Human Nature

 
https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/human-nature.html

I have always wondered about human nature - what makes us cooperative on the one hand but so easy to become xenophobic and aggressive on the other. It seems to be so easy to push our wrong buttons.

My investigations led me to evolutionary psychology (EP). BTW, it was when I was discussing EP with American academics, that I learned that a significant number of - Americans in particular - denied the reality of evolution. I'm British. I was astonished. I thought that this "creationism" had petered out into insignificance in the 19th century.

I thought that studying our nearest relatives, troglodytes and paniscus, could offer some insight into our natures and how we came to be as we are.

My studies led me to Dawkins' discussions of the evolution of altruism in "The Selfish Gene", Franz de Waal's studies of chimpanzees and his thoughts on the evolution of our moral instincts, as in "The Bonobo and the Atheist", but also the books of David Livingstone Smith, "The most Dangerous Animal" and "Less than Human". Some observations of chimpanzee behaviour can only be described as extremely xenophobic, vicious and murderous.

A paper coming out of EP that impressed me was "Can Race be Erased? "https://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/kurzban-race.pdf

What I'm coming to, I guess, is that our evolved natures predispose us to behave in both cooperative ways, and also in extremely antagonistic ways. It seems that the circumstances dictate which way we go, and insights into this give us pointers to how we can encourage the desired behaviour and discourage the undesired. It's a matter of making informed political choices.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.