Chapter 9. Part B
If we keep asking why we automatically fall into the behaviors that we do, the answers seem to spread
further and further apart into arrays of various human morés and then
cultures; human morés vary widely within any given society and much more so
from society to society. But if we persist in analyzing masses of the evidence,
patterns begin to emerge. Based on these patterns, we can make some general
statements about people and their ways. For the most part, people act in the
ways that they do because they have been programmed to act in those ways by
their parents, their teachers, and the communications media of their
cultures.
People don’t simply relieve even pressing,
short-term physical needs. Close observation shows that the vast majority of
humans learn to perform the actions that relieve their bodies' needs in the ways
that are considered socially acceptable in their culture.
Balut - soft boiled fetal duck
(commonly eaten in Vietnam)
I eat, but I far prefer to eat dishes with
which my upbringing has made me familiar. In my culture, I wash my hands before
eating to cleanse them of disease-causing germs which I might otherwise ingest
with my food if I ate it with grubby hands. I’ve never seen these little
animals, but I have been trained by the mentors of my society to be wary of
germs; consequently, I take measures to neutralize the danger that I believe
they pose to my well being. I also make an effort to urinate and defecate only
in places deemed acceptable in my society, no matter how urgently “nature
calls”.
staphylococcus bacteria
(common on human hands)
A fact that it is important to stress here is the profound way in
which human behavior patterns differ from those of nearly all other animals. A
turtle need not ever see another turtle, from his hatching to his dying of old
age, in order to be “turtlish”. Alone, a turtle would not be able to complete
all of the reproductive behaviors that his body’s genetic programming would be
prompting him towards each mating season, but in a lonely way, he would at
least try to find a mate. The rest of the time, he would live in ways that are
completely normal for turtles, entirely directed by his body’s genetic code.
Animals such as ants, crabs, and fish, who came early in
evolutionary history, clearly are more fully programmed by their genetic codes
than are “higher” ones, like cats, dogs, apes, and us. But even most “higher”
animals learn only small portions of their behavioral repertoires. They are far more creatures of their genes. Kittens, in
time, will stalk balls and then mice and birds, even if they are taken from
their mothers still blind and helpless. Puppies are genetically programmed to, one day, bury bones. This is genetic programming of behavior. Humans, by contrast, if
raised by dogs, become humanoid dogs, and demonstrate hardly any “human”
behaviors at all. We humans – unlike turtles, apes, and kittens – learn how to
be "humanish" by "enculturation", i.e. almost entirely from
other, older humans. (1.) (2.)
Most animal behaviors are instinctive, programmed into animals
genetically, especially in the “lower” animals. As we rise up the scale of
complexity, we arrive by degrees at humans, in whom most behaviors are
programmed by nurture, by their upbringings in other words. A set of behaviors,
along with the body of knowledge that a given community of humans consults in
order to judge when to apply specific behaviors to specific real life
situations, how to perform the behaviors, and then how to verify that each
behavior has been done appropriately, form what is called the “culture” of that
human community. Put a dead fish in the ground with each corn seed that you
plant and wear your tuxedo and black tie to the opera.
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