Does human nature change?
Why Human Nature Never Changes No Nonsense Spirituality | Britt Hartley (41.8K subscribers)
John Gray versus Steven Pinker
Where Gray sees progress as myth, Pinker sees it as measurable. Charts and data back up his case: fewer people die from violence, disease, and famine than ever before. More people enjoy rights, freedoms, and opportunities. For Pinker, optimism isn’t naive—it’s evidence-based. He warns against what he calls “progressophobia,” the tendency to assume things are getting worse because of media bias and our evolved negativity bias.
Gray, however, emphasizes psychology. For him, human nature is static. Technology and culture may change, but tribalism, fear, and cruelty remain baked in. Pinker highlights trends across centuries, while Gray points to repeating cycles of violence and delusion. The question becomes: are we genuinely evolving, or are we dressing up the same instincts in new forms?
The reply is weird.
Philosophy does not leading one closer to the truth.
An unfounded claim
The more you theorize, the more of an inescapable labyrinth you find yourself in.
Another unfounded claim
There is one way to go throughout your day, and it is Singing praises to your God.
There’s one way really?
Men read Plato, Spinoza, Voltaire, the Vedas, etc. thinking they are getting closer to the truth, when it is right there staring them in the face. "I am your God, who strongly takes hold of your right hand, Who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you." (Isaiah 41:13) "I gather you like hen gathers a chick under her wings". (Matt 23) ...
He claims that they were blind, somehow? And by extension, I am blind? Backed up by “because the bible says so”. Well, my book says something different!
He goes on with quoting the bible, so weird! Shouldn’t you first establish that your holy book is describing reality?
I was under the impression that humans are still evolving, and that much of this evolution is shaped by culture. For instance, our digestive system has adapted to the practice of cooking food. Even our bodies resemble those of domesticated animals as a result of cultural practices. (If I recall correctly, our brains are now smaller than those of early Homo sapiens, much like how domestication has reduced brain size in other animals.)
I may have come across this idea in Bruce Hood’s books, though research on human self-domestication exists in several fields. I don’t know the exact timescale of these developments, but I’d like to learn more about it.
So, cultural evolution might be changing our nature. But cultural change does not necessarily make things better. I tend to be pessimistic, because growing up in different cultures (or even different subcultures such as social classes) shapes people’s values profoundly.
Take conflict cultures like those of the US and the UK, where compromise is often despised. That contrasts with the Netherlands, where I grew up, and where compromise is valued more positively.
At the same time, information transfer can influence one’s worldview. Yet I often hear the claim that people rarely change their opinions when confronted with new information, because their views are constrained by the groups they identify with.
Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that many people in the US (perhaps to some extent in the UK as well) tend to be parochial and uninformed about other countries. They sometimes dismiss Europe as a place of high taxes, failed socialism (which they conflate with communism) and less freedom. But actually living here for a while often changes that perception entirely. Watching a YouTube video is unlikely to have the same effect; perhaps only the experience of living abroad can truly broaden one’s perspective.
Meanwhile, both the media and politicians spread disinformation that keeps people fearful of difference and resistant to change. That brings me back to pessimism: people seem easily manipulated through inborn psychological mechanisms such as in-group/out-group thinking, disproportionate attention to negative information, and confirmation bias.
