Because generic predicates apply to all members of the human species of primate and thus can be indicated by the term "human nature", regular patterns of behavior which correspond to repeated conditions under which they occur could be said to be the fundamental ground of diversity amongst its members. In this view, only the conditions change, which in turn generate the diverse responses by a minimum number essential characteristics, --free exercise of voluntary labor and peer recognition, for example. So if people are generally products of their conditions, and everyone has their own set, some members of which are shared with others and some not, where does interpretation of the conditions no longer override the deliberate efforts to change them? Or conversely, at what point ought changing existing conditions overshadow the effort to understand them? Specialized fields of knowledge remain within the context of communities of experts, but what about non-specialized, normative fields of knowledge? In international contexts, for example, if some experts continue to furnish reasons which justify some kind of universally repulsive behavior, as has occurred in official state programs of genocide, ought the conditions under which the defended behavior occurs be considered irrelevant to the recommendation from the community of non-specialists that it be changed?

From Marx's perspective, can the arts exist for their own creative sake, to express an emotion or capture a truth? Or can they only be seen in terms of a progressive class struggle?

Is art, like religion, an "opium of the masses," or can it help with our alienation? Can literature and music bring us closer to our human nature, so we feel more at home in an oppressive world?