What Has Happened to Human Nature?

“Why is it that we have child cruelty in this age? Why is it that we have animal cruelty? Why is it that we have violence? . . . Why is it that people take to terrorism? Why is it that people take to drugs? . . . Why, when you have got everything, do some people turn to those fundamental things which undermine the whole of civilization?”

THOSE questions were asked out loud by Britain’s prime minister. You have perhaps asked similar questions many times. Have you found any satisfying answers?

Putting her questions into perspective, the prime minister said: “For years when I was young and in politics with all my hopes and dreams and ambitions, it seemed to me and to many of my contemporaries that if we got an age where we had good housing, good education, a reasonable standard of living, then everything would be set and we should have a fair and much easier future. We know now that that is not so. We are up against the real problems of human nature.”​—Italics ours.

Human nature can be defined as “the complex of fundamental dispositions and traits of human beings.” Obviously, conflicting dispositions and traits can cause problems on a personal, national, or even an international level. But to what extent is human nature really to blame for today’s dangerous trends in violence, terrorism, drug trafficking, and the like?

Is human nature solely to blame for the conditions that threaten to “undermine the whole of civilization”? Or are there other factors we should take into account to explain why people so easily gravitate to degrading, selfish practices when they could aspire to higher, nobler pursuits? Let us see.