Human nature

I personally find it very pessimistic and cynical to think of "human nature" as violent, sadistic, self-loving animalistic tendencies, but even I have to admit that certain events, stories of torture and the like, make it seem so. Everyone is familiar with the supposed "duality" of man, the two conflicting sides to his nature, good and evil, compassion and hate. The idealist in me wants to believe that if it is so black-and-white, then the good compassionate side is the true nature, where the evil side is not our natural being, but merely a survival instinct, so to speak.

What I ask is not a two-sided poll on this, but some genuine deep discussion of the possible grey between the two sides, and just where you think human nature really falls.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Just something I thought I would toss in the mix... most of us have been brought up by one or more parent, correct? And generally speaking, those parents tend to instill in us some sense of morality. Usually. So we have what our parents say is right and wrong.

However, there are some knee-jerk reactions that most people have which have nothing to do with parents, it seems. Who doesn't flinch, cringe, or get that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when you see violence, torture, or anything else of the sort for the first time? It's that sort of "Ugh, what the heck, I can't believe that just happened, holy crap, that's not right" subconscious reaction that leads me to believe human nature is inherently good, but harbors desires that might be less than good.

I agree that good and evil are basically human attributes, which religiously can be explained by Adam taking the fruit from the tree of knowledge or what have you, but purely scientifically speaking, they are completely and totally defined by ourselves. But the discussion is on human nature in relation to these set values of good and evil... one could argue that things one perceives as evil are usually perceived as good by the instigator (take Hitler for example) but generally speaking, most humans feel that taking away someone's life is bad.

There's nowhere I can't reach.