The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that a shared human nature, which values freedom and happiness, opposes totalitarianism.
Steven Pinker argues that recognizing a fundamental human nature, characterized by inherent desires for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, serves as a powerful counterargument to totalitarianism. He warns that the idea of a 'blank slate'—the notion that humans can be completely molded by society—aligns with totalitarian goals, as it denies the intrinsic values and rights that people possess.
In practice
In a discussion about individual rights and government control, this quote could highlight the importance of recognizing human desires for freedom.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
We enter the bardo, the intermediate state after # death , just as we enter dream after falling asleep. If our experience of # dream lacks clarity and is of confused emotional states and habitual reactivity, we will have trained ourselves to experience the processes of death in the same way.
Man was created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord and in this way to save his soul. The other things on Earth were created for man's use, to help him reach the end for which he was created.
Our liberty springs from and depends upon an abiding faith in God.
He said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god.
Where books are burned in the end people will be burned too.
Ron: Why spiders? Why couldn't it be "follow the butterflies?
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