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Concerning Human Nature

July 12, 2007 1:25 AM

s longtime readers may know, I hate hippies. I hate hippies for many reasons, but it's mostly because hippies have stupid ideas. One night during college, some friends and I engaged in a conversation about human nature. We discussed what human nature was and what it meant. I respected most of the people in the conversation, which included Mr. X. But the problem was that there were also various hippies involved. We were also drunk, but that's not the point.

Anyway, we were in the middle of this conversation and we had essentially reached what Mr. X. likes to call "circle land"--everyone had said what they thought, everyone else had shot them down, and now people were just repeating themselves. So I called for a summation of everyone's position. I explained mine, others explained theirs, and then the hippy spoke. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was something like this:

Human nature, man, is like a circle--a big, green circle. And it's got all the different animals and plants in it--in this circle. And it's, like, man is there, in the circle, and everything is going around and stuff, in the circle. And it's all, like, green and stuff, you know, like--yeah?

If the white-hot power of my hatred could kill, the fucker would have evaporated on the spot.

In any event, afs, in response to my last post, directed me to this article. It's called Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature. I was curious, so I checked it out. Here are the ten truths:

1. Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them). I'm glad we've got researchers on this case. Men like blonds? And women want to be blond? Men like big tits? And women want big tits? Awesome. Thanks.
2. Humans are naturally polygamous. You mean, evolutionarily speaking, early man wasn't about weddings, rings, and life-long commitment? Again, shocking.
3. Most women benefit from polygyny, while most men benefit from monogamy. It's better for women to be able to share a rich man than have a poor man all to themselves. On the flip side, monagamy ensures that there's a pretty even male-to-female ratio, so men will probably find a mate. Under polygyny, the best men would get all the women and the worst men would get no woman at all.
4. Most suicide bombers are Muslim. This one can actually be verified. I'm sure it's true, but the interesting point is the reasons the article gives for why it's true. Most suicide bombers are poor, young, and single. Moreover, Islam condones polygyny, so poor, young men are screwed over in terms of being able to attract women, who all gravitate to rich men. Add in the fact that Islam promises suicide bombers seventy-two virgins, and you've got a recipe for, well, disaster.
5. Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce. Wealth means reproductive success. A son's attractiveness depends on his wealth, which his father can influence. A daughter's wealth depends on her youth and attractiveness, which her father cannot influence. Therefore, men will stick around for sons but not for daughters.
6. Beautiful people have more daughters. The article claims that this one's true, but concedes that "[t]he biological mechanism by which this occurs is not yet understood." I call shenanigans on the whole thing.
7. What Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have in common with criminals. Men's creativity and proclivity for criminal behavior increases through adolescence, peaks in the twenties, and then rapidly declines. Which explains why Mr. McCartney hasn't written a hit song in a while and why Mr. Gates is rich as shit but is no longer a software wunderkind.
8. The midlife crisis is a myth—sort of. A man's mid-life crisis is due to his wife's entering menopause, not his being crazy.
9. It's natural for politicians to risk everything for an affair (but only if they're male). Being powerful and successful means you can be incredibly successful reproductively, so why not take advantage of it? if you're a man, you will.
10. Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist. This one splits sexual harrassment into two categories. In the first, men use their power to attempt to get sex. That one just makes sense (see above). In the second, men treat women as they'd treat other men--and, in fact, as they treated other men before women entered the work force--so men aren't discriminating. Instead, apparently, women just can't take it.

As I tried to say in that conversation with that fucking hippy, thinking of things in terms of human nature is dumb, not because human beings aren't predisposed to acting in certain ways, but because human beings are the only animal of which I am aware that have the potential to disregard whatever predispositions evolution might impose. It might be human nature to be omnivorous, but there are plenty of people that don't eat meat--we call those people idiots. Similarly, it might be human nature for men, taken as a whole, to prefer blonds, but that doesn't mean anything about the preferences about any particular individual, and I know plenty of people--myself included--that prefer, for example, red hair.

More important than that, however, is the fact that human nature and morality are unrelated. Just because human beings are predisposed to do or not do some thing has no effect on whether that thing is right or wrong (and there are such things as objective right and wrong, but that's a whole other post). It doesn't matter, for example, if it's understandable, from a biological perspective, for a politician to have an affair. Cheating on your significant other is, in almost all circumstances, wrong. It is no moral excuse to say "Well, sure, I fucked my intern, but that's because I have access to all these women! It would be stupid of me not to take advantage of this opportunity to procreate!" It may be true that humans have these tendencies, but it's also true that we expect others and ourselves not to give into them.

Also, it seems that a lot of these are incredible oversimplifications, particularly the one about suicide bombers. Now, assuming that the article fairly represents the statistics (which I have no reason to doubt), the explanation they present is naive at best and, at worst, a completely indefensible slight to Muslims around the world. It may be true that the vast majority of Muslim suicide bombers are poor, young, single men. It does not necessarily follow, however, that their actions are motivated entirely by their inability to get laid on Earth and their belief that they will get laid a lot in heaven.

First of all, the Wikipedia entry that mentions the seventy-two virgins thing says that at least one Muslim scholar claims that "mainstream Muslims regard this belief about 72 virgins in the same way that mainstream Christians regard the belief that after death they will be issued with wings and a harp, and walk on clouds." In other words, mainstream Muslims probably don't take that particular passage literally. Suicide bombers are certainly not "mainstream," but it seems like a stretch to believe that a large number of Muslims take the virgin thing seriously--even those associated with fringe groups.

Moreover, the explanation the article offers fails to consider the possibility that suicide bombers are suicide bombers because they choose to be. There are many poor, young, single Muslim men that do not become suicide bombers. If the decision was as clear cut as the article suggests, it seems that the entire Muslim lower class would be lining up to have dynamite strapped to their chests. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

Ultimately, what's wrong with the list isn't that it's incorrect--I'm sure it's largely accurate. What's wrong is that it fails to consider human agency--I can choose what to do, and so can you.

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