A conversation about human nature is a conversation about how a person is born, what he is from the very beginning, even before any upbringing. Modern psychological trends in relation to views on human nature sometimes hold diametrically opposed views, and one of the main disputes is the dispute about whether human nature is good (aimed at good), humane, constructive. The votes were divided into equal fourths: about a quarter of experts are convinced that human nature is (rather) positive, a quarter that human nature is negative, a quarter believes that people are born with different natures, the last quarter considers it generally pointless to consider this issue.
Indeed, according to the views of humanists, human nature is unconditionally positive. “The fundamental nature of a person, when he acts freely, is constructive and trustworthy” (Karl Rogers — Tillich, K. Rogers: dialogue // Moscow Psychotherapeutic Journal. 1994. No. 2. p. 136. Tillich, K. Rogers: dialogue // Moscow Psychotherapeutic Journal 1994. No. 2. p. 136.) According to Maslow, a person has a biological instinct of humanity, which culture and environment can easily kill, but are not able to generate or strengthen. In this approach, personal growth is natural (G. Landreth, 1994, p. 63) “this is an internal tendency, it is not motivated from the outside, and it is impossible to teach this”, although it can be inhibited in the case of a negative environment and supported by a positive environment (Bratchenko S. L ., Mironova M. R. PERSONAL GROWTH AND ITS CRITERIA).
A variant of this approach is a view that can be called «Conditionally positive nature: disposition to goodness and the possibility of choice.» Namely, the existential approach of V. Frankl and J. Budzhenthal adheres to just such a more cautious view of a person, which proceeds from the fact that initially a person does not have an essence, but acquires it as a result of self-creation, and positive actualization is not guaranteed, but is the result of a person’s own free and responsible choice.
A position close to this can often be heard from kindergarten teachers who claim that 70% of children are conditionally kind. That is, normal egoists, but responsive to kindness, responsive, easily and sincerely becoming kind next to the kindness of others (most often educators). And if they are left to themselves, fights without rules, taking away and cruelty may well begin. See →
Most psychologists believe that human nature in terms of good and evil is neutral. There is a fairly common position (behaviorism and most approaches in Soviet psychology), according to which a person does not have a natural essence, a person is initially a neutral object of formative external influences, on which the “essence” acquired by a person depends. Behaviorism generally laughs at talking about human nature; for a behaviorist, a person is a variant of a biorobot. In this approach, it is difficult to speak about personal growth in the exact sense, but rather about the possibility of personal development.
Classical Freudianism in its view of human nature is pessimistic, proceeding from the fact that human nature is negative — asocial and destructive.
Moreover, the person himself cannot cope with this, and this problem can be solved only with the help of a psychoanalyst. Accordingly, within the framework of psychoanalysis, the concept of «personal growth» is impossible and does not exist. See →
A softer, although also negative, position is taken by Christian psychologists, speaking about the conditionally negative nature of man, nature corrupted by sin.
According to the views of Christian anthropology, the nature of human nature after the fall of Adam is in a perverted state, and his «self» is not a personal potential, but a barrier between man and God, as well as between people. The Christian ideal of a simple, humble and chaste person is infinitely far from the humanistic ideal of a self-fulfilling, self-sufficient personality successfully adapting in this world, enjoying the current moment, believing in the “power of human capabilities”. According to Orthodox teaching, the human soul not only aspires to the highest, but is also subject to an inclination towards sin, which does not lie on the periphery of spiritual life, but strikes its very depth, perverting all the movements of the spirit. See M. Yu. Medvedev. Orthodox doctrine of personality and some of its applied aspects and V. Kh.
Some researchers believe that a person does not have a single nature, that people are quite different: there are people with a positive potential, there are with an unstable one, there are people with a negative potential. However, with a competent approach and effective education, correction and further personal growth are always possible. Such a view is characteristic of the synton approach.
“In my opinion, man has only very weak vestiges of instincts, which should not even be called instincts in the true, animal, sense of the word. These rudiments, these instinctoid tendencies are so weak that they cannot withstand culture and learning, the latter factors being much stronger and more powerful. Psychoanalysis and other forms of revealing therapy, at least the same “search for oneself”, perform a very difficult, very delicate task of releasing instinctoid tendencies, releasing a poorly defined essential nature of a person from the load of external layers formed by learning, habits and cultural influences. Man has a biological essence, but this essence is very weak and indecisive: special methods are needed to detect it. A person has to seek and discover in himself — individually and subjectively — his animal nature, his biological humanity. Human nature is extremely malleable, malleable in the sense that culture and environment, with slight negligence, oppress or even kill our inherent genetic potential in us, but they are not able to generate or strengthen it. (A. Maslow, Motivation and Personality)
Modern psychoanalysis has repeatedly and convincingly proved that a person is not at all a storehouse of virtues. Each specific person, as a biosocial being, is by nature aggressive, selfish, narcissistic, asocial, has absolutely no spontaneous love for work, strives to enjoy and satisfy his own needs in their natural or sublimated forms, to which almost all types of aspirations belong. to achievement, career, power, motivation for artistic or scientific creativity. Summarizing these characteristics, psychoanalysis objectively recognizes that each individual is an enemy of the state and culture, since it is the latter that impose prohibitions, and, regardless of whether it is realized or not, everyone would like all prohibitions to be lifted for him. http://nfp.oedipus.ru/node/87 Reshetnikov M.M. modern democracy