The Human Condition, Chapter 1

I'm not sure how Dr. Heckerl expects us to read 52 pages of all this by Tuesday, but I'll give a shot in figuring out the first six pages.

There are three fundamental human activities: labour, work, and action,
Labour is linked to biological activity. It keeps us alive.
Work is linked to non-natural objects that are meant to last beyond a human lifetime.
Action is linked to the interaction between human beings without the need of an intermediary

I love definitions, and this particular term cropped up very early on: Conditioning Power.
Conditioning power - factors which influence men's lives, such as:
natural: environment, weather, terrain, wildlife
non-natural: social relations, money, buildings, literature
Basically, men's lives are made complicated by nature, but we still create other factors to complicate things further, because life's no fun without a good soap opera, I imagine.

"The character of a condition of human existance"
- something with conditioning power influences people. Influencing people is the character of a condition of a human existance.
See the circular logic happenng here? Eh? Eh?

Human condition, however, is NOT human nature: if humans left Earth, they wouldn't become non-humans straight off just because they leave conditions that are traditionally associated with humans.
The problem with human nature is its impossibility in defining it, because that would require us to not be it first - be apart from it.
Who we are is NOT what we are.
Thr quest to define humanity tends to lead to the creation of a divinity (Absolute Perfection) - this idea just idealizes and defines superhumanness. For obvious reasons, this is a pretty suspicious way of defining humanness.

Yes, it takes me all of three hours just to get these six pages. I suck.