I had a conversation with my mother about what I called “the common human nature.” She said that there was no such thing, and that she herself had never wanted to hurt anyone. I realized later that she was right. People will come with all sorts of
different natures. Then people will decide what to do with them.

The behavior that people have is due both to nature and choice. Different natures are capable of different kinds of errors. A kind-natured person may make errors stemming from naivete, and a mean-natured person may make errors stemming from cruelty.
However both of the above will be capable of doing the right thing. A kind-natured person may do many good things for others when he realizes how to avoid getting misled or taken advantage of. And a mean-natured person may become a defender of peace if
he learns temperance and ethics. So, for example, Paul, who started out as a cruel fanatical thug, learned love and compassion from Christ and used his brilliance and his strength of conviction to become a great moral teacher. And the same Japanese who
had put in obsessive focus into doing the wrong thing during the Second World War put in the same obsessive focus into becoming what was for a long time the world's second-largest economy.

Now there are many people who think badly of obsessive people; but some professions such as research require obsessive focus. There are many people who think badly about narcissists; but the world owes vastly to the same. Any nature can produce good
fruit if it is correctly cultivated. And if someone sees your nature as incurably evil or sees you as a hopeless case, all it means is that he has nothing of merit to offer you. Some people will be endowed more than others. Some people will do more with
themselves than will others. There is the role of nature, and then there is the role of choice.

Another claim I kept hearing was that feelings were illogical. In fact there very much is a logic to feelings, even though it may not be the logic that you expect. If we have evolved then our feelings have done so for the benefit of the species; and if
we have been created then they have been created for our benefit as well.

And if the human nature is corrupted or of the Satan? Then the same is the case with everything human, including such things as reason and financial or status interest. In either scenario, neither is the higher function or lower function, and neither is
good to the exclusion of others.

For this reason I posit that rationalism – any form of rationalism – will be followed by one or another form of romanticism. The mind has contempt for such things as feelings and nature until it has studied such things enough to find in them logic
exceeding anything that it has created itself. At which point contempt gives way to respect and even awe; and the lack of such things is a mark either of inadequate cognition or inadequate knowledge.

Now there are many in feminism who attack beauty out of the claim that it destroys women's self-esteem. Beauty is far from the only thing that does that. Anything that has appeal for people can be used for such things. That does not make it wrong in and
of itself. Intelligence can be used to destroy people's self-esteem. Money can be used to destroy people's self-esteem. Beauty is just one of the many things that has appeal to people, that as such will always see some scumbag wanting to use it for
things that are wrong.

The jury is still out as to whether human nature is a good one or a bad one. But it is completely hypocritical to damn one aspect of human nature and elevate others. Feeling and reason are both there for a reason, and I see no reason at all to see one as
better or worse than the other. They are both there – either for evolutionary reasons or for reasons of divine design. They are equal – either in mutual virtue or in mutual sin. Neither one is good or bad. Both are capable of both good and bad
outcomes.

From "My Autobiography" available at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-autobiography-ilya-shambat/1141255986

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)