In response to Pinker

In  the Steven Pinker reading, the writer’s claim that we are not blank slates and that who we are is a matter of one’s genes/biology is something that contradicts my deeply-held values regarding what I find to be true. I have always believed that who we are is heavily influenced by specific contexts—in other words, our environments and our upbringing. For example, I consider myself to be a progressive, agnostic feminist who is open-minded and accepting of others. On the other hand, I have a brother who is ultra-Catholic and a Trump supporter. Essentially, I am nothing like him in terms of our values and personalities even though we share half of our DNA.  Moreover, I attribute a lot of who I am to my own efforts in exposing myself to different schools of thought, different ideas, a plethora of literary and cinematic works… to meeting new people, having new experiences—in other words, I am who I am because of my particular interactions with the world, with society. On another note, how could manipulation/coercion be a thing if “it’s all in our genes?” How could Hitler, for example, have been so successful? Surely, it cannot be that many Nazi soldiers were genetically predisposed to have executed such monstrous crimes during the time of the concentration camps; I take this to have been more a matter of social engineering, which contradicts Pinker’s claim. This also bothers me and confuses me a little because this issue makes me think about leadership… do the people in positions of power simply possess “better” genes to lead? Genes that are “better” capable of being in power? I would not want to believe so considering who is currently in power in the U.S.—a situation that I have understood more as having arisen as a result of many social circumstances. I think that this notion that Pinker develops about who we are being a matter of our own biology is very dangerous and counterproductive, and this is why how we understand who we are is very crucial. Pinker’s idea undermines the legitimacy of social psychology and the effects that society definitely has on the individual. It relegates one’s position in life to the fault of their genes… and in a way, it makes for a society in which the “betterment” of one’s self becomes pointless because ultimately who we are is a “genetic issue.” It makes it so that inequalities are justified, so that one’s poverty, lack of education, fates are rationalized through one’s biology rather than through the workings of our societies.