So Human an Animal: How We Are Shaped By Surroundings and Events

[Encephalon]

I confess to having never read this, even though it appears to be profoundly influential on a subject that is both vast and very dear to me: social conditioning.

It one the pulitzer for non-fiction in 1969.

 

I'm choosing to read it now because my own study of Buddhism has lead me to an understanding of the importance that Buddhism places on social conditioning. I'm working through "Buddhism with an Attitude: The Tibetan Seven-Point Mind Training" by B. Alan Wallace and the subject of conditioning has taken up, in some measure, at least the first half of the book.

 

So far, I'm operating on a loose hypothesis that the Western imagination attributes human behavior to nature (genes), while the East seems to atribute human behavior more to nurture, which I think is a far more interesting, and optimistic, view.

[Chang]

So far, I'm operating on a loose hypothesis that the Western imagination attributes human behavior to nature (genes), while the East seems to atribute human behavior more to nurture, which I think is a far more interesting, and optimistic, view.

 

The question of what shapes human character, nature or nurture is a complete bag or worms.

 

A wriggling mass of contradictions.

 

Whilst geneticists argue that our genetic make-up can forge character traits such as a predisposition to criminal behaviour, numerous cases can be shown to shed doubt on this.

 

Yes social condition does undoubtably play a majotr role in the forging of character but we are often still left with the fact that "bad blood will out".

 

The view in the East may well be the more interesting and optimistic but my own opinion is that this is a question which defies answer.

Edited February 13, 2012 by Chang

[humbleone]

The question of what shapes human character, nature or nurture is a complete bag of worms.

 

 

I thought it was a can of worms!

 

but you are right, complex issue. I mean look at male pattern baldness, there is no evading it. If you have the gene inherited from your mothers side you will get it.

 

other genetic dispositions they say are effected by stress, that stress plays a big role as a triggering mechanism.

 

sadly genetics has been used in the west quite a bit to make a case for the master race.

[Encephalon]

OMG! Please forgive my lack of detail... the last thing I want to do is start another dead-end investigation into the nature/nurture debate.

 

I've noticed over the years that the West places more emphasis on nature, while the East emphasizes nurture. The West's Judeo-christian doctrine of "original sin" and the misanthropic view of human motives, particularly among conservatives, is a far cry from the East's notions of interdependency and the belief that "all beings possess Buddha nature."

 

I wanted to ask if anyone has noticed this very general polarization.

[Taomeow]

OMG! Please forgive my lack of detail... the last thing I want to do is start another dead-end investigation into the nature/nurture debate.

 

I've noticed over the years that the West places more emphasis on nature, while the East emphasizes nurture. The West's Judeo-christian doctrine of "original sin" and the misanthropic view of human motives, particularly among conservatives, is a far cry from the East's notions of interdependency and the belief that "all beings possess Buddha nature."

 

I wanted to ask if anyone has noticed this very general polarization.

 

What I've noticed is that talking of the Indo-European vs. East Asian cognitive paradigms is a deeper conversation than of "West's Judeo-Christian vs. East." To the Chinese, India had always been "West" (the famous Chinese novel "Journey to the West" is about a journey to India for to bring Buddhism to China) and the worldview of Buddhism, Western. Indeed, the differences between the Buddhist and the Judeo-Christian traditions are superficial vis a vis the main premise they share. Instead of the "original sin," Buddhism postulates "a state of samsara" --- essentially the same thing. Nothing of this kind is present in the East Asian tradition -- the human being is supposed to be conceived and born in a state of absolute perfection unless there's forces interfering with normal natural development. So, it is nurture and only nurture that is responsible for -- um, for thwarting a human being if it is the wrong kind, a kind of transmogrified agenda-driven nurture (instead of the natural feeling, emphatic competence, undamaged instinct-driven nurture), or for letting and facilitating the originally perfect human being to unfold her natural perfection if it is the right kind. "Nature" is fa, the law and pattern of balance and perfection, and true nurture patterns itself on this law without any need of any corrective action (tao fa ziran). No "evil nature" exists outside Indo-European paradigms. Not in taoism, not in shinto, not in bon, not in any of their precursors and derivatives before an influx of Indo-European religions (and their veiled but fundamentally identical in its main premises extension adopted some 150 years ago essentially to serve the same purpose by different means, commonly known as "modern Western science.") If nature is not allowed to unfold properly in a human being, it's solely "evil anti-nurture" that is responsible. (Including, of course, the kind that starts thwarting one's development before birth, even before conception -- for it has already been embodied in the parents and they transmit evil anti-nurture by virtue -- or vile -- of who it has made them into by the time they conceive a child.)

 

The above view is also mine.

[Taomeow]

evil anti-nurture

 

Still trying to take in the intensity of that phrase.

 

Yeah... Well, here's a bit of corroboration -- check it out if you have an hour to spare: