>Can human nature be completely changed by culture or society?

No.

>Can human nature be completely changed by culture or society?
Yes.

>Can human nature be completely changed by culture or society?
Maybe.

Who cares.

>>29232
Assuming you're asking about the "nature vs nurture" argument, the general consensus right now in humans seems to be that roughly 70% of your personality and character is determined by your nature and genetics, and the remaining 30% is determined by your environment and external stimuli.

>>29311
Source of the weightings?

Human nature remains the same; culture simply uses the existing thing to its own means.

I would say it's more dependent on culture. We live in a culture where killing is rare and highly shunned, none of us are likely to kill a fellow human in our life and if we did we would probably be haunted by it and would probably have hesitated over doing it a great deal and we certainly would never think of eating another human. Compare that to many other cultures that have existed(and to some extent even still do) where it was perfectly acceptable to kill another human out of hand and where it was perfectly normal to eat your fellow man. There are of course some constants based on nature like lust but even that is dealt with quite differently from culture to culture, a good example of that would be homosexuality.

>>33543
Killing other people randomly has never been acceptable. There was duels and certain crimes and social class involved, but generally, killing somebody of your own rank and especially higher, was frowned upon for a very long time. Asian and European cultures were very different, yet they had this in common as they were more advanced. Even native americans punished people who murdered within their own tribe. Primitive and advanced cultures are not comparable. Advancement can be measured somewhat objectively by the living standards of average people. Empathy is also involved.

>>33545
Im thinking much further back. Think pre civilization. Before the world was solidified into the basic morals of humanity.

>>33547
>pre-civilisation
>Before the world was solidified into the basic morals of humanity.

Pre-civilization(before agriculture) there were hunter gatherer tribes. I really doubt they killed indiscriminately or cannibalism was the norm. I think cannibalism in humans is actually the reverse, an anomaly that's not natural to us, but comes from culture and has its own human made rules.

As for before hunter gatherer tribes? I don't think humans are really humans without that essential characteristic which probably predates homo sapiens. I don't think there was any artificial "solidification". Some of our innate traits are amplified by society while others are suppressed.

>>33545
It was acceptable in Japan for a samurai to kill a fellow samurai out of hand if he felt offended or to protect his reputation, this wasn't a duel either, he would just cut down the man in front of him right then. They would also practice cutting by killing prisoners, of course the prisoners were meant to die anyway but these people are still going around killing when it wasn't actually their responsibility.

>>33548
>I really doubt they killed indiscriminately or cannibalism was the norm.

It was though, well it's hard to tell how indiscriminate, usually it seems to be tied with warfare but cannibalism certainly was. There is evidence for cannibalism amongst pretty much all neolithic and pre neolithic people, including those in Europe.

>>33550
>if he felt offended or to protect his reputation
This was between Samurai and i'm sure there was plenty of social rules and expectations surrounding it. There probably was also some form of consequence for it.
>evidence for
Evidence for and day to day behavior are not the same thing. I doubt they viewed it in the same way as they viewed eating animals.

>>33551
The would also cut down peasants that offended them and whether there were rules or not they still did it. There was no consequence for it unless it was an incredibly low ranking samurai killing a high ranking samurai or if it was not done out of hand, if a samurai was offended, did not kill the man right then but then came back later and killed the man then he could be punished.

It's hard to say how they viewed it because we have no written records or anything, the evidence we have is made from human bones with ware patterns consistent with human consumption, in the very earliest of times it probably was more akin to eating animals as there are often caves found where animal bones and human bones are deposited together and their don't seem to be rituals and such from these times.
But in general going by more contemporary societies it seems that it had a more ritualistic nature, although in China it was often done simply as food and often not even related to starvation either. But regardless of whether it was ritualistic or not it was still done.

>>33552
Rank systems and norms of killing right away or not are just part of it. A non-samurai couldn't kill a samurai. Cannibalism might have also been used a last resort. If it wasn't, and those pre-civilization people saw no difference between humans and animals, why don't we have human farms? Why do we empathise with robots which remind us of humans? That's not part of our culture.

I just don't think you can seperate culture from nature. I also don't think murder and cannibalism becoming taboo spontaneously happened and were unrelated to human nature. Culture being more important than nature would imply that you can indoctrinate thousands of people from birth with absolutely any ideology, no matter how unnatural, and there wouldn't be any problems. It would also imply culture has some source outside of humans and their nature.

Post edited on 26th Oct 2019, 7:23pm

>>33553
>Cannibalism might have also been used a last resort

Possibly, but often these remains are found with large amounts of other animal remains indicating that there was no want for food. More modern societies often do it when not required as well, like the various Indian tribes, islanders, Africans and Chinese.

>why don't we have human farms

That would be a costly endeavour considering how long it takes to raise a human, what they eat and how large they are. You could raise cows many times over on grass and get much more meat from them. We are also in a culture that sees cannibalism and killing in a very negative way which was kind of my point, it's our culture that makes us see it this way.

>Culture being more important than nature would imply that you can indoctrinate thousands of people from birth with absolutely any ideology, no matter how unnatural, and there wouldn't be any problems.

You can.

>>33548
>or cannibalism was the norm

It was. We are all descendants of cannibal brain-eater monkeys.

>>33554
>indicating that there was no want for food
How? Some seasons there's more food available, other seasons there isn't. A few months can make that difference. If they don't get rid of their bones reguarly, yeah, they'll be found together. People never stopped eating. Do you a have a source saying that regardless of time of year or location, cannibalism was the norm? Otherwise, you're just making assumptions.
>it's our culture that makes us see it this way.
Our culture didn't come from aliens, or a god, or from thin air.
>You can.
Bullshit. Communism doesn't work for precisely that reason. You can't raise people to act like bees. Hispanics and blacks are also incapable of being successful as a group no matter what you try and do. There's nothing to suggest that people are blank slates.

>>33556
It's possible but still just a theory.

There is a book called Warfare in Neoliphic Europe by Julian Maxwell Heath. It's about warfare and essentially is just looking at sites that have been found with traces of that, for example villages with numerous dead dating from the same time and with arrow wounds or skull damage. Often these sites show signs of cannibalism as well. There are tons of other sources you could find for it, it is well documented.

No, it came from thousands of years of cultural evolution, evolution that was in many cases(perhaps most cases) designed to fight AGAINST our natural instincts. Whether we are religious or not, most of our morals are derived from the bible as we are raised in a society that was made that way and much of these morals go against natural instinct.

Communism was flawed to begin with, but even so had it been a culture that had been growing at a steady rate for thousands of years it might have worked or at least it would have worked better.

>>33557
>Warfare
Warefare also can't be considered daily life.

>Whether we are religious or not, most of our morals are derived from the bible as we are raised in a society that was made that way and much of these morals go against natural instinct.
To some extent, but there's many aspects of religion which does fit human nature. Fear of death, wanting an explanation for things, wanting to feel protected, wanting routine and tradition. I think cultural evolution is guided by human nature to the extent where the two can't be seperated. Communism could only come about by force and not natural development. Boiling human nature down to wanting food and sex is an over-simplification. I also think different groups of people are predisposed to forming certain types of culture.

>>33558
In some places it was fairly common, it's hard to tell what it was like in Europe but Europeans living amongst tribal people have noted that it was often quite frequent. But still, the average man would not be able to eat humans that often or there would be a discrepancy in the ratio of people killed to be eaten and people eating the killed. But it's likely more important people would eat humans on a more regular bases. On Fiji there was a tribal chief that would place a stone in a line behind his hut every time he ate a human, he had a line of 872 stones. But regardless of how frequent it was it was still done.

>Fear of death

Many societies didn't fear death, the samurai didn't and it could be said that religion was aimed at preventing it by telling people that it was okay to die, they would go to heaven.

There are some aspects of human nature that cultures will cultivate but some it will fight against.

>>33562
>Fiji
Small island. I'm not convinced there was ever any large society where cannibalism was viewed as no different from eating animals. Even then, it was a chief who probably wanted to show off how macho he is.
>But still, the average man would not be able to eat humans that often or there would be a discrepancy in the ratio of people killed to be eaten and people eating the killed
Eating people also poses a larger health risk since diseases are so easily passed.
>religion was aimed at preventing it by telling people that it was okay to die
That's what I meant. Religion is a solution to a problem. It was created partially for that reason.
>There are some aspects of human nature that cultures will cultivate but some it will fight against.
I agree with that and I already stated that, but while you think culture is more influential on people, I think culture's influence on people is just an extension of huamsn nature because cultures are formed the way they did because of that nature.

Depends on what you mean by “nature”. The way I understand it you can shape the response of the individuals to their innate nature but the actual nature doesn't change so I dunno.