Human Nature

[Alan V]

I believe this discussion has largely run its course in any case.  Most atheists here seem as critical of human nature as I have become.

Perhaps I should concentrate on secular humanism, which is still a possibly redeeming perspective, as @AFTT47 suggested early on.

As I said earlier, politics is where human nature shows itself in an obvious way, and where we debate what we want to do with it. 

If you don't want to do politics, we could certainly discuss religion, because for many centuries religion was the framework through which Western people analyzed human nature. 

Dante is the obvious example. Nobody ever parsed human weaknesses and their cures more than he did. 

A more recent example is C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce. You have to read Dante before you read this one, but it is a more modern version, explaining just what it is about human nature that keeps us turning toward what is false and selfish. 

The best analysis of why political parties interfere with progress is surely Simone Weil's On the Abolition of All Political Parties. Here she makes a persuasive case that by aligning ourselves with a party, instead of just focusing on the truth, we turn ourselves away from the truth. It's true she writes from a Christian perspective, but because she was a philosopher, the God she writes about is entirely different from the God that we argue against on this forum. For her (as for Plato and most philosophers) God is simply the true and the good. And since you also feel that at least some parties turn people away from the truth, this is a profitable thing to read. 

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/...al-parties

What secular sources would you recommend?

I don't wish to ignore you, but I find your replies puzzling.  I really don't know how to respond, but will give it a shot.

I would much rather hear about what you find relevant in such things, at least in brief.  You seem well-intentioned at least.

I do enjoy reading, but collected so many books before I retired that I am unlikely to finish all the ones that I already own.

I think all political parties should be able to address the facts with their own particular policy prescriptions.  If they ignore or deny problems, they aren't really problem-solvers IMO.

I am wondering whether secular humanistic perspectives could help moderate my rather misanthropic perspectives.