Human nature

Essay by dennis koppenHigh School, 11th gradeA+, September 1996

download word file, 3 pages 4.2

"We are all murderers and prostitutes--no matter to what culture, society, class, nation

one belongs, no matter how normal, moral, or mature, one takes oneself to be." R. D.

Laing British psychiatrist. R.D. Laing obviously backs up William Golding's point of

view that human nature is evil. Human nature is directly affected by the environment;

and is constantly changing due to the experiences of the individual. Oscar Wilde once

said "The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes.

Change is the one quality we can predicate from it. The systems that fail are those who

rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The

error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The

result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result." Human nature

depends upon the environment in which they are immersed.

The idea that children, not

humans in general, are swayed by the ideas and actions of their parental figures is also a

central idea of the book, "The Lord of the Flies" by William Golding.

Because of the war in England where the boys were from their human

experience was one of war. If there was no war going on in England at the time they

were evacuated from England, there would've been no deaths, no Lord of the Flies, and

certainly no beast. Because if they had came with a good human nature then how would

there have been a beast which Golding classified as the basic evil inside all of us.

Another thing that ties in with this that children try to copy what they see adults do so if

a child sees an adult smoke up or...