 |
| The Impact of Your Social Environmental |
The Impact of Your Social Environmental
At birth, your cerebellum is already able to keep you alive, breathing and eating, and basic instincts are operational. Your limbic system provides you with basic emotional drives. However, much of your midbrain and forebrain are waiting to be sculpted by experience.
A newborn has about 10 billion brain cells and this number remains essentially constant through adulthood, but the number of supportive glia cells increases until about age 20. The number of axon-dendrite connections increases continuously with life’s experiences.
Your social environment continually shapes and refines your thought processes. The circumstances of your birth The United Nations currently recognizes 192 different countries with average annual incomes ranging from $500 US to over $30 000 US, and with average life expectancies ranging from 35 years to over 80 years. The world population is estimated to be about 6.5 billion people and at any given time there are approximately 200 million people on the move as refugees. If you are born in a nation with a large debt, few natural resources, and a bankrupt social system, then you will have difficulty reaching your potential as a clear thinker.
If individuals could choose the circumstances of their birth, then the most direct path to clear thinking would include caring, educated, and wealthy parents living in a prosperous society.
The historical context of your birth is another important factor in your opportunities to be a clear thinker. In the developed world, the last few decades have been the best time to be alive in the history of human kind. While the focus of the news media is often on negative events, in a relative sense, peace and prosperity have reigned during the past fifty years. In the western world the general population has been better fed, better educated, is more secure, has had access to better medical care, and has had more leisure time and less physically demanding jobs than at any other time in history.
Physical comforts and stress We think more clearly when we are healthy, comfortable, well rested, and free from excessive stress. Under severe and lasting stress your mental efficiency can suffer dramatically. Under stress you tend to lose concentration, have difficulty assessing new information, and your short-term memory starts to fail. Under excessive stress your ability to think clearly can be seriously impaired.
One strategy for reducing stress is to remove yourself from the stressful situation.
Often stressful situations are of your own making. Step back and re-evaluate your objectives. Are the potential rewards from your current activities worth the wearand- tear on your psyche?
At birth, your cerebellum is already able to keep you alive, breathing and eating, and basic instincts are operational. Your limbic system provides you with basic emotional drives. However, much of your midbrain and forebrain are waiting to be sculpted by experience.
A newborn has about 10 billion brain cells and this number remains essentially constant through adulthood, but the number of supportive glia cells increases until about age 20. The number of axon-dendrite connections increases continuously with life’s experiences.
Your social environment continually shapes and refines your thought processes. The circumstances of your birth The United Nations currently recognizes 192 different countries with average annual incomes ranging from $500 US to over $30 000 US, and with average life expectancies ranging from 35 years to over 80 years. The world population is estimated to be about 6.5 billion people and at any given time there are approximately 200 million people on the move as refugees. If you are born in a nation with a large debt, few natural resources, and a bankrupt social system, then you will have difficulty reaching your potential as a clear thinker.
If individuals could choose the circumstances of their birth, then the most direct path to clear thinking would include caring, educated, and wealthy parents living in a prosperous society.
The historical context of your birth is another important factor in your opportunities to be a clear thinker. In the developed world, the last few decades have been the best time to be alive in the history of human kind. While the focus of the news media is often on negative events, in a relative sense, peace and prosperity have reigned during the past fifty years. In the western world the general population has been better fed, better educated, is more secure, has had access to better medical care, and has had more leisure time and less physically demanding jobs than at any other time in history.
Physical comforts and stress We think more clearly when we are healthy, comfortable, well rested, and free from excessive stress. Under severe and lasting stress your mental efficiency can suffer dramatically. Under stress you tend to lose concentration, have difficulty assessing new information, and your short-term memory starts to fail. Under excessive stress your ability to think clearly can be seriously impaired.
One strategy for reducing stress is to remove yourself from the stressful situation.
Often stressful situations are of your own making. Step back and re-evaluate your objectives. Are the potential rewards from your current activities worth the wearand- tear on your psyche?
Another strategy for reducing stress is to anticipate challenging situations and prepare to deal with them ahead of time. Astronauts spend years practicing the procedures that they will have to carry out after they are launched into in orbit. They spend almost as much time again preparing for possible emergencies. Preparation and practice provide the tools and procedures needed to deal with potentially stressful situations.
Social structures
Your mental framework is also shaped by the social structures in your environment, and your particular status within that environment.
Your mother, father, brothers, sisters, and any other relatives living in your household have a significant role in your care, nurturing, and education. The number of your siblings, your sex, and your birth order often determine your duties and responsibilities within your family. Your family instils early lessons about loyalty, mutual support, the roles of men and women, and the essential economics of family life.
In many societies, families with common grandparents and great grandparents consider themselves a clan, and clan members are expected to work together to foster common social, territorial, and economic interests.
Members of a tribe typically claim a more distant but common ancestor. Tribal members form a society with common culture, customs, traditions, and economic interests. A tribal member is expected to adhere to tribal customs and to show preference for tribal members in any dealings involving external groups. The founding tribes of Athens, Rome, and Israel; and the tribes of Native Americans and the Bedouins of Arabia are examples of well-known tribes.
Religion
Religions have their own traditions and rituals. They often have special sites for worship and leaders with inspired knowledge. Religions impose a mental framework for dealing with fears, hopes, learning, and your goals in life. Religious traditions often require ritual acts and standard approaches for dealing with everyday events.
Rules must be followed to avoid displeasing the gods. Polytheistic religions tend to be more accepting of other religions but offer a fragmented philosophy. Monotheistic religions tend to be less flexible but offer a more coherent philosophy.
Environmental changes
Mental challenges arise when the environment changes – a new device is invented, travellers bring new ideas from the external world, the social and economic foundations are destroyed in war, or the population is decimated by a natural disaster or swollen by immigration. If you are forced to adapt to changing conditions, the process is less traumatic if you have developed a flexible approach to your social environment.
Mental challenges also arise when an individual is able to perceive a better way to do something. How can the new approach be developed and integrated into a static society?
Suppression of selected groups
Throughout human history social environments have often discriminated against, and suppressed, selected subgroups in the population. War captives, lower classes, the poor, women, children, people of different origin, and people with a different religion were typical targets. Such discrimination and suppression may have been highly organized and deliberate, or haphazard in nature. Regardless, the effect on clear thinking is always negative. Members of a suppressed group have fewer opportunities to receive care and nurturing, and fewer resources for education and intellectual development.
Modes of expression
Your social environment also determines the modes of expression that are available for your use. A culture with a complex language, a tradition of artistic and political expression, and a habit of self-expression fosters creative and philosophical thinking.
A culture can also deliberately limit your modes of expression. Early Puritans and Calvinists were discouraged from dancing and singing. Renaissance scholars were required to carry out their deliberations in Latin. Muslims are discouraged from drawing the form of any living creature.
Since we use words to structure most of our conscious thoughts, the richness and subtleties of the language we are using are important factors in determining our clarity of thought. It has been proposed by the German philosopher von Humbolt and the American linguist E. S. Benjamin, that all higher levels of thinking are dependent on language, and that speakers of different languages actually experience the world differently.
Dr. Philip Dale (Language Development – Structure and Function, 1972) provides a simple but illustrative example. In the English language, the visible spectrum is typically described by six colours – red, green, orange, yellow, blue, and purple. In Shona (a language spoken in Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique), the same spectrum is described by just four colours, and in Bassa (a language spoken in Nigeria) only two words for colour are used. It is apparent that your ability to describe and think about colour depends on the language you are using.
While we assume that we are looking at the world objectively, in reality we are looking at the world with a brain that has been shaped by the social world into which we were born. It is difficult to locate an objective reality when the very structure of your brain, all your observations, and all your thoughts have all been modified by, and filtered through, the elements of a specific culture.
Social structures
Your mental framework is also shaped by the social structures in your environment, and your particular status within that environment.
Your mother, father, brothers, sisters, and any other relatives living in your household have a significant role in your care, nurturing, and education. The number of your siblings, your sex, and your birth order often determine your duties and responsibilities within your family. Your family instils early lessons about loyalty, mutual support, the roles of men and women, and the essential economics of family life.
In many societies, families with common grandparents and great grandparents consider themselves a clan, and clan members are expected to work together to foster common social, territorial, and economic interests.
Members of a tribe typically claim a more distant but common ancestor. Tribal members form a society with common culture, customs, traditions, and economic interests. A tribal member is expected to adhere to tribal customs and to show preference for tribal members in any dealings involving external groups. The founding tribes of Athens, Rome, and Israel; and the tribes of Native Americans and the Bedouins of Arabia are examples of well-known tribes.
Religion
Religions have their own traditions and rituals. They often have special sites for worship and leaders with inspired knowledge. Religions impose a mental framework for dealing with fears, hopes, learning, and your goals in life. Religious traditions often require ritual acts and standard approaches for dealing with everyday events.
Rules must be followed to avoid displeasing the gods. Polytheistic religions tend to be more accepting of other religions but offer a fragmented philosophy. Monotheistic religions tend to be less flexible but offer a more coherent philosophy.
Environmental changes
Mental challenges arise when the environment changes – a new device is invented, travellers bring new ideas from the external world, the social and economic foundations are destroyed in war, or the population is decimated by a natural disaster or swollen by immigration. If you are forced to adapt to changing conditions, the process is less traumatic if you have developed a flexible approach to your social environment.
Mental challenges also arise when an individual is able to perceive a better way to do something. How can the new approach be developed and integrated into a static society?
Suppression of selected groups
Throughout human history social environments have often discriminated against, and suppressed, selected subgroups in the population. War captives, lower classes, the poor, women, children, people of different origin, and people with a different religion were typical targets. Such discrimination and suppression may have been highly organized and deliberate, or haphazard in nature. Regardless, the effect on clear thinking is always negative. Members of a suppressed group have fewer opportunities to receive care and nurturing, and fewer resources for education and intellectual development.
Modes of expression
Your social environment also determines the modes of expression that are available for your use. A culture with a complex language, a tradition of artistic and political expression, and a habit of self-expression fosters creative and philosophical thinking.
A culture can also deliberately limit your modes of expression. Early Puritans and Calvinists were discouraged from dancing and singing. Renaissance scholars were required to carry out their deliberations in Latin. Muslims are discouraged from drawing the form of any living creature.
Since we use words to structure most of our conscious thoughts, the richness and subtleties of the language we are using are important factors in determining our clarity of thought. It has been proposed by the German philosopher von Humbolt and the American linguist E. S. Benjamin, that all higher levels of thinking are dependent on language, and that speakers of different languages actually experience the world differently.
Dr. Philip Dale (Language Development – Structure and Function, 1972) provides a simple but illustrative example. In the English language, the visible spectrum is typically described by six colours – red, green, orange, yellow, blue, and purple. In Shona (a language spoken in Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique), the same spectrum is described by just four colours, and in Bassa (a language spoken in Nigeria) only two words for colour are used. It is apparent that your ability to describe and think about colour depends on the language you are using.
While we assume that we are looking at the world objectively, in reality we are looking at the world with a brain that has been shaped by the social world into which we were born. It is difficult to locate an objective reality when the very structure of your brain, all your observations, and all your thoughts have all been modified by, and filtered through, the elements of a specific culture.
