QuoteThere is no innate human nature. If there were, the earliest modern humans woulda created and destroyed industrial civ tens of thousands of years ago. The conditions and processes of social organization which led to surplus accumulating slave society, the one we inhabit, are also the ones that created the potential for a universal humanity. But just because something can happen doesn't mean it will. Just because eggs can lead to chickens doesn't mean they always do. Sometimes an egg is just an egg.
The problems are. For one not, everyone is the same and that by itself nullifies the innate nature claim. In the same circumstances one person thrives and another becomes a misfit. The only thing innate here are the differences.
The biggest problem I have with this conservative defeatist attitude is. Ok if there actually is innate human nature, what is it?
Society changes people. What is 'innate' in one society is different than what is 'innate' in another. Fish can't see the water they swim in, and humans can't know what innate nature is. Society changes who we think we are in ways that we can't explain. What people call innate in their social sea is indistinguishable from what social conditioning has created in them. Swimming in the 'sea' there is no way to tell the difference.
Years ago John Michael Greer introduced the idea of 'thought-stopper'. Greer described the idea as statements or thoughts that stop people from talking about things.
I realized the concept has greater significance. Some more than others, brains are thinking and consuming resources. Sugar specifically. An unsolved problem consumes a lot of resources, and a half-assed solution to a problem can pass for a satisfactory solution to stop thinking which is not reaching conclusion. Thinking which is consuming energy for no good reason.
Saying something is 'human nature' is one of the most effective thought-stoppers out there. Right up, there with the world is always changing. The amount of drugs I would have to consume to make 'the world is always changing' or 'It's just human nature' sound profound would make me very sick.