Posts tagged "they fuck you up"
When applied to famous people, the evidence of the effects of birth order is illuminating. Whereas professional revolutionaries such as Leon Trotsky, Karl Marx and Fidel Castro are liable to be laterborn, establishment politicians are more likely to be firstborns. Scientists who are laterborn, like Charles Darwin, are more likely to develop radical theories than are firstborns. The later in birth order a scientist is born, the greater the diversity of their interests perhaps beause being multi-talented increases the chances of striking a parental chord. Scientists prone to acromonious disputes about who has been first to invent a theory which they believe themselves to have originated are three more times likely to be firstborns, perhaps still anxious about siblings stealing their boys.
Oliver James, “They Fuck You Up”
What we feel about the nature-nurture debate is likely to knit up with our political beliefs. As long ago as 1949, a survey showed that politically right-wing people tended to see genes as critical whereas those on the left favoured the environment, and this appears to be true today. The right will tend to argue that the hierarchies of society reflect genetically given talents, so that the rich are there because they have better genes, the poor are poor because they come from less good genetic stock. Likewise, women should be at home caring for children because genetic evolution has equipped their sex better for the role. For the left, these things are seen as the effects of society, something that can be changed; whereas the right wants to uphold the status quo, so genetic theories keep their bubble of illusions intact.
Oliver James, “They Fuck You Up”

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