>From: Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>There is no empirical basis for this dark view of human nature. Are
>people capable of nasty behavior (e.g., blowing up their enemies)? Sure.
>But is this the "natural" state of humans, once we peel away the
>veneer of civilization? No way. Think about it for just a second:
>if humans were incessantly brutal to each other, how could the species
>have survived for so long? In order to survive in a difficult world,
>humans have the capacity to cooperate and help one another. There's
>no way humans could have survived on this planet if they were
>Hobbesian malevolent brutes.
I think they tend to be nice to their family/clan and nasty or indifferent to others. Hell, homo sapiens is basically a pack animal. We're "designed" for social groups of maybe 20-30 people.
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