Nature Vs Nurture

Rousseau saw a fundamental divide between society and human nature. Rousseau believed that man was good when in the state of nature (the state of all other animals, and the condition humankind was in before the creation of civilization and society), but is corrupted by society.

“ The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. ”

Rousseau identifies nature with the primitive state of savage man. Later he took nature to mean the spontaneity of the process by which man builds his egocentric, instinct based character and his little world. Nature thus signifies interiority and integrity, as opposed to that imprisonment and enslavement which society imposes in the name of progressive emancipation from cold-hearted brutality.

Stanley Kubrick, whose films make strong comments on human nature, rejects the idea of the noble savage:

“Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved — that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure.”

I attended a lecture given by Nigel Latta at the University of Otago's St David lecture theatre earlier this year.

"Nature versus Nurture: Are we born bad or raised bad?"

Violent crimes, such as rape and murder, often partly reflected a combination of both genetic factors and a traumatic childhood, but violent offending was not inevitable.

Even the most damaged individual still had a choice about whether to pull the trigger, he said.

Mr Latta highlighted research conducted by the University of Otago's Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit and the University of London, involving a group of 442 male children followed from childhood to adulthood (26 years) -154 of who had been maltreated as children.

The world-first research showed that about 85% of the severely maltreated children who had low levels of a protective enzyme, MAOA, developed antisocial behaviour, including convictions for violent crimes.

However, few of those with a gene producing high levels of MAOA developed antisocial behaviours.

Early intervention to help at-risk children before the age of 5, and their families, was crucial and Government funding should be diverted to ensure this happened, Mr Latta said.

The lecture reflected in a lot of ways what I already believed regarding the Nature/Nurture debate. I don't agree with Rousseau or Kubrick's idea's on the true nature of man, I think what makes us who we are is a combination of genetics and experience. Although the cases of feral children do give some interesting insight in to the human mind; particularly the importance of language to social development, they are unique cases, and cannot be used to propagate universal truths.

I tend to side with existential arguments that there are no universal truths or at least none that we humans can know.

I see my installation as a discussion of all these idea's, through the narrative I wanted to highlight the hypocrisy of the 'mental ladder'- how we set ourselves a part from other living things. I used the juxtaposition of the rabbiter’s relationship with his dog and his relationship to the rest of his environment to emphasise this. I also wanted to suggest the importance of 'the journey' and 'the self'. The western inspired 'lone-ranger' character traverses the landscape in search of the pest or 'villain', but is his existence and task any more noble than that of which he hunts?

On first glance he is a kin to Defoe's romanticised idea of the 'natural man', surviving by necessity like Crusoe. As the story continues we see clues to societies influence upon him; the gun, the cigarette, the fire, the poison. These elements suggest he has been assigned a task by society, not simply trying to escape its conventions. The book is another important element, the character possesses language and perhaps the ability to reason, so what is behind his choices and actions?

Kierkegaard's belief in the importance of the self and the self's relation to the world being grounded in self-reflection and introspection was a particular influence. I see the characters journey through the narrative as one towards enlightenment, although we do not know whether this is achieved or not.

Immanuel Kant described it simply as freedom to use one's own intelligence.

I chose to display the narrative as a dual screen installation because I wanted to imply a more complex argument than the simple story of a hunter and his dog. My main aesthetic intention was to be as subtle as possible with the story telling to allow room for the audience to draw their own conclusions. I think I achieved this to some extent, but there is definately room for improvement.

I also liked the way I could separate the characters using the screens, hopefully creating tension between the human and the non-human.