The last posting of this
blog got into the development of a fetus during gestation. This posting picks up the idea of
development, but after birth. That
posting was concerned with abortion rights, this one is about something
else. It is concerned with the question: what determines behavior, nature or
nurture? This last question has been the
topic of many a discussion or argument.
This posting relies on the reporting of a conservative pundit, Jonah
Goldberg.[1] This blogger finds Goldberg’s take on this
matter intriguing.
Today, the consensus has discredited John Locke’s view that
humans are born with a blank slate. According
to Locke, all behaviors, thinking, and even feelings are/were the product of
experiences a person, beginning as an infant, experiences. Those experiences have their effect and
either at a conscious or subconscious level they make their mark within one’s
thinking. How one behaves, thinks, and
feels reflects the cumulative effect of those experiences.
Goldberg reports that this view has been discarded by all
serious students of human psychology.
Instead, he points out that the consensus is that people through their
biology are born with certain internal messaging and dispositions. He analogizes this by using the image of an
app. A lot of what people encounter can
be congruent with the content of that app or it can challenge what the app
informs or leads the person to believe or feel.
So, the question becomes: can a
person override what the app leads people to believe or feel?
While the app can’t be replaced, add-ons can be
acquired. That is, nurture – e.g., how a
person is brought up by his/her parents or guardians – can affect the
disposition of a person and that can lead to beliefs and feelings that would
not be believed or felt without those experiences. Having made that concession, though, there
are limits. Some built-in programming
cannot be replaced. It might be tweaked,
softened, redirected, but it cannot be dismissed or dashed by that parenting or
what other “learning” efforts provide.
The
content of the app is so enmeshed in what makes people human. So, what are the attributes of a person’s
psychic app? One, Goldberg reports, is
that babies are preprogrammed to have a moral sense. Six-month-old babies already bestow a
character trait on puppets that are shown to be helpful or detrimental to
another puppet trying to accomplish a simple task. They ascribe to those puppets who are helpful
as “nice” and those who hamper the other puppet as “mean.” They further indicate they prefer the nice
puppet.
This finding is further supported by other studies that
indicate a person is born with a basic sense to being empathetic, altruistic,
cooperative, and other moral predilections.
But how those initial biases develop depends on the experiences the baby
and then child encounters. One category of such experiences can be attributed
to the culture in which a baby finds him/herself during those early months and
years.
Another programmed indication is shown early on; a baby
demonstrates preferences in the language he/she primarily hears – even before he/she
knows how to speak or understand what is being said. That is, he/she is naturally drawn to pick up
the sound of the prevailing language minutes after being born. That is, the fetus, in the womb, already
seems to “hear” and “appreciate” the rhythm and pace of the language being
spoken by his/her mother and those people with whom she converses.
In addition to voices and language, the infant demonstrates
intense interest in facial appearances.
Surely, being able to identify mother and other relatives can be, under
certain dangerous situations, lifesaving.
This sensitivity is more pronounced than the child’s ability to verbalize
any differences he/she perceives. What
seems to strongly affect these abilities is familiarity with images that are
similar. “Who out there is like me and
my mother and my father,” etc. seems to be important.
And for Goldberg’s concern, this element of the app – the
bias for unity and familiarity – seems central.
Why? Because, in Goldberg’s
conservative bent, it helps bolster conservative assumptions. It does this in more than one way. For one, it bolsters the unifying role
markets play in a world where people are naturally disposed to avoid or
otherwise shun those who are different – the Other.
Yes,
one can be naturally suspicious of unfamiliar, dissimilar people, but one wants
to sell or lease him/her something like labor, a car, a service, etc. A market – by its role in allowing a people to
make a living – encourages people to come together and deal with each other
despite their natural aversions to the “Other” – those who are different.
But
there is another function conservatives seem to accept. Goldberg writes:
Children and adults are constantly
told that one needs to be taught to hate.
This is laudable nonsense. We
are, in a very real sense, born to hate every bit as much as we are born to
love. The task of parents, schools,
society, and civilization isn’t to teach us not to hate any more than it is to
teach us not to love. The role of all of
these institutions is to teach what we should or should not hate.[2]
He further states that until
recently racism has been an accepted belief bias. It was not considered as evil, but
natural. Goldberg uses this bit of
evidence to support the notion that it is natural – not desired – and that one
needs to count on society – culture, laws, taught notions of evil – to instill
a more prudent view of race – one that proves to be more conducive to societal
advancement. That is, racism is bad and
counterproductive to the general good.
He also points out that all political ideologies – humans
seem to naturally devise these belief systems – have their Others. That goes for capitalism, socialism,
communism, conservatism, and even contemporary liberalism – this last group
disparages evangelical Christians. They
all hate someone or someone-s to some degree.
This writer finds Goldberg to offer a set of ideas that a
federalist needs to think about seriously.
If federalism is based on humans being able to come together to form a
polity under a set of values that support community, collaboration, equality,
and even liberty, then he/she cannot ignore any truths, if any, Goldberg points
out.
To
begin with, given what Goldberg argues, one can see how early versions of
federalism were parochial. This blog has
claimed that that was the case all the way back to the nation’s colonial past. Truly, while America held federalism as
dominant, one can readily see how parochial it was. And that’s despite the onslaught of varied
ethnicities that found their way to American shores. It further explains slavery, mistreatment of
the latest immigrant group, and the inhuman treatment of the indigenous
peoples.
While this treatment of the Other still plagues current
American politics and social relations, at least there now exists a language
that more honestly reflects those realities.
The polity has enacted meaningful policies to address those biases, but
much needs to be done. A civics program
guided by a liberated federalism would be immensely helpful. But, if one can accept Goldberg’s claims
about the Other, such instruction needs consider what those claims indicate.
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