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Friday, August 25, 2006
There but for the grace of FSM...
In a feature on Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, Richard Morrison writes:
And would we have blogged?
Carnegie had a brutally mechanistic view of human nature. He believed that words and deeds are largely shaped by genes, upbringing and circumstance. “You deserve very little credit for being what you are,” he tells the reader. “And remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are.” [Itals in original.]Simplistic and deterministic? Perhaps a bit. But while I wouldn't allow "genes, upbringing and circumstance" to serve as a justification for one's actions, they can help explain why people turn out the way they do. The bigots, racists and perverts of the world choose their own actions and must bear the consequences, but what makes them the way they are? If that cocktail of nature, nurture and circumstance had acted upon us, how would we have turned out?
And would we have blogged?
