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> People are products of their social environments This is both a useless platitude and deeply offensive to state... we may be the product of an environment, b

by nnq 8y ago

> People are products of their social environments This is both a useless platitude and deeply offensive to state... we may be the product of an environment, but we also produce/reshape the environment on our turn, that's the important part of the loop, and the part we can act upon! Focusing on the other is both counter-productive and depression-inducing. We're humans because we create / build / forge / destroy / reshape our environment, otherwise we could just as well imagine we're vegetables growing in a "social garden" fed by "societal night soil fertilizer" - such an attitude can only promote apathy and justify not taking responsibility for things! All people have innate characteristics/talents/deficiencies etc., we're not blank slates programmed by "the social environment", it's about understanding how to work with what we get from the gene + "random chaos of the natural environment" lottery...

DoreenMichele 8y ago
I think there is a failure to communicate somewhere. I'm certainly not suggesting that people are born as blank slates. I'm just suggesting that there is a lot that happens in the years between birth and adulthood that influence outcomes. Whatever stuff we are born with is not some kind of predetermined fate that "we will do/behave X." I've raised two special needs sons. They are late twenties/early thirties. This is a problem space I've thought a lot about. My thoughts on the subject seem to generally not plug into the current public narrative. I'm still trying to figure out how to write effectively about it so it's clear to other people.
- nnq 8y ago
  Sorry, yes, there's probably a communication issue :) You surely have a lot of valuable things to say. Just don't ever starts with "people are products of their social environments", it can send the totally wrong vibe to many people and make cause the rest of the message be misunderstood. At least reword it somehow. Lots of people are "violently allergic" to this kind of social-determinism style discourse.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    It's not social determinism. It's more like "nature and nurture." But I will try to be clearer in the future. Thanks.

by nnq 8y ago

DoreenMichele 8y ago

I think there is a failure to communicate somewhere. I'm certainly not suggesting that people are born as blank slates. I'm just suggesting that there is a lot that happens in the years between birth and adulthood that influence outcomes. Whatever stuff we are born with is not some kind of predetermined fate that "we will do/behave X." I've raised two special needs sons. They are late twenties/early thirties. This is a problem space I've thought a lot about. My thoughts on the subject seem to generally not plug into the current public narrative. I'm still trying to figure out how to write effectively about it so it's clear to other people.

nnq 8y ago
Sorry, yes, there's probably a communication issue :) You surely have a lot of valuable things to say. Just don't ever starts with "people are products of their social environments", it can send the totally wrong vibe to many people and make cause the rest of the message be misunderstood. At least reword it somehow. Lots of people are "violently allergic" to this kind of social-determinism style discourse.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  It's not social determinism. It's more like "nature and nurture." But I will try to be clearer in the future. Thanks.