4/28/97, Bruce R. McFarling wrote:
>
> This is a direct consequence of pointing the phrase "human nature"
>at behaviors rather than capacities. I suppose that this distinction
>answers some question that is relevant to some problematic, somewhere.
>Personally, I don't like it, because my impression is that it moves to far
>from a lay understanding of the term without any corresponding pay-off.
"Capacities" is fine with me as a definition, but it seems we need to refer
to observed behaviors as a clue to capacities, with the observation that
any theory of capacities must explain at least the observed behaviors.
Behaviors (throughout history) are the database against which
human-capacity theories can be tested.
> However, the relevant question is whether this distinction is
>relevant to the identification of systems (world systems, world-systems,
>societies), to an understanding of how they are structured, or to an
>understanding of how they change over time. After all, *that* is the
>relevance of Sanderson's arguments: they have implications for how we
>identify social systems, how they are structured, and the viability of
>future social systems that different people in wsn may either predict as
>possibilities, or pursue as desireable outcomes.
I agree with this characterization of the purpose of this thread. The
point is to have some understanding of how people typically respond to
various circumstances, and how those responses could be expected to
aggregate into societal systems.
Perhaps the term "human nature" needs to be abandoned (at least on this
list) as being too loaded. But what other term captures not only
capacities, but also preferences, tendencies, etc? But whatever term we
use, it's important to refer to the gestalt totality of the human being -
including what is shared with animals, what comes with the unique human
psyche, the patterns by which individuals interact socially, and the
societal structures that result. It is this broad definition that helps us
discuss the micro level of world systems.
If we could agree on the definitional framework and terminology, there are
some useful substantive statements that could be made.
Yours,
Richard