Category: Sex and Gender

Originally posted 2022-02-12 13:00:32.

The ‘nature or nurture’ debate has been central to the discussion of sexuality for over two hundred years. In brief, the nature school  believes that human behaviour is largely inherited, while nurturists believe it is the result of experiences in childhood, particularly in our interactions with our parents and siblings.

The nature or nurture argument over sexuality spreads out into other areas of thought. So let’s examine it.

What does ‘nature or nurture’ mean?

The nature school is sometimes called ‘Essentialism’. It is fundamental to the Christian concept of Original Sin, which insists that we are not sinners by choice or because of our background, but because we are human. Our nature is that of sinner and Christ came to absolve us of this. That is how is possible for a newborn infant to be a sinner, in the eyes of Christians, even if she has done nothing other than suck her mother’s tit; sin is innate to being human. However, human nature, so hated by the Constructionists, is not seen as a flaw by the nature school but rather the source of our strength. It is what binds us together and makes us human, for better or worse.

Nurturism is sometimes called the ‘blank slate’ or tabula rasa. It was present in the thinking of men like Rousseau, an eighteenth-century philosopher whose thinking gave rise to many of the social movements we know today. It is also central to Marxist dogma, for example. In many ways it is a  development of the idea of individual autonomy, which informed the cultural revolution of the era and gave us the Enlightenment. Nothing is written and we are all able to shape every detail of our lives independently of the past. Today it is commonly known as ‘Constructionism’.

Continue reading “Nature or Nurture: the debate”