Thinking Outside the Box

[_Roger Morrison]

Many people these days think deep inside the box. For every individual who actually thinks outside of it there are probably in the neighborhood of a million who are hopelessly trapped inside it while they insist on their clairvoyance and intelligence. I will provide a simple test to see how far inside the box the people on this board are:

What professional baseball player holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single season?

Who knows--who cares. I neither know nor care... Roger :-)

[_Mary]

I recommend you take a few courses on the ancient Levant and how comfortable life was. The powers that were spent literally all of their time out killing and plundering everyone they could. It was actually a necessary result of the ancient Near Eastern status distributive economy. The market economy wasn't even imaginable until long after the Greeks, and the ideology of kingship that existed until the middle ages actually made a market economy physically impossible. To keep your economy from imploding on itself you needed to continue to refresh your supply externally. This was achieved through conquest. Everyone on the planet was at risk, and everyone on the planet had to participate.

.

Oh listen Maklelan, how does that contradict anything that I said about human nature? Greed, power, subjugation, control. The ancient levant isn't much different to what happens today. People are still warring each other. Subjugating each other for gain or security. Trying to control each other. (and still co-operating with each other if it suits them). Think Holy Roman Empire, British Empire, Spanish conquests, South African aparteid, and large corporate hegemony that threatens global civilisation, think world debt and the majority of the world's population living on less than a dollar a day, if that..

and amongst all that think of the migrators and travellers making forays into hitherto unknown lands....starting out in Africa maybe....and beginning their own unique cultures.....

Methinks you are forgetting the imperfections of our own current society and cultures.
History isn't about things getting better.

What's really changed. (Except maybe some tribes have got a lot bigger and communication and travel is a little quicker, and arms a little more deadly on a grander scale) We learn to live with it and adapt, just like they did....

And you can take that idea right back to the cave dwellers and hunter gatherers (and barterers who have always been around, long before a money economy).

With all due respect, you have a few 'boxes' of your own to contend with.

[_why me]

Actually, I dispute your claims about the nature of peoples that lived historically. (If I read you correctly)

Of course people to an extent are a product of their environment and culture...

But...

Humans are humans are humans.

We hate, we love, we can be kind, ignorant, spiteful, jealous, greedy, manipulative, we need protection for the young, shelter from the elements, food for survival, and social support, we also have a basic instinct and desire to perpetuate the species, and so on and so forth.
Human nature is a constant I think. It can be harnessed and controlled by the culture, but it's there in us all, all the same...
Certainly since we became self-aware as a species.

And actually, the way in which people lived in early cultures were actually quite efficient and comfortable.
Humans are good at adapting. (and the romans used some pretty good central heating techniques over here in the UK 2000 years ago...)

What is human nature? And can we clearly define what human nature is? According to one definition, human nature 'is the essential and innate character of all human beings, what they owe to nature than to society'. But what do we owe to nature? And what do we owe to society?

What defines our current human nature is the socioeconomic structure that we live in and the values that it clearly incorporates into us. Thus, is socialism the values of cooperation, collectiveness, socialibility, fraternity, and human reason through creative labor. Not to mention the understanding that human beings are social beings or creatures that can be healthily shaped through nurture. Hence, socialism puts the social on center stage. And this guides our human nature toward more wholesome humanly pursuits.

In other social and economic systems, there would be different values and understandings that would shape someone's human nature. And so, are we naturally violent? Perhaps. Are we naturally loving and nurturing? Perhaps. Are we greedy? perhaps. Do humans have the capacity to share and to give? Perhaps. But it is up to the socio economic system, through political decisions to bring the positive at the expense of the negative. But today, it is greed, lust, power, hate, selfishness, social darwinism etc, that rules over us. And not love, nurture, the social, kindness, charity.

And yet, many of us are in the box...gulping down the negatives and just trying to make do with them.

[_Mary]

I understand what you are saying Why me. But cultures (Just as human nature) and any one individual's place within it, isn't that easily defined either.
Particularly for the unwritten and unknown ordinary characters of human history.
Even in the most rigid and controlled of environments, humans have a sneaky way of doing their own 'thang' anyway. Inner Freedom
and all that. (wasn't that something Jesus espoused)
We don't all believe the same thing, we don't all interact in the same way with the environment, we don't all adapt in the same
way. We aren't all influenced in the same way? How has that changed?

Nature/nurture, nurture/nature, whatever happens it all goes together to produce unique individuals in every one of us, and always has.

[_Roger Morrison]

I understand what you are saying Why me. But cultures (Just as human nature) and any one individual's place within it, isn't that easily defined either.
Particularly for the unwritten and unknown ordinary characters of human history.
Even in the most rigid and controlled of environments, humans have a sneaky way of doing their own 'thang' anyway. Inner Freedom
and all that. (wasn't that something Jesus espoused)
We don't all believe the same thing, we don't all interact in the same way with the environment, we don't all adapt in the same
way. We aren't all influenced in the same way? How has that changed?

Nature/nurture, nurture/nature, whatever happens it all goes together to produce unique individuals in every one of us, and always has.

Yes, to your last statement, AND, it always will! In that reality is our hope for the future. Ignorance is ever being dispelled by knowledge, or we wouldn't be communicating as we are at this moment...

No question about human behaviour some times being directed by those "7 Deadly Sins". BUT, not always!! Many teachers--including Jesus--of higher values, and better ways of relating to others, and to our Universe have influenced humanity to the 'better'; the 'best' is yet to come...

Quite possibly "rigid and controlled environments" based on ignorance and fear have long been part of the problem. Such societies, as our NA example, resist anything and everything that threatens the status-quo, their 'goodies' and power... One of these bastions of ignorance has been, and continues to be Institutional Establishment Christianism.

However, many are leaving this darkness in droves to assemble under a new banner of Community based upon the light of Mortal-morality ignited 2,000 years ago in a sermon on some hill...

Don't lose hope! Above all else have faith in your self to effect the nurturing environment. THE message was/is "YOU are the light! Not some authority figure. YOU! YOU, are the salt of the Earth! From where else is the Earth to be 'flavoured' IF not by YOU?!?!" Go for it! Warm regards, Roger

[_maklelan]

Oh listen Maklelan, how does that contradict anything that I said about human nature? Greed, power, subjugation, control. The ancient levant isn't much different to what happens today. People are still warring each other. Subjugating each other for gain or security. Trying to control each other. (and still co-operating with each other if it suits them). Think Holy Roman Empire, British Empire, Spanish conquests, South African aparteid, and large corporate hegemony that threatens global civilisation, think world debt and the majority of the world's population living on less than a dollar a day, if that..

and amongst all that think of the migrators and travellers making forays into hitherto unknown lands....starting out in Africa maybe....and beginning their own unique cultures.....

Methinks you are forgetting the imperfections of our own current society and cultures.
History isn't about things getting better.

What's really changed. (Except maybe some tribes have got a lot bigger and communication and travel is a little quicker, and arms a little more deadly on a grander scale) We learn to live with it and adapt, just like they did....

And you can take that idea right back to the cave dwellers and hunter gatherers (and barterers who have always been around, long before a money economy).

With all due respect, you have a few 'boxes' of your own to contend with.

I'm afraid you're comparing apples to oranges here, and I'm quite aware of both ancient and modern situations. General aggressive behavior does not at all equate to the politics of the ancient Near East. You're subscribing to the fallacy of equivocation.

[_Mary]

I'm afraid you're comparing apples to oranges here,

How do you really know

and I'm quite aware of both ancient and modern situations.

Are you really. I'm not. Societies and individuals are complex. You weren't around in the ancient levant. All you can do is make assumptions based on what little evidence there is left which itself may be biased and incorrect.
All I am trying to argue is that the constant in all this is human nature.

General aggressive behavior does not at all equate to the politics of the ancient Near East.

One thing I have realised is that the more I learn the less I really know. A history tutor once told me (and I think I agree with him) that 95% of human history is probably unwritten.

[_maklelan]

I'm afraid you're comparing apples to oranges here,

How do you really know

Because I've studied both for years and am well aware of the fallacy of interpreting one within the context of the other.

Are you really. I'm not. Societies and individuals are complex. You weren't around in the ancient levant. All you can do is make assumptions based on what little evidence there is left which itself may be biased and incorrect.
All I am trying to argue is that the constant in all this is human nature.

But that constant cannot be spread thin over every facet of socio-political interaction. Certain parts of human nature are consistent, that's true, but to extend that to include morality and domestic and foreign relations is far outside the scope of what you can determine by merely retrojecting your perception of the defining characteristics of human nature into a society that you are quite unfamiliar with. Many find the idea of pederasty inherently immoral, but it was an ideal in ancient Greece. Obviously sexual impropriety is not a facet of human nature that transcends environmental influences. What makes you think, a priori, that war is different, especially considering that those who have studied it professionally come to a different conclusion than you?

One thing I have realised is that the more I learn the less I really know. A history tutor once told me (and I think I agree with him) that 95% of human history is probably unwritten.

More like 99.9%, and it's not probable, it's inescapable. What we do have, however, does not represent an anomaly, but a consistent pattern and adaptation (I do not say evolution) of the human world-view to the agricultural, economic, religious and socio-political trends that defined the civilizations.

[_Mary]

Many find the idea of pederasty inherently immoral, but it was an ideal in ancient Greece.

And how the heck do you 'know' that Maklelan. The frequency, role and attitude towards pederasty in Ancient Greek Society has not been sewn up, packaged, and posted. The evidence is NOT conclusive for what you have just suggested. You are boxing the past. You CANNOT make those kind of statements without giving evidence pro and con. (and there IS evidence pro and con)

What makes you think, a priori, that war is different, especially considering that those who have studied it professionally come to a different conclusion than you?

What on earth are you talking about? Is this an overlap on your other thread about God being a monster?

I recommend you take a few courses on the ancient Levant and how comfortable life was. The powers that were spent literally all of their time out killing and plundering everyone they could. It was actually a necessary result of the ancient Near Eastern status distributive economy.

If you really were serious about this, then you would have been just a little bit more specific. Which area of the Levant? Which time period? How do you 'KNOW' they (as in who is 'they') spent 'all' their time, 'killing' and 'plundering' 'everyone' they could? And why do you conclude that it was a 'necessary result of the 'status' 'distributive economy'?

If you conclude that pederasty was an 'ideal' in ancient Greece, then I have no reason to trust these assumptions either.

One thing I have realised is that the more I learn the less I really know. A history tutor once told me (and I think I agree with him) that 95% of human history is probably unwritten.

More like 99.9%, and it's not probable, it's inescapable.

I agree.

What we do have, however, does not represent an anomaly,

and you know that how?

but a consistent pattern and adaptation (I do not say evolution) of the human world-view to the agricultural, economic, religious and socio-political trends that defined the civilizations.

Your confidence in boxing up the past is breath-taking.

Do you think then perhaps that the 'consistent pattern and adaptions' might suggest something about human nature throughout human environments past and present?

[_maklelan]

And how the heck do you 'know' that Maklelan. The frequency, role and attitude towards pederasty in Ancient Greek Society has not been sewn up, packaged, and posted. The evidence is NOT conclusive for what you have just suggested. You are boxing the past. You CANNOT make those kind of statements without giving evidence pro and con. (and there IS evidence pro and con)

I'm convinced by the evidence in favor of it. If you feel the evidence is stronger in the opposite direction then, by all means, I'm willing to hear it.

What on earth are you talking about? Is this an overlap on your other thread about God being a monster?

You tried to assert that human nature is constant, inferring that my conclusions about a shift in moral framework is in error, which can only mean that you contend that those moral frameworks that encapsulate ideologies of war are constant in that eternal human nature. I have already posted published research to the very contrary. You did not engage it, so I recommended it to you. This last time I only referenced it, but that research is pretty clear in the fact that killing and war operated in a completely different ethical context in the ancient world. If you would like to argue otherwise please address that research.

If you really were serious about this, then you would have been just a little bit more specific.

If/then statements are also known as inferences, and I believe that this one is false. I was very specific. I even explained exactly what kind of economy they had.

Which area of the Levant?

All areas.

Which time period?

Up until the end of the autonomy of the Levant.

How do you 'KNOW' they (as in who is 'they') spent 'all' their time, 'killing' and 'plundering' 'everyone' they could?

Because we have the records of the governments, and they were always out conquesting. Alexander the Great left Macedonia to fight in one battle and never returned because he spent the rest of his life in active conquest.

And why do you conclude that it was a 'necessary result of the 'status' 'distributive economy'?

Because the ideology of kingship required a centralized power base that could not redistribute wealth back into the working classes without democratizing control of the economy to the point of undermining the legitimization of their rule. This is one of the things that caused the First Intermediate Period in Egypt.

If you conclude that pederasty was an 'ideal' in ancient Greece, then I have no reason to trust these assumptions either.

Because you know with perfect certainty that my conclusion is in error? Then why do you keep bracketing the word "know" when you question my understanding? Is your ability to [know] something superior to mine without having done any actual research? I've presented arguments. You've just refused to accept them a priori. That's not the modus operandi of anyone with even a decent understanding of historical methodology.

I agree.

Excellent.

and you know that how?

Because the antithesis of what I've represented (your argument, basically) is absolutely nowhere represented in the historical record, while my conclusions are consistently represented, and their growth and adaptation is easily tracked.

Your confidence in boxing up the past is breath-taking.

And your indignation at anything that challenges your a priori guesses at how the past should have worked is the same.

Do you think then perhaps that the 'consistent pattern and adaptions' might suggest something about human nature throughout human environments past and present?

OF course, and it suggests (or rather requires) that morality and perception change.