Hm. I believe that we are naturally kind, but short and narrow sighted. We become hostile/negligent towards others when we don't know them well enough, don't feel connected, and have been given an excuse not to care. Because I've heard about times when a criminal of some kind or another, murderer or burglar or anything, meets the people he or she has affected, and how they almost always feel remorse, and actually become quite close to those people. I mean I guess also, we have a mentality for forming groups, we constantly create 'us' and 'them', and we don't particularly care about people outside our group.

Those are some of my opinions on human nature. I'd certainly like to see if anyone has any opposing views.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster for if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

That says more about humanity and the human condition then volumes of psychotherapy and sociology books.

Have you read Lord of the Flies?

-K

I found a few quotes from Pythagoras that sum human nature up for me:

If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

We ought so to behave to one another as to avoid making enemies of our friends, and at the same time to make friends of our enemies.

The soul of man is divided into three parts, intelligence, reason, and passion. Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals, but reason by man alone.

While some of those sound fine and dandy, there is more to the picture. All of us have the ability to think, feel, and act but it is the way we go about things that matters. Human nature is there and while it might seem hard to believe, at times it looks like it’s in your genes.

Tough one...

Human Nature to me is on it's very basis self-centered. Oneself before others, as it is (And being a biology major, that order would be the survival of the individual, then the survival of the species and then the survival of anything else).

However, since we are beings capable of enormous empathy I'd say human nature is neither extreme, positive or negative.

Rather, it is in balance, shifting with the situations it is confronted with.

Ketchup is a vegetable!

-CF

Man can't be trusted, people are always going to err because humankind is flawed, and evil can never be totally purged from us. However, that doesn't mean I hate humanity, I just view them as flawed.

~EW~

Defining it is stupid.

Shall we say, not very optimistic.

~B~

Humans are made to be good but have sinful nature. Everyone is good at heart, but despite that, our intentions and motives are often corrupted by our darker nature.

We are by nature savage. We evolved from animals, we still are animals. And we have become lazy in taming ourselves.

Human nature is depressing to think about.

[insert generic emo bollocks here]