People Cannot Lack Sexuality, But They Can Lack "Humanity"!
2006/3/18 14:24:12
Even from a scientific standpoint, without sexuality there would be no human beings -- therefore people cannot lack sexuality. However, people can lack "humanity" -- that so-called quality that supposedly makes humans human is nothing but rhetorical blather! "At birth, human nature is good," or swap a word and say "human nature is evil," or "partly good and partly evil," and so on -- there are many possible formulations, but they are all, in reality, torrents of nonsense. All moralizing about so-called human nature must first have one premise: the existence of said human nature. So does human nature exist?
So-called "human nature," for those who believe in it, refers to a quality that every person in reality possesses. Here lies the trouble: what is a "person"? If you believe humans are products of evolution, then the definition of "human" has a temporal quality, and all definitions become helpless before time. Even if you expand "human" to "living organism," the same discussion holds. The only rescue is to assume that what makes a human human is some essential quality that doesn't change with time, and then define that quality as "human nature." If so, we face two choices: 1) Evolution doesn't exist -- for example, believing in divine creation or soul-based reincarnation. 2) Evolution exists, but since the assumed quality is time-independent and unchanging, and from an evolutionary perspective we might have to trace back to atoms or even further, human nature derives from the nature of matter and is identical to it. In that case, everything would be "human." Therefore, under the premise of evolution, a human nature distinct from the nature of matter does not exist. To summarize: once we assume this unchanging human nature exists, we face two choices: 1) Divine creation or soul-based reincarnation (I must note that Buddhism does not accept this kind of soul-based reincarnation, so this scenario has nothing to do with Buddhism. Thus this scenario can be more simply stated as: accepting the existence of an indestructible soul.) 2) A human nature identical to the nature of matter.
For the first scenario, human nature or its vessel is the indestructible soul. Since it must be distinguished from the second scenario, this thing cannot be material. Then two sub-scenarios arise: 1) This thing intervenes in our everyday reality. 2) This thing does not intervene in our everyday reality. For sub-scenario 1: this thing's intervention cannot possibly produce the same corresponding effect on every person. Because if it produced the same corresponding effect on everyone, then all people in the same situation should have similar reactions -- but this obviously contradicts reality. Therefore, even if this thing exists, it either does not intervene in our everyday reality or, even if it does, it cannot produce the same corresponding effect on everyone. In other words, this thing cannot serve as a common premise meaningful to all people in reality. And for those who believe in human nature, human nature refers to a quality that every person in reality possesses. Therefore, even if this indestructible soul exists, it has nothing to do with human nature.
For the second scenario, human nature is identical to the nature of matter. Therefore all human behavior relates to some material nature, and all people in the same situation should have similar reactions -- but this obviously contradicts reality. Human behavior cannot be wholly and unconditionally reduced to purely material influences such as physics and chemistry. In other words, the second scenario doesn't hold either.
Summarizing the above analysis: the kind of "human nature" that believers mean -- a quality that every person in reality possesses -- does not exist. It's all empty talk. Therefore we can only choose as follows: acknowledge that in reality there is no human nature universally applicable to everyone. That is to say, human nature is related to history, to society, to class, and so on. Only in this sense can we possibly discuss so-called human nature.
缠中说禅 2006/3/18 21:43:45
Commenter above, thank you for your suggestion. Song requests are no problem. If it's classical music, there should be plenty at home -- it's just that uploading is a hassle. Today I changed the background music to guqin (classical Chinese zither).