Nature, Humans included.

Attending college is absolutely what I need to be doing. Wednesday, in logic class I learned about the Principle of Interpretive Charity. I had never heard of that principle. It has a Bhuddist essence, and appears to be the best way to live among linguistic communicators.
Then, in Nature of Human Nature, class discussion of the inclusion of humankind as equally natural as nature, sent my mind into turmoil. I was reluctant to give up my preferred catorgarization of humans as unnatural. I went from thinking DJ didn’t understand nature, to realizing he was right. Component, natural ingredients synthesized by humankind into products, logically make these products natural. There are the erratic, occassional, non-deliberate significant acts of natural destruction, usually confined to specific regions of the planet. Then there are the deliberate, human-caused, ongoing, planet-wide, destructive acts that are also natural. I followed a link DJ offered to the journal of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. and found this gem on their site.

We regard nature as having intrinsic value.
We see humanity as part of nature.
We are nature’s self-transforming creature.

Humankind becomes de-vilifyed, no longer the destroyer of nature, we become nature’s self-transforming creature.

Exposure to new ideas, exposure to different ways of looking at tightly held, old ideas, and the opportunity to be gently supported through internal shifts of personal, imperfect views of the world, are the true blessing and value of a college education.