Human nature

Thomas Sowell is a writer who has a different way of explaining things and his thoughts are worth considering. He talks about two visions of human nature that he calls Constrained and Unconstrained. The Constrained are tragic and limited in their capacities. They have selfish and dangerous impulses that can be contained only by means of society's laws and institutions. The Constrained vision has its lens fixed squarely on this moral weakness of humanity. The saying "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" is a Constrained one. The Unconstrained vision sees things very differently. For the Unconstrained, human nature is perfectible. Humanity has incredible potentials but we find ourselves in a system warped by power interests and with cynical incentives laid like carrots all around us. The Unconstrained vision asks us to imagine a world where instead of living "lives of quiet desperation" spending most of our time working at jobs we don't like for people we don't respect, what if humanity instead worked enough to meet its needs and then focused on flourishing. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is speaking to the better angels of our nature, eyes fixed on the great heights to which humans can soar. The Unconstrained vision is a Utopian vision with a dream of a more perfect world. It doesn't think in terms of trade-offs but in terms of solutions. In contrast, the Constrained vision focuses on the negative side of human nature. It sees the pervasive selfishness and greed of humans not as an exception but as the rule. The only thing that keeps these dangerous aspects of human nature in check are the structures, laws and institutions that have evolved over the centuries. The Constrained are mindful of the distribution of power. This vision believes we must be very fearful of giving unlimited power to and individual or group of individuals to overhaul society in their ideal image. People who see the world through political glasses sometimes suggest that liberals are Unconstrained and conservatives are Constrained. The common example is a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.