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Post by alextraylor on Oct 24, 2014 1:09:40 GMT
No, I don't think that our environment makes our decisions. However I believe that a person's environment can definitely influence decisions. Our personality is our choice and can only be dictated by us. While our region can give us an accent or dialect and our race can give us stereotypes, we are the only ones who make choices. A person's choices are of their own creating, not the environment. People make decisions all of time that go against what is expected, based off of their environment. People that should be influenced by inner cities and the stereotypical ways of life there can just as easily make the decision to study hard as a person from Highlands. Highlands students can also make the decision to pick a lifestyle opposite that of the "rich white kid" stereotype that surrounds us. When people say that an environment is to blame for their decisions, then why do we, as a society, punish anyone at all? If the environment affects who we are as a person then those that come from "the bad side of town" should be pardoned because it wasn't their fault. In "In Cold Blood" Dick Hickock is said to have a “good” mother and that she is wary of people from jail and bad people in general. If Hickock’s environment dictated his choices, how can he become the killer that he did?
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Post by ikschultz on Oct 24, 2014 1:42:26 GMT
Alex I completely agree! Stereotypes irritate me because it's making a generalization about a group or social class that is untrue most of the time. I know it personally bothers me when people stereotype Highlands students as being "rich white kids" because not everyone at Highlands is rich. Sure many of our students are well off but far from rich. I believe just because you are brought up in a certain environment doesn't mean you can't be successful or not stereotypical. We learned that the killers in the book lived in an orphanage growing up. That is a rough life but I believe you can make it into something positive. It can make you stronger and become an inspiration to others in your position. Every person has a choice in how they live their life.
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Post by michaeldaly on Oct 24, 2014 1:43:40 GMT
I agree with Alex. I think that sometimes people completely blame their environment or their upbringing for their bad lives and then use it as an excuse as to why they committed a bad crime. Some of the greatest people in the world have come from hard backgrounds. Martin Luther King Jr. had a hard life growing up, not because he didn't have a loving family, but because he was discriminated against as an African American. While I have sympathy and understand that its hard to make something of yourself when you come from a hard background, it doesn't justify Smith and Hickock murdering the family in cold blood.
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