The other day someone posted (http://condor.depaul.edu/mfiddler/hyphen/humunivers.htm) what was according to Donald E Brown a comprehensive list of Human Universals. In other words, it is what we are and what we can't get away from.
Reading through the list you will see, if you care to look, such things as in no particular order (and freely acknowledging some of them are obviously opposites) measuring, jokes, baby talk, fire, classification, play to perfect skills, feasting, self-control, grammar, sweets preferred, weapons, daily routines, prestige inequalities and even, just to confound us all, magic. I won't attempt to give the whole list but you can see it encompasses many things.
But what you may not know is that while these things have been true for us in one way or another since time immemorial (which by the way is legally identified as 1189 AD according to some people) they are often considered wrong now.
If you look through the list at random you will begin to see that our modern way, or if you prefer our chattering-class left-wing dominated approved thoughts and rigid political correctness, would demand a lot of them to be wrong. Take the idea of 'sweets preferred.' No, they are bad for you say the medical people. How about 'prestige inequalities?' It might be what we do and have always done but we must stop it now. Or 'self-control?' No way, just be free to do whatever you want! After all, there are no consequences now. Classification? Puh-lease, we are talking labels here and many lefties correctly reject labels, other than swiftly naming people as racist, homophobic and so on.
You see, this is what we have now. There are things we are and always have been but we were wrong. Many things in the Human Universals list are amended today or they are turned upside down in the name of fairness and correctness and so as not to give offence.
There's even ethnocentrism in there and of course that must be eliminated at once if we are to be 'progressive.' When it comes to etiquette, what nonsense we now say. Do as you will including spitting and slobbering away as much as you want. We approve of the wild and uncontrolled now and applaud people for being so base.
How about 'sanctions include removal from the social unit?' True, our forebears and ancestors all did it by putting people in a jail the offenders probably wouldn't want to return to, but we ought not to do so now because everyone deserves a second or third or fourth chance and ought to be free to reflect on their past errors.
Then there's this juicy one: 'Sex differences in spatial cognition and behaviour.' I can recall being blown out of the water by a female because I dared mention the suggestion women don't read maps the way men do. I was, apparently, calling them inferior when they aren't.
I could go on but let me add one more to add fuel to the fires of angry leftism: resistance to abuse of power, to dominance.
At this point various left-leaners will jump up and say, yes, we do that. We resist the abuse of power of the market place and fight against the dominance of capitalism. Then they quietly surrender it all to big government and dictators who abuses power on a scale undreamed of by private organisations. No questions asked so the luxury-loving tyrants and champagne-drinking socialists who look down on the ordinary person can do what they want.
Got a database of people? Then be reckless and careless with personal information. Got the database by checking up on people's private phone calls and their associations? Great, we're the government you elected so let's make the most of it and control what people say and think as well as limiting their free time.
Big government often doesn't like criticism, so it works tirelessly to eliminate criticism of its actions. As such it has the power to use armed force and impose punitive sentences, even liberally applying blame to humiliate those it dislikes. It controls the arms and the means of restraining people, and it will use them if they feel threatened. You have none of those dominant powers, but lefties will tell you not having them and giving them to faceless bodies is for your own good.
So how does this differ from the much-hated free market? Well, McDonalds make burgers and so do Burger King and you can choose to eat at either of their places, or you can choose neither of them and eat something else. The market place for all its faults give you the right to make up your own mind, even if one of these companies -- who by the way employ people and pay them -- should 'dominate' the burger market.
In my view, the only Human Universals that the left likes are the ones they can interpret their own way. They also make their own up by saying, for example, it is an inalienable human right to demand more money from the benefits paid by your caring government. Or insist it is the right of people in jails, who are there because they broke the social compact and made their fellow citizens' lives harder, to vote for policies that might benefit them in jail.
Human Universals is a long list and there is a number of them to disagree with in some ways. The point is they have been with us a long time because it is what they are. Turning them upside down doesn't make us seem more clever or make society better. We do what we do because we are what we are.
We perhaps ought to learn how to do some things better, but that process is lengthy and can never be an instant 'let's make a law' knee jerk reaction or vague thought at a dinner party. We got where we have through untold centuries of being us and we will, like it or not, tend to go back to what's on the list before anything else.
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