Gone Green
Member
What about "and sometimes "Y"?
Facetiously?
We were always taught: "a,e,i,o,u,and sometime y".
Uncle!
In my defense RG, I wasn't taught "and sometimes y"...
here's something.
tradition would have us believe that human behaviour is " ... in the blood". of course stuff like our looks and our reflexes, our size and our general health may be.
but most of our behaviour is learned. where we learn it, how we know we are behaving ok, and most of the things we do are Cultural. we learned them from significant and perhaps not so significant others.
looking around at the way we behave (ok, I 'm generalising) this means we have been taught mostly bullshit for most of our lives as far as I can see. but no one wants to take the blame so they say behaviour must be in the blood.
Right ... or not ...? ripped off by our ancestors ... or not?
For the most part, I agree. The belief that behavior "is in the blood" is simply a cop-out for not wanting to take responsibility for it. I think cultural differences (like slurping a bowl of hot noodle soup or different ways of showing respect) should be appreciated and honored when appropriate, but fear and ignorance trump culture by far in shaping our behavior.
We learn TONS of needlessly limiting and otherwise just-plain-wrong crap the moment we're able to start processing it, most often without much if any consideration. If that wasn't so, weed would be legal (and we'd have saved hundreds of billions over the last 50 years on the war on drugs). We'd be in much better health. We wouldn't be so exploitative or greedy. So many excuses could be eliminated.
However, I wouldn't quite say we were ripped off by our ancestors. I don't blame them for any intentional wrong doing as they were simply passing on what they were taught and had come to believe. They didn't know any better. What they never considered was that anything learned can be unlearned. It just takes a drop of humility and the will to change.