Nature vs Nurture
…And this is why I have foolishly chosen to discuss the taboos of genetic behavior, and ethnic and sexual norms; not to chain people to stereotypes, but to free us all from them. We must recognize our genetic tendencies in order to design around them, and past them; as Bertolt Brecht noted, “When there are obstacles, the shortest distance between two points is a crooked line.”
All living things produce too many babies, and not all of them can survive; it’s the Law of Universal Superfecundity. Humans are not exempt.
What, exactly, is the best predator? The deadliest? Or the most helpful?
How can we sum up all of America in One Word? It’s a challenge, but an important exercise. Needless to say, in a democracy, there are many different responses.
Too often, gender equity pursues a masculine success of domination and pointless ambition, ironically making ‘equal rights’ offensively anti-egalitarian.
Sexual Genetics: differences between boys and girls exist, on average. Insisting that the differences are universal, or that they are nonexistent, are both unjust.
Temporary insanity affects us all, at stages in our lives and at points in our day. It is an example of how we struggle against our genetic behaviors.
Human prosperity has increased dramatically in the past 100 years. But we tend to focus on the glitzy technology, and overlook the big reasons for it.
How many of the Romanticists ever visited the peasants in winter? Did any of them bother to pass by their frozen shacks when there was not enough food, fuel, clothes or warmth? In its focus on the ideal, how much disease, starvation, and death did Romanticism miss, in the nature all around them, and in the homes of their poor neighbors? The Romantics are like all of us: we only see what we wish to see…
Lebanese Genetics sounds boring, but the Lebanese may be the most stereotypical ethnic group around, an inheritance from the Phoenicians.