If we keep asking "Why?" about our "ways of life", the answers seem to spread further and further from one another into a variety of 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 social 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 they do because they have been programmed to act in those ways by their parents, their teachers, and the media of their cultures. For example, close observation shows that the vast majority of humans learn to perform the actions that relieve their bodies’ physical needs in the ways considered socially acceptable in their particular culture.

       

              Balut (soft-boiled fetal duck, popular in Vietnam)  (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

In this category, we find the morés that govern how we eat. I far prefer to eat dishes I find familiar from my upbringing. And in my culture, I wash my hands before eating to remove disease-causing germs I might otherwise ingest with my food if I ate it with dirty hands. I’ve never seen these tiny animals, but I’ve been trained to be wary of germs. Therefore, I take measures to neutralize the danger 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 (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

It is important to note 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 hatching to dying of old age, in order to be turtle-like. Alone, a turtle would not be able to complete its genetically-driven reproductive behavior each mating season, but it would at least try to find a mate. The rest of the time, it would live in ways that are completely normal for turtles, entirely directed by its body’s genetic code.

Creatures such as ants, crabs, and fish that came early in evolutionary history clearly are more fully programmed by their genetic codes than are those of higher orders such as cats, dogs, apes, and humans. But even most large, complex animals learn only small portions of their behavioral repertoires. 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 bury bones. 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 human-like by “enculturation,” that is, almost entirely from other, older humans.^1,2

Most animal behaviors are instinctive, programmed into animals genetically, especially in the lower-order 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. The body of knowledge that a given human community or tribe consults in order to respond to specific situations, to perform the recommended behaviors, and then to verify that each behavior has been done appropriately, forms what is called the culture of that society or tribe. Put a dead fish in the ground with each corn seed that you plant and wear your tuxedo and black tie to the opera.

The first step on our journey to answering the large questions about humans and their ways is simply this: patterns of behavior in human communities are mostly the result of programming of individuals in their formative years by the adults around them.

   

                                   

                                                       (credit: Wikimedia Commons)