Nature vs. Nurture

I realize that, contrary to all common sense, people do get bored of football, so I'll shift my monologue - at least temporarily - to another subject, brought to my attention by a recent TV documentary about psychological analysis of career crinimals. This got me to thinking about whether criminals (or other, less persecuted/prosecuted societal malcontents, including but not limited to performance artists, taxi drivers, lawyers, end democrats) arise as a result problems with themselves, or as a result of the society in which they move. And I refer to career malcontents, here. Not to the antics that all of us occasionally get up to, ranging from my own acts of breaking and entering and associated vandalism, to other people's desires to strip completely naked in the front seats of Cadillac SUVs. (I'll talk about those kinds of behavior later.) Those things are not where I'm going with this. Instead, I'm referring to people who either cannot function as upstanding individuals, or who simply choose not to. Where do they come from?

For the most part, I believe that the whole Nature vs. Nurture debate amounts to so much intellectual masturbation, in that it serves no purpose except the for the loving handling of choice ideas and concepts, devoid of any positive results or forward progress. For the most part, we are who we are, and while greater understanding of our origins is certainly fun to theorize on, we remain who we are. If we have children, we should do the best we can, strive to be better parents than we had, and accept that our children are going to become who they are, perhaps because of what we do, and perhaps in spite of what we do. Nature vs. Nurture is analysis without application; just as Freud could observe the behavior of a subject and proclaim from on-high how the behavior reflected the subject’s thoughts, a modern student of this subject can attribute modern social dysfunction to problems with the subject’s birth, upbringing, or both. But just as Freud was limited in his ability to project a subject’s behavior or divine their thoughts from their actions, modern disciples cannot reliably predict a person’s future or character by the circumstances of their birth or upbringing.

This is not to say that I consider the subject unworthy of consideration. Indeed, I am a firm proponent of masturbation of all varieties. Unending entertainment, victimless in the rare circumstances where it is a crime, and much more sanitary and risk-free than actual intercourse: masturbation is a quality pastime. And sometimes grows into more, as it may with Nature vs. Nurture. Just as social Darwinism drove the advancement of medical science to adapt manual masturbation into techniques of artificial insemination, the same Darwinistic process might eventually parlay this particular form of intellectual masturbation into some means to raise better kids. In the meantime, and even in the absence of direct applications for the research, intellectuals will continue to fondle and play with the subject matter, for no other reason than because it’s fun to do so.

All that having been said, things do look somewhat promising.

From the “Nurture” perspective, the issue is related to ingrained (learned) behavioral patterns, and the effect of external stimulus on the early development of the human mind and psyche. Even besides clear examples of learned behavior, there is a demonstrable statistical correlation between development of analytical intelligence and exposure to classical music at early ages. Likewise, children who receive positive reinforcement and who are continually told that they are intelligent and capable of solving problems show statistically higher levels of intelligence and problem solving ability than children who do not receive such encouragement. John Douglas, an expert on habitual violent behavior in humans if ever there was one, observes that virtually all violent serial criminals come from abusive or severely dysfunctional backgrounds. Is there more to this than these scientifically demonstrable examples of programmed-in-childhood levels of self-esteem among children who are encouraged, and a child’s learned reliance on behavioral models (abusive or otherwise)? Even if there is no more to this theory than what studies already indicate, how large a quotient of our adult lives is forged on that anvil? How much of one’s total adult intelligence is based on what one believes one can accomplish, based on mom’s encouragement? How much of one’s adult behavior is based on early-life observations of dad managing household affairs?

Rationally, the answer is quite a bit, particularly in the negative aspects. As above, John Douglas is a believer in the “Nurture” camp, at least insofar as it applies to the violent personalities he has spent his life hunting. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who has completed an excellent study of the history and psychology of killing, likewise gives great weight to the vast majority of killers’ need to be programmed to be able to take human life. Douglas and Grossman, scholars who focus on the darker nature of homo sapiens, generally agree that killers – in almost all cases – are made, rather than born. On the flip side from the dark half, no statistical analysis seems necessary to support the point that good families with successful heads tend to raise good kids with successful lives. By the by, if you’re a fan of written fiction, Michael Crighton’s Lost World explores the issue of the importance of learned behavior (Nurture) just as the predecessor novel explored genetic manipulation (Nature). Good read; you’ll like it.

Parents take note: poor upbringings can produce shaky or even dangerous adults. Quality parenting tends to produce positive results in kids. Water is wet. The sky is blue. Isn’t nice when theoretical science supports obvious factual realities? But let’s stroke this idea a bit longer, just to see what happens.

If intelligence, personality, and interpersonal behavior are based on learned factors, is it possible to reprogram individuals who have reached adulthood? The obvious application for such techniques – aside from, for example, the already highly-effective means used by the USMC to turn upstanding, well-adjusted members of the American youth into killers – is the possibility of turning programmed killers and other social malcontents into productive, or at least harmless members of society. Can a career violent criminal be turned into a home-body accountant through some form of reprogramming? The answer is: probably not, as the programming in question exists on levels that we are only beginning to understand.

If the issue involved only something as simple as human memories, we’d be home free. Memory itself does not pose a terribly great challenge, as human memory is amazingly flexible and remarkably subject to modification. Brainwashing as a technique is centuries old, and if you tell someone something often enough, they will ultimately believe it’s true, and conform their lives to such programmed memory. Memory modification is a fairly simple (albeit time and effort-intensive) feat, which can be performed even without the benefit of modern techniques such as – for example – direct electrochemical manipulation of the brain with exotic medications. In fact, one of the problems that the psychological community has to grapple with is that of therapist-implanted memories. Patients, vulnerable, trusting, and eager to please (read: susceptible to suggestion), are treated by well-meaning therapists who are so confident of what they will find, that they unintentionally brainwash the patient into giving the answers and relating “memories” which support the therapists’ in-hand expectations and diagnosis. So be careful about what it is that you really remember, especially if you’ve discussed those memories with any sort of therapist.

But the human Nurture issue encompasses far more than memory. It is highly notable that brain conditions which affect memory do not generally affect behavior. Patients suffering from severe dissociative disorders, including those rarest of bright-plumage birds, true multiple personality patients, relate entire histories and memory sets (of unknown origin) – including childhood recollections – between the disparate personalities. However, such divergent memories manifest as only token variances in behavior between personalities. While there will typically be a dominant and subservient personality, behavioral variances are seldom terribly drastic, notwithstanding differences in the memories of each personality.

Additionally, and perhaps more tellingly, traumatic amnesiacs with little or no recall of any factual memories nonetheless retain behavioral patterns, and also retain such abilities as reading, writing, setting up a chess board, or knowing how long they can run flat-out at a given altitude before their hands start shaking. Behavioral patterns (and functional skills) exist in the human brain independent of memories that can be medically or traumatically altered. Thus, we are back at the original Nature vs. Nurture question: are those underlying patterns and skills a result of neural patterns intrinsic in the human brain (Nature), or are they just a different and/or deeper level of learned behavior. What’s the next step? At this point, psychology is still grasping for semantic definitions for behavioral underpinnings, much less delving the actual realties.

But just as man discovered plastics through practical experimentation long before he understood nuances of hydrocarbon chemistry, the science of hands-on behavioral modification is stumbling forward (largely in the dark) through practical experimentation, mostly without the guiding light of clear understanding of the involved neurological and psychological factors. Realistically, it’s unlikely that we will be reprogramming serial killers anytime soon: the entire field of “criminal rehabilitation” presumes that the criminal personalities in question had some point in their history (to which they can be restored or “rehabilitated”) where they were capable of functioning as normal, well-adjusted human beings. Unfortunately, this is generally wishful thinking. Most criminals and malcontents lack prior, pre-criminal-career skills to fall back on, which creates problems in “restoring” them to a point in their past where they were well-adjusted individuals. As we lack the ability and/or inclination to reduce adults back to an early childhood mental state – assuming of course, that they’ve actually progressed beyond that intellectual state – and build them entirely new, well adjusted personalities, we’re still just wanking so far as “rehabilitating” habitual criminals is concerned.

But there has been progress, and we have the pharmaceutical industry to thank: results are being gained through trial and error, much as a blindfolded man running around a race-track will discover hurdles and obstacles as he falls over them. But as the process has been underway for a while, some behavior-altering medications are getting past the point of being an overused trend (“take your soma and be happy”); the attached body of science and chemistry has reached the critical mass necessary for reliable real-world application. Ask anyone who has suffered from ADD about their levels of functionality with and without their medication, and you’ll become a believer. While it is probably true that if Tom Sawyer were alive today, he would be diagnosed as a chronic problem child, medicated, and probably institutionalized, the science of behavioral adjustment appears to be moving in the right direction, by which I mean that the treatments are resulting in people who are better, healthier, and happier, and not just resulting in people (kids) who are easier (for parents) to control. Which is not to say that we have no need for treatments which render problem people (including kids) easier to control, but that’s neither here nor there. But while the medication can be a huge help, is it changing their nature, or is it making them easier to nuture?

I might have mentioned that the whole debate really has no end in sight.

But the next time that you’re getting your head shrunk, consider not just your answers, but where in your past those answers come from. I realize that this is an easy comment to make for one with a memory like mine, but still: the only point of Nature vs. Nurture worth taking seriously is considering not just the WHAT of who your are, but also the WHYs that formed the What. Also ask yourself if you’re telling your therapist the truth, of if you’re regurgitating responses and information that your therapist has programmed into you over the course of your treatment. While one of the functions of a therapist is, undoubtedly, the alteration of ingrained behavioral patterns (be they nurtured or natural) into “healthier” patterns, what should the limits of such reprogramming be, and are you the one who is setting the parameters? Just something to keep in mind.

You’re welcome.