Analysis Of Steven Pinker's The Individual And The Patterns Of Culture

Should I help this old woman who’s struggling to cross the street? Our lives are the embodiment of the phrase “to be or not to be.” We are constantly faced with decisions at every turn and these choices shape our lives and our lifestyles. At this level of thinking, there can be a notion of right and wrong. The “right” thing to do in the question I provided, as many have voiced in their heads, is to help the woman cross the street. But could it be that in a different culture, the right thing to do would be to disregard or even maim her? In “The Individual and the Patterns of Culture,” Ruth Benedict, a renowned anthropologist, would say that there could exist such a culture. She’d inject her method of cultural relativism and advise that every individual be judged only in the context of their culture. Therefore, if another culture doesn’t value helping the elderly then there couldn’t possibly exist a universal right and wrong. Steven

Benedict indicates that parenting has a significant effect on how we turn out when she says, “Most people are shaped to the form of their culture because of their enormous malleability” (115). Benedict explicitly states that people are extremely, although not infinitely, malleable. From her claim, it follows that parents have great influence in shaping their kids. Pinker, on the other hand, cites identical twin studies to demonstrate the impact of genes and its relationship to our growth. His example was a pair of twins raised in two extremes of culture: “one of whom was brought up as a Catholic in a Nazi family and the other brought up in a Jewish family in Trinidad”(TED). There were remarkable similarities in their wardrobe, eating habits, and demeanor. For example, both “liked dipping buttered toast in coffee” and were considered jokesters because they enjoyed sneezing in elevators to startle people. This study suggests that humans may not be as malleable as Benedict