Ahmed Sameer
In a world shaken by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, it has become almost predictable to blame humans for the disasters they create. Each conflict seems to confirm what history has long whispered—that the darker impulses of human behaviour can reshape the fate of entire societies within months.
Sometimes I feel that blaming humans for the problems created by them is both obvious and pointless. It is the same selfish nature that continues to shape our times. Not only has it remained a constant thread throughout history—where behaviour silently drives the course of events—but it also allows us to guess the direction of the future. For instance, there would have been no Second World War had Hitler not pushed his expansionist fantasies to the extreme. His desire to prove his strength dragged others into a global conflict. And examples like these are many. Today’s conflicts—whether in Eastern Europe or the Middle East—echo the same enduring behavioural patterns.
Now, the changes—both positive and negative—that arise out of human behaviour often become the yardsticks of progress. Yet it seems that the negatives, at least in the threats they pose, overshadow the positives today: war, violence, climate disasters, and other crises. The images of civilian suffering from Kyiv to Gaza City remind us that when human impulses run unchecked, the entire species must bear the consequences.
We do have different arrangements to check the fluctuating behaviour of people—the very behaviour that, at first glance, appears to be the origin of so many ills. The United Nations, international law, and strict national laws all attempt to prevent the dark side of human impulses from taking over. Yet the paralysis of global institutions in the face of ongoing conflicts raises a vital question: if human nature were truly utopian, would we even need such institutions?
Imagine a world where individuals honestly take an oath never to harm or grab someone else’s property. What need would remain for the judiciary and the police? The roots of conflict would vanish, and judges wouldn’t have to spend enormous time settling disputes. Nearly two-thirds of civil cases in India revolve around property-related conflicts. If humans internally resolved never to take what isn’t theirs, courts would be relieved of most of their work. Doesn’t this mean that institutions become defunct when human behaviour changes for the better? What, then, would remain for them to do if human behaviour made a remarkable shift?
“Intelligence plus character is the goal of real education,” Martin Luther King Jr. said. It captures the hope that education can mould behaviour and keep abnormalities from disturbing the order of society. But if the trait of goodness were already inbuilt, what function would education serve? We expect education to enlighten us so that destructive tendencies don’t find space to distort social harmony. In a utopian society, everything would already be in order. No external agency would be required to set the house right—it would already be right.
Lastly, humans paddle the affairs of the world like fuel powering a machine. They carry both good and bad traits. While good attributes naturally bring prosperity and calm, what about the bad ones? Surprisingly, even the darker side of human behaviour sometimes becomes a blessing. War, after all, springs from that darker side. And wars have often triggered major changes—scientific innovations during the World Wars fundamentally shifted human history. Even today, the technological race fuelled by conflicts—drones, cyber-defence systems, disaster-response tools—shows how turmoil can accelerate transformation. War challenges the status quo too, which can be necessary for inclusive change in unequal societies. In Hegel’s words, “war is progress and peace is stagnation.”
In conclusion, human behaviour—with all its contradictions—remains the invisible hand shaping the destiny of societies. To blame human selfishness alone is to miss the larger picture, where every flaw and every virtue contributes to the evolution of mankind. Institutions, laws, and education try to curb the darker impulses, but they ultimately reflect our continuous struggle to balance the wild and the wise within us. Rather than lament human imperfections, it is more meaningful to recognise—and responsibly harness—this dual nature for a sustainable and thriving world.
Ahmed Sameer holds a Master’s degree in Political Science and can be reached at ahmedsameer2135@gmail.com
