Is Human Nature Malleable or Constant?
By David Glesne
President, The Virtues Campus
Might the Declaration of Independence & the U.S. Constitution shed light on a better way forward?
Is evil rooted systemically in social structures, thereby calling for a radical destruction of those structures? Or, in the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, does “The battle line between good and evil run through the heart of every man”?
The Founders:
God’s revelation in the Bible (and in nature), informed the Founders’ understanding of humans as moral beings. In other words, humans are called to do right, but do not always do right. They sometimes do wrong. They are sinners. The nature of the human being is a mixed bag. It is both good and bad, noble and deprived, great and evil, comprised of reason and passion. It is a nature that doesn’t change.
In the writings of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton goes through history, citing an ancient example paired with a more contemporary example. In doing so, he shows how human nature is consistent across centuries, even millennia. Hamilton, as well as other framers, saw the many improvements made over the centuries. He saw the progress in science, and how much had been learned from experience. However, as it pertains to human nature, that remains a constant.
Human nature is inevitably going to generate conflict. As he looks at history, Hamilton says we learn about three basic causes of conflict. First, conflict arises out of basic, general social causes. There is an element in man that loves power, becoming jealous when others possess it. This core part of our nature leads to conflict. Second, particular circumstances between countries inevitably cause conflict. Conflict erupts, for example, when borders are not well settled. Third, there are private causes (e.g. the likes and dislikes of individuals) that give rise to conflict. People do not like each other. Leaders do not like other leaders. The Founders saw human nature as unchanging. It is consistent, and constant, across all of time. To deny man’s lower nature, they believed, one would have to disregard the uniform cause of human events, and essentially defy the accumulated experience of the ages.
The Founders understood, therefore, that a workable government needed to account for the duality of human nature. With profound insight on government, as well as human nature, James Madison writes in Federalist 51:
“What is government but the profoundest of all reflections on human nature. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither internal nor external controls on the government would be needed.”
We are human, capable of both great and/or terrible things. Human nature is going to lead to conflict. As such, we need a governing structure that takes the passions of the lower nature into account. The men who govern us are not angels, any more than we are. George Washington’s musing on human nature reveals much: “We have probably had too good an opinion of human nature informing our confederation.”
From this understanding of human nature, the Founders proceeded to structure a Constitution devised to engender the correct cooperation between man’s higher nature (reason), and lower nature (passion). They arranged a government biased in favor of the good we can do, and in opposition to the lower part of our nature.
The higher part of our nature is what justifies government by the consent of the governed. All men are created equal. These equally created people are sovereign. In other words, no one has the right to rule over another, without consent to that rule. Consent of the governed gives rise to representation. Authority is given to representatives who rule over us. Divided, however, into three separate branches of government, thereby limiting their power. The sovereigns are limited in power in that they are outside the government, and do not rule directly. The representatives are limited in power in that other branches of government check their power. The Founders formed a structured government grounded in the sovereignty of the people. Nevertheless, those powers are so arranged, that “the better angels of our nature” (Lincoln), drive the government in accordance with human nature. Reason alone must be placed in control of government. Our passions must be controlled by it.
By their very nature, men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. The rule of the majority, therefore, has to be structured in the right way. The government should be strong enough to protect the inalienable rights of the people. But, the government should be limited; just strong enough to protect us from one another. Government must not be given absolute power. For although government is necessary, those who govern are men, not angels. Angels do not govern men.
The Progressives: Late 1880s to mid-1960s
Progressivism is a term that certain academic thinkers in the 19th century (and after), adopted for themselves. They meant it as a new kind of what they called “liberalism”. It was a new way of thinking about man, as well as nature, and everything in it.
Progressives believe human beings are different than they used to be. Maybe back in the “bad old days”, human nature was factious and corrupted; thereby necessitating limited government. Their modern perception, however, hinges on “progress and scientific advancement”. We have evolved/improved from the 1880s to the 1920s (and beyond). Human nature is far more enlightened now. We now have a higher society to deal with human and social ills. For Progressives, government is no longer a danger to the liberties of citizens. Therefore, you can increase the scope of government, take away some of the checks and limits on government, and let things roll from there.
Progressives are utopians (dreamers) about human nature. They believe that human nature can be remade. Man is nothing, by nature. Therefore, human beings can remake themselves into anything they want themselves to be. Human nature is malleable - not a constant.
President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was the epitome of everything the Progressives wanted to accomplish. The Great Society programs envisioned bringing to completion the Progressive vision for society. His presumption was that we can remake society. Through centralized government programs, we can create precisely the kind of human being, and social order, that we want. Since man is nothing by nature, if we will only tinker with the institutions, laws, and policies in just the right way, we can create this perfect world. We can transform human beings by bringing “the city of God” down to earth, and create that existence in “the city of man”.
“The Great Society is … a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce, but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.” (Lyndon B. Johnson)
In other words, in its radical new role, the federal government will attempt to fulfill the longings of the human soul. It has been the Western mindset (since Augustine, in the 4th Century), that the longings of the human soul can only be fulfilled in “the city of God”. What God used to do for us, federal programs now handle. “The city of man” has replaced “the city of God”.
The Post-60s Progressive Liberals
Although there is a lot of continuity between the pre/post-1965 Progressives, there are also important discontinuities. The new liberals embodied new ideas, radically altering the old Progressivism, and calling it into question. The older Progressives believed in objective morality, scientific truth, and the goodness of the American way of life, as they understood it. They believed in reason, as well as patriotism (of a sort).
The new Progressives doubt that there is such a thing as objective truth. They embrace Post-modernism. They question the validity (not to mention, the very possibility) of reason. It is a mix. Sometimes, it is objectively correct. Other times, all viewpoints are equally true and/or false. Although there is a mix, the new liberals doubt the goodness of the American way of life as a whole. Thus, they exhibit self-hatred, and a dislike of human life, in general. The older Progressives thought there was an objectively correct way to understand existence and the meaning of human life. The new Progressives, on the other hand, think this is something we make up as we go along.
Post-1965 Progressivism, altered by contemporary liberalism, is more anti-constitutional than Progressivism before 1965. The new Progressives embrace ideas of a living Constitution, the rule by experts, and administrative decree, rather than rule of law. They embrace the new concept of human rights that demands the redistribution of resources, rather than securing the inalienable natural rights of all. These are continuities.
Post-1965 Progressives, however, are much more cynical and corrupt. The intrusion of government is greatly expanded. This is due to the vast increase in the number of victim groups requiring government assistance. The attack on the family greatly increased dependence on government, and greatly hinders the pursuit of happiness, of millions. A new understanding of environmentalism has done immense damage to American prosperity. An incoherent blend of Post-modernism, with an earlier Progressivism, makes it nearly impossible for policymakers, almost always influenced by these ideas, to think clearly about what is needed to secure American rights.
Bullets For Reflection:
The U.S. Constitution is a reflection on human nature, and that is why it has worked so well. It is the longest, lasting, continuous representative form of government, in human history.
The fatal flaw in every utopian, socialist ideology, the rock on which every socialist ship breaks apart, is a misunderstanding of human nature.
If human nature is malleable, and you can design your child any way you want, what standard would you use to design it? Hitler was big into eugenics. He wanted blond hair and blue eyes; a strong people who did what he said – but no Jews allowed. What standard would you use?
What if we have a project to remake society, which excludes nature (or for that matter, God), and we say we are going to take control? We can make everything better. The question arises: What do you mean by “better”? What can give you any guidance? The only guide remaining, after eliminating everything else, is strength. Only power.
Towards a solution: The people who govern us are not angels, any more than we are. We have to do two things: 1) Seek to restore the limits, poise, and balances in the government. 2) We need to think we can do that, because it is the right thing to do, and surely, the right thing can always be done.