Great example of the base informing the superstructure, IMO. "Original sin" was always a concept in Christianity, but with the Protestant Reformation developing alongside capitalism - and the development of a "bourgeois religion" - you get ideologies like "total depravity" and the idea that humans are by nature corrupted by sin and can only do bad thing other than by the grace of God.

And guess what?! Seeing humanity as completely fallen and "sinful" means that any hope of a better future on earth will ultimately be futile. So don't even try... because "muh human nature".

:parenti: has a lot to say about human nature.

The clip is cut short but after his first question he stops to go back and add that humans also have the capacity for tremendous kindness and greatness, but that we need to think coherently about both and what we can do to encourage some aspects of our nature and discourage others.

His main point is that it's not constructive to engage in the leftist response to the right-wing human nature arguments by arguing that humans have no inherent nature.

Whenever someone says, "It's human nature to be [selfish/greedy/violent]," I hear, "I won't blame myself in the slightest for being [selfish/greedy/violent]"

99.99% of the human nature argument is shitty people trying to absolve themselves for shitty behavior by imagining anyone else would have done the same in their circumstances.

Everything about our existence from the cohabitation of gut flora, or the fossilized remains of ancestors with mended bone fractures, to the way our brain processes "Truth" points to a cooperative & collaberative "nature"; but sure go off about how being a selfish dickhead is "natural" behavior to you I guess.

E: This is aside from the fact that it betrays a certain cowardice. Like, even if the Human nature-ist is correct they are not enslaved to this behavior. To the contrary, working to transcend this "natural instinct" would be seen as honorable; rising above the rabble or whatever. But they're too cowardly, stupid, or lazy to even see things on these terms; content instead to shrug and say "Anyone would have sold out their family for some paper."

There may well be a fundamental human nature, but no way to test it. But even past that, the amount of times I can find a counter example to what capitalists call human nature is like I'm an anthropologist dunking on Freud.

It's human nature to make jerk-off motions when someone claims something is human nature.

Cooperation for mutual benefit is human nature 😈