Don't know where you stand on the nature/nurture, DNA v. society debate/continuum, but I wander back and forth, cyclically. I am presently of the mind that there is overwhelming evidence that the former is uppermost - the driving force in almost every aspect of human behaviour, our sense of well-being, our character, our happiness. Desmond Morris was right - we are naked apes. As is that chap who wrote the Language Instinct, although I still prefer Darwin's phrase - 'Language is an instinct to acquire an art'.
For example, I just picked up my guitar for pretty much the first time in six months and tried tuning it. It would be possible for a stone deaf person (not tone deaf - I mean completely deaf) to tune a guitar, by the way, because you can see and feel it when it's in tune. The strings shudder when they are out of tune, as does the body of the guitar, but when you twiddle the knob (machine head) and the two strings you are working on come into tune they visibly and sensibly hum - you can see and feel it. Once the whole guitar is in tune it too hums, and stops shuddering. (Btw I am reminded of how a sailing boat does the same thing once you get the sails set perfectly together - she starts to hum through the water).
For example, I just picked up my guitar for pretty much the first time in six months and tried tuning it. It would be possible for a stone deaf person (not tone deaf - I mean completely deaf) to tune a guitar, by the way, because you can see and feel it when it's in tune. The strings shudder when they are out of tune, as does the body of the guitar, but when you twiddle the knob (machine head) and the two strings you are working on come into tune they visibly and sensibly hum - you can see and feel it. Once the whole guitar is in tune it too hums, and stops shuddering. (Btw I am reminded of how a sailing boat does the same thing once you get the sails set perfectly together - she starts to hum through the water).
There is a perfectly practical scientific reason for this - to do with sound waves and oscillations etc. but the point is that we humans (and other animals) naturally sense such things, and find the harmonious result innately good. The natural scientific knowledge spills over into our artistic sensibilities - in fact it might be the case that our artistic appreciation is a means of seeking and detecting scientific perfection. Which might explain why so many top scientists and mathematicians appreciate high art.
Anyway, let's move on from harmony for a while to this week's word - compassion. Caring about people is again completely natural. If we didn't care about those around us in a mutually supportive 'looking out for each other' sort of way, society would disintegrate and we'd end up with more random acts of mindless violence, such as the truly horrific stabbings that took place in a Tokyo street in broad daylight the other day. To get people to harm and kill each other is going against nature - so soldiers have to be indoctrinated into thinking (or not thinking) they are doing the right thing, somehow, by going against their own nature. In the case of the military this indoctrination is intentional. In the case of the apparently increasing random acts of violence here in Japan, the indoctrination is brought about, it seems to me, by a society that doesn't show that it cares enough about its lost individuals. Which is why this country also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and a murder rate double that of Britain, for example, but which seems to be predominantly within families - brothers and sisters, husbands and wives - it's in the paper every week.
So, caring about each other, and showing we care, is way of increasing our own survival chances, as individuals and as a society. It's again in our DNA. So we are drawn to people who care, about whatever. People who are passionate about some aspect of life - whether it's racing cars, or opera, or global warming, or the mating rituals of the Emperor penguin (as one of my students is) - or a combination of the above. This is what can be depressing and frustrating about some of our students here - the almost complete lack of passion about life, and compassion towards others. So many of them (but by no means all, thank God) seem hidden away in their own worlds - worlds of fantasy - video games, Disneyland once a year, and sleep as often as possible - ie. escaping from, rather than passionately seeking, the reality of life on Earth.
I have just contradicted myself - because the conclusion is that these lost souls are the result of a socialisation process, which pushes them away from what is naturally within them - the need for harmony, passion and compassion in their lives.
