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Saw the other thread about "born gay?" and it brought up a different thought.
Researchers have been able to use magnetic fields to basically turn on or off sections of the brain, and people who have had brain injuries have sometimes spontaneously changed attitudes including religion and political affiliation. I hesitate to say it, but the studies I have read indicated that the trend was for people with damaged brains to become more conservative. I make nothing of that other than the possibility there might be an "overlay" of the brain that when damaged causes the brain to revert.
My observation of kids as I was growing up was that some kids seemed quite set in their views very early on, while others went through various permutations of attitudes and behaviors until they locked into one.
So:
1. are attitudes based on nurture or nature?
2. can they be changed by "boot camps" or other means?
For those of you who can't resist...
3. is one attitude superior to others?
I have read research that found predispositions to certain personality traits that seem to have a genetic basis. The research suggests that particular personality traits predispose someone to have conservative or liberal ideals and values so, I don't think it is improbable. I know many families in which all the kids had the same parents, the same home environment, but where different siblings exhibited very different values at a relatively young age. My dad, two brothers and I are all fairly liberal. My sister on the other hand, has been fairly conservative since she was a kid. Now when I was younger I was taught in school that people generally are more liberal when young and grow more conservative with time. I haven't found that to be true with anybody I have known. I think the majortiy of folks establish values at a young age and rarely change over time. If anything, I'm more liberal in middle age than when I was younger.
There is no liberal or conservative. Those are just labels put on us to get us to buy into one of two ideologies. If you watch Fox, you are conservative, and vote McCain. If you are watch MSNBC, you are liberal, and vote Obama. This ridiculous paradigm is what is ruining this country. If they get us to buy into this lie, they can keep doing what they are doing. Over the last 50 years or so, no one president has been that much different than the other. Sure, some things might be slightly different, but the overall policies never change.
I believe people want to be left alone, allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and they will leave others alone. It isn't until we start watching TV and listening to the radio that we get into trouble.
I think people probably are born with a predisposition toward conservative or liberal mindsets. More so than this, the family environment we grow up in influences our opinions, especially when we're young.
I've found as I've gotten older, I've become more liberal than I was growing up. In my case this is due to experiences which showed me that liberals were not necessarily the bad guys I had been raised to believe they were.
Also, as another poster mentioned, it's foolish for any of us to self-define according to someone else's label. A guy doesn't have to be conservative, liberal, or moderate. He can agree with the different groups on some issues, while disagreeing on others.
Think your own thoughts and come to your own conclusions......
Nope....I think it's what you're exposed to, and later, what you see to be the truth. Hubby was born into a very 'liberal" family, but is one of the most conservative men I know....
I, on the other hand, was born into a conservative family, and while I love conservative financial ideas, socially, I'm pretty liberal....
It's all what YOU believe...genetics play no role in this!
Ask some mom what faith their kid is and she'll tell you, catholic, muslim, jewish, whatever. Then ask her if her kid is democrat or republican and you'll get "What? He's way too young to know what he is."
There are certainly genetic predispositions (pancreatic, breast cancer and other diseases) but the way one thinks about social and/or political issues is tied to the times in which the person lives and the influences of issues during those times. We know that in the early days of American settlement that if a Catholic family happened to settle in a colony where there was only a Baptist church, they became Baptists and vice versa for the Baptists.
The fact that we now have 24/7 influences from the internet, television and radio only allows these effects to be accentuated. Most people believe this and there are continual attempts by the two sides to control and manipulate the sources of those influences.
Saw the other thread about "born gay?" and it brought up a different thought.
Researchers have been able to use magnetic fields to basically turn on or off sections of the brain, and people who have had brain injuries have sometimes spontaneously changed attitudes including religion and political affiliation. I hesitate to say it, but the studies I have read indicated that the trend was for people with damaged brains to become more conservative. I make nothing of that other than the possibility there might be an "overlay" of the brain that when damaged causes the brain to revert.
My observation of kids as I was growing up was that some kids seemed quite set in their views very early on, while others went through various permutations of attitudes and behaviors until they locked into one.
So:
1. are attitudes based on nurture or nature?
2. can they be changed by "boot camps" or other means?
For those of you who can't resist...
3. is one attitude superior to others?
1. Mix of both.
2. The nurture elements, probably. The innate behaviors/attitudes, no.
My father was an outspoken fiscal conservative and social liberal... he didn't judge folks because of who they slept with or what they believed - he judged them on whether or not they wanted him to pay for it. He accepted his own responsibilities and lived up to them, and expected everyone else to do the same... and became a very highly respected and locally famous individual for his hard work and positive actions both politically and in the community.
My mother was a total liberal. She spent money on everything from psychics to 'free land in Baja California!', and insisted that the bank clerks had to be stealing her money, because she never had any. One year she spent $5000 on psychics alone. When my father passed, she blew through the $K's he had in his savings account as well as his insurance money in less than 6 months - with literally nothing to show for it, not a diamond, not even a used car. Then she insisted that it was the government's and everyone else's responsibility to pay her bills and indulgences. The world was never the way that she insisted that it should be, and that made her angry and bitter. She demanded respect, and was always furious when my father - who earned it - superceded her in the limelight. Which meant that she was furious a LOT...
So glad I inherited my father's genes. And his guns. And his attitudes.
But seriously, I think it is nurture, not nature. Kids are born totally dependent on the succor of others; helpless and unable to fend for themselves. It is their environment that teaches them that they are entitled - or that they are expected to work for what they get, be independent, think and do for themselves.
Two of my children are independent, paid for their college with grants, student loans and the VA, and hard work. They sat down and planned their lives, set goals, and achieved them through effort. One of our foster kids had a definite entitlement attitude for a loong time, aided and abetted by his mother who had the same. He still calls me on occasion to reminisce, and tells me that the turning point in his life was when he was standing in a restaurant, loading the dishwasher, and my words came back to him "So? You want to blow off school and goof off, get stoned and drunk, and end up washing dishes and being nobody and nothing the rest of your life?" He went to tech school, graduated, and became a heavy equipment operator and supervisor... He is now a fiscal conservative, which drives his mother crazy when she comes around, looking for a handout from a son she signed away over 20 years ago...
Then there's the one who got a full 4-year music scholarship that included books and room and board - and blew it off after 4 months. To this day that 30-year-old child still thinks that everyone owes him a living, and it always comes as a complete and total surprise to him when others don't feel the same way.
I blame the latter one's helpless, hapless, directionless peers, and the fact that he listened to NPR instead of rock 'n' roll. Or - maybe his grandmother's genes skipped a generation...
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A Little TIC
He is now a fiscal conservative, which drives his mother crazy when she comes around, looking for a handout from a son she signed away over 20 years ago...
Or - maybe his grandmother's genes skipped a generation...
