This is coming from a neurodivergent guy. I just don’t get it. I mean, I know it’s probably because we act differently, but WHY EXACTLY do some people decide we’re lesser than neurotypical people?

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[–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

That's not human nature that's the product of a society that demands conformity, hierarchy, and defines community through exclusion. You wouldn't say its in a coal miner's nature to have black lung.

Edit: Hold on you might have been being sarcastic idk I'm in this thread for a reason lmao

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Tribalism is literally human nature, though. People have a natural tendency to have a group they consider their own, and those outside of that group. It absolutely is human nature, and has been for thousands of years.

    product of a society that demands conformity, hierarchy, and defines community through exclusion

    Have you ever thought that maybe those happened because of human nature, and not the other way around?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Have you ever thought that maybe those happened because of human nature, and not the other way around?

    Yes acually, I believed that most of my life until I started my education in history and anthropology. Through my studies I was exposed to many societies which did not define themselves through exclusionary definitions. Mostly these were small hunter gatherer societies that were not in direct competition with other groups for resources. I'd be more inclined to argue that it is scarcity of resources that originally created the conditions for tribalism as you describe it. If you removed the incentive for tribalism by removing scarcity I do not believe it would have come about but we also wouldn't have ever formed a sedentary agricultural society so you win some and you lose some.

    Is tribalism human nature or is caring for those close to you above all in the face of scarcity human nature?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    No. Not being sarcastic. You've got to look at it from a historical context. Liberalism and tolerance are relatively newer concepts.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Liberalism yeah but tolerance has existed for as long as humans have formed community. I'd argue that prejudice and bigotry, in the way we experience them today and at the scale we see today, are far newer.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (10 children)

    And that society is the product of human nature.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (9 children)

    How can you know that for certain when this society is all that you have known? Isn't it more likely that you are told these things are human nature in order to justify their existence and power over you?

    Society has changed drastically over human history and I am certain all forms of them claimed to be the purest expression of human nature.

    How do you seperate human nature from the effects our society has on it when both society and human nature constantly affect eachother in turn?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (8 children)

    Isn't it more likely that you are told these things are human nature in order to justify their existence and power over you?

    No, that is a significantly more complicated explanation than the obvious assumption that humans, behaving according to their nature, created a society that is the result of human nature.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (7 children)

    I am sorry to say that human society, which has existed and evolved for millennia, is often complex and has more to do with production and hierarchy than the expression of a nebulous human nature.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

    And the conditions that created the seed of that society are the result of human nature.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (5 children)

    Sure, but good luck isolating which parts of our lives are derived from pure human nature and which are corrupted by the influence of societal constructs. My argument is that these things are inseperable and that analyzing social behavior through the lense of human nature can lead no where productive because we can't know what pure human nature is. I am not arguing that human nature does not exist. I am arguing that the material world and the societies we have built in it affect what we percieve as human nature.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    The whole point of what I was saying is that this is impossible?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    It's impossible to define the term "human nature"?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Its impossible to know what human nature is. I can define human nature as behaviors inherent to human beings regardless of social influence but we cannot know what these behaviors are with any certainty because we cannot exist outside of social influence

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