Post by Elliot Kane on Jan 26, 2010 20:45:57 GMT
Humanity: The Layering
Humans are not born: humans are made. Each generation seeks to mould the next in a whole host of ways, both deliberate and subconscious. They educate us in things we should know, avoid telling us things they think we should not know and all-in-all try to make us into the complex social creatures that our species has developed into down the ages. This I have noted elsewhere before. What I have not tried to do is to set out the layers that go into making us what we are in detail and to explain just how far humans are educated away from our 'natural' state.
Humans are very like onions, to borrow a phrase. They have layers. Even before we really know who we are as individuals, we have a whole massive set of values and influences that we inherit from a variety of sources. We have taken our signature ability - the ability to redefine our own reality - and worked ourselves into a massively complex psychological strata. A strata which is both reinforced and amended by each generation according to the ever-changing needs of the tribe as it currently stands (Or at least those that it can perceive).
The goal of this article is to provide an introduction to the process and to put the layers that make up so much of who and what we are as people into a (very) rough order of occurence. Importance varies from individual to individual, though it is generally true to say that the strongest influences on each of us are those which we experience from earliest years and those which are most constant througghout our lives. And the moreso if we remain unaware of them.
It is worth remembering while reading this that no two people are ever the same. Whilst one person might react to Stimulus A with Reaction B, another will have Reaction Z. People being people, a third will have Reaction Theta, because a tribe of humans are very much a collection of individuals who have been roughly shaped to the point where they can function as a group, but there is no amount of layering that can turn all humans into good little clones. Fortunately for the species as a whole, as without our fractious and highly individualistic nature, we would not grow or change at all.
This individuality is why two people from very similar backgrounds can look upon the same society and one can say "This is good. The very peak of civilisation!" while the second will see only a mess that must be changed for the good of all.
There may be a few layers I've missed for individual people and/or nations, but this should apply across the whole of humanity:
The Layering: Rough Order Of Occurence:
Genetics
Genetics comes first simply because it is the result of things that influence us before we are even born. We might affect changes in our strength levels, decide how far to use our intelligence, etc, but some things we simply have no control over, such as skin, hair and eye colour and of course any physical disabilities. Corrective surgery may help with some problems, but if you are born deaf (For one example) that will affect the shape of your entire life and there is simply nothng you can do but accept that and react to it. Similarly, there are a whole host of instincts that are inborn, from the desire to mate to the awareness of the possibility of danger. Humans are born predators and much of the rest of The Layering deals with controlling our natural instincts.
Physical Environment
'Normal' is where we live most of our lives. But 'Normal' shapes our ideas and attitudes to a very great extent, and also predetermines a lot of the skills we will learn and many of the things we will expereince. As such, it works on us from the moment of our earliest awareness. A child born to a 12th century Bedouin tribe in the desert, for example, will swiftly learn how to survive with little water, how to find things to eat in places where a traveller would starve, how to navigate the trackless wastes between oases and every other skill required to live and thrive in the desert. By contrast, a child born in a small European coastal fishing village of the same period would learn all about the perils of the sea and how to predict the weather, pilot a fishing vessel, repair nets and generally thrive in their own way. Yet if you look at the contrast, it is easy to see how the very different environments facing the two youths will shape everything from their diet to their idea of hot and cold to the skills they learn. Their ideas of 'Normal Life' would be so completely different as to be all but incomprehensible to each other. It is easy to believe that the modern world lessens the impact of physical environment, and it is true to an extent - but only to an extent. Physical environment also includes such things as tech toys and degree of urbanisation, after all, while the gap between the richest and poorest people has perhaps never been so great.
Parents & Home Environment
It is simply a fact that loving, supportive & encouraging parents who raise their child together as part of a stable married family unit tend to produce more confident and well adjusted children. Study after study has borne this out. Hardly surprising, given that many thousands of years of social evolution produced this model in every tribe where the male to female ratio was even roughly equal. Parents, after all, are a child's first contact with the rest of humanity and its first teachers in what being human involves. Parents teach everything from the beginnings of language to social skills to providing an exemplar for 'normal' relationships. Chldren being little more than balls of uncertainty/insecurity, they need rocks to cling to if they are to thrive. A solid family unit provides that rock by being the single completely reliable part of a child's life: something the child can build on. A foundation stone, if you like. This is not to say that children from less stable homes cannot triumph over the odds - many can and do. But the odds are more stacked against them from the start. As a rule of thumb, the more troubled the parents' relationship and the more troubled the relationship between parents and child, the less stable and confident the child is likely to be. As ever, there will be exceptions at every point on the scale, but a child given strong confidence and motivation by its parents will tend to be more successful than one who is not.
Religion (Early Exposure)
Religion provides a common core of beliefs for its followers. As such, a person raised in a given religion (And continuing to follow it) will tend to be more socially active as long as there is a strong core of fellow believers in the area. Degree of belief is not really important, here, only degree of feeling like they belong as part of the community. Being used to socialising can often make religious people more adept socially in non-religious situations too, and will give them something in common with every other member of their faith they may meet. So if you ever feel like a religion is this vast web of contacts stretching across large chunks of the world, that's because it IS. Religion tends to grant greater peace of mind and increased confidence also, because it allows the believer to feel that they are part of something much vaster than themselves and that despite the cruelties of the world they are to some extent protected by a benign hand. This becomes a self fulfilling prophesy in times of trouble, as the relligious person has an inbuilt crutch to lean on that the non-religious lack.
Language
One of the most vital keys to understanding any tribe is to look at its language. It is true, as George Orwell remarked, that humans cannot think about a thing we have no words for as we think in words. It's also why we continually invent new words (And why we need to). A name is only a label, but it is also a reference through which we comprehend each other's meaning. Language can shape opinion and attitude in subtle ways. A language with no differentiation between 'Stranger' and 'Enemy', for example, is unlikely to be too friendly to unexpected travellers wandering by.
Social Class
Social Class can affect everything from the physical environment (Number and capability of tech toys, etc) to social expectation and contacts. A person with no money worries will be less motivated to work than one who is living on the bread line, but as many members of the Middle and Upper classes are poor parents (Hardly ever there, leaving a lot to the nanny or other employees) they often have children who are emotionally neglected and troubled because of it. Social Class is more a subset of Physical Environment and Parents & Home Environment, but is included here because readers will doubtless expect to see it.
Custom & Tradition
A huge mass of cultural attitudes and expectations are passed down to us by Custom & Tradition. This covers everything from 'Don't Trust Nation X' to superstitions about unlucky numbers or the power of astrology. Sometimes there are good reasons for the attitudes in question, but often they are an outdated jumble of pointless superstitions. The problem is that while it can be easy to tell the truth in some cases (Why should one number be any more or less lucky than any other?) it is not alwys so. It's quite surprising how many 'folk remedies' turn out to hold more truth than we may think, and as for trusting Nation X, well... Sometimes the cause of that suspicion is long gone, other times not so much. Custom & Tradition also serves as a historical reminder, as with special national holidays and the commemoration of events long past. Both can also impart strength and greater community cohesion, with the participants in some traditional practises feeling part of a great tradition that unites them across generations with something greater than themselves. Custom & Tradition is part of the culture of a people and thus of a nation. What we really mean when we say "I am a(n) 'insert-nationality-here'" is that we are the heirs to the traditions, the customs and the history of that nation.
School/Education
The education system teaches you the things that your society believes it is important for you to know and in the way that it thinks you should know them. The biases within the system are at least as important as the content, here, with attitudes to one's own society and that of others often being inculcated as part of the formal education system. Because we are told that the purpose of the system is to impart 'facts' we rarely question the attitudes and ideas taught to us in our schools. Education provides one of the most influential layers of our cultural identity, simply because we rarely question its veracity.
Peer Groups
Of all the direct influences on our lives, the most influential outside of our parents is that of our peer group. Because we are social creatures, we like to make friends and fit in with our peer group and this will influence our own behaviour. It is why we often seem to be different people depending on where we are and who we are with. We will have several peer groups throughout our lives, from playmates at primary school to the more sophisticated interactions of our teenage years, to our smaller and more close knit friendship groups to our work colleagues. All will have an influence on our outlook and attitudes.
Other Small Tribes We Belong To
This includes active supporting of sports teams, belonging to special interest groups (Whether they deal with hobbies or causes) and any other social activity that gives us both a singular reason to be involved (And thus a singular point of common interest with other members of the group). This is in some ways a subset of the peer group and there is a definite overlap where supporters of a singular cause or interest may also socialise on other occasions, but the emphasis here is on a more casual arrangement. If you are the member of a chess club, for example, you may go there primarily to talk to the other players (Peer group level association) or you may go there primarily to play chess. In the latter case, it is not really the same thing as a peer group so is worthy of differentiation, if only just. The line here is a hazy one, however, and 'Other Tribes' may be considered a subset of Peer Groups if you prefer.
Society/Social/Cultural Norms
Prevalent in everything here save Genetics (And even that may be a matter for debate, considering how social acceptability frequently affects who can and will breed) Societal & Cultural Norms are the driving force that surround us and the main way in which peers and others alike will decide our worth as people and members of our tribe. Social Norms change over time as the pressures from both within and without shift, so that the values which you or I may be judged by will not be the same as those used by our grandparents, nor those of our grandchildren. Whatever 'Normal' may be for any given generation, however, its affects are very real for the members of the tribe with those values and the consequences of transgression are always unenviable. There will always be the equivalent of 'Good People Do' and 'Good People Don't'. What they do and don't may completely switch from generation to generation, but they always exist in some form. This immense social pressure to conform is unreasoning and can structure in things which are inimical both to individuals and the whole as well as things which are helpful. Nonetheless, the tremendous impact they have on our lives is undeniable.
Religion (Later Exposure)
People who are later converts to a religion tend to be both more zealous and more inclined to try to 'prove' their new faith at every opportunity. Beyond that, the differences with a person born into a religion are fairly minor, though obviously the newcomer is somewhat disadvantaged by being a late starter. Which may be another reason for the increased zeal, of course.
Belonging & Not Belonging
A person who feels that they fully belong in their society and are loved by peers and family is one who feels fully accepted and thus is more likely to be happy and feel fulfilled with their lives. People are a bit like jigsaw pieces in this: if they succeed in finding the exact place where they fit amongst all the other pieces, they will settle down snugly and be content with what they have. By contrast, a person who does not feel like they belong may try many times to fit into the puzzle that is life before either finding their place or giving up looking. People may feel they do not belong for many reasons, from being unable to accept the consensus of Social Norms to being rejected by their peer group, with a myriad of other possibilities between. Effects of belonging and not belonging are very dependent on what it is one is expected to belong TO, of course... Those who do not feel that they belong in the wider society will often form their own small groups of people with similar feelings of alienation or rejection. These can be anything from support groups to criminal gangs. As a general rule, the more a person feels that they belong, the less likely they are to break the rules of the group they belong to (Which is not the same thing as breaking the law, please note!).
The Influence of Government
Leadership grants influence over everyone who falls within the aegis of the leader. This should be obvious, but is often overlooked (And most often by governments, interestingly). Thus a charismatic and influential leader who can give direction to their people will create a stronger and happier nation than one who is muddled and lacking in direction. Tribes like to be led. Of course, a strong leader can also be divisive, if they are strong in the wrong ways (Or if really hard decisions are needed), but a weak leader is always divisive because the members of a tribe without direction will wander as and where they will. Legislation is NOT a substitute for leadership, though many in governments across the world seem to believe otherwise.
The Cycle Of Civilisations
The position of a nation on the Cycle makes immense differences to the outlook, attitudes and social/cultural norms of that nation. This is worth mentioning here as it affects every other aspect bar (possibly) genetics, in a way that seems to go far beyond that of culture, even, in that it affects all human societies equally, wherever they may be. As it has its own series of articles, however, I see no need to repeat it all here.
Conclusion
And that, barring anything I've forgotten, is how humans come to be human. The process is quite simple, as you can see, though the complications are myriad and the possibilities even more so.
Humans are not born: humans are made. Each generation seeks to mould the next in a whole host of ways, both deliberate and subconscious. They educate us in things we should know, avoid telling us things they think we should not know and all-in-all try to make us into the complex social creatures that our species has developed into down the ages. This I have noted elsewhere before. What I have not tried to do is to set out the layers that go into making us what we are in detail and to explain just how far humans are educated away from our 'natural' state.
Humans are very like onions, to borrow a phrase. They have layers. Even before we really know who we are as individuals, we have a whole massive set of values and influences that we inherit from a variety of sources. We have taken our signature ability - the ability to redefine our own reality - and worked ourselves into a massively complex psychological strata. A strata which is both reinforced and amended by each generation according to the ever-changing needs of the tribe as it currently stands (Or at least those that it can perceive).
The goal of this article is to provide an introduction to the process and to put the layers that make up so much of who and what we are as people into a (very) rough order of occurence. Importance varies from individual to individual, though it is generally true to say that the strongest influences on each of us are those which we experience from earliest years and those which are most constant througghout our lives. And the moreso if we remain unaware of them.
It is worth remembering while reading this that no two people are ever the same. Whilst one person might react to Stimulus A with Reaction B, another will have Reaction Z. People being people, a third will have Reaction Theta, because a tribe of humans are very much a collection of individuals who have been roughly shaped to the point where they can function as a group, but there is no amount of layering that can turn all humans into good little clones. Fortunately for the species as a whole, as without our fractious and highly individualistic nature, we would not grow or change at all.
This individuality is why two people from very similar backgrounds can look upon the same society and one can say "This is good. The very peak of civilisation!" while the second will see only a mess that must be changed for the good of all.
There may be a few layers I've missed for individual people and/or nations, but this should apply across the whole of humanity:
The Layering: Rough Order Of Occurence:
Genetics
Genetics comes first simply because it is the result of things that influence us before we are even born. We might affect changes in our strength levels, decide how far to use our intelligence, etc, but some things we simply have no control over, such as skin, hair and eye colour and of course any physical disabilities. Corrective surgery may help with some problems, but if you are born deaf (For one example) that will affect the shape of your entire life and there is simply nothng you can do but accept that and react to it. Similarly, there are a whole host of instincts that are inborn, from the desire to mate to the awareness of the possibility of danger. Humans are born predators and much of the rest of The Layering deals with controlling our natural instincts.
Physical Environment
'Normal' is where we live most of our lives. But 'Normal' shapes our ideas and attitudes to a very great extent, and also predetermines a lot of the skills we will learn and many of the things we will expereince. As such, it works on us from the moment of our earliest awareness. A child born to a 12th century Bedouin tribe in the desert, for example, will swiftly learn how to survive with little water, how to find things to eat in places where a traveller would starve, how to navigate the trackless wastes between oases and every other skill required to live and thrive in the desert. By contrast, a child born in a small European coastal fishing village of the same period would learn all about the perils of the sea and how to predict the weather, pilot a fishing vessel, repair nets and generally thrive in their own way. Yet if you look at the contrast, it is easy to see how the very different environments facing the two youths will shape everything from their diet to their idea of hot and cold to the skills they learn. Their ideas of 'Normal Life' would be so completely different as to be all but incomprehensible to each other. It is easy to believe that the modern world lessens the impact of physical environment, and it is true to an extent - but only to an extent. Physical environment also includes such things as tech toys and degree of urbanisation, after all, while the gap between the richest and poorest people has perhaps never been so great.
Parents & Home Environment
It is simply a fact that loving, supportive & encouraging parents who raise their child together as part of a stable married family unit tend to produce more confident and well adjusted children. Study after study has borne this out. Hardly surprising, given that many thousands of years of social evolution produced this model in every tribe where the male to female ratio was even roughly equal. Parents, after all, are a child's first contact with the rest of humanity and its first teachers in what being human involves. Parents teach everything from the beginnings of language to social skills to providing an exemplar for 'normal' relationships. Chldren being little more than balls of uncertainty/insecurity, they need rocks to cling to if they are to thrive. A solid family unit provides that rock by being the single completely reliable part of a child's life: something the child can build on. A foundation stone, if you like. This is not to say that children from less stable homes cannot triumph over the odds - many can and do. But the odds are more stacked against them from the start. As a rule of thumb, the more troubled the parents' relationship and the more troubled the relationship between parents and child, the less stable and confident the child is likely to be. As ever, there will be exceptions at every point on the scale, but a child given strong confidence and motivation by its parents will tend to be more successful than one who is not.
Religion (Early Exposure)
Religion provides a common core of beliefs for its followers. As such, a person raised in a given religion (And continuing to follow it) will tend to be more socially active as long as there is a strong core of fellow believers in the area. Degree of belief is not really important, here, only degree of feeling like they belong as part of the community. Being used to socialising can often make religious people more adept socially in non-religious situations too, and will give them something in common with every other member of their faith they may meet. So if you ever feel like a religion is this vast web of contacts stretching across large chunks of the world, that's because it IS. Religion tends to grant greater peace of mind and increased confidence also, because it allows the believer to feel that they are part of something much vaster than themselves and that despite the cruelties of the world they are to some extent protected by a benign hand. This becomes a self fulfilling prophesy in times of trouble, as the relligious person has an inbuilt crutch to lean on that the non-religious lack.
Language
One of the most vital keys to understanding any tribe is to look at its language. It is true, as George Orwell remarked, that humans cannot think about a thing we have no words for as we think in words. It's also why we continually invent new words (And why we need to). A name is only a label, but it is also a reference through which we comprehend each other's meaning. Language can shape opinion and attitude in subtle ways. A language with no differentiation between 'Stranger' and 'Enemy', for example, is unlikely to be too friendly to unexpected travellers wandering by.
Social Class
Social Class can affect everything from the physical environment (Number and capability of tech toys, etc) to social expectation and contacts. A person with no money worries will be less motivated to work than one who is living on the bread line, but as many members of the Middle and Upper classes are poor parents (Hardly ever there, leaving a lot to the nanny or other employees) they often have children who are emotionally neglected and troubled because of it. Social Class is more a subset of Physical Environment and Parents & Home Environment, but is included here because readers will doubtless expect to see it.
Custom & Tradition
A huge mass of cultural attitudes and expectations are passed down to us by Custom & Tradition. This covers everything from 'Don't Trust Nation X' to superstitions about unlucky numbers or the power of astrology. Sometimes there are good reasons for the attitudes in question, but often they are an outdated jumble of pointless superstitions. The problem is that while it can be easy to tell the truth in some cases (Why should one number be any more or less lucky than any other?) it is not alwys so. It's quite surprising how many 'folk remedies' turn out to hold more truth than we may think, and as for trusting Nation X, well... Sometimes the cause of that suspicion is long gone, other times not so much. Custom & Tradition also serves as a historical reminder, as with special national holidays and the commemoration of events long past. Both can also impart strength and greater community cohesion, with the participants in some traditional practises feeling part of a great tradition that unites them across generations with something greater than themselves. Custom & Tradition is part of the culture of a people and thus of a nation. What we really mean when we say "I am a(n) 'insert-nationality-here'" is that we are the heirs to the traditions, the customs and the history of that nation.
School/Education
The education system teaches you the things that your society believes it is important for you to know and in the way that it thinks you should know them. The biases within the system are at least as important as the content, here, with attitudes to one's own society and that of others often being inculcated as part of the formal education system. Because we are told that the purpose of the system is to impart 'facts' we rarely question the attitudes and ideas taught to us in our schools. Education provides one of the most influential layers of our cultural identity, simply because we rarely question its veracity.
Peer Groups
Of all the direct influences on our lives, the most influential outside of our parents is that of our peer group. Because we are social creatures, we like to make friends and fit in with our peer group and this will influence our own behaviour. It is why we often seem to be different people depending on where we are and who we are with. We will have several peer groups throughout our lives, from playmates at primary school to the more sophisticated interactions of our teenage years, to our smaller and more close knit friendship groups to our work colleagues. All will have an influence on our outlook and attitudes.
Other Small Tribes We Belong To
This includes active supporting of sports teams, belonging to special interest groups (Whether they deal with hobbies or causes) and any other social activity that gives us both a singular reason to be involved (And thus a singular point of common interest with other members of the group). This is in some ways a subset of the peer group and there is a definite overlap where supporters of a singular cause or interest may also socialise on other occasions, but the emphasis here is on a more casual arrangement. If you are the member of a chess club, for example, you may go there primarily to talk to the other players (Peer group level association) or you may go there primarily to play chess. In the latter case, it is not really the same thing as a peer group so is worthy of differentiation, if only just. The line here is a hazy one, however, and 'Other Tribes' may be considered a subset of Peer Groups if you prefer.
Society/Social/Cultural Norms
Prevalent in everything here save Genetics (And even that may be a matter for debate, considering how social acceptability frequently affects who can and will breed) Societal & Cultural Norms are the driving force that surround us and the main way in which peers and others alike will decide our worth as people and members of our tribe. Social Norms change over time as the pressures from both within and without shift, so that the values which you or I may be judged by will not be the same as those used by our grandparents, nor those of our grandchildren. Whatever 'Normal' may be for any given generation, however, its affects are very real for the members of the tribe with those values and the consequences of transgression are always unenviable. There will always be the equivalent of 'Good People Do' and 'Good People Don't'. What they do and don't may completely switch from generation to generation, but they always exist in some form. This immense social pressure to conform is unreasoning and can structure in things which are inimical both to individuals and the whole as well as things which are helpful. Nonetheless, the tremendous impact they have on our lives is undeniable.
Religion (Later Exposure)
People who are later converts to a religion tend to be both more zealous and more inclined to try to 'prove' their new faith at every opportunity. Beyond that, the differences with a person born into a religion are fairly minor, though obviously the newcomer is somewhat disadvantaged by being a late starter. Which may be another reason for the increased zeal, of course.
Belonging & Not Belonging
A person who feels that they fully belong in their society and are loved by peers and family is one who feels fully accepted and thus is more likely to be happy and feel fulfilled with their lives. People are a bit like jigsaw pieces in this: if they succeed in finding the exact place where they fit amongst all the other pieces, they will settle down snugly and be content with what they have. By contrast, a person who does not feel like they belong may try many times to fit into the puzzle that is life before either finding their place or giving up looking. People may feel they do not belong for many reasons, from being unable to accept the consensus of Social Norms to being rejected by their peer group, with a myriad of other possibilities between. Effects of belonging and not belonging are very dependent on what it is one is expected to belong TO, of course... Those who do not feel that they belong in the wider society will often form their own small groups of people with similar feelings of alienation or rejection. These can be anything from support groups to criminal gangs. As a general rule, the more a person feels that they belong, the less likely they are to break the rules of the group they belong to (Which is not the same thing as breaking the law, please note!).
The Influence of Government
Leadership grants influence over everyone who falls within the aegis of the leader. This should be obvious, but is often overlooked (And most often by governments, interestingly). Thus a charismatic and influential leader who can give direction to their people will create a stronger and happier nation than one who is muddled and lacking in direction. Tribes like to be led. Of course, a strong leader can also be divisive, if they are strong in the wrong ways (Or if really hard decisions are needed), but a weak leader is always divisive because the members of a tribe without direction will wander as and where they will. Legislation is NOT a substitute for leadership, though many in governments across the world seem to believe otherwise.
The Cycle Of Civilisations
The position of a nation on the Cycle makes immense differences to the outlook, attitudes and social/cultural norms of that nation. This is worth mentioning here as it affects every other aspect bar (possibly) genetics, in a way that seems to go far beyond that of culture, even, in that it affects all human societies equally, wherever they may be. As it has its own series of articles, however, I see no need to repeat it all here.
Conclusion
And that, barring anything I've forgotten, is how humans come to be human. The process is quite simple, as you can see, though the complications are myriad and the possibilities even more so.
