...This is one of those "things that make you go hmm"*** so it is pretty jumpy and random as it meanders through my head trying to connect the scattered dots and form a cohesive picture. Please be tolerant, if you don't understand it at all...
As hinted yesterday, I often hear snippets of the great debate between nature and nurture. As a child development major, we often discuss which is more important in the development of children. If it's nature, then children would turn out the same no matter what their parents/teachers do (but children raised with no social interaction do not do as well as those with). If it is nurture, then children with seemingly equal upbringing would turn out similarly, and it would be easy "make" all kids turn out in a cookie-cutter-like fashion (but that's also untrue, as children react differently in the same situation). It is largely accepted now that human development is explained through the very complex system in which these two separate ideas come into play.
When I think about it all religiously, I am inclined think that nature is more "important" than nurture, because the characteristics which are nurtured, have to first exist within us (the other great debate: chicken vs. egg). We are eternal beings, and we existed before our birth into humanity, and if that is true, then our characteristics also existed before. But at the same time, if all that is true, what is the point of being here?
Yesterday I heard something very interesting which put this concept into a new light for me. In my class we were talking about basic human needs, and a girl (I believe her name was Heather, oddly enough) said something about how we need to be nurtured. For whatever reason, that instantly brought the Nature Vs. Nurture concept to mind, and I am trying to connect what was said with what is debated. In other words, what she said is that it is human nature to need nurturance. It's just a new way of tying the two ideas together. It is not one or the other it is both (which we already knew) but more than that, neither can exist in human development independently of the other. So far this is just a partial thought that I need to explore more, and have been thinking about ever since. Any thoughts you'd like to share?
More interesting when you add the thought that we need to both give and receive that nurturance.
***(3 stars, just because I felt like it) On a funny and completely irrelevant note: As I was feeding my latest addiction last night, I met a really cute guy who was starting to get pretty drunk. How could I tell? Because as he was slowly showering me with his beer tainted saliva, he shared his really deep thought about how people who are good at dancing are probably using it to their advantage on the dance floor (really!?!?). He then said that the nugget of joy he'd just shared with me was "just one of those 'Things That Make You Go Hmm...' ...Wouldn't it be funny if they started playing C+C Music Factory?" Haha-- Yes, yes it would. And also, I've got to go...over there now.
No comments:
Post a Comment