “history is made by the pathological”. It’s not normal human behavior that gets recorded, nor is it normal people who usually lead nations. That turn of phrase really made me think just how much of human history might have been lost to the fascination with the pathological.
The interview goes on to discuss how young babies are not inherently scheming, self-interested utilitarians. What they want most is social connectedness. They yearn for the connection with their mothers, and when they do not get it, that’s when we begin to see narcissism, selfishness, and a very slow erosion of the ability to connect. This insight really caught me because I recall earlier parenting advice often advocated letting babies cry themselves out, instead of going to pick them up every time they cried. But, if I understand correctly, there has been a shift in thinking (for example, with advocates of babywearing) that suggests babies should in fact be picked up when they need attention because that need is very real and very important for their development.
Towards the end of the interview, Rifkin discusses the different ages man has gone through and how technological development has shifted man’s consciousness and ability to empathize with others, moving from blood kin through religious associations, national affiliation…to where we are now on the precipice of a global age, aided by digital technology that puts us in touch with people all over the globe. He warns we must be clear about what we want from this technology and how we apply it, in our ability to empathize with others.
If it is true that humans are naturally social, empathetic beings, that has powerful implications for the possibilities of our entire world order, how we engage in politics, and how we understand ourselves. I’m sure Rifkin’s book explores this angle much more fully. But what I find fascinating is the possibility that we assume man to be self-interested utilitarians and that this frame of reference actually shapes how we interact with each other. If we can take empathy as the status quo, how differently would we behave? If we assumed others merely wanted our love, how would we treat them?
It also strikes me that this view of human nature has a decidedly feminine bent. By feminine, I don’t mean female in the sense that only women have this trait. Rather, I mean, if humans have both masculine and feminine traits, with each individual (and maybe each society) falling somewhere along a spectrum between extreme masculinity and extreme femininity…this worldview has a feminine quality to it, with its emphasis on social connectivity and emotive needs and desires. And the view we have had before has had more of a masculine quality to it, as it has been written primarily by men and about men. Now I want to be careful here. I’m not saying masculinity is pathological. Obviously not. Both sides of the spectrum have important and valuable contributions to a functioning society. But I’m suggesting that our view of mankind might have been skewed by a suppression of the feminine voice. And what I find most interesting is that so much of scientific, psychological, sociological, and literary pursuits (among a wealth of others) are starting to reflect the feminine voice more – and this coincides with research that suggests women are beginning to move more into positions of power. They are graduating at greater rates than men, they are scoring higher on exams and getting higher degrees and beginning to take up greater proportions of typically “male” fields. Now it is no where near parity and equality has not been achieved in a lot of areas. But it is happening at a rate that educators are beginning to fear there is a gender gap crisis – with boys being the ones who are falling behind.
I know I’m connected in meaningful ways with people with whom I’d never have been able to in any other time before this. And all of that is due to the wonders of the digital age. But can the digital age really fuel greater connectivity? And can it really provide a means for helping us change our basic assumptions about those with whom we connect?
* Photo courtesy of: http://thenewwriters.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/a-possible-vision-social-harmony/
Hey Jade, that’s a really interesting and thought-provoking post. Definitely over the last half century, evolutionary biologists and cognitive scientists have increasingly overturned the atavistic Hobbesian view of human nature. Some even contest that there is such a thing as “a” “human nature” in the sense of there being some fundamental motive (whether selfishness, altruism, or something else) that is primary and/or from with all others derive.
I think you’re right to point out that mainstream historians and news media emphasize the avarice and lust of humanity because of the ability of these things to catch attention and inspire controversy. So in a sense these images do not capture “normal” human behavior because they obscure the every-day activity of individual life. Indeed, they catch attention precisely because they are “extra-” ordinary. But is it fair to say that because historians/media focus on the extraordinary that they therefore represent the abnormal and obscure the normal? This may be a problematic slippery slope (aren’t slippery slopes problematic in general?
), because it almost seems to equate behavior that is common with behavior that is normal, or as you say, “the norm.” This may further imply that commonality can be a proxy for the “natural,” to the extent that uncommon behavior represents an “aberration” from the “norm of human nature.”
Putting aside the question of whether violence and greed are more or less common than altruism and empathy (a tall order, methodologically, and it’s not clear what this statistic would tell us anyway) I’ve yet seen any convincing research that suggests that any of these behaviors or corresponding sets of motives are more or less, let’s say “alien,” to the human motivational repertoire than the others. Yes, we are empathizers, but does this render aggression abnormal? Yes, we are selfish, but does this mean we don’t care about others? The tragedy of the human condition may be that the human motivational complex is a network of competing desires and difficult internal tradeoffs; viz. there is no homunculus, no ultimate motive. The hope of the human condition, as we would both agree, is that we have the capacity to decide that the historians are wrong about our future. So the more research we uncover that problematizes Hobbesian claims on human nature, the better. But the failure of Hobbes does not vindicate Rousseau.
Great post! I like your space here. You’re a great writer and I like the variety on your page. I’ll have to check out the Rifkin book. Only book I’ve read of his is The Hydrogen Economy. it was a good read. Hope you’re doing well, Jade!
grrr…. 1st paragraph above, last sentence, “…from *which* all others derive” =)
Hi Anthony! Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply! You make a very good point about cautioning against reducing human nature to one particular motive and calling all others abnormal or outside any kind of “norm”. I hadn’t thought about it, but I was definitely using imprecise language there. I would have to read the book to determine whether Rifkin does too, though that was the sense that I got from the interview.
To clarify my perspective, I personally am reticent to assume any kind of “rationality” when it comes to people, and common definitely doesn’t mean “normal” or whatever that implies. “Normal” is actually a really problematic word. And beyond having just one trait or even a set of traits, I imagine any important traits also include spectrums of degree (like the masculine/feminine one I mention). However, if empathy is at least an important primary ability and society an important drive, I would still think that humans are incredibly prone and susceptible to fear. And how fear manifests itself can lead to a whole multitude of possible responses that underlie a lot of behavior we see. Throw in trauma of any kind and then the possibilities get even more complex.
But even if it doesn’t all boil down to empathy, I do like to imagine what it would be like if the Hobbesian view wasn’t so dominant. What if we discovered, through scientific evidence, that we’ve been assuming a Hobbesian view of the world and that’s why our politics has manifested itself in the way it has (i.e. principally realist/neo-realist paradigm)? What if we discovered that humans actually do have a more empathetic nature than we’ve assumed and the more self-interested actions have come when social connectivity failed and that it’s actually possible to prevent or minimize that failure? What if we assumed more empathy, how would our personal interactions and, by extension, world politic change? As a fan of Moravcsik and old-school constructivism, it makes me happy to ponder such things.
Thanks so much for your comments and I hope all is going well with you too!
Sorry. I meant Wendt, not Moravscik. Don’t know what I was thinking. =}
All great points! I share your interest in many of these questions. What I find particularly ironic is that, in an age in which science is elevated to priesthood status in terms of the faith we tend to put in its claims, the Hobbesian caricature persists despite abundant scientific arguments to the contrary. It’s almost as if we’re afraid to *not* believe in the Hobbesian vision. For, if this vision is false, then suddenly we have no one to blame but ourselves for the poor choices we’ve made. The Hobbesian view places us at a safe distance from responsibility. After all, under anarchy, one has *no choice* but to be selfish. We don’t choose to be selfish any more than we choose to breathe. Makes it a little easier to sleep at night…
can you tell I like using asterisks for emphasis? It’s *very* exciting.
=)
Right, that is totally ironic and an interesting point. I’m sure there’s plenty of ex post facto absolution of guilt for acting in self-interested ways by telling ourselves that it was the rational thing to do. But, I was thinking about it, and I think, even if humans are naturally social, empathetic creatures, I don’t think we’re TOTALLY empathetic. We’re not worker ants or bees servicing the entire colony, where when one dies, all the others feel it. I think personal space and freedom also play an important role in the human psyche and learning to develop a fairly distinct sense of self and some degree of independence is a part of mental health. I think the part that is difficult is finding a way to negotiate the balance between self and other. And not to beat a dead horse or anything, but I think we also have difficulty recognizing our own fears and knowing what to do with them: how much of our anger really stems from fear, how much of our actions are really because in our hearts we are afraid, and how fear shapes not only that we respond, but how we respond. So the minute we begin to fear is the minute we withdraw our compassion and begin rationalizing our subsequent actions.
Hehe…I’m *fond* of them myself, at least when I can’t use italics, which are my favorite.