Skip to main content

The basest instincts of man.

Contributors at Blackfive are discussing PTSD and related re-integration/adjustment issues. (Do do DO read the post by Grim) The discussion is about those who have a distinct need for help, but also the normal adjustment that many people have to make. A commentor, Jordan, made this remark:

We can't medicalize and therapize this "gravitas" or sudden horrible insight into the basest instincts of man.

I made this comment:

A thought... is the problem of adjusting back again related to a cultural denial of the basest instincts of man?

Lest I go and get religious on us all, the concept of a corrupt human nature is something that doesn't get much play in our culture. People aren't *bad* naturally, they're good, and if they are bad it's because something made them that way. Probably society. I think this is back-*ssward, though. But it's necessary if people are going to go with "do what you feel" to teach and preach that "what you feel" is just fine and dandy. And that means explaining the "bad stuff", crime and abuse and hatred, as caused society instead of on human nature.

An unrelated (to wartime readjustment) example might be racism. Supposedly we learn racism rather than "fear of the other" being some instinctive survival reaction. Would we be able to deal with racism better if we admitted that distrust of those who look different or who are in a different tribe or speak a different language doesn't have to be *taught*... it's a selected-for instinct? As is *curiosity* and the desire to travel and see new things. BOTH contribute to survival. (Oh, and procreating with someone from a different gene pool... that TOO.)

But if we did that it would be interpreted as "this is natural, therefore you're saying that racism is a good thing."

Admitting the nature of man... that we are naturally predators (wolves)... that we are easily capable of vile things... that we hate and fear easily... that's what we put civilization on top of in order to control. Civilization doesn't cause the warping of our natural and innocent selves... because our natural selves aren't innocent.

So we've got society saying people are "good" and "do what you feel" and it's just wrong. Most people never hear (and wouldn't give a moment's thought to) the idea that we're all vile sinners and capable of the worst or that we need forgiveness and constant repentance and live a daily struggle to do what we should do and not to what we shouldn't.

Base human instinct makes us normal. Seeing the truth of it makes us wise. Choosing to live deliberately (not "do what you feel") makes us noble.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I think that to make a strong chain of society, with loyal and strong members, is to improve the strength of the weakest link. This cannot be done by simply forcing a command upon individuals, as the Left prefers. This must be done the Petraeus way. From the ground up. Person by person, chain by chain, blood by drop of blood.-Ymar
8:49 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tyranny.gov vs Tyranny.com

Compulsion is Compulsion, no matter who does it.  This is Brilliant Theft is Theft, no matter who does it. Freedom of Association has no room in it for *private* action   that takes that away Freedom of Association. If I have a business and have voluntary associations such that I choose to serve some people and to not serve others, that might make me a jerk and it might lose me business, it might make me smart and it might gain me business, but it's got to be my choice.  If I would normally serve the current disliked minority in my shop except for the fact that if I'm SEEN to serve them by the wrong people I'll have a private campaign against me as those people do everything possible to ruin me by preventing me from doing business physically or by attacking my customers or suppliers, then I am NOT free to make those choices. Does it really make a difference to losing my CHOICE to voluntarily associate if there's a law that says I may not serve "those people" o...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Suzanne Brockman lost me.

I just finished reading the latest paperback from Suzanne Brockmann. _Dark of Night_. I'm disappointed and that's a sad thing because I've absolutely loved her series of romances about SEAL team 16 and the Troubleshooters. Aparently I'm not alone. My complaint isn't the same as most of the others... I'm great with Sophia and Dave. I even am okay with Tracey being people smart. She and Decker did seem to come out of left field. I thought Decker was great even if I thought his overwhelming conflict was pretty lame. What I didn't care for was the politics. I read for escapism, for studly dangerous men acting like men, for sex, and adventure with guns, where our military are the good guys and the SEALs are supermen and military contractor's are heroes, too. (I wonder if Ms. Brockmann realizes that the Troubleshooters ARE Blackwater?) I do not read sexy action adventure to be presented with a *cause*. It's small things but they don...
14 comments
Read more

The Intersectionalist High Church

           It seems to me that the "conversation" about Black Lives that is focused on intersectionality is focused on doctrine to the exclusion of life itself; the exclusion of physical, actionable life itself. Rather than focus on how people live or even what they think and feel, the focus is on confession, language, and conversion to a doctrine.            Someone asked if what was going on was a religion.            Not only is it a religion but it can't even really be discussed without using religious  terms.            There's a Church, now, more concerned with exclusivity than with reform. More concerned with an Inquisition than with reform. It's not that some people are going to do it all wrong, are going to address Black Lives wrong, but that anyone outside of the Fellowship can not be ALLOWED to address problems which nearly everyone, to a person...
7 comments
Read more