Nature, Nurture and Culture.

The traditional mapsthat sociologists have presented are that humanity has been shaped by twofactors: Nature and Nurture. Many, includingmyself, believe that it is important to realize that we are shaped significantly by both and not to overly emphasize one or the other as the more important.

But now I desire to propose a new map. I wish to change the descriptive list of factors : 'Nature and Nurture'. I am doing it for clarity's sake. I want to separate out and distinguish elements inherent in the use of the word 'Nurture'. Originally, the use of 'Nature and Nurture' was intended to describe all-inclusively the factors which shape a human being. I want to break out and emphasize the 'micro' and the 'macro' elements that are already inherent in the use of the term 'Nurture'.

First I will acknowledge the 'micro-nurturing' factor. I will use the term 'Nurture' to describe exclusively only those shaping factors specific to the interaction with one' s family - parents, siblings, and other relatives- in the formative years of development from infancy onward.

I want to add the word 'Culture' to take into account all the other humanly created factors that shape the child which are 'macro-nurturing'. The word 'Culture' would describe all those outside human factors impacting the individual during her development that come from outside of one's family.

We humans exist not only in a physical world but in a social world of interrelationships know as Culture. Culture is the humanly created environment that surrounds and supports families. Families live in and thrive in this human environment of Culture. The use of the term Culture will also take into account those interactions of non-family members who interact with and thus affect and effect the development of the infant who becomes a young adult.

I have transformed the list of factors that shape a human being from that of a duality into a trinity of factors.

Nature is the study of many fields of science, from physics to biology; it is the study of the biosphere of Earth within the large umbrella term: environmental studies. Before I leave behind the acknowledgement of the importance of Nature, I wish to note one last thing. I believe that all our thoughts, dreams, hopes, aspirations, beliefs, visions, ideas, etc, of the human mind are themselves shaped by the physical tools that create them: the structure and workings of our embodied mind. Hence itis of fundamental importance to refer back to the biology of the human body to consider the limitations, the formation and structure of the human body that gives rise to the human mind. That biology is the foundational structure which allows for the existence of al lhuman mental activity. We must not forget that we are a mind and body unity.

Studying the Nurture side of my dynamic shaping relationship is best done by the biographer, the sociologist, the psychiatrist, the therapist, the psychologist, etc.

Since I am a philosopher, my contribution is to explore specifically the territory I have released out of the prior usage of the word 'Nurture'. I can comment on and explore the area that I have designated as the third factor: Culture. This is the factor that I explore in this book.

I believe that Culture is shaped and created by ideas. Those ideas inherent in a specific culture shape all the members of the culture. Hence when we consider the human factors that shape us, fundamentally we are all shaped by ideas that come out of the cultures we inhabit.

Knowing that the ideas, values and beliefs we hold have been shaped by our enculturation process and our personal experience gives us a valuable tool to analyze what it is we think we see and experience and to analyze what we believe. It enables us to know that this shaping process has created within us previously unconscious biases that affect what we see.

Understanding this process does not mean that our choices are limited. I amnot saying that we will inevitably believe what we were taught. We can and do consciously shape our owni deas.

Understanding this process does not enable us to completely predict our future actions. The future is potentially open ended and filled with options and possibilities. We can always choose to act in a manner that seems to be 'stupid' or 'foolish' or 'ignore our best interests'. These pejorative terms may not be valid; they only may be biased from our conscious perspective. We can choose to listen to our intuition, our unconscious. Our unconscious and our intuition is our reservoir of beliefs, needs, desires, somatic feelings, and even a possible connection to the Divine. Many times when we make a seemingly 'irrational'or seemingly 'un-rational' choice, what we have done is make a 'rational'choice based upon one or many of our unconscious beliefs, needs, and desires.

This process of being shaped by and shaping ideas illuminates and helps us to understand the outcome, the past. This process helps us to realize the possibility that unconscious ideas exist and thus to widen the scope of'rational' options facing us in the present and the future. After we choose in the present moment, then that choice becomes an event of the past that we, or others, can examine and try to understand. Knowing that this process is a fact can help elucidate the possible reasons behind the choices we made by finding those ideas that have consciously and unconsciously shaped us.

We are confronted by existence. Our biology is devised such that it reacts to the potentially overwhelming confrontation of sensory data by selectively ignoring huge amounts of that data. All our body's sense organs are attuned to react to only a portion of that incoming sense data. Out of this selection, the signals are sent to the brain. The neurological system of the brain organizes the data into a coherent map of the world, external to our bodies. Our minds do the same thing on the basis of the same built-in biological systems, 'hard wired' into how the brain functions. Our mind selectively ignores what it considers, at any given moment, 'irrelevant'. This selection process is done on the basis of fundamental ideas, the source of which is the ideas that we come to believe as valid from our most trusted sources; our parents and our earliest teachers.

Suggested Reading:

In Searchof Human Nature, by Mary E. Clark,Routledge, 2002.

The Social Construction ofReality: A treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, Anchor Books, 1966, 1967.

The Sacred Canopy: Elements ofa Sociological Theory of Religion,by Peter L. Berger, Anchor Books, 1967, 1990.

The Scientist in the Crib:What Early Learning tells us about the Mind by Alison Gopnik, Andrew N. Meltzoff, & Patricia K. Kuhl,Perennial, 1999, 2001.