The Unwinnable War on Human Nature

This is the last post on first principles and my attempt to understand them. Some of the terms are introduced in the previous posts, Nature, Nurture, and Niceties, What the Hell Are First Principles?, A Fundamental Truth, A Fundamental Belief, and The Chef and The Cook if you care to give those a read.

What’s the oldest business in the world? Prostitution.

The oldest drink? Beer.

Both have been around for 10,000 years, maybe more.

We had to wait a long time to get music from Elvis and Chuck Berry, but our ancestors took baby steps towards the swinging hips that outraged a generation.

It may have started on the Serengeti, where they played literal rock music. Gong Rock, and others like it, were in use 10,000 years ago. And in the caves of Southern Germany, they’ve identified 40,000-year-old flutes, made from the bones of vultures.

This is the real history of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, amiright?

Gong Rock shows us that human nature is not something we can legislate against. — Gong Rock

Human Desires

Humans have a built-in set of desires and no matter what rules are carved into tablets or books, human nature can’t be constrained. Not completely.

Some things are hard, if not impossible, for the tribe to control through formal rules. Not that we haven’t tried. Governments, pulpits, and PTSAs have attempted to banish these ancient activities to no avail.

Prohibition, censorship, mandates, bans, and boycotts are taking place all the time.

These efforts fail because of something almost as strong as the Laws of Nature. A different type of law, the Laws of Human Nature.

Veganism, celibacy, silence. These might work for some, but they run counter to thousands of years of evolution.

When people impose their personal rules onto others—whether through policy, religious doctrine, or social pressure—they are attempting to make the world a safer place, but they inadvertently breed chaos.

When it’s our doctrine, when we get it from the good book or some guy in a wig, we think it holds weight, but it’s not much different than a driver going five miles under the limit, arbitrarily dictating speed for everyone who follows. Disrupting the natural flow of traffic. These self-appointed enforcers make the roads more dangerous, not less.

How?

When you move downstream from physics and you try to control human nature, you live in a fictional zone all your own. Nobody knows what you’re thinking, or what you’ll do next.

Should I pass on the right?

Nobody knows if the erratic behavior is due to ego, intoxication, or something else entirely. But one thing is clear: it’s no longer about safety. It’s about power.

Seeking Safety

The urge to legislate—to paper the world with operating procedures—is natural as well.

Seeking control in what feels chaotic. They want everyone singing from the same sheet of music. Their music.

But it shows a profound lack of understanding. As you drift from the bedrock of truths to the sandy shore of beliefs, the world gets more confusing.

Keep the sex education out of schools and the kids won’t have sex. If that were true, we’d never have made it out of the Great Rift Valley. I’m almost certain those preteens didn’t have Mr. Montgomery’s health class.

Real laws, the ones that last, are not on billboards. They aren’t barked through megaphones. They are principles, tested over time, and proven through their fitness, and our survival.

“Thou shalt not kill” doesn’t just work because it’s in the Bible, it works because it’s a principle. It’s been preached for thousands of years, long before Christ, and it will continue.

Trust scales, too. The Golden Rule, “treat others as you’d be treated,” works because it’s a social lubricant, distilled from how humans best operate in groups. It’s not the same as gravity, but it rhymes.

I’ve heard Ricky Gervais make the case that “if we take any fiction, any holy book, and destroyed it, in a thousand years’ time it wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back, because all the same tests would give the same result.”

I agree in part. The Bible and the Koran wouldn’t come back just as they are, but how about a few of those commandments?

Charlie Munger says that “The highest form a civilization can reach is a seamless web of deserved trust.” The rules that last, reinforce deserved trust and that goal of reaching a higher form of civilization.

Compare and contrast that with trends. Banning and boycotting some flavor of the month atrocity.

The Simpsons, and then South Park were OUTRAGEOUS when they first hit the airwaves. So were Howard Stern and NWA. They were going to be the end of our American ideals.

South Park is an expression of our human nature, it cannot be rules over by the minority. — South Park

PTSA moms protested. They pressured music labels and media outlets, they boycotted stores and burned perfectly good albums. Their family was not going to listen or watch, so no family should listen or watch.

And now what?

The Simpsons, full of “Eat my shorts” and “Don’t have a cow man!”, is on Disney Plus, just a click away from Mary Poppins and Moana.

OUTRAGEOUS!

But these little boycotts never had a chance. They were fighting a more powerful law of human nature.

Bart and Homer, Cartman and Kenny, have helped millions of people see the world, and themselves, more clearly. And laugh while they did it.

And isn’t self-discovery part of human nature as well?

Honestly, if your family values are so brittle that they can be shaken to the core by a program or a product, well, those might not be the bedrock values you think they are.

George Carlin said, “Everyone driving slower than you is a moron, and everyone driving faster is a maniac.” What’s maniacal is thinking that everyone should do it your way.

We need laws, sure. They are helpful, they keep people on the same page and bring clarity to those gray areas. But those laws should rest on what’s solid—first principles.