EngCmp 0200
Essay for 2/24
Insert Clever Title Here
I believe that the meanings and purposes we attribute to our lives are products of a combination of nature and nurture. However, nature and nurture are not mutually exclusive categories. For example, a couple has a child that has a genetic predisposition to intelligence and an athletic build. Depending on the environment the parents provide for the child, that child can grow up to be an Olympic athlete and a Nobel Prize winner, or the most insignificant person to ever exist. If the child is given books and is encouraged to be active and ambitious, he/she will assume the former role. If the child is encouraged to watch hours of television and only exercise during the walk between the television and the refrigerator, the child will assume the latter. Because nature and nurture are so closely related and interactive, I believe that the “meaning of life” is threatened, but it hasn’t been lost because both nature and nurture have to be conceded to truly lose meaning.
In his book, Too Much, McKibbon uses Seinfeld as an example for a life without context or meaning. He says, “the great danger… of the world that we have built is that it leaves us vulnerable to meaninglessness – to a world where consumption is all that happens, because there’s nothing left that means anything.” His argument is poignant, but it is flawed. In the Art of Happiness, by his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama describes the purpose of life, from his perspective, as being happy. Pure and simple, no complications or arbitrary meaning: happiness. Contrary to McKibbon’s argument, I believe that even if society becomes the product of corporate mass marketing and people reach a point where life is completely sedentary, apathetic, and superficial, we still won’t have meaninglessness. If we ask ourselves, “is my life amounting to something?” We won’t answer “no,” we’ll say, “Yes, I’m happy.” Those who are clinically depressed, of course, will have a similar purpose: to achieve happiness, which is still a purpose. In order for us to have completely lost meaning, for society to completely lose “weight and substance,” we will not be able to answer whether our life is amounting to something because for that to happen, we’ll have to have lost everything, even our most basic emotion: happiness.
McKibbon continues to describe individualism as the only resource for meaning, and that the “heart of [his] argument [is] we stand on the edge of disappearing even as individuals.” Individualism, as described before, is the juncture between nature and nurture. Even if genetic engineering renders nature’s role as obsolete because our intrinsic factors are no longer a product of a random selection of genes but rather a product of a Petri dish, extrinsic factors will still play a dominant role in our development that will still make us individuals. McKibbon reasons that if a person is engineered, they will no longer be able to distinguish between what is authentically “human” and what is fabricated, thus taking away their individuality and thus their purpose and meaning. However, I don’t agree with his reasoning. You cannot engineer someone to have higher reasoning abilities than another. What you can alter are genes to give someone more white matter, or a thicker sheet of myelin around their nerve fibers resulting in faster, more efficient synaptic transmission; you can superficially increase the volume of neurotransmitters present at synaptic terminals giving a person “better” cognitive function, but you cannot fundamentally alter a persons ability to reason and think independently. In order to develop your engineered child, you still need to present, and nurture them with the appropriate stimuli that will promote their ability to reason during their stages of development. For example, genetically engineered child A is engineered to have more white matter, etc… but isn’t nourished with language, education, affection, etc… That child, who was genetically engineered to have better reasoning abilities will look at a puzzle, scratch their head, and have no idea what to do because our ability to reason using language, math, algorithms, etc… are products of our environment. Individuality cannot be taken away because individuality is a product of the experiences and influences we’re exposed to while growing and maturing. If McKibbon attributes our grasp on meaning to individuality, then I argue that individuality, and thus meaning, can’t be lost.
Another example of how purpose and meaning of life won’t be lost is found in Chris Ware’s, Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth. Jimmy Corrigan is a hapless, melancholy protagonist. Abandoned by his father at a tender age, and having grown up with an overbearing mother and an alienated social life, he never had the type of warming environment one needs to be conditioned to feel happy and really content in society. Going back to my original argument, however, both nature and nurture have to be conceded before purpose and meaning are lost. The role nature played was obviously conceded to a point with Jimmy, a below average, average Joe; but McKibbon proposes, “We have to, somehow, produce all the context for ourselves,” that we need to be able to attribute some meaning to our lives in order to be considered an individual and have purpose. Jimmy used his overactive imagination as an escape. Because of his absent father, etc… his environment conditioned him to live through his own world, his own reality within reality that gave him context, meaning, and purpose. Albeit not independent himself, he was assertive with his independence and individuality by living vicariously through his imagination. For example, he often dreamt of being a robot. The robot he assumes, in my opinion, is a metaphor for indestructibility and independence. Albeit walking around in a tin can also represents Jimmy’s isolation from the rest of society, it represents his resistance to that alienation. Jimmy’s situation did not reflect a loss of meaning; his situation represented an alternative resource for us to create a context for our lives, to create independence, and to sustain meaning and purpose.
3 comments:
Hey Albert!
First, let me say I like your title, whether or not it was intentional.
Second, you use "albeit" twice in the last paragraph (not really an issue-just something I noticed) and I think McKibben is spelled with an “e.”
Alright now I am going to write a real comment.
The introduction is a good example of nature vs. nurture, but I think it would be more suitable for your second body paragraph. I think a more universal introduction (that connects all of your sub-arguments) would be more relevant. Also, you say in your thesis that you think that the "meaning of life" is threatened. You defend the rest of your thesis (that both nature and nurture have to be conceded) thoroughly in the paper, but you don't really expand on this idea. In what way do you believe that the “meaning of life” is threatened?
I like your first paragraph (probably because I agree with you and the Dalai Lama), but its argument isn't entirely connected to the thesis. Here, you are arguing that the meaning of life is different than what McKibben believes it is. I think you should either chose to argue against McKibben's PHILOSOPHY (pardon the use of capslock, it’s a lot easier than underlining on here) on the "meaning of life" or his REASONS for believing that we are losing our individuality through genetic engineering. Either way, you are arguing that our meaning of life hasn't been lost. If you could somehow combine them, that would be cool, but it would probably be easier to just choose one.
The second paragraph is solid. I would just be careful about calling McKibben's argument flawed. Though you have philosophical differences with McKibben, I don't necessarily see any flaws in his argument.
I’m having a little trouble understanding the third paragraph. It isn’t entirely clear to me how the nature vs. nurture argument connects in this example. I think what I am having trouble understanding is how nurture could be conceded at all. Unless you believe it could be (in which case you could provide examples), you could argue the meaning of human life can never be lost because it is impossible to completely control the environment in which a child is raised. Maybe you could also add the happiness factor into this argument. You could say that meaning can never be lost because neither nurture nor the capacity for happiness can be conceded. That might get confusing, but it’s up to you.
All in all, I think you have a lot of good ideas in this paper, but since it is only three pages long, you should probably make your argument more specific and make sure your thesis embodies your argument.
McKibbon is wrong when he thinks that society has lost collective meaning because to lose collective meaning, we first need to abolish individuality. Individuality can be attributed o the role nature and nurture play to juxtapose a person to individualism or individuality can be attained through abstruse creations such as context and a sense of “something.” Whether someone is independent because they’re able to attribute substance and “something” to their life, create abstract “contexts” that create meaning and individuality, or because meaning, purpose and individuality are products of nature and nurture, collective meaning still exists in society because individuality hasn’t been lost
In his book, Too Much, McKibben uses Seinfeld as an example for a life without context or meaning. He says, “the great danger… of the world that we have built is that it leaves us vulnerable to meaninglessness – to a world where consumption is all that happens, because there’s nothing left that means anything.” His argument is poignant, but contrary to McKibben’s argument, I believe that even if society becomes the product of corporate mass marketing and people reach a point where life is completely sedentary, apathetic, and “consumption is all that happens,” we still won’t have meaninglessness because there will still be things that mean something. For example, in the Art of Happiness, by his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama describes the purpose of life, from his perspective, as being happy. Pure and simple, no complications or arbitrary meaning: happiness. In this instance, even if consumption dominated our lives, happiness is omnipresent, attributing substance to our lives. If we ask ourselves, “is my life amounting to something?” we won’t answer “no,” we’ll say, “Yes, happiness.” In order for us to have completely lost meaning, for society to completely lose “weight and substance,” we will not be able to answer whether our life is amounting to something because for that to happen, we’ll have to have lost everything, even our most basic emotion: happiness.
Another example of how purpose and meaning of life won’t be lost is found in Chris Ware’s, Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth. Jimmy Corrigan is a hapless, melancholy protagonist. Abandoned by his father at a tender age, and having grown up with an overbearing mother and an alienated social life, he never had the ideal, warming environment one needs to feel really happy and content in society. In Too Much, McKibben proposes, “We have to, somehow, produce all the context for ourselves,” that we need to be able to attribute some meaning to our lives in order to be considered an individual and have purpose. Jimmy used his overactive imagination as a means to create “context” and be considered an individual as described by McKibben. Living vicariously through his imagination, he was able to attribute meaning to his life to create a sense of individuality. For example, he often dreamt of being a robot. The robot he assumes, in my opinion, is a metaphor for indestructibility and independence. Although walking around in a tin can also represents Jimmy’s isolation from the rest of society, it represents his resistance to that alienation. He created “context,” meaning, and individuality by rejecting societies intolerance for him. Through his imagination, he could remove himself from reality and create meaning and be considered and individual. Jimmy’s situation did not reflect a loss of meaning; it represents an improbable situation proving anyone is able to create context, meaning, and individuality. Anyone being able to create a sense of individuality means that there is no “collective loss of meaning.”
McKibben continues to describe individualism as the only resource for meaning, and that the “heart of [his] argument [is] we stand on the edge of disappearing even as individuals.” Individualism, as described before, is the directly correlated to both nature and nurture. Even if genetic engineering renders nature’s role as obsolete because our intrinsic factors are no longer a product of random selection rather a product of a Petri dish, extrinsic variables will still play a dominant role in our development that will still make us individuals. McKibben reasons that if a person is engineered, they will no longer be able to distinguish between what is authentically “human” and what is fabricated, thus taking away their individuality and thus their purpose and meaning. However, you cannot engineer someone to have higher reasoning abilities than another. What you can alter are genes to give someone more white matter, or a thicker sheet of myelin around their nerve fibers resulting in faster, more efficient synaptic transmission; you can superficially increase the volume of neurotransmitters present at synaptic terminals giving a person “better” cognitive function, but you cannot fundamentally alter a persons ability to reason and think independently. In order to develop your engineered child, you still need to present, and nurture them with the appropriate stimuli that will promote their ability to reason during their stages of development. For example, genetically engineered child A is manipulated to have more white matter, but isn’t nourished with language, education, affection, etc… to develop abstract thought processes. That child, metamorphosed to have better reasoning abilities, will look at a puzzle, scratch their head, and have no idea what to do because our ability to reason using language, math, algorithms, etc… are products of our environment. Individuality cannot be taken away because individuality is a product of the experiences and influences we’re exposed to while developing. If McKibben attributes our grasp on meaning to individuality, then I argue that individuality, and thus meaning, can’t be lost because nurture will never be conceded.
Bailey - good response.
Albert - You have certainly made some changes between version, and there's lots of interesting material here, but the fundamental problem which Bailey addressed is still here: this reads like several separate arguments, which are fundamentally distinct from one another. I simply don't fully understand how they connect in any coherent way.
For instance, I thought your discussion of how Jimmy Corrigan generates his context and meaning is smart and interesting (and could, in fact, have been the basis of a whole paper). I also think, perhaps less strongly, that your equation happiness=meaning is worthwhile and interesting.
These two ideas, though, are *not* compatible. I think you've shown how we can argue that Jimmy has a meaningful life - but he's still deeply unhappy, which contradicts your other way of understanding meaning.
Short version: you have the beginnings of three or four papers here. They are good beginnings, but they do not add up, together, into a coherent whole.
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