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>>, how does it affect the youngsters you mentioned?
Oh, Honey--I really don't want to get all depressed right now. If anyone else wants to take this one, go right ahead.
I'll give it a shot later.
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old hand
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>>isn't it possible that there are deeper passions behind our decisions?
William,
Only rarely, I'd say. Many acts (I hesitate do say decisions) in our well-cared-for life arise from sheer boredom and a general drive to do something. Animal research has shown that if e.g. a bird has had no insects to peck at for a while it starts pecking at the empty ground, an instinctive movement, not because it is hungry.
Only a short timespan, in evolutionary terms, separates us humans from the epoch where we needed to be constantly active during waking hours, simply to survive.
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>>Only a short timespan, in evolutionary terms, separates us humans from the epoch where we needed to be constantly active during waking hours, simply to survive.
how do you know that?
the bird doesn't peck because it read a newspaper article, but because something tells it to. science calls it instinct, but what does science know about the mind of a bird?
boredom can't be the answer, because everyone gets bored, but everyone doesn't do the same things!
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In reply to:
boredom can't be the answer, because everyone gets bored, but everyone doesn't do the same things!
Doesn't necessarily follow. An instinct can express itself in all sorts of different ways. Take sex, for example. We all have a sex instinct, but the way it shows itself can take all sorts of different directions in different people at different times in their lives and in different circumstances depending on our environment in the womb and afterwards, up to and including who or what is available at the time.
Bingley
Bingley
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#1964
08/11/2000 11:36 AM
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>>Only a short timespan, in evolutionary terms, separates us humans from the epoch where we needed to be constantly active during waking hours, simply to survive.
So that's why I'm so restless all the time! Thank you, Dear! I always love to find rational reasons for
behavior.
I will also point out that one way we know this is to look
on television or just open our eyes where we are, and see that there are people all over the world who still have to "be constantly active during waking hours, simply to survive." There are lots of jungle tribes living right beside us, right now. And some of those jungles are in modern cities. Those of us with education and lifestyles that allow us the knowledge to write on this Board, and have the luxury of free time to do it, are extraordinarly fortunate.
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#1965
08/11/2000 11:45 AM
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>>Now jaded and unconvinced
Unconvinced of what, Dear? Clarify, please?
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#1966
08/11/2000 12:26 PM
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william--
As I re-read your posts in this thread, I came to the conclusion that you are actually wanting to know why we (and other creatures) behave as we do.
The bottom line, but nonetheless supremely unhelpful, answer is: because of something we are born with (nature),
or because of something about the way we were raised (nurture).
Scientists have been studying the nature vs. nurture aspect for ages (that is how they do in fact know what goes on in the minds of birds). They have made a great deal of progress in some ways (I'm thinking of the recently-developed ability of the FBI to do quite accurate profiles of criminals they have not caught), and very little in others (studies of identical twins raised apart and unaware of each other have shown remarkable similarities in the two, but nothing conclusive has been learned).
It seems to be human nature to want to know the "why" of everything. I know I do! But each person's history is
unique: even identical siblings raised together are not raised identically, nor are their perceptions of how they were raised identical. Each will perceive, correctly or incorrectly, that they or the other was more favored or less favored. This will have effects on their behavior, in either subtle or obvious ways.
This provides a nice lead-in to your question of how children who have no one who cares enough to teach them right from wrong come to behave. We all do whatever we think will result in getting our needs met. Infants cry when they are uncomfortable, and hopefully that will bring a caregiver who will provide relief. We continue that pattern all our lives, in some way or another. Kids who are raised without enough attention being paid to them, by and large are going to find ways to secure that attention.
As they become teenagers and are more able to get around on their own (though some don't wait that long), these attention-seeking behaviors tend to escalate into very destructive acts, both to themselves and others. That always hurt me so much to watch that, because I knew they were acting out in pain from the circumstances they were in,
and I knew that 99 out of 100 of them were only going to be in more painful circumstances as a result. Many times, I just felt like shaking the kid's parents and yelling, "Just love him/her, that's all they're asking!".
And then I would realize all too often that the parents were maybe in just as much pain, and for whatever reasons truly didn't have anything left to give the child.
The kids who somehow (here I am thinking of nature, as in born with a strong personality) become successful adults
despite horrendous childhoods are the lucky ones. I define successful here not as accumulation of wealth, but as simply being able to survive without being destructive to a debilitating degree. Children born with naturally self-effacing personalities, or who have had standing up for themselves literally whipped out of them, are the unlucky ones, unless they are fortunate enough to find someone who genuinely cares for them.
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old hand
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Jackie,
This last post of yours is really impressively deep and relevant. It has to be founded on personal experience.
There is no need for me to ad my grain of salt (or drop of vinegar). Just a recent anecdote: At lunch, I was complaining to a colleague about my current work situation. In the course of my lament, I said : It takes a lot for me to be angry at somebody. - "Oh, I believe THAT", said my colleague - and it sounded as if he had said: that's the problem with you...
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Thank you very much, I appreciate that.
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Bingley,
so we have a sex instinct and it manifests itself in different actions in people according to their character and experiences. i would say that means it's not just the instinct at work.
instinct doesn't make our decisions for us. that must be obvious, or people couldn't abstain from sex, eating, drinking. the decision to do something (even something instinctual) is separate from the influences we can identify.
my point is that it's facile to say the media causes us to buy, kill, hate, vote and so on. each decision in these areas comes from somewhere inside the mind of an individual. if you could open that place up and look, it wouldn't contain a newspaper.
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Jackie,
thanks so much for the long and fascinating post.
there is so much here.
i've seen some shows on genetics and identical twins, genetics and super intelligent people, on the tv. what always puzzles me is how genetics can be responsible for people being both the same and different! i guess i don't really follow it.
i don't agree that scientists know what birds think. we can only understand in terms of tests we give them. being a bird and thinking bird thoughts would be an experience no scientist could predict or understand. what kind of success rate do psychiatrists have? do they really understand our minds?
your stories of neglected children are kind of gut wrenching. as you put it so well, the parents are often suffering just as badly. when families go wrong it must be so difficult to have any positive influence. and of course it's not just families that go wrong.
when i was a teenager (and still optimistic about the world) i had a realisation that jails don't help anybody. if we really want to help criminals (and society), we should provide programs that actually rehabilitate them. now i think about it, the same goes for a lot of our institutions: schools, companies, government. these are things we can do something about. children who have terrible experiences at home, as you said, go on to look for love in other places. i don't know about other schools, but you couldn't have squeezed a drop of love out of most the teachers at my school if you ran 'em individually through a wringer.
i guess we could all start by following your example, jackie. your comments ring like bells across the internet, kind and full of hope.
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Thank you, william. You are sweet to say so!
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In reply to:
my point is that it's facile to say the media causes us to buy, kill, hate, vote and so on. each decision in these areas comes from somewhere inside the mind of an individual. if you could open that place up and look, it wouldn't contain a newspaper.
I would say you might find a newspaper or TV or whatever plus a whole load of other stuff from that particular person's history. I would definitely agree though that it's facile to point to just one cause for anything as complex as human behaviour.
Bingley
Bingley
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>I would say you might find a newspaper or TV or whatever plus a whole load of other stuff from that particular person's history. I would definitely agree though that it's facile to point to just one cause for anything as complex as human behaviour.
i would say you might find some kind of image of a newspaper and whole lots of mind images as well, plus some kind of decision mechanism. but of course finding this would be like placing the start of a river.
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Pooh-Bah
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I noticed that Bridget mentioned the "P" word in another thread - here is a much quoted listing of British Newpapers:
The Times:
Read by the people who run the country.
Daily Mirror:
Read by the people who think they run the country.
Guardian:
Read by the people who think they ought to run the country.
Morning Star:
Read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country.
Daily Mail:
Read by the wives of the people who own the country.
Financial Times:
Read by the people who own the country.
Daily Express:
Read by the people who think that the country ought to be run as it used to be.
Daily Telegraph:
Read by the people who think it still is.
The Sun:
Their readers don't care who runs the country as long as she's happy to pose topless!
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