hitler, hogwash, and handjobs

There are laws governing what passes for philosophical discourse on the internet. For instance, “You are always committing the logical fallacy that you are accusing someone else of”. This isn't always true, but it's so ubiquitous that we ought to use it as a tool of self discovery. How many times have you been baffled by somebody accusing you of something that you are sure they are actually guilty of? Another example, “Somebody always makes a reference to Hitler”. The kind of belligerent squabbles that these conversations so quickly devolve into tends to cause the importance of moral disagreements to expand beyond their rational limits. And It's hard to resist invoking a name as emotionally charged as Hitler when what you really want to say is, “fuck you”. The law is doubtless false more often than it's true, but try to count on just one hand how many times you've done it.

This post is about another law, and one that is actually universal. “Appeals to human nature are confessions of psychology”. If you claim it is human nature to kill and rape and steal, then you have just admitted your desire to kill and rape and steal. This is true by definition, since the one making the appeal is himself human. Some are honest enough to admit that they share whatever nature they claim for everyone else. Others have managed to delude themselves that they alone have risen above the pretensions or carnal desires of their peers. Still others are convinced that it's not themselves but some venerable sage who has transcended the barrier of human nature. These sages are often priests and presidents, but sometimes they're just high school girlfriends. But no matter what, the nature you claim for all humanity is invariably a reflection of your own desires.

So this post is something of a confession. I believe lots of things about human nature. I believe humans are rational optimizers of ranked preferences. Some mainstream economists will tell you that the “myth” of the rational optimizer has been debunked by some such study or statistical model. These people are not properly economists; They're social engineers. They want to justify government violence by making two obvious errors. First, they assume that they know what their subjects' “real” preferences are. Second, they assume that the subjects themselves know what their “real” preferences are. People act on preferences they don't understand or even willfully ignore. This, by the way, is the power of proper economics as a tool of self discovery.

I also believe that all humans rank intimacy as their highest long term value. Ultimately, all human activity is a means to an intimate end. Too many people are terrified that they are unworthy of the intimacy they desire. This explains why so many people feel trapped in codependent or abusive relationships. They don't have the courage to seek out better more intimate relationships, because they're convinced that they don't deserve them. It explains why people seek out frivolous sexual encounters. It explains why the desperate unspoken agreement of dedicated partnerships to lie to each other about our virtue is the expectation in society. I further believe that the cowardly decision not to process the negative emotional consequences of value frustration is the source of everything that is euphemistically called “mental illness”.

So what do you believe is true about human nature? What does that say about what you believe about yourself? And do you have the courage to leave it in the comments below?