Becoming an adult is the most exciting thing for anyone who has lived through childhood, is it not? Did you ever wonder why that is? The definition of Adulthood we are told is that we can make our own decisions. Exciting right? I mean, I don’t know anyone who would rather return to relive their childhood if they had the choice. Mind you: I don’t mean to start over; I mean relive every day as it happened, without the ability to change anything.
The “downside” of course, is to accept the consequences of our decisions. Sometimes it is good; many times it is painful. But like we said above, no one would return to Childhood because we can mitigate the decisions we make for a better life…and this gets right to the crux of this short article – YOUR decisions.
Adulthood is about making our own decisions. ARE decisions we make “ours”?? The answer is not so simple as in any educational topic.
Conditioning
To start with, we are not born into “adulthood”. We live 18 years before getting to that point and in that time, we are “conditioned”. One of the most influential Psychologist of all time (and most influential in the world for that matter) was B.F. Skinner who taught the Law of Behaviorism (normally called Theory but it has more than proven itself…). Skinner taught that all of our Behaviors are conditioned by our environment. This is where we get the terminology of “positive reinforcement” and “negative reinforcement”. It is all about the environment we were raised in.[1] And to summarize that environment, these are the Conditioners were we subject to growing up: parents and family, culture and school.
Let’s take the first one: parents and family. You were conditioned by your parents and family. That is a given and it isn’t something you can object to because you didn’t have a choice of what you were going to do – unless you had hippie or drug-using parents. For the overwhelming majority of us, our families conditioned our decision-making.
Let’s take the next big Conditioner in our life when we grew up: School. Schools definitely conditioned our decision-making. Our classmates, teachers and school environment all had an input in your Conditioning. Classmates either loved you or bullied you; your school environment was either rough, inner-city, and hostile or rural, laid back and less hostile or something in between. Teachers were always with you all day long and they conditioned you and in fact, some were out to propagandize you. Did you know that Harvard, which is a reflection of the Higher Education system, declares that only 2 percent of their professors are politically conservative??[2] Two percent?? That translates to a 98 percent professorship who are Liberal if not outright Progressive! If that isn’t proof of a propagandistic conditioning system, then nothing is!
Religion
Another Conditioner that was left unmentioned earlier is Religion and that’s because it is less relevant to Gen Z and younger. Not relevant because younger people aren’t religious but because they believe in “alternative religions”. Everyone worships or adores something. In the 21st century, more Americans are believing in alternative, non-traditional religions which we will summarize next:
Spiritualists: are people who don’t do some specific “religious” practices but still believe in a higher deity or believe that doing good works is more important than religious identities
Secularists: usually believe that the Truth about our world comes through Science and hence are at odds with traditional Religionists
Humanists: are close allies with Secularists but believe that our Wisdom comes through the collective Knowledge of Humanity. Anything that rings true universally is said to be True/Truth.
As I stated above, these are Religions, just not traditional religions. Any philosophy or belief system that ends in “-ism” (in English ) can be a religion if you put your trust in it because that is the nature of Religion. Just because Society hasn’t caught up in their notions about “Religion” doesn’t mean Americans aren’t religious!
Even “Atheism” is a religion. Why? Because they put their entire life on the line that there is no god anywhere and they trust that belief system.
Listen: EVERYONE believes something; EVERYONE trusts something: you trust that engineers won’t allow a building to collapse on you; you trust that a pilot is competent enough to take off and land the plane you’re on; you trust that a math teacher will teach you math so you can function in the real world, etc. ad infinitum.
Everyone is religious about something so for the sake of this article, this is another Conditioner that you were subject to when you grew up.
Culture
The culture you were raised in is a Conditioner. Inner city, suburb, exurb (adjacent to a suburb and further out in mega cities) and rural country, all had a very different impression on your upbringing.
Family culture conditioned your upbringing. Not only family religion but even your ethnicity made an impact. You couldn’t change that.
Your town and friends you had Conditioned you.
Which state(s) you grew up in had another big impact. Was it a Red or Blue state? Or was it Purple, Green or Orange??[3] All locales and states make an impact on your life.
Getting back to the thesis of this article
As you can tell by now, by the time you turned 18 or went to college, you were influenced by all kinds of “Conditioners” before you became an adult. In some cultures (not many left), parents determine who their child is going to marry at a young age. Do you think this is fair reader??
That was a sarcastic question; of course you don’t. No one wants their spouse to be “pre-determined” for them. But my question to you is, if you don’t like your decisions made by other people, then why is it that you make the same decisions as many of your circle of friends, especially on something as consequential as Politics??
Becoming an “independent” adult is rather deceptive because although we can choose to listen to whatever music, movie or podcast we want to without permission of someone else, we somehow come to the same opinion of those whom we listen to, watch or keep company with! Amazing huh? It is as those people, everyone else, is making your decisions.
You would say, “they aren’t making my decisions; they are simply informing me or making me aware of something”. Music or movies: “they are just entertainment”
And yet, if I were to say that I read the Bible at times and that it informs me of things, many of you will say, “that’s biased. You are letting religion influence you!”. I would reply, “no, Elohim (“G-o-d”) is merely Advocating for people”
You might say, “that’s all my sources do too – advocate”
But I would counter, “Your advocates are people and ALL people are biased and limited. The Elohim of the Universe, YHVH is unchangeable and Knows All” Consider His own words:
“YHVH is not a human who lies or a mortal who changes his mind..” (Bemidbar/Num.23:19)
And also when He speaks of Himself
“At the beginning I announce the end, proclaim in advance things not yet done; and I say that my plan will hold….I have made a plan, and I will fulfill it.” (Yesha./Is. 46:10-11)
One would have to admit that those are very tall, all-encompassing statements. You can check on me that they aren’t taken out of context either. That being is all-knowing and unchangeable.
You can be informed by Plato, Erasmus, John Locke, Shopenauer (I personally like his 3 statements on coming to Truth), Nietschze, Einstein or Richard Dawkins or an army of other intellectual giants … or you can hear what YHVH (or his son Yeshua) says. All the former are limited in knowledge and outlook and the latter is not,
But HEY! The choice is always yours; that’s the beauty of America – or so it was before the present times.
I know nobody out there is going to give up the news cycle but there is a new development going on in our culture that is actually making an honest attempt to inform people without propagandizing them and I would like to end this article with a shout-out to them.
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[1] One of the most anti-Skinnerian psychologists that came after him, Alfie Kohn, didn’t disprove Behaviourism but merely stated that it wasn’t the most effective method for our goals.
[2] www.campusreform.org/?ID=14469 march 4, 2020
[3] In the 21st century, I designate “Green” states as those who are radical and far-Left and “Orange” states as those who are reactionary and far-right – I am a Political Scientist by degree so I make further distinctions when it comes to Politics
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