Again, I felt that I wanted to expand upon my earlier post about humanity that stemmed from a discussion about Brave New World. This time, I would like to expand on the importance of Carl Sagan's original Cosmos to progress my argument about human nature.
This time, it is the argument that human nature does not change. Sagan, in a few of his episodes, notably episode 11: The Persistence of Memory, and episode 13: Who Speaks for Earth?, explains the collective view of us as a race. He addresses the fact that we are not as different as we would like to think, and to somebody who had never encountered humans before, we would be difficult to distinguish from one another. Although he did not say this, a good analogy to this would be that generally, we can not tell the difference from one of a certain species of animal from another of that species, as we have not been around them enough. We can in dogs because we are around them every day, but generally, people would not be able to go out into a field of zebra, and immediately be able to distinguish one from another. Jane Goodall can distinguish chimps from one another, as she has been around them so often, but you would have a difficult time doing that, as you have not. Another example is siblings. We can usually tell siblings apart, as we have been around humans enough, but their genetics are so close to each other that they look very similar. If somebody who did not know the human race came to us, they would see all the same, as we have very similar genetic sequences to one another. Another reason that we are not different than one another is the similarity in culture from one culture to another. Each culture has its own music, dances, agricultural practices, sandwich and pancake, and even though we see a big difference from one to another, they are very similar in the grand scheme of things. Most of these happened without interaction either. Take the sandwich for instance. England and the rest of Europe had a traditional sandwich, but there are meat wrapped in bread meals from all cultures, such as the burrito from Mexico, the Baozi from China, the falafel from the middle east, and the various dumplings and sandwiches from other areas of the world. All of these were invented years ago, on all parts of the world, with no interaction from one culture to another. This pops up in various other ways- the seven cradles of civilization (similar time period, no contact), Darwin and Wallace (natural selection, discovered in India and the Galapagos), Newton and Leibniz (Calculus in England and Germany), and what else do we have to blame than human nature? Humans all over the world thing the same if we let them. We are one species, and because we are so similar, we should be nice to one another.
This time, it is the argument that human nature does not change. Sagan, in a few of his episodes, notably episode 11: The Persistence of Memory, and episode 13: Who Speaks for Earth?, explains the collective view of us as a race. He addresses the fact that we are not as different as we would like to think, and to somebody who had never encountered humans before, we would be difficult to distinguish from one another. Although he did not say this, a good analogy to this would be that generally, we can not tell the difference from one of a certain species of animal from another of that species, as we have not been around them enough. We can in dogs because we are around them every day, but generally, people would not be able to go out into a field of zebra, and immediately be able to distinguish one from another. Jane Goodall can distinguish chimps from one another, as she has been around them so often, but you would have a difficult time doing that, as you have not. Another example is siblings. We can usually tell siblings apart, as we have been around humans enough, but their genetics are so close to each other that they look very similar. If somebody who did not know the human race came to us, they would see all the same, as we have very similar genetic sequences to one another. Another reason that we are not different than one another is the similarity in culture from one culture to another. Each culture has its own music, dances, agricultural practices, sandwich and pancake, and even though we see a big difference from one to another, they are very similar in the grand scheme of things. Most of these happened without interaction either. Take the sandwich for instance. England and the rest of Europe had a traditional sandwich, but there are meat wrapped in bread meals from all cultures, such as the burrito from Mexico, the Baozi from China, the falafel from the middle east, and the various dumplings and sandwiches from other areas of the world. All of these were invented years ago, on all parts of the world, with no interaction from one culture to another. This pops up in various other ways- the seven cradles of civilization (similar time period, no contact), Darwin and Wallace (natural selection, discovered in India and the Galapagos), Newton and Leibniz (Calculus in England and Germany), and what else do we have to blame than human nature? Humans all over the world thing the same if we let them. We are one species, and because we are so similar, we should be nice to one another.
I intend to write one of these for both 1984 and The Time Machine, but they will come out on a later date...
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