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Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Nature, Nurture, and the Blank Slate
We are not blank slates that society writes on. Be it something in our nature, or something that we are nurtured to acquire, society is working hard to inscribe us with identities that we carry like markers, explicitly or implicitly on our bodies.
The nature/nurture debate has been around for years, but no resolution has come of it. Nor can it ever come. More and more, people are beginning to realise that even ascibed traits that are supposed to come with birth are but social constructions. The ideas of race, of gender, and recently even of sex, have been conceded to be socially inscribed onto an individual, and not pre-determined by nature or a higher being. As such, social inscription actually begins from our birth, when we take on traits and identities from our parents who gave birth to us: our race, our sex, our religion, all of these mark us out in particular ways different from others.
Yet, one of our friends said something that is especially illuminating: that nobody is born a blank slate, but that partial erasure can take place and inscription can be added to what has already been inscribed onto us during the course of our lives. This is very true, and it links in nicely with (what was mentioned in class) the idea that a prisoner is like a blank slate who is being fed new values during the term of imprisonment. (In the case of "In a Penal Colony", the inscription is done literally on the prisoners' bodies.) This can also be seen in a military institution, where a civilian will enter with the status of recruit and be converted into a soldier during the Basic Military Training phase.
These individuals all go through an initiation, or what the sociologist Arnold van Gennep termed "rites de passage". It is during this period of transition from one social community to another that an individual is given partial erasure of previous social inscriptions/values and provided with new inscriptions/values. Interesting, the initiation also requires a symbolic "stripping" of the initiate, usually performed through a series of rituals which lead to the final assimilation into the new social community. These rituals range from the shaving of the head to the wearing of uniforms. The important point here is to remove all markers of rank and or social privilege that may be enjoyed by the individual in the previous social community.
It is important to note that these individuals do not remain the same after the initiation, for the new values inscribed into them alter their world-views, and this will stay with them regardless of what other inscriptions are performed onto them subsequently. In a way, the layers of inscriptions add dimension and colour to a person's character and belief system.
It is clear that the writers do not see their characters as blank slants that are subject to inscription. Many of the characters are born into identity markers that differentiate them from others, and these shape their world-views and the ways in which they see others around them. For instance, David Lurie can never bring himself to see Petrus as superior to him or his daughter because he grew up in a South Africa where the Dutch constructed a social hierarchy in which coloured people are subordinated to their white colonial masters. Bodies, in this case, are engaged in a struggle for definition and power. The group that wins this fight gets to define their centrality in the community, such that all other bodies that do not fit this definition will be othered, marginalised, and oppressed.
We are not blank slates that society writes on. Be it something in our nature, or something that we are nurtured to acquire, society is working hard to inscribe us with identities that we carry like markers, explicitly or implicitly on our bodies.
The nature/nurture debate has been around for years, but no resolution has come of it. Nor can it ever come. More and more, people are beginning to realise that even ascibed traits that are supposed to come with birth are but social constructions. The ideas of race, of gender, and recently even of sex, have been conceded to be socially inscribed onto an individual, and not pre-determined by nature or a higher being. As such, social inscription actually begins from our birth, when we take on traits and identities from our parents who gave birth to us: our race, our sex, our religion, all of these mark us out in particular ways different from others.
Yet, one of our friends said something that is especially illuminating: that nobody is born a blank slate, but that partial erasure can take place and inscription can be added to what has already been inscribed onto us during the course of our lives. This is very true, and it links in nicely with (what was mentioned in class) the idea that a prisoner is like a blank slate who is being fed new values during the term of imprisonment. (In the case of "In a Penal Colony", the inscription is done literally on the prisoners' bodies.) This can also be seen in a military institution, where a civilian will enter with the status of recruit and be converted into a soldier during the Basic Military Training phase.
These individuals all go through an initiation, or what the sociologist Arnold van Gennep termed "rites de passage". It is during this period of transition from one social community to another that an individual is given partial erasure of previous social inscriptions/values and provided with new inscriptions/values. Interesting, the initiation also requires a symbolic "stripping" of the initiate, usually performed through a series of rituals which lead to the final assimilation into the new social community. These rituals range from the shaving of the head to the wearing of uniforms. The important point here is to remove all markers of rank and or social privilege that may be enjoyed by the individual in the previous social community.
It is important to note that these individuals do not remain the same after the initiation, for the new values inscribed into them alter their world-views, and this will stay with them regardless of what other inscriptions are performed onto them subsequently. In a way, the layers of inscriptions add dimension and colour to a person's character and belief system.
It is clear that the writers do not see their characters as blank slants that are subject to inscription. Many of the characters are born into identity markers that differentiate them from others, and these shape their world-views and the ways in which they see others around them. For instance, David Lurie can never bring himself to see Petrus as superior to him or his daughter because he grew up in a South Africa where the Dutch constructed a social hierarchy in which coloured people are subordinated to their white colonial masters. Bodies, in this case, are engaged in a struggle for definition and power. The group that wins this fight gets to define their centrality in the community, such that all other bodies that do not fit this definition will be othered, marginalised, and oppressed.
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