JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum A word about my absence...

Hi Mark,

wow...

That was very informative, and I understand some psychology so I could follow what was said.

So it's not a clear cut nature or nurture thing. I can accept that. I DO think, still, that experience has the most powerful say in how we feel about issues.

A conservative woman who is raped and impregnated has every reason to have a new understanding of having the right to abort that fetus.

A conservative caregiver who sees the benefit of medical marijuana can see the benefits of wanting it legalized..

A conservative with a long time Hispanic maid who is saving up to get her dad into this country might be softer on immigration.

A liberal in El Paso who's son was murdered by a drug cartel might want that wall built.

I could go on and on..but we all have different lives and different circumstances and events can carry great weight in shaping how we feel on issues, and then on those candidates that embody those issues.

This is not to say that we aren't born leaning one way or another, as that study makes a very interesting case for.

If it was true, that all our stances on all issues were pre-ordained, written in our genes, even if it was true, it would be a very unpopular idea--to think that our actions really were not our "own."

Spoiler alert...It reminds me of the movie, "Network," and Arthur Jensen's (Ned Beatty) "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature" speech in which he tells Howard Beale to spread his message of how "the individual is dead and corporations are the new nations"--and then Beale does so on his show, the ratings plummet, and he's assassinated for his low ratings, lol.

To think that we really aren't choosing when we think we are is as depressing as Beale's last monologue:

What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished. It's every single one of you out there that's finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It's a nation of some two hundred odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings and as replaceable as piston rods.
Well, the time has come to say is 'dehumanization' such a bad word?' Whether it's good or bad, that's what is so. The whole world is becoming humanoid, creatures that look human but aren't. The whole world, not just us. We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first. The whole world's people are becoming mass-produced, programmed, numbered, insensate things.

Very prescient of Paddy Cheyesky. Very ahead of the curve for 1976..but very depressing to think about.

We as human beings at least need to hold onto the idea that our personal experience informs what we think about certain issues that mean a lot to us. We may have inherent leanings one way or the other and we may be bucking them, if we are making liberal choices with conservative genes, and vice-versa for conservative choices with liberal genes. But it may be a necessary fight and a good fight, brought on but our various experiences and how they can change how we think about stuff..

It's like..the difference between reading a book about life..and living a life..

Even if that book we read encapsulates our ancestral DNA and the story it tells..

That book holds far less weight in terms of IMPACT on that person..


Mike

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Arthur Jensen's monologue:

http://www.monologuedb.com/dramatic-male-monologues/network-arthur-jensen/