Tabula rasa vs "Just Be Yourself"

helpman178 · 2015-09-13T10:58:25+00:00

the idea that people start off their life as blank slates and that their entire personality (including their sexual preferences) is purely the product of their milieu.

The idea of a 'tabula rasa' is just as ridiculous and scientifically unsound as the idea that everything is preprogrammed.

There is overwhelming evidence against tabula rasa that comes from multiple twin and adoption studies, studies on newborns, as well as genomics. So I'm not sure why you bring this up here. Only someone who has no idea about biology would argue for the blank slate.

Bekazzled · 2015-09-13T12:30:31+00:00

Firstly, you state that people start off as blank slates with no personality and sexual preferences; that is incorrect, in my experience.

What I have seen with my own eyes suggests otherwise. There are thousands of examples of people being born with inherent traits, but I'll reduce them to the few I've seen that have had the most significant impact on my conception of human development:

The neighbour's kid. Growing up, our neighbours gave birth to two female children around my age, Petrina and Merryn. Petrina, the older child, was lovely, easy to deal with. Merryn was a nightmare from the start. Therapists, psychologists, any kind of treatment - they tried it all - but her screams would fill the entire street. Her tantrums occurred whenever her mother tried to put her in a dress or ask her to "hold dolly". There was also the nightly screaming when Merryn had to go to bed (they tried to have her wear a nightgown- a dress). I remember the neighbour's mother running out after Merryn on the street frequently, trying to get her into the primary (elementary) school uniform. (In Australia, we don't get free dress - state school requires a strict uniform policy.) Merryn refused to wear her uniform, because it had a skirt. She would scream, bite, wrangle in the middle of the road, then start pounding the gravel and start dragging her skin across it. It was a horror to watch. A child of five doing this each bloody day. It went on until her mother asked the school if they would mind if Merryn wore boy's shorts to school. (Merryn would not attend school frequently because of the morning girl's uniform debacle. She would, however, grab at her father's shorts and try them on.) The school agreed that she could wear the boy school uniform if she wanted. The school then changed its rules to allow the girls to wear shorts, if they wished. It was quite an unexpected change, as uniform policy was incredibly strict. Now, decades later, I see girls in my old high school uniform wearing shorts. (I prefer dresses myself, but I find it interesting that this choice was allowed and digression became popular.)

Yes, Merryn was the first child I ever knew as a baby, toddler, child, and then adult who was obsessed with trucks and boy's toys as a child. While I (and the rest of the street) found her to be an extremely loud irritant, I also saw this behaviour as unique. No one else had a problem with the uniform policy. Girls wear skirts; boys wear shorts. Easy. Except for Merryn, a kid who lived next door.

I asked my parents if Merryn was "gay" as soon as I understood what the word meant. They said it looked like it. Now, as an adult in her late 20s, she is gay and resembles a male. I do not know if she has undergone surgery and become full transgender (or whatever the term is). I do know that Merryn WAS BORN LIKE THAT. I've never seen such a young child try to rip their own skin off on the street. New neighbours would even call the police because of her fits.

There is no way in hell sexuality is a choice. I couldn't choose to be a lesbian if I tried. But Merryn - WOW. Nothing can erase that from my mind. If the parents had been told by therapists at the time, "let her wear shorts and play with boys toys", the hysterical fits would have occurred less often. But this was not acceptable thinking back even in the 80s. And perhaps the older sister, Petrina, would have been given a look-in by her parents once in a while. But they had no room for Petrina. Merryn's fury scorched everything. It only abated when she could be a boy. In fact, once she was allowed to dress and be treated as a boy, she stopped the hysterics altogether.

Her parents weren't gay. No one on the street was openly gay or had gender issues. She didn't learn this "trait", that's for sure. Even as a toddler it was obvious. She even LOOKED like a boy in the face.

I see personality traits in myself that established themselves from the age of six, which were not the result of environment. Though "academically bright", I loathed school. In Grade 1 (aged 6) I thought about suicide frequently. The reason? I saw kids in grade 7 in the same uniform as I was wearing. They seemed ridiculously old to me, these 12 year olds, and the message they were sending me was this: You will be stuck here until you get old. Wearing these clothes and doing the same thing, day in and day out. That is life, laid out for me, and that's my only choice. I frequently thought about dying, and eventually a school teacher suggested I might suffer from depression or anxiety. However, therapists at the time said that I was "too young" to suffer from these issues.

Now, therapists admit that these issues develop quite early. Neither of my parents and none of my four siblings had an issue with school in this way, or depression or anxiety either.

HappilySingleWoman · 2015-09-13T13:17:49+00:00

Tabula rasa isn't true , but this doesn't mean that culture doesn't play a role in our behavior.

scrantonic1ty · 2015-09-13T20:04:40+00:00

You've just come to the realisation that we're being emotionally-manipulated all the fucking time.

By the socially-liberal definition, a huge portion of marketing is tantamount to "emotional abuse". All those ad campaigns that tap into your insecurities, those corporations are running mass dread game on the entire population.

AmericanHistoryAFBB · 2015-09-14T02:29:11+00:00

Wasn't "Tabula Rasa" the name of a LOST episode? Sorry, I can't help you.

Xemnas81 · 2015-09-14T02:44:41+00:00

It's pretty obvious why Blue Pill doesn't like RP: the manipulation and emotional abuse component. JBY is bullshit for yourself, be the best version of yourself and if you're not happy, improve yourself.

But you can't change other people to fit your image. That's straight up controlling, manipulative behaviour. Even if it's in their benefit. If they;'re going to fuck up their lives then that's their prerogative, walk away if necessary.

Now with that said I disagree with TBP's complete vilification of gender dimorphism. Gender roles are problematic, but their evolutionary roles cannot simply be waved away with a magic wand. At its extreme feminist relationships try to de-condition sexuality by obliviously ignoring gender roles and stereotypes.

So the truth is in the middle.

If RP focussed more on male primitive instincts as well, perhaps they'd have less vitriol about the 'bio-truths'.

neostoic · 2015-09-15T05:01:52+00:00

Guys get told to Just Be Yourself and avoid TRP-tactics not because you're manipulating someone else and doing this is bad(duh!), but because manipulative tactics fails unless you have a good sense of the game. If you do, then you don't really need advice. If you don't you gonna crash and burn.

JohnnyElBravo · 2015-09-15T11:14:45+00:00

Manipulating someone is not altering her behaviour. It's altering your own behaviour in order to elicit a specific response from someone else. That is, you not being yourself in order to get the girl.

PostNationalism · 2015-09-13T12:51:58+00:00

Scanned

Saw "the feminists"

Lold

ThirdEyeSqueegeed · 2015-09-13T11:25:11+00:00

Blank slate theory is bullshit. This documentary should help clear things up.

LUClEN · 2015-09-13T12:08:04+00:00

If that's the case then they should hate everyone and everything that influences them. They don't, so I'm not sure it's simply about that.

Title	Tabula rasa vs "Just Be Yourself"
Author	Mithra9009
Upvotes	7
Comments	40
Date	September 13, 2015 10:19 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/3krokn/tabula_rasa_vs_just_be_yourself/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/tabula-rasa-vs-just-be-yourself.279638 https://theredarchive.com/post/279638

Comments