I finished reading a biography on the author Huysmans, and I remembered something that might make a good topic. The Catholic critic, Seilliere, believed that the literary movements of Naturalism and Romanticism were based on Rousseau's theory of inherent goodness, and that if men are left to themselves, you will see them getting better and better.

Personally, I see how this might hold true for Romanticism, but Naturalism believed man is fatally flawed simply by being members of society. Naturalism, unlike Realism, is strictly determinist.

Seilliere himself believed that man has always been fatally flawed because of Original Sin. Which brings me to my question.

Are we fatally flawed at birth, inherently, genetically, or due to society? Or do we, on the whole, naturally become better and better than the previous generation, as Rousseau believed?

Tell me if you think that cavemen would have been less violent on the whole than we are now, or if you think kindness needs to be taught, and violence discouraged.

An excellent question, and one which has been argued for millennia.

I think that animals (including humans) have a capacity for good or evil based directly on the complexity of their brains. An oyster can't be wicked or altruistic, but even a cat or a dog can be (I believe) kind or cruel, although certainly not to anywhere near the degree that people can. Chimpanzees have been observed in what can only be described as acts of murder against their own species.

My point is that a being of sentience above a certain level, of necessity, is equally capable of good or evil. This varies from person to person, of course; there are saints and monsters among us. Most of us stumble along as best as we can.

Over the very long run, I think, society as a whole has undergone changes which have tended to lessen institutionalized evils to some extent, at least in those cultures which have the benefit of relative wealth and minimally repressive governments. A society which is more or less wealthy has the leisure to consider moral issues which could not have been considered by societies in which the struggle for survival was harsher. As a classic example, slavery, once accepted in even the most advanced civilizations, is now very limited. This is not at all to deny that the same technology which has brought some societies wealth and leisure has also given the wicked more power to do evil. The great totalitarian governments of the twentieth century will serve as an example. I am cautiously optimistic; for every 99 steps backward we take 100 steps forward.

The individual human being is both good and evil, and always will be as long as the species survives in a recognizable form. Humanity as a whole has a good chance of making slight moral progress very slowly, unless a natural or artificial cataclysm reduces the amount of leisure which is available for moral considerations.

Is it not otherwise true that too much leisure time leads to degredation of morality, greed, apathy, anti-intellectualism, corruption and over-all decadence, removing some possibility of spiritual and evolutionary advancement? It seems to me the Greeks, and possibly Hindus and Buddhists have already said all that needs to be said and we have not evolved from that standpoint, now we only go around in circles of greed and violence.



I dont think that institutionalized evil, (I hate that word) has become more or less, however the power to hide it, and to decieve has become greater.
We are far less educated than our Greek or Roman counterparts of the past. That is not an arguement for society getting better based on wealth. Great societies have died, and are now poor, starving, sick and dying. War is made on feeble excuses. Much the same as in Grecian/Roman times.

Though, I can see your point, supposing that an event were to put us back to survival only status we would devolve to a primitive state of being for a time. However, most primative or poor societies I have come across or lived with have a common bond, and natural instinct to protect the immediate tribe, survival instinct to know what is necessary and what is not, and wars or agression deplete the male resource.

I believe caveman was not as violent as we would like to believe to justify our current warlike nature. Procreation had to have been incredibly important and deaths or injuries a major concern to tribal members. Violence was most likely not a frivolous endeavor.

On burial sites in the Mediterranean, up until the Bronze Age, they have found little evidence of violent deaths, nor wars. There may have been a time when humans were somewhat at peace, at least in certain areas of the planet.

However, I think most humans are inherantly flawed, as long as someone else has something they want, they shall try to get it by whatever means possible, and recently we see, that with the growth of society, the willingness to share and preserve a decent life for all is increasingly lowered as a tribal objective. I dont think we are getting better, its just a different scenario with more complex situations.