Animal vs. Human

Human nature is an odd thing. Everyone has his or her own way of thinking and his or her own way of dealing with problems or situations that may arise. This can sometimes cause problems and make certain social situations awkward. There are times when humans are no different than animals when it comes to how they handle situations, yet no matter how animalistic a human may act the human will always be a human because of the simple fact that he or she is in control of his or her on actions.

Many times a person may say something that he or she is perceives as complimentary and the outside world sees as insulting or threatening. I have personally been in a situation like this one; a guy thought he was flirting with me when he was actually just insulting me and making me feel badly about myself. Now, of course he did not mean to come off this way, but he did and it was not a good situation. Animals, however, are threatened no matter what the other animals intent may be. A human has reason and can think about what the other person may have meant rather than just what they came off as saying.

Charles Horton Cooley writes about the evolution of humans from animals in his book Human Nature and the Social Order. Animals attack at the first sign of the feeling of being threatened, much like how humans react when they feel as though they are being threatened or attacked. There is no way for a person to be completely understood by another person; there will always be at least a slight difference in perceptions from person to person. This fact causes many problems when it comes to human interaction, the only difference is that humans have conscious control over how they communicate and act towards each other. In order for humans to maintain a humanistic quality and keep from becoming animalistic, they must emphasize manners early on and at an early age. Cooley says that our “social origin” comes from the interaction of humans with one another; the people that we are around most often have to most impact on us socially.

"I'm your teacher, not your mother..."

The people that we grow up around, such as our parents, are the ones that determine how we interact with others in a social setting. They are the ones that are supposed to teach us the difference between right and wrong as well as teach us good manners. Unfortunately, teachers are the ones that are usually stuck with teaching or enforcing the manners that they may or may not have been taught at home. Without manners, the teachers would never get any respect from their students. According to psychologist, John Rosemond, if a student is respectful towards his elders and the people around him then he will be respectful towards himself. If people respecting other people than this could lead o bigger and better things, people couls start using manners again, there may just be a polite revolution Stephen L. Carter writes about the fact that manners are not taught in schools anymore, but says that when they are it is a complete sight to see; the story was written in a 1996 version of the U.S. News & World Report magazine.The story talked about the decline of civility and how young people were actually being taught how to be polite. In the forties it was expected that children learn how to be polite not only from their parents but as well as in the classroom setting. In recent years the teaching curriculum is less about manners and more about sex issues and does and don’ts that go along with that. This new fact makes me think about how bad our society has gotten. Our morals and focus is completely turned around from what it used to be, it used to be that you would learn respect and discipline in grade school and now things like that are seen as things that only “good kids” take part in. Today, manners are seen as something that is forced on children rather than something that is taught to children because it is such a big part of society. We are more interested in ourselves and making sure that we are individuals with our own minds and our own way of thinking that we completely forget that there are some traditions that deserve to be a character trait of all human beings, no matter how different they may be.

There Is No Excuse!

There are many times when humans act like animals because of how threatened they many feel by other humans; but just because someone’s actions are seen as being like an animal’s does not mean that it is entirely their fault. It may just have to do with the way that they were brought up and the way in which they think. But that does not excuse them; it simply means that they are in need of a lesson in etiquette and values. Wikipedia states this well by saying that human nature “is the concept that there is a set of inherent distinguishing ccharacteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have.” This simply means that people are different and are wired differently according their background, their personality, and the way that they look at the world and the people in it. That does not mean that they have an excuse to be rude and unkind to other people. It simply means that they need a lesson in the way that they act towards other people; a lesson that should have been taught to them at a younger age but was not or the message was simply not received at that point in their lives.
No matter what all of the articles say about the nature of humans the one thing that remains constant in all of them is the fact that humans are in control of the way in which they interact with the things and beings around them. No matter how they have grown up and no matter how many excuses they have up their sleeve the argument remains proven that humans do have control over what they do and how they do it.

Manners DO Matter

Manners have become a thing of the past in our society and it is not for the best. Many children grow up without being taught how to properly conduct themselves and have grown up with the idea that they can do whatever they want to do. This is not good and this is not okay. It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks and it is even harder to teach an old dog to say "excuse me" or if they "have nothing nice to say not to say anything at all". The ladder is the one that really worries me, I began this blog talking about this very issue and I intend to end it on the same note.

I like this picture above because it says it all, plain and simple "Manners Matter". This could not be anymore true and close to my heart, manners are the things that keep people from getting hurt, getting the wrong idea, or just being bothered by something when it is not needed.

A Psychologist Pediatrician

Doctor D.W. Winnicott wrote a book about human nature that has been turned into an e-book. He is a a pediatrician who has become a psychologist of sorts. Working with children so much he has caused him to make a study out of it and become a child analyst. He studies the children that he works with as a doctor for illnesses as well as the ones that come to see him with short psycho-therapy problems and management problem children. He goes on to talk about the difficulties of giving advice to parents and the psycho-analysis of the mind and how it works. He speaks of intelligence, psyche health and ill health, as well as the melding of psyche health and body health. He combines his medical training with is analyst study and makes a more specified study geared toward his strengths as a doctor.

It's the Psychology of the Matter

This article in Psychology Today deals 10 different subjects of human nature and disproves them. The article goes from disproving the fact that men like and woman want to look like blonde bombshells. Then goes down a long path of subjects to end up at the subject of men who harass women are not being sexist.

According to this article men like blonde women with large breasts because it is easier to judge a woman's age. Most of the time woman that have blonde hair when they are young have brown hair when they get older and woman with large breasts have saggier breasts when they get older. So, for men it is all about the easiest way to judge a woman's age apparently.

The article then goes on to talk about marriage and suicide bombing. From what I understand about what this article is saying, neither men nor woman really benefit from polygamy because their are less and less woman that way and the woman have to share one man instead of having him all to herself. Polygamy creates a more competitive nature and so there is more violence in countries that have polygamy, so they have suicide bombing.

There is more about how 56% of parents that are considered "very attractive" are more likely to have daughters rather than sons. Also, genius in men peaks in early adulthood and then rapidly declines as they get on into the later years of their life. This article also throws out the idea that men have the desire unconsciously or consciously to be able to reproduce more and not just for the political power.

The last point in this article is the point about why men sexually harass woman. It is not all about sex for big wigs in the work place, it is all about power. Men who are higher up in the workplace harass workers that are lower than them, whether they are men or women. Before women even entered the workplace men were harassing each other to make themselves feel better. Women have just made the problem more prominent because it is not just a testosterone war now, it is a war of the sexes.

I believe that this article is for the most part a good one, the talking subjects are a little odd but make for an amusing read. It brings up points to think about as well as new views on old subjects and I find it fairly enlightening.

What my Journal says.....

In "Personality and Coping" the journal talked about how the well being of a person can be determined by looking at the stress, personality, and ability to cope. There are some aspects of each person that are the same and some aspects that are very different and individul to that specific person. There are models and examples that show the differences and similarities that have to do with an individual person and how the handle stresses and how their physical and mental well being is determined or seen.

Different Views of Different People

The New York Times had a very interesting opinion piece in it a year ago about Human Nature in Today's Society. The car you drive, the movies you watch and even the way you carry yourself has something to do with how you are perceived by the people around you. Even if what people think of you is a generalization, that picture stays in their head until something prompts them to change it.

The author of this article, David Brooks, says that "teenage girls may cut themselves as a way to demonstrate their ability to withstand infections." This generalization is one that I have never really thought about nor really agree with, I have never known a teenage girl that wanted to prove that she could withstand an infection so badly that was willing to cut herself. Most of the time when I hear of a girl trying to cut herself it is either to get attention or because she is too stressed out to deal with anything.

I do like Brooks' view of how our personalities form and how it is not predetermined to us but that our surroundings shape us and make us who we are as people. The person that a baby may grow up to be can not be determined by a human just because of a study or a hypothesis. Brooks say that people go through a "never-ending process of creating and discovering who they are" and I would have to agree whole heartily with him. Of course I do believe that God knows the exact person we are going to become before we are even born, but no human has that power.

We all generalize and think that we know a person just by the way that they appear to us, but really that is never the entire story. That person could have been driving that car temporarily until their car is fixed, that man could have just spent his last five dollars to his name trying to show off by giving the waitress a nice tip, or you could be watching that movie because it was the only thing on TV. There are so many factors that have to be worked in in order to really find out what a person is really like, so we just need to get to know the person instead of generalizing them into a category.

Christianity

Popular Science Monthly printed out an article called "The Study of Human Nature", which talks about how Christ makes Christians look at the world through a new "mental philosophy". The article talks about what sin is and how we look at it through and the questions that we ask about it. The article is very though provoking and in depth as to the types of things that we should think about during our journey to understand people and the reason people do the things that they do.

There is also a section of the article that speaks strictly of human nature and how important divine faith is to continuing on the right path towards God's plan. The articles goes very in depth as to the problems that go on when people are trying to follow God's will and their sinful nature gets in the way and they "shut their eyes" to God and what he wants them to do.

I really like this article and it brings up a lot of very compelling points about human nature and the "mental philosophy" that we all have in our heads about life and sometimes that philosophy is good and sometimes it is misdirected.

A History Lesson

"The Study of Man", is all about how this study came about and the different ideas that have come from this study. Through the years the study oh humans has evolved and has been tweaked and defined according to different religious teachings and practices.
The study of humans evolved from what the Ancient Greeks observed as well as what came to be some of Socrates' teachings. Through the years, the study of human nature has become more and more defined. Like when a scientist makes a discovery, there are always other scientists that wants to dig deeper and find something even smaller inside of the cell and call it a nucleus. In that same respect, there is always going to be that person that digs deeper to answer the question of "Why do people do the things that they do?", and then comes out with the discovery of a guilty conscience.
This website takes us through history and describes the developments that have come about because of how complex we are as humans.

Human Nature Is All About Perception

No matter what you say, everyone wonders what the point of an inkblot test is. I think that is can be seen as a way for others to know how you see the world. Some people may say that this inkblot is some sort of insect or bug, that is what I personally see. Other people may see an angry face starring back at them, it is all about how this image is perceived by different people. In this same respect, some people get along better with one group of friends rather than the other; there is no way to really explain it but to say that they are more compatible on a mental as well as personal level. Everything that you come across in life deals with some sort perception and the ways in which you see and understand the world around you; as well as how you want other people to see you. Sometimes perceptions are fair and other times they are not. The unfair times maybe when you see the inkblot and think of an angry man, but you yourself are not angry and have no reason to see that particular image, you just do. So, the perceived thought that anyone that sees a angry man while looking at this has some sort of aggression inside of them, but this is not always the case.
Human Nature is and always will be a complex thing to analyze and study, for the simple reason of there are no two humans that are exactly a like. There will never be one set answer as to why people act the way that they do, there will only be theories and experimental conclusions that only simply give us an idea of the answer.

Human Nature Said in a Wierd, But Truthful Voice

The speaker is talking about society all of the misconceptions that we face and the generalizations that we make about other people in society. He talks about the different ways people in society are seen; they are all judged by the way that they look instead of by their thoughts and values. The way that he was talking and not looking at the camera took away from the message that he was trying to portray. His video seemed more like a joke than an actual serious message with a good point attached to it. The point he was trying to make was a very good one in my opinion, but the words that he chose to express himself were a little too harsh for my taste. He tried to be powerful and convey a powerful message, but it just did not work out for him.

One Thing That Will Never Change....

Human nature is an odd thing. Everyone has his or her own way of doing things and his or her own thought about what is right and wrong. There are many times where someone is insulted by someone else for the simple reason of the two individuals think differently and don't understand just how different their thought processes are. The reasons may be cultural, a difference in social class, or just a difference in age and maturity level.
Their are many times where communication leads to conflicts. Many times a person may say something that he or she is perceived as complimentary and the outside world sees them as insulting. There is no way for an individual to be completely understood by another individual; there will always be at least a slight difference in their perceptions.