Transcript of Presentation by Prof. Micahel Sonnleitner

 Human Nature

Dr. Michael Sonnleitner 

Human nature is often talked about but it is not really looked at in a systematic way.
There are at least nine distinct views of human nature. We will see where Gandhi fits in those categories and I will be asking you all to think about where you may find yourself more in tune with a particular view of human nature. It makes a huge amount of difference as to what path to peace makes sense to you, what your attitude is towards nonviolence. There are two major ways of looking at human nature either on the individual level or in groups. If you look at this diagram  carefully, you would see in the upper left corner viewed individually and then across on the top you will see individually. Human nature can be seen as social and sharing, selfish or unsharing or conditioned, a matter of environment. Similarly, if you look at it in groups, if you go vertically, it can be social and sharing, selfish and unsharing or conditioned, a matter of environment. So, this allows us if you look at it in each box for example in the middle, we have Thomas Hobbes. Let's pick on him a little bit because he is very popular in terms of thinking today. In his view, human nature is on the individual level selfish and unsharing. On the group level, it is also selfish and unsharing. He's the middle box of those nine. Human nature is almost completely selfish and unsharing, according to Thomas Hobbes. Let us look at him and his influence a little and then we can look at the others. Let me pretend to be Thomas Hobbes quoting from the book Leviathan.

 Thomas Hobbes: All of you understand life is nasty, brutish and short. The state of humankind is a state of war or preparation for war of all against all. War is the natural state of humankind because human nature is thoroughly selfish and unsharing. There is no such thing as love. Gandhi is a crazy man. Love is simply one person manipulating another person to satisfy their own selfish needs. That's all what love is. You understand? I'm Thomas Hobbes. I'm British. By the way, I'm living during a period of the 30 years of war in Europe from 1618 to 1648. Europe was at war. Yes, it was a religious war. Yes, it was a war based upon the crumbling of empires, but basically it was war. Over half of Europe died during those 30 years. I lived through it. I saw the reality of human nature. Between war and the bubonic plague, 50% of the population of Europe died. Now, I'm telling you the truth. It might not be very nice, but human nature is selfish and self-centered and that's the reality of it.

Now, if you have that view of human nature, Mr. Hobbes, what do you think is the best structure for government? That's easy. We should have an elected king for life. Yes, I believe in a social contract and the people should submit to one superior power in which they live in fear. This is logical. Otherwise, people will be constantly killing one another. The natural state of war is war. You understand? So, it is logical to give all political power to one person, one person alone in whom we live in fear. That one person will keep us in a law-and-order state and keep us from killing one another. Well, Thomas Hobbes with this view of human nature and this view of centralizing power in one person to keep us all obeying the law which is you ruling by decree. Isn't this the foundation for Adolf Hitler?Isn't this the foundation for any authoritarian ruler, a king? This is anti-democratic, Mr. Hobbes. Well, yes, of course it is because democracy is foolish. Democracy is a matter of chaos. Ignorant people seeking their self-interests will never really come to agree. Are you beginning to see the participants in this course? Are you beginning to see the consequence of an idea? If you have a view of human nature that echoes Thomas Hobbes, then having a dictator for your ruler is logical. Clearly, Gandhi would disagree with this, but Gandhi of course has a different view of human nature. I don't want to walk you through the history of political thought though that would be easy using this diagram.

In the upper left-hand corner of these nine views, we have almost the opposite of Thomas Hobbes. Human nature individually is social and sharing. Human nature in groups is social and sharing. In that upper lefthand corner we have St. Francis of Assisi, one who did not believe in the need for any government. He was naturally an anarchist. If human beings are naturally sharing individually and in groups then what need do we have for the government? What need do we have for any centralized power? We can be the best of our natures. Just submit to God and the love of God and you and Eden can be brought back to earth.   St. Francis and Thomas Hobbes are almost opposite and their views have almost opposite consequences. Do you understand? Now if we go across the top three boxes there is St. Francis. There is Adam Smith, the economist who favoured free enterprise capitalism. And there is John Locke on the right on the top. And you can see the differences. They all believe that human beings in groups are social and sharing that having families is a natural thing. And the common element across the top three boxes is some kind of liberalism as an idea system. They value freedom primarily. If you compare freedom with equality with stability as the primary values, liberals believe in liberty, freedom.

St. Francis in the upper left-hand box. His view of human nature lends itself to more of an extremely decentralized and almost anarchist existence in society because we don't need much government. We just need to obey the love of God. You move slightly and you see individuals as selfish and sharing unsharing. That's Adam Smith. And he believes that there's inherent competition among selfish individuals. But in society, it will all work out. The invisible hand of supply and demand will give us what we need. And we don't need a strong government. We just need free enterprise capitalism. In the upper right-hand corner with John Lock believed that yes, we are social and sharing in groups but as an individual we are conditioned responses to our environment.

We are like a blank slate as a baby that is written upon by our parents and by the environment that we find ourselves in. John Locke is very keen on producing an environment that will encourage people to get along, perhaps a constitutional form of democracy.

 In the middle left to right, I see St. Augustine Thomas Hobbes and Machiavelli, the Italian from Florence who wrote the book The Prince. These three in the middle three boxes going left to right are reflections of a conservative ideology which values stability far more than freedom or equality. St. Augustine believes that we are social and sharing as individuals. We are born in the image of God. But in society, there is the city of God and there's a city of man. And the city of man is often very competitive and selfish. And St. Augustine will advocate for a submission to a hierarchical Catholic church where the Pope may help keep us in our place. Thomas Hobbes, we've already discussed, believed in a king elected for life, an absolute ruler. Machiavelli believes that yes, we are a conditioned response individually to our environment, but we need to have a powerful prince that leads us who is wise as a fox and as powerful as a lion, combining the fox and the lion ideal.
 
 In any case, those three typically reflect some kind of a conservative ideology and they believe in more centralized power. At the bottom we have individuals and groups that are a conditioned response to their environment. On the left we have Plato then the Frenchman Jean Jacques Rousseau and on the far-right bottom corner Karl Marx the advocate of communism as an ideal. All of these on the three bottom typically lend themselves to some form of socialism because they value equality as a much greater ideal. So, I'm hoping this is not confusing. I'm hoping that you can begin to see that different people will have different views of human nature. And it will have consequences in terms of what structure they want human beings to be living under politically and it will affect their view of how to interact with other people. There may be many more than nine categories of human nature, but these nine are complicated enough for our purposes.

 I find my students often are able to begin to think where do I stand? What is my view? What consequences of my view of human nature might there be? Gandhi would often say, "As we think, so we behave." I'm asking you to think about how you think. Now if you think that Thomas Hobbes is right, then you are probably disposed to being very conservative and you probably feel comfortable in a very centralized power structure. And your idea of nonviolence is mostly negative because it is not conflict, not war, not crime, right? Not not not. It's much more of a negative view of peace and nonviolence. But even Thomas Hobbes wants peace. He just thinks we need to have a king to create it. And much of his belief is rooted in his view of human nature which is of course rooted in his experience as I mentioned during the 30 years of war in Europe. I might add that Thomas Hobbes was a complete materialist.

 He did not believe in God. He believed only in what he could see, feel, taste, touch, and smell. There was nothing beyond the five senses for Hobbes. And so based upon his five senses during a period of intense warfare, he universalized his view to say that human nature in all cultures everywhere and at all times is selfish and unsharing. Now we will discuss a little bit about Gandhi. I will go in greater depth regarding Gandhi later where we will be looking systematically at Gandhi's concepts and idea of worldview. But as a preview, understand that Gandhi certainly believed that individuals are inherently social and sharing. Individuals on the individual level are good. We are fundamentally souls. The atman that is within us is the spark of life that animates our physical existence.
 

The atman or soul is good. It is the source of all creativity, all love. It is the foundation of life. And Gandhi would say that the soul within me is the same as the soul within each of you is the same as the soul that animates other creatures. From fish in the sea to deer in the woods to an elephant in Africa. We are all bonded by this life force according to Gandhi. And my soul is like a drop of water in relation to the ocean. It is substantially the same as God. It is related to God in a sense. I am God and I am not God at the same time. The soul within me that one drop of water if we put it under a microscope will be the God that is truth and love. And for Gandhi the purpose of life is to see and understand who we are. How our drop of water relates to all of the rest of creation. How we are really not separate from any other human beings.

For Gandhi, it's not just a matter of lineage. Anthropologists can take us back to a common ancestor which is called Lucy. Lucy lived about 3.2 two million years ago in Africa in the area which is now known as Uganda. We are all out of Africa. But for Gandhi, this is true. This is science. This is evolution. And yet Gandhi would say it is a spiritual reality. Lucy had a soul. I have a soul. My soul is the same as yours. It's the same drop of water. Soul has no gender. It's not a male soul or a female soul. It is simply God. It is what it is. So, you can see Gandhi's attitude relating to soul and on the individual level how we are naturally social and good relates to his attitude towards women. For Gandhi we are all fundamentally a person first not a gender. I look male first. I look white first.

 
I am an American citizen first.  I will speak English first. But all of these things are simply a product of my environment. My soul has no gender. It has no nationality. It has no distinct individuality. It is God for Gandhi. In many ways you can see how Gandhi would like St. Francis of Assisi. Gandhi would have something in common with St. Augustine. But Gandhi also believed that the environment shapes us. And I would suggest that Gandhi's view of human nature is closest to that of Plato in the far bottom left corner. Gandhi was a very decentralized socialist in many ways. He believed in decentralized power as we will see in village   republics  that would relate to his concept of swaraj and  that is self-rule and swadeshi which is self-reliance. Gandhi believes in very decentralized power  partly because we are fundamentally on the individual level social and sharing because we have a soul that is in tune with God and is inherently loving and caring.
 
  
Well, Mr. Gandhi, tell me if you're right about that then how do you explain war? How do you explain so much violence? Gandhi would be responding by saying something like well tell me Michael what is history? Well, history is mostly war and violence and crime. That's what we record on the news. That's what comes up in the history books. And Gandhi's response to that is, well, Michael, understand that history as recorded history is mostly a record of abnormal human behaviour. History is for Gandhi primarily a record of abnormal human behaviour. Most of the time Gandhi would say we get along. Hindus and Muslims get along in India. Christians and others get along in the world. The Crusades of the Middle Ages is abnormal human behaviour. Most of the time in day-to-day living, neighbours greet neighbours. Neighbours help neighbours. Mothers care for their children. That doesn't make the news. Gandhi's fundamental response to Hobbes is, "Mr. Hobbes, if human nature was as bad as you say it is, we would have destroyed ourselves long ago. We would be a species that would be self-destructive. And Gandhi's response would say and did say that most of the time human beings are nonviolent and they are nonviolent in a positive way. It's a peace that is based upon respect and self-respect. It's a peace that is founded upon equitable, fair behaviour, living according to the golden rule, not because it's a religious dictate, but because it simply makes sense to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Now, of course, you can believe Gandhi is crazy or not. But fundamentally he believes that the environment corrupts us. If the individuals and groups are living in a colonial environment where in this case the British rule over India that is an environment that breeds disrespect you don't if you don't have self-respect because your environment tells you the colour of your skin makes you less worthy of respect or your gender makes you less worthy of respect.

 If you're in an environment that oppresses you and exploits you, a colonial or neo  colonial or dominant environment, then that will tend to create scarcity. It will tend to create hardship and your human nature might reflect on  division, polarization and a  kind of violence in relation to one another. So it's important for Gandhi to be able to have an environment that nurtures good. The same good that is inherently in your spirit and soul. So Mr. Gandhi, are we free to create any environment we want? Well, Gandhi would say yes and no. Gandhi  would say "We have about as much freedom as a passenger on a crowded ocean liner. We can move about the deck. Occasionally, we can visit with the captain. We may have some ability to give input into the direction the ship is going." But Gandhi would say in a group certainly in a global group of 8 billion people were only a small part of the passengers on the ship. We can influence one another to behave in more gentle ways, more loving ways and our traveling on the ocean liner that may be our individual nation may be more pleasant.

 
 We can have communities and our nation does not have to be a warship. We can make it a ship for good that brings medical supplies to Gaza that it shares with others. So yes, we have freedom, but we don't as individuals, we don't have the power to impact all other people in a large way. We need to be able to manifest in our relationships in our family, our relationships in our village or eventually our city and do the best we can to produce a more loving, caring society., Gandhi was similar to Karl Marx, but you can see they're not in the same box, are they? Because Karl Marx believed that we are entirely a product of our environment. Not just in groups, but as individuals. We are entirely created by our environment. Karl Marx is not talking about soul or soul force. Karl Marx wants to control the environment so as to produce more loving people. His motivation is good. Perhaps we need to have a dictatorship of the proletariat or working class.

  We may need to have a centralized power in the short term to allow the state to wither away in the long term. But people need to be reconditioned according to Karl Marx. And that might require a dictator to do it. Gandhi is on the more far left of our bottom box. You can see it because he believes in the soul. He believes in the fundamental goodness of human beings and he is more decentralized in his belief in how we should use power in this world. So even though Gandhi and Marx have some things in common, Gandhi is not a materialist. He believes that there is that which is beyond the five senses. And just because you cannot see, feel, taste, touch, or smell God, doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. Now I am rambling too much.

I think we are going to leave most of our participants behind if we get  into Arthur Schopenhauer or Thomas  Hobbes or Karl Marx or  St.Augustine in detail. I am simply giving them an idea of the range of different views of human nature.  You could if you want to spend some time thinking about Schopenhauer and where he might fit into these nine different categories of human nature and you can answer your own question. What I'm more interested in here is less academic and more personal. Where do you find yourself? How do you think that is more interesting to me?