[quote=svelte]Let me try an extreme example of how your childhood can affect who you are, but you should still be held accountable for your actions.
There are many examples of murderers from less than ideal backgrounds…charles manson and jeffrey dahmer come to mind… but they should absolutely be held accountable for their actions. No doubt about it.
And yes there are folks from great backgrounds who murder also. Menendez brothers come to mind. But a bad childhood increases the odds of extreme bad behavior.[/quote]
life is a series of risk factors. but we don’t like to think of ourselves as being subject to the laws of probability. So for instance, if your parents moved house a lot in your childhood, that would put a child at risk of a whole host of bad social and intellectual outcomes.
it is not a good thing for a kid to move around a lot. does that mean that every kid who moves around a lot will not finish hs will join a gang or murder someone? no. but it’s definitely a risk associated with being in a family that moves around a lot. and just because you grew up and moved around
a lot and turned out fine doesn’t mean that you weren’t exposed to a risk…or that your life context didn’t potentially have great impact on you in other smaller subtler ways.
to say I am not part of the normal risk pool, that I cannot be affected by the various risks in my life through sheer force of will, is, well, probably just wrong.
or at least as foolishly proud as claiming ones self to be above the risk factors medical doctors agree on…, i understand I have a 35% increased risk of cancer due to my genetics or lifestyle, but through sheer determination, I know that i will not be part of that 35%. perhaps because i am so focussed, or I pray a lot, or I have a lot of people praying for me, the normal risk factors of life that i have inherited along the way do not matter.
i could not blame my parents for the social factors they laid upon me, anymore than I would blame the genetic factors (although frankly, when I look at myself, i’m not sure I shouldve been permitted to reproduce. but that’s another issue).
