Humans as Individuals

In my recent posts, I have been ruminating around the subject of the Nature of Humans, as opposed to the nature of individual humans. We Western humans tend to see ourselves as individual--not as part of the collective. This has been a comparatively recent development, and not universal in our World's cultures and societies, (in actuality cultures predominate over societies in the World). The "Western World" is a society, which has an overlay, made up of many cultures and social developments which are products of population growth. Even to think in terms of, "human behavior" is a recent phenomenon.

In the long-ago past, I used to say that it was individual's that I loved, not humanity; or was it, I loved humanity, but not necessarily individuals--I forget, it's been a long time and a long life since then. It was all tied up in my mind with how humans behave, individually and collectively.

In these last blogs I have been looking at various ways philosophers and other thinkers/experts have categorized the human manifestation on Planet Earth. During the last two-hundred years, it has been as representatives of something, (humans) rather than as individuals. That those descriptions and concepts, with the exceptions of Psychology and Anthropology, make no attempt to examine the behavior of individuals is interesting.

Humans, since the dawn-of-History, have grouped themselves and other humans, as "us" and "not us." Evidence for this is that, at least according to some language experts, most groups' name for themselves translates as, "the people," i.e., "us." In later times, the "others" were called, "barbarians"--in general, "not civilized," or, "not like us."

It seems, in earliest times, that when groups coalesced into a community of some kind, roles and rules were devised for the members of that group. Following those rules, and sticking to the prescribed roles became mandatory over time in order to preserve order. This works for smaller communities, but as groups grow larger, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the rules and roles--outliers emerge. Outliers have to either create new roles for themselves useful to the group, or survive as best they can, frequently in opposition to the group.

All of that comes down to the reality that the idea of individuality, from what we can surmise of earliest times, was anathema, and, therefore, suppressed, if possible. This fear of difference, one might then infer, is built in; a part of the human "nature."

It is pretty amazing when you think about it, really; that is, that it is very difficult to gain, by studying individuals, any useful information about, "Human Nature" which translates to the general.

If one were to place individual humans on a line, they would create a typical bell-curve no matter what that line represented, with the outliers on both ends of the line, which one might label "+" and "-" as having, or not having, whatever one was measuring.

It is my contention that we humans are Programmed and Indoctrinated from our beginnings to become what we are, and do what we do. As a result, I have come to the conclusion, along with William James, (about the nature of humans), that "humans only use, out of their potential, the equivalent of just moving one finger out of their entire bodies."

It now may be impossible to develop any valid description of what, "Human Nature" is or is not. It seems that the best that can be hoped for is examine human potential. And, it seems to me that the best way to develop an idea of what humans can be potentially is to look at the outliers--the exceptional individuals in our midst.

With that I end this blog,

Shirley Gallup