# What traits of humanity are inescapable? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 10, 2004, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401 "2004-02-10T06:27:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![far\_born](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5e9695/32.png) [@far\_born](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/far_born)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/21 "2004-02-11T05:33:29Z")
> [@Gyan9](#): > > Disingenueous. Your use of ‘behavior’ vis-a-vis ‘stone tools’ is not insufficient but rather incorrect. Therefore what? I was hoping my prompting would make you more loquacious, but it appeared to accomplish the opposite. I will try again. You said earlier: > [@](#): > > Progressing from stone tools to computers doesn’t, per se, indicate a change in behaviour. If using a stone tool isn’t a behavior, what is it? > [@](#): > > Clarify this? Do you mean to talk ask that how information about traits can be extracted from incidents in history? Only speculatively, against the background that the human brain hasn’t changed much in the last 3000 years and that the themes observed in history are similar in essence to contemporary life. I hate to follow a request for clarification with my own, but it appears some grammatical errors may have hidden your meaning from me. A couple words here and there could change your drift. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/22 "2004-02-11T16:00:13Z")
> [@far\_born](#): > > Therefore what? I was hoping my prompting would make you more loquacious, but it appeared to accomplish the opposite. Therefore nothing. Using a stone tool isn’t a behaviour in the sense that a “trait of humanity” is. Behaviour here means basic and complex instincts. Reactions. Attitudes. A stone tool is a link in the chain of technological progress. Using a ‘stone tool’ may prompt a certain body of behaviours, but per se, it is not an indicator of behaviour itself. > [@](#): > > I hate to follow a request for clarification with my own, but it appears some grammatical errors may have hidden your meaning from me. A couple words here and there could change your drift. You may not be one, but you sound like a troll. I mistakenly left “talk” in that clarification, but there shouldn’t be problems parsing otherwise. And the mistake is obvious, not ambigious. ---
**Author:** ![far\_born](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5e9695/32.png) [@far\_born](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/far_born)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/23 "2004-02-11T16:51:18Z")
> [@Gyan9](#): > > You may not be one, but you sound like a troll. OK nevermind, I don’t think I care what you meant anymore. ---
**Author:** ![yellowcakesolid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cdc98d/32.png) [@yellowcakesolid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowcakesolid)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/24 "2004-02-11T17:18:19Z")
Far\_out, I was taught that the working definition of a sociopath was an inability to feel empathy. A sociopath can hurt another person without concern. A sociopath might be a human in form, but I don’t consider him a human in spirit. I understand that you are looking for a lowest-common-denominator, universally-accepted trait. Yes, you can strip lots of traits away in search of this, but I feel you still must have a human being in spirit at the end of the day. In other words, you might tell me that some humans don’t feel empathy. I would counter by saying that’s not a human in my book. I looked at traits that were necessary for human survival. You could dismiss things like group acceptance, aggression, and tool making. Put a human without such traits in lion country, however, and he would be dead pretty quickly. Advances in technology should not be confused with advances in human behavior. A cavemen might have a club or an ICBM. Behaviorally, he’s still a caveman. Thanks for the suggested reading, John Mace and Gyan9. Extra credit/ gold stars for suggesting books under $20. ---
**Author:** ![SimonMoon5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@SimonMoon5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SimonMoon5)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/25 "2004-02-11T19:19:17Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Every human being starts out life as an ignorant nonrational being, and exhibits all the behaviors of ignorant nonrational beings. It is only through protracted effort that _some_ of us become less ignorant, and more rational. This state of affairs will continue into the future until such point as either a) Cecil completes his work, or b) someone figures out how to wire up the human brain like a hard drive and dump knowledge and rationality into it at 600 Mbits/sec. Dumping knowledge probably wouldn’t help. There are plenty of irrational people who know rather a lot of information. I think it is possible to achieve great rationality, though obviously most people don’t even bother, preferring emotions, religion, superstitions, etc. Emotional responses are probably impossible to remove entirely (and still be remotely human). Furthermore, it seems to me (though I haven’t studied psychology enough to have an informed opinion) that children imprint on whatever belief systems their parents have (politics, religion, etc), since children must absorb information from their parents in order to be able to survive in the world, and don’t yet have the facility to filter useless info (like superstitions and religions) from valuable facts (vocabulary, grammar, numbers, etc). And thus, children grow into adults with a large part of their beliefs formed not through logical, rational considerations but rather from what their parents told them, which is then justified using the more rational part of the brain (no matter how torturous the justifications must become), leading to the continued promulgation of irrational, illogical beliefs which are possessed by almost unbelievable numbers of the population (over 90% of the U.S. population, for example). These irrational beliefs are incredibly difficult to remove. So, humanity’s irrationality may be not only impossible to remove but also nearly impossible to ameliorate. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/26 "2004-02-11T19:35:02Z")
> [@SimonMoon5](#): > > Dumping knowledge probably wouldn’t help. There are plenty of irrational people who know rather a lot of information. I’ll take the broad view that “knowledge and rationality” refers to the biological gestalt configuration of the input brain and not knowledge in the conventional sense. ---
**Author:** ![Voodoochile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/898d66/32.png) [@Voodoochile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voodoochile)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/27 "2004-02-11T21:25:07Z")
_Human nature, to me, is as malleable a substance as there is. I do think there are certain historical reasons that have lead us to certain tendencies such as violence and greed, but I don’t think that it is human nature per se._ You come at this whole thing much like a creationisnt does to evolution. You state that you dont think these things are due to human nature, and essentially ask people to convince/prove to you otherwise. Yet if things arent the result of human nature, then they must be the result of something other-than-natural, or supernatural. First, prove that this super-natural thing youre talking about exists. Then prove that it is a major cause of human behavior. _Outside of a few very simple instincts ehibited from birth (such as crying and suckling), I think it’s hard to prove that humans simply must exhibit any sort of behavior. Is there any quality or behavior outside of procreation that you can offer up as an unavoidable consequence of being human?_ The same behavior exhibited by all biological organisms that continue to exist; self preservation/interest. _…I am thinking in terms of traits that seem prevalent enough to establish a significant trend and generate a reaction in terms of societal structure._ Ok, but since you apparently dont want to use history, then how do you plan on establishing a trend? A trend is something that occurs over time, so to find trends, you look to history. Here is something for you; everything: cultural beliefs, religons, societal structures - everything is the result of biological imperatives, drives, motivations. Cultural/social beliefs are the result of biology meeting environment, and yes they then create/modify new environments which those same biological drives then adapt to as well. Its a biofeedback system. For some reason you see humans using stone tools and humans using computers as two different traits; but theyre not, theyre the same trait, which is the usage of tools. A computer is just a tool like any rock. Its the same trait adapting itself to the environment. If you want to see why different peoples came to different solutions for the same problems posed by the same biological impetuses (impetii?), ultimately look to the natural environment in which they live/lived. Its like heat through a magnifying glass burning some paper; its not the glass doing the burning, even though if you take away the glass no burn occurs. And the glass itself is the result of heat being applied to something else. So you have heat being applied to sand, which makes glass thus causing a change in the environment and then heat through that new addition to the environment has another effect, that of intensifying the heat. Now, if you want to claim that cultures, beliefs, societal structures and all that come about through some other means than good ole biological human nature acting through the lens of any given environment, first demonstrate the existance of some seperate thing/mechanism then demonstrate how it causes/influences human acts. ---
**Author:** ![Thaumaturge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@Thaumaturge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaumaturge)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2004, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/28 "2004-02-12T01:36:03Z")
Another excellent book on this subject is [The blank Slate; the Modern Denial of Human Nature](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0142003344/qid=1076548330/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/104-1441707-8041521) by Steven Pinker. In it as an appendix he includes Donald E. Brown’s List of Human Universals. It lists almost _400_ universals of human behavior and overt language noted by enthographers in every human culture. it omits things that are not truly universal across the human species. These things would be counted as part of human nature. If, implausably ,people are denied these things ( perhaps they are kidnapped as infants by space aliens), they would create a culture that included them anyways. I’m not going to list them all; I’m a horrible typer and it would bore you all besides, but here’s a small sample: abstraction in speech and thought beleifs about death classification of sex conflict crying death rituals dreams envy facial expressions (various) females do more direct child care generosity admired gift giving hospitality incest between mother and son untinkable or tabooed jokes kin groups language magic males dominate public/political realm males more agressive marriage mourning music myths numerals onomatopoeia pain personal names play property redress of wrongs right handedness as population norm rituals socialization taboos trade units of time verbs weapons ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2004, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/29 "2004-02-12T01:56:08Z")
Pinker is another good guy to read on this Subject. I’d recommend both the book you mentioned, as well as _The Language Instinct_. Both are more current than _On Human Nature_, although that one is definitely a classic. ---
**Author:** ![Fatwater\_Fewl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4491bb/32.png) [@Fatwater\_Fewl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fatwater_Fewl)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2004, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/30 "2004-02-12T08:05:26Z")
I’ll second the recommendation of Pinker’s book “The Language Instinct” and say that I’m looking forward to reading “The Blank Slate”. Here’s a link to Brown’s compilation of [Human Universals](http://condor.depaul.edu/~mfiddler/hyphen/humunivers.htm). And here’s a link to a talk that Brown gave in Tokyo last November: [Had to grab Google’s HTML version since my browser decided it didn’t like the .pdf file.](http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:CYrMC-GtEKMJ:beep.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hbesj/meeting2003/HumanUniv.pdf+also+see+Brown,+D.E.,+2000.+Human+universals+and+their+implications.&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) Enjoy. ---
**Author:** ![Fatwater\_Fewl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4491bb/32.png) [@Fatwater\_Fewl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fatwater_Fewl)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2004, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/31 "2004-02-12T08:16:50Z")
See anything on that list you don’t recognize? I don’t. Nor do I see anything which really surprises me. [aside] This interests me quite a bit, oddly enough:) : poetry/rhetoric poetic line, uniform length range [Pinker mentions lines lengths of 3 seconds; hmm] poetic lines characterized by repetition and variation poetic lines demarcated by pauses [/aside] ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2004, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/32 "2004-02-16T08:31:54Z")
I don’t have the knowledge to address this subject on the academic level that it deserves. But I’ve wanted a place to express a concern of mine and I think this may be the right thread. As strange as it may seem, I was in my late teens before I knew about the death camps in Europe during the 1930’s and 1940’s. I grew up in a quiet, sheltered town of 2,000 people and no one talked about it. I didn’t take a world history class in high school. I read a book called _I Cannot Forgive_ – written by a survivor of Auschwitz. Until then I did not know that _groups_ of people could be so normal in appearance and interests and so devoid of mercy and compassion. I was naive and thought it was just a few German men who had taken power and controlled everyone else. I had heard a little about what the Japanese had done to POWs during WWII. But then I heard about what they did to the Chinese in Naking in 1937. And I knew that no one _made_ them do these hideous things. Now I am 60 years old and I am convinced that all of humankind is basically alike with only cultural differences. About five or six years ago that led me to the conclusion that human beings are, as a group, capable of unspeakable horrors. And I am a part of that group. The realization that I _am_ the Nazi and the Japanese soldier merely by the fact of my being _human_ was stunning and awful. I don’t mean that I am unaware of the glories of human nature too, but this realization really shook me. Since then, I have noticed how thin the skin of civility is on some otherwise seemingly decent people. ---
**Author:** ![Thaumaturge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@Thaumaturge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaumaturge)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2004, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401/33 "2004-02-16T09:03:14Z")
Yes, we all have the _capability_ of turning into monsters. Which makes knowing about it all the more important, so we can avoid that part of our nature. If you have no idea that you can be manipulated in a certain way, you have a harder time resisting, if you even think to try. Humanity as a species is still in the todler stage, stumbling about, slowly learning about itself. Hopefully most of the really painfull lessons have been learned, but I somehow very much doubt it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-traits-of-humanity-are-inescapable/228401.md?page=1)