My thoughts on human nature can best be summed up by the character Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on, that’s who we really are.” Our ability to critically think about our behavior and make choices is what makes us human and sets us apart from our hominid ancestors. In fact, as far as other species are concerned, there is no concept of “good” and “evil”; there is predator and prey, threatening and safe, dominant and submissive. Morality is not a factor at play in the animal kingdom. All that matters is having access to the resources that make survival possible. But humans have the intellectual capacity to construct a vastly more complex society; while
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Our earliest ancestors were limited to face-to-face verbal and non-verbal interactions. Then we developed written modes of communication, which we have since digitalized to the point that someone in Beijing, China have have an instantaneous conversation with someone in Reykjavik, Iceland. However, technological advances push farther and farther towards recreating the experience of face-to-face communication over digital means—proving that in-person, verbal communication, underscored by tone of voice and body language, is still the most effective and satisfying way for humans to communicate. I have so far highlighted what I consider two identifying characteristics of human beings: our complex intellectual life and our desire to bond with others. Communication theory is the union of the two. Beyond giving us the ability to choose whether to pursue our own interests at the cost of everyone around us or consider other’s needs, our superior intelligence drives us to examine the world around us to discover how it works. Considering the large role communication plays in our lives, especially in the twenty-first century, it is only natural that it is one of the processes we devote our attention to picking
Our earliest ancestors were limited to face-to-face verbal and non-verbal interactions. Then we developed written modes of communication, which we have since digitalized to the point that someone in Beijing, China have have an instantaneous conversation with someone in Reykjavik, Iceland. However, technological advances push farther and farther towards recreating the experience of face-to-face communication over digital means—proving that in-person, verbal communication, underscored by tone of voice and body language, is still the most effective and satisfying way for humans to communicate. I have so far highlighted what I consider two identifying characteristics of human beings: our complex intellectual life and our desire to bond with others. Communication theory is the union of the two. Beyond giving us the ability to choose whether to pursue our own interests at the cost of everyone around us or consider other’s needs, our superior intelligence drives us to examine the world around us to discover how it works. Considering the large role communication plays in our lives, especially in the twenty-first century, it is only natural that it is one of the processes we devote our attention to picking