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Bingqing's picture

Root

Were people born to be evil or naïve? Or was it the physical, biological and cultural environment that changes people’s nature?

The “evil” here does not exactly mean the “bad”; perhaps, it should be “selfish”. I strongly believe that people were born to be evil and then modified by the factors existing in the circumstances they live in—education, morality and social influences. The scarcity of all kinds of recourses in the world determines that no everyone gets what they want. Thus, in natural environment in the ancient age and then the society in the civilized age, people first need to satisfy their own needs by competing with others. They need to verify that they deserve more by competition. Is it selfish? It should be. Without the guidance of social morality and education, just as what happens in the novel Parable of the Sower, people outside of the wall steal and rob others’ possessions, shoot citizens, and rage women. Meanwhile, people inside the wall, receiving basic education and holding normal social morality, know how to get along with each other, somewhat harmoniously. No new born babies are naïve. For example, they tend to wholly occupy their mothers’ breast milk, or cry. They were not born to be willing to share; but gradually the circumstances teach them to do so. They have been being loved and then loving.

Does a single hero create a new era in the cultural evolution? Or is it a special period that nurtures growth of a hero?

I believe that it is impossible that a single person plays a determining role in the change of culture, but the circumstance and the crowd do. We need; then we have. In current world, civilization complicates the evolvement of the culture, more of less weakening the ­­importance of biological and physical effects, because conscious human beings permanently involve in this process. The civilization is found by all the human beings not any individual.

 

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