Posted by
Zorro on Monday, December 04, 2006 7:11:06 PM
Liberals have won half the battle by framing human behavior as a "Nurture vs. Nature" debate. Only a liberal would describe it that way. An undergirding notion of modern liberalism is that human beings are simply cogs in a great machine. Free will is diminished, to the liberal mind, in favor of a science-inspired notion that humans are, like molecules randomly colliding in space, purely mechanistic. The conservative emphasizes that individual choice does indeed have a large effect on the outcome of our lives. If one is who one is because of "nurture." Well, it was the parent's fault. It was the crappy neighborhood; it was the bad school they went to. They never had someone who would reach down and pull them out of the muck On the other hand, if it's "nature," it's inborn. You're born gay. That's who you are. You're born incomptetent. You're born stupid. You're born athletic. You're smart because of your genes. This too depreciates the role of individual choice in determining people's lives. Conservatives who believe in the importance of free will as opposed to a mechanistic mind should point out that both of these points of view depreciate free will and lead people to make excuses for their behavior and failures.