Blog #1 on Pinker - Brittney McLaughlin

I found myself extremely torn while reading about "The Blank Slate", as I feel that I was meant to. I'd pretty much consistently believed for my entire life that our behaviors were shaped by our environments, and I'd never really heard any arguments otherwise. Even thinking back to when I was in preschool - I remember connecting the child who was always in time-out to her mother who would yell and scowl when she picked up her children from school. There was never really any doubt in my mind that she acted out in school because her parents acted out at her at home. And even now, it's difficult for me to process this idea that there's a gene in my body that specifically tells me to get frustrated easily, and another gene that tells me to forgive just as easily. After all, I've been told for years that my frustration is a result of my anxiety, and that the anxiety is a result of a chemical imbalance in my brain...not a gene that cannot be altered.

But, then I read this wildly profound and confusing article by Pinker. One of the several pieces from it that really made me take a step back and rethink this whole idea was the concept of the "Noble Savage." It's commonly believed that the reason that we don't kill each other left and right anymore is because we've evolved out of the era that this was necessary. But, Pinker says no - and presents research that suggests that a frightening percent of people still frequently think about murdering someone. The reason we don't do it is because now we understand it's not morally correct, and there are severe consequences for taking another's life. So, while our environment technically influences our decision not to kill, the desire to slice off our neighbor's head with a katana sill remains, because it's a part of our genes. And while I can't say that I've ever genuinely thought about killing someone, it makes sense to me that others do. Why do we declare murdered "mentally insane" and sentence them to a lifetime in a mental health facility, when years ago their act of violence against 1, 2, 10, 20 people would've paled in comparison to any one of our ancestors? Is it so crazy to believe that there is a gene in our bodies that tells us to act out violently in certain situations?

No matter which way you look at it, I feel that freewill is the overarching theme that essentially addresses the entire issue. Even if I did totally buy into this idea that all of our core behavior was due to genetic design, I still believe that we all have the freewill to act however we choose. Isn't that what Pinker is suggesting with the Noble Savage? We are programmed to kill, but we ourselves, and we as a society, make the choice not to do so. Freewill is more powerful than genes - my genes tell my hair to grow brunette, but I still have the freewill to dye it blonde. This isn't changing how my hair will continue to grow, but it changes how I present myself to the rest of the world. With that said, I believe that no matter if our genes dictate anything about our behavior or not, our environment has a heavy influence on how we decide to act, and how we present ourselves to everyone around us.