Graduating from Human to Person

[myself_i_must_remake]

I have a thought experiment for you guys, and I hope some of you (especially the wiser and older, but of course I believe everyone will have something to offer, and hope to be surprised by incisive young people) answer it seriously and at length.

 

I do have motives for posing this prompt. Some of them are probably obvious, but some definitely are not.

 

So:

 

A young male grows up on an island cut off from civilization. Let's say he had a family who taught him speech, basic mental abilities (math, reasoning, a crude system of ethics), basic food preparation for survival, and some hygiene. Let's say the young man is twenty-four years old (yes, I'm inviting parallels with myself). His family has died several years ago, and for a while he has been without any human contact. He is not a savage, but has no worldly skills.

 

He is discovered and brought to live in a city. Your job is to outfit him with the tools not only to survive in the city, but also to have the potential to thrive. You can only give him directions and information, not friendship. Let's say his intelligence and attractiveness are average, and that he has no outstanding abilities. Your ultimate goal is to make him "pass" as a normal human being, and even to reshape his experience of life so that he thinks of himself as an outsider only when he remembers his past.

 

How do you start training him? What do you expose him to? How do you prioritize his goals? After attaining what skills will he have achieved personhood? What does day one look like? Week one? Month one? Year one?

 

Remember: he has no understanding of what it means to be a person. He does not know how to work, he does not understand human interactions, he has zero supports outside of himself and your direction.

[Mikelaing74]

First off this is a truly huge question that your asking, and I don't think it can be answered in any meaningful way without an essay being written.

 

Secondly, I'm a mathematician and this is a pure psychology/sociology question, being that my mind works on logic, guess how happy I am about this ?

 

So to recap the question. we have a 24 year old 'innocent' who has been thrust into a society he has no knowledge of, or any idea of how to interact with the average ( hate that word ) person. In effect what we have is a toddler rather than a man, so from my point of view that's where we start. Please also bear in mind I'm uniquely unsuited to child rearing.

 

So I suppose a general starting point would be Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

 

Physiological Needs

 

Ok, these are pretty straight forward and to the most part they have already been met.Breathing, Food, Water, Sleep, Homoeostasis, Excretion.

 

He knows how to breath, eat and drink. With those being met, homoeostasis and excretion are also met. Sleep will also have been met. BUT they have not been met in the context of our society. I'm making all sorts of assumptions here and I hate doing that, but saying that he will be more used to a hunter/gatherer society rather than the economy society we have. Therefore here's where we start.

 

Food - On the island I'm going to assume that he gathered his own food from the wild, prepared and ate it. Obviously this isn't going to work in the city, and his physiology won't be adapted to survive the processed food that as a majority we eat. So we need to slowly start introducing him to foods that are commonly available in the city.

 

Water - Again, on the island he's going to have been taking the water from nature, and again we treat all of our water with Chlorine and Fluoride for the first couple of days of drinking our water, he's going to be sick as a dog !

 

Sleep - Well this is the biggest of the needs that have to be met. In order for him to sleep implies the need for a dwelling of some sort. Being that he will need shelter and we can guarantee that he'll have no knowledge of things like indoor plumbing, gas, electricity and so on, he's going to need a mentor in order to protect himself from harm. That's where we come in, we're going to have to live with him. Now another question is raised do we bring him into an existing situation i.e. our home, or do we start afresh ?

 

That's all I've got for now, I may take another swing at it a bit later on, but right now I'm off to relax by baking cheese scones until I've nowhere left to hide them !!

 

But major major thanks for this question !

[Andy78]

My issue with Maslow is to what extent the various D-needs of each hierarchy need to be satisfied before we are driven to attain anything at the next level. Maslow's hierarchy has also been criticised as being ethnocentric. Maslow only looked at the healthiest 1% of the college student population and is quoted as saying "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy." Our "friend" would clearly fit into this stunted and immature category ignored by Maslow.

 

However, I do agree with my learned colleague Mike that Maslow (for it's faults) is probably the best starting point.

 

My only disagreement with Mike is over "food". I very rarely purchase processed foods. I spent a lot of time growing up with my great grandmother and we always used fresh meat. I could prepare liver, kidneys and heart before I could ride a bike. We never wasted a single part of the animal carcass - bones were used to make stocks, off cuts were used in pies and so on. Fresh fruit and veg was also used on a daily basis. I think with careful guidance we can help our islander avoid the dietary problems at this stage.

 

In the "physiological" stage Maslow also includes "sex", which Mike did not mention - however I'm going to assume that our islander has little to no understanding beyond the basic sex drive. Maslow does not equate sexual intimacy and the sexual act as the same thing - something I suppose many of us can agree with (Maslow himself has placed sexual intimacy on the third level, after our safety). So quite to what extent our islander (or indeed anyone) needs to have "sex" fulfilled before he wants to strive for needs further up the hierarchy I don't know.

 

Mike ends with what would become the start of the second level of Maslow's hierarchy; specifically where he will live. This is the start of physical safety. So, I think the debate now becomes how quickly will our islander acclimatise to the point at which the second level of Maslow's hierarchy becomes important.

 

In spite of both Mike and I using Maslow as our guide, I think there will be that inevitable early jump to part of Maslow's second stage. Without the basics of physical safety being met, I don't think our islander has much hope of surviving in our world. He will need to have the personal security needs met fairly quickly, but at this early stage the financial, and to a lesser extent the well-being, safety aspects obviously are not a concern at this stage.

[Mikelaing74]

My issue with Maslow is to what extent the various D-needs of each hierarchy need to be satisfied before we are driven to attain anything at the next level. Maslow's hierarchy has also been criticised as being ethnocentric. Maslow only looked at the healthiest 1% of the college student population and is quoted as saying "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy." Our "friend" would clearly fit into this stunted and immature category ignored by Maslow.

 

However, I do agree with my learned colleague Mike that Maslow (for it's faults) is probably the best starting point.

 

My only disagreement with Mike is over "food". I very rarely purchase processed foods. I spent a lot of time growing up with my great grandmother and we always used fresh meat. I could prepare liver, kidneys and heart before I could ride a bike. We never wasted a single part of the animal carcass - bones were used to make stocks, off cuts were used in pies and so on. Fresh fruit and veg was also used on a daily basis. I think with careful guidance we can help our islander avoid the dietary problems at this stage.

 

In the "physiological" stage Maslow also includes "sex", which Mike did not mention - however I'm going to assume that our islander has little to no understanding beyond the basic sex drive. Maslow does not equate sexual intimacy and the sexual act as the same thing - something I suppose many of us can agree with (Maslow himself has placed sexual intimacy on the third level, after our safety). So quite to what extent our islander (or indeed anyone) needs to have "sex" fulfilled before he wants to strive for needs further up the hierarchy I don't know.

 

Mike ends with what would become the start of the second level of Maslow's hierarchy; specifically where he will live. This is the start of physical safety. So, I think the debate now becomes how quickly will our islander acclimatise to the point at which the second level of Maslow's hierarchy becomes important.

 

In spite of both Mike and I using Maslow as our guide, I think there will be that inevitable early jump to part of Maslow's second stage. Without the basics of physical safety being met, I don't think our islander has much hope of surviving in our world. He will need to have the personal security needs met fairly quickly, but at this early stage the financial, and to a lesser extent the well-being, safety aspects obviously are not a concern at this stage.

 

Andy, I take the points you've made here. Both you and I grew up in a different era, also we grew up in the UK. I've tried to answer the question from a contemporary point of view and based it in America.

 

I also agree with you on Maslow, but it's the only framework I've got that I think can be applied to this situation and I would say that in order to move to level 2, level 1 needs to be completely met.

[Ashi]

I think you guys answers are still too high up in the level in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I also agree with using Maslow's famous pyramid structure as starting point, but being working in some work which made me felt like modern day slaves and watching homeless people walking about, and beginning to think of myself as the next homeless person, and how I would live when I was in that situation, I can tell you arguing about processed food or natural food is something that would enter the mindsets of the privileged.

 

Anyways, back to the main topic, which MIMR asked. This is by no mean the absolute answer.... Life has no template, there is no formula, and most of the time, you just do some ad-lib patchwork rather some neatly designed framework you'd like to believe. There is no such thing as the grand design.... World is meaningless and pointless intrinsically, but you can make a meaning out of it, if that's your desire. I know a lot of people play some pointless games and they enjoyed it. Lots of people are making money, but they don't know why. Does it matter if you figured out why? Does it matter why you're born gay, instead of just accepting it as the way it is?

 

Anyways, let's go to the absolutely bottom level. By the way, moral/ethics is something very high level, so I don't know why you said this person was taught some basic skills and then mentioned that abstract human concept, but that's beside the point, but you need to aware of that..., many people, who think they're sophisticated and civilized, in fact, do NOT have moral/ethics in their mindset. It's not part of surviving skill. It's not hard coded into our brain/spine, etc.. It's something introduced through education, and it's ethnocentric (each culture has their own accepted ethics/moral values). Animals are amoral. When a human being is down to survival mode, he/she is also functioning on amoral mode. A recent post on porn star is a good post for pondering, because most porn stars are living on their surviving mode. Moral/ethics/social convention has no value in such circumstance. In fact, I think moral/ethics is a confounding factor in the probability of survival rate. I am not advocating one should be immoral/amoral/unethical, but it's a food for thought. If you haven't watched Hitchcock's "Rope" I advise you watch it. It touches on how human beings can interpret philosophy in some way they like, even when it's wrong to fulfill one's wants (I am talking about how Leopold and Loeb misinterpreted Superman Theory to their own delusional mindsets). It has to do with human morality and how fragile it can be.

 

Okay, I am off tangent again.... Let's start programming training this person you hypothetically invented (*grunts*), so you, I mean this hypothetical person, who I think it's actually not too far off the path of normalcy can feel confident about living in a dysfunctional big city instead of Ohio a stranded island.

 

So let's assume that person understood Maslow's (which I don't think every civilized person is actually exposed to it...), and I'll give him a copy of Flowers for Algernon so he would realize intelligence has nothing to do with one's success and happiness.

 

Day One: Learn "smile and the world will smile with you." If you want to work as a retail clerk and can't smile, your customers are going to give you tough time. Boss will be bossy and he will still have to smile. Learn to sleep everywhere, eat anything, learn to be happy amidst of hardship. The person needs to know it's no longer about quality, but whether you have it or don't have it. Cardboard burger is still carbs.... It's subsistence to life.

 

Day Two: Learn to forgive those jerks who trespassed against him. He is living in a civilized world now..., and that's what civilized people do..., taking advantage of each other.... He needs to learn how to communicate through some "misunderstandings." Realize some of those jerks are have-nots and their lives are empty. We forgive them, even when we don't feel like it, or it's going to be a tough life ahead.

 

Day Three: Sometimes rude and crude people get their way, some people actually fought hard for their success. Learn it's not our place to judge or be jealous. Success people are not always jerks, sometimes they worked very hard to become who they're, behind the scene, but became self-righteous in the process. They're learning how to be human like everyone else, even when they're born in a world that appears to be more sophisticated or privileged. Learn we'll still be the same humble person when we're successful.

 

Day Four: Take a hobby. Learn how to use Internet to make friends. Be confident. I think having some confident actually can make others feel confident in you....

 

Okay, this hypothetical person..., who am I kidding, it's about you, isn't it? Come on, you're okay. You're actually quite on schedule. At 24 years of age, it's normal to have mid-twenty crisis and have some doubt. The hard part is actually get started. Once it's started, everything will just move in place naturally.

 

BTW, if you look like your photo, you remind me of an YouTube celebrity called Davey Wavey, and he is really cocky.... LOL. He always talks like he is the most attractive person in the world and does he flame! I personally prefer Original Tyler. Okay, off-tangent. The point is, have some confidence in yourself. Don't you already have a boyfriend? You're already better off than me.... Why do you even need people's advice? If I had a boyfriend, I would be conquering the world with my BF already! You just need some encouragement. You're perfect normal.

 

Day Five: Learn to love self and others.

[Percy]

I think I'd hook this person up with an agent who could get the kid doing the round of morning talk shows and the like. Maybe negotiate some sort of reality TV show that follows him around the first couple years of his new life and track his new experiences. A book deal and a ghost writer wouldn't be a bad idea. I figure this will give him some income and a group of people in his life that provide structure, dubious as it may be. An agent and producers will make sure he's eating, has shelter. They'll provide some basic needs to ensure he remains profitable for them as long as possible. Yes, he's open to manipulation and being taken advantage of but hopefully he'll eventually gain enough social skills and resources to extract himself from the situation and live independently.

 

In a best case scenario, he'll meet people who resonate with him and with his story. Maybe it wasn't his choice, but he put himself out there. He's visible to others. There will be people who want to share their stories and experiences in return. That's where he'll start to build some emotional connections and friendships. He'll make some mistakes in judgment. He'll get burned. But that's not going to be 100% of his experience. He'll make good choices too. He'll make good friends, and not every friend has to be forever and ever. You can be very close to someone for mere weeks or months and then drift apart. That's OK. Some friendships are formed because two people are going through a very specific experience that draws them together.

 

I guess another piece of advice I would give him is to not to sweat the mistakes. We all make them and sometimes we make really big ones. The only thing he can do is deal with the situation at hand. Face it, as unpleasant as it may be, and start the work of fixing it and moving on. In the midst os that, he should be sure to remind himself of all the things he's done right. We're all a mix of good decisions and bad decisions. If he only focuses on his good decisions and never acknowledges the bad, he'll turn into a pompous jackass. If he only focuses on his bad decisions and not his good, he'll be mired in misery. He should strive to see both sides of himself.

 

I guess the other way it could go...if the whole Hollywood agent thing doesn't work out...is ending up on the streets (assuming he's in the U.S.). He will most certainly be manipulated and taken advantage of there. From the streets, He'll likely end up in the criminal justice system. Jail would also provide the basic needs of food and shelter. He'd be set up on a revolving door of jail/streets/jail/streets - a cycle that's extremely difficult to break.

 

 

[myself_i_must_remake]

Okay, this hypothetical person..., who am I kidding, it's about you, isn't it? Come on, you're okay. You're actually quite on schedule. At 24 years of age, it's normal to have mid-twenty crisis and have some doubt. The hard part is actually get started. Once it's started, everything will just move in place naturally.

 

 

It is and it is not. I didn't want this thread to be just about me, so I broadened so anyone who felt alienated in an extreme way might be able to relate. Obviously I'm dozens of times better off than my hypothetical islander, but I wanted to start with kind of an everyman because I'm sure I'm not the only one having a strange experience of feeling like I was transplanted into a new society whose rules don't make sense to me.

 

Don't you already have a boyfriend?

Nope. I've never had what I would consider a serious or even semi-serious relationship; only a few long-distance disasters and some colorful affairs.

 

Nice answers, though, everyone! No one half-assed this at all

[hh5]

There has been numerous movies on similar topics ... yes maslow does give the scientific basics

 

I thing what you describe would be not too far off from Tarzan ... or similar movies

But I bet Brendan Fraiser Encino Man will be an excellent illustration

 

Sure there be some getting use to our food, water, and the idea of designer clothes and our jungle.

 

But the important factor for making transitions is trust and building a social network.

Case by Case basis to satisfy his fundamentals as a human being.

Freedom, respect, trust, friends, companionship, sex ...

But perhaps developing a routine that help him make a transition easier

 

Its also hard to balance that with real life rules, laws, public humiliation, etc etc, the evils with our jungle

Its best to bring him up to speed to be a functioning human being

where the basis of preparing him from the harsh realities of modern life would hit him hard

Getting the basis of communication and asking question and developing his own sense of self in our jungle

 

 

As long as he can establish that this is his new home and his needs are met

then he would make a better transition by learning what he needs to survive in out jungle

 

Of course the writer of a story will always invite drama ...

what we miss, what we forgotten, what we didn't control like the situation

the benefactor that wanted something and could not wait for his answer

etc etc

 

Did we understand his tastes of our society?

Did we figure out what music he likes or dislike? Did we assume his tastes in our society?

Did we find out if he had a mate or misses someone?

Did we bother to find his family? Did we bother to break the news?

 

We as the host. Did we agree to take on this job for as long as it takes?

Or do we turn him over to welfare and social services and occupational therapy?

 

Perhaps in the general sense we can take care of humanity and the needs.

But as a story ... we write and invent stuff for readership interest than the real science of transition

That perhaps we all go through and error to bring a jungle man to the world

we learn its a humanitarian gesture rather than about making money off the guest because of his notoriety

 

Somewhere he becomes part of our life and we become part of his

anyone having a problem with that may doom the experiment to failure

that can also be another theme and journey of self discovery

 

We learn to see him as a growing human being not the latest lab rat

 

Would you be jealous if he has better skills at making relationships\bf than you do?

And if you were a part of the project ... would you develop actions of jealousy that would doom the entire project?

 

lol, I guess I'm thinking a lot of scenarios for a story

but i think we have to embrace that we may get lucky or we may have some failures for his transition to our society

but I hope we would have up held responsibility as a human gesture

not confuse him with too many nonsense interactions that will take time for him to learn

 

 

I guess to complicate the experiment if his mate is found and learn how diff he is as well as difficult or not

can we as host adapt to the change in dynamics of two jungle men

again the story can surely stretch out the drama between who each of them are

and why they are mates and why their separation change their relationship

 

or what if he develops a relationship with one of the host teachers

and we the host has a rule against having a bonding of this kind

how we wrestle with his best interests vs what his fundamental needs are

 

sorry its fragmented here ... but its just small illustrations of what experts consider

and perhaps experts may have to learn to make exceptions

 

oh another piece of drama ... he can have an enemy that's after him

lol, like in the planet of the apes and then he can have an ally and mentor

 

it depends if we want to make this into a tv series lol

or do we want to make this a reality TV series bigger than Truman

[Ashi]

It is and it is not. I didn't want this thread to be just about me, so I broadened so anyone who felt alienated in an extreme way might be able to relate. Obviously I'm dozens of times better off than my hypothetical islander, but I wanted to start with kind of an everyman because I'm sure I'm not the only one having a strange experience of feeling like I was transplanted into a new society whose rules don't make sense to me.

 

I didn't bring Original Tyler up through accident, though I made a joke about of it, saying I was off-tangent. Recently, he was like a flower, after years of struggle, finally bloomed. Me being older and went through the whole process he had gone through, literally cheered when I saw him pulling through. Not all flowers bloom. Some just die prematurely or become barren, if they couldn't quite adapt to the environment, but I am glad he did. Yeah, you're not alone in this one, but I'd rather see more people pulling through than just sort of gone but not quite dead.

 

I guess you're smarter than me when I was your age, because I was probably too self-absorbed in my own problems, I didn't seek advice like you did, and I felt very alone in this. I think most of our posts (Percy's too) share a same theme: explore, and don't be afraid of making mistakes. Experience cannot be taught. Besides, I don't believe accelerate one's maturity is a blessing.

 

Society often doesn't make sense. Just learn to accept it. The discrepancy between how things should be and how it is sometimes can be very big. Too obsessed with that leads to disappointment and depression, possibly suicidal or homicidal. Learn to do the right thing and believe in yourself, but when others don't play by the rule, ignore them. I don't know what happened to that cannibalistic porn star, or Columbine style killers, but I think there probably was something going on in their lives that didn't make sense to them and/or they felt marginalized, so they snapped. Just accept the world isn't always fair, don't be jealous of other people's success (or look down on oneself), and why good people rarely come out ahead. Think about some positive stuff in lives, as there are some. Like how much easier is to be gay and can be proud of yourself nowadays than even just ten years ago.

 

Nope. I've never had what I would consider a serious or even semi-serious relationship; only a few long-distance disasters and some colorful affairs.

 

I find that very hard to believe. You're still young, attractive, and smart (people think being smart and have good personality don't matter are idiots). I think you just haven't found the right one. Remember I mentioned confidence as one of the main skills in the previous post? Well, please act like it, and I think many guys will find you very attractive and beaten their path to get you. Do it quickly, please. Or I'll have to find some guy to marry you off.

 

Once you get a boyfriend, I don't think you'd be spending time talking about issue like this. You and your boyfriend will help each other out on this and don't underestimate the power of love.

 

Nice answers, though, everyone! No one half-assed this at all

 

What does that suppose to mean! I always try my best to help my fellow people out. Half-assed my ass! That is not part of my vocabulary. LOL!

Edited June 5, 2012 by Ashi

[markycielo]

If he was taught speech by his parents, that means that the parents were educated by a society somewhere.

 

Leaving that point, we consider the fact that he was successfully "brought to the city" and that if someone was to be assigned to "outfit" him, then he was brought to the city willingly.

 

So i ask if the people who discovered him were able to communicate with him effectively, so that he wasn't dragged out of his home. This can be a possibility because he was taught to speak. We can only assume that the language of the discoverers or one of the discoverers was the same as his because he was coaxed to come with them sans violence.

 

Assuming that the previous assumption is true and considering the first point about the parents gaining the knowledge of speech from some society, i question why the man was shown to be without worldly skills to begin with. Speech carries with it symbolism of elements and values from society. If he were taught to speak the same tongue as his discoverers then he should also have roughly a basic understanding of the values of that particular society.

 

And if he was taught all those things including those you enumerated, it means that he interacted with his parents very much. thus these values were passed on to him.

 

You might say his parents died when he was really young, thus those values weren't fully transferred. But it was noted that he had "hygiene" which is only appreciated at later stages of life. And it was said that he isn't a savage... thus, he had inklings of civilization.

 

Now let's talk about the city.

 

For sure, he would be placed in a city where his language is widely spoken... or at least where his parents are thought to have originated from. If he spoke Filipino, then he would have been brought to the Philippines and not Norway, right? Unless, the discoverers will use him as an experiment, which i think goes against a lot of international humanitarian laws.

 

 

Okay... now let's paint a picture of this 24 yo man.

 

1. He speaks the language and can interact with people to a certain extent.

2. He is in a place where his language is the vernacular which in turn has the same cultural and value sets as his.

3. He is non violent

4. He can survive on his own

 

Just from there, he seems to me as a "normal human being" and the fact that he doesn't have skills like city folk, does not mean he is not normal. That'd be like saying that if you're not of a certain social status, or have a certain level of education, or have physical in-capabilities then you are not normal. Also, it's like saying that if you have antisocial preferences or have Asperger's and thus be perceived as not sociable then you are not normal.

 

I guess to answer your question, i'd tell him in the tongue we both speak (since, if they chose me to outfit him then that must be because we understand each other), that he is normal and not listen to people who say otherwise. Then i'll take him to a rural place, and allow him to immerse himself in rural culture because putting him in a city is pretty weird considering the assumptions laid upon him. I'd hang with him and just let him do what he wants. and introduce him to people in that area... what i would have done then is allow him to use his old practices of hygiene, and food gathering, cookery, reasoning and such, while slowly being exposed to a society with more or less the same level of skills. His practices would slowly be corrected and adjusted not because he was taught so, but because he saw other people and he organically decides that their way is better. This is basically societalization... but the society being taken over is that of the man... and his begins to be part of a whole other society. And we can have this go on and on until he is societalized into the big city society. But only if, he allows himself to be assimilated further. It is up to him.

 

I will help him reach his preferred social potential but not dictate how it should be.

 

Again he is normal to begin with anyway...

 

my cheap two cents.

[AnimalMorph]

Oh my.. This question is just like the "Kyle XY' series..

 

But... What's up with 'no friendship allowed'?

And I don't understand all the difficult words of what you guys have been discussed.

 

One thing I do know is, I can't do the job of 'training' him to become a person without being emotionally involved with him (in another word, by being a friend).

Edited June 5, 2012 by AnimalMorph

[myself_i_must_remake]

Society often doesn't make sense. Just learn to accept it. The discrepancy between how things should be and how it is sometimes can be very big. Too obsessed with that leads to disappointment and depression, possibly suicidal or homicidal. Learn to do the right thing and believe in yourself, but when others don't play by the rule, ignore them. I don't know what happened to that cannibalistic porn star, or Columbine style killers, but I think there probably was something going on in their lives that didn't make sense to them and/or they felt marginalized, so they snapped. Just accept the world isn't always fair, don't be jealous of other people's success (or look down on oneself), and why good people rarely come out ahead. Think about some positive stuff in lives, as there are some. Like how much easier is to be gay and can be proud of yourself nowadays than even just ten years ago.

 

 

I found your entire post very illuminating, but this paragraph in particular makes it seem as if you've been reading my mind lately. When the shootings happened last year in Arizona, a lot of people pointed at Sarah Palin because on her site she had a map of the United States with what looked like the crosshairs of a gun focused on what her camp considered overly leftist areas. One of those had been on Arizona, and some complained that Palin's map had encouraged the violence. I don't particularly believe that account, but Palin's response to that accusation was, I thought, flawed and symptomatic. I remember she said something to effect of acts of violence "beginning and ending with the perpetrator." To me, that sentence is typical of a lot of right-wing thought: that societal outliers are products of only themselves, and that society can wash their hands of them and disabuse themselves of any evil performed by those outliers. Study after study, of course, indicates otherwise: environment seems to be more powerful than individual agency, especially because it's one of its major constituents. I ask myself, when individuals take violent action, what events sent that person down that road, and often I conclude that the perpetrator was in many ways likely a victim of others, and felt that he only had one available option for recourse against them.

 

Assuming that the previous assumption is true and considering the first point about the parents gaining the knowledge of speech from some society, i question why the man was shown to be without worldly skills to begin with. Speech carries with it symbolism of elements and values from society. If he were taught to speak the same tongue as his discoverers then he should also have roughly a basic understanding of the values of that particular society.

 

And if he was taught all those things including those you enumerated, it means that he interacted with his parents very much. thus these values were passed on to him.

 

...

 

Just from there, he seems to me as a "normal human being" and the fact that he doesn't have skills like city folk, does not mean he is not normal. That'd be like saying that if you're not of a certain social status, or have a certain level of education, or have physical in-capabilities then you are not normal. Also, it's like saying that if you have antisocial preferences or have Asperger's and thus be perceived as not sociable then you are not normal.

 

 

You bring up a lot of good points about the sloppiness of my prompt generally. One of the things I was hoping, however, and your response sheds light on this, is that some responses would reveal whether he could adapt to city culture, or whether, as you suggest, we could only expect him to adapt to a rural setting.

 

I disagree about your argument about shared language being an indicator of his culturation. Language does carry a residue, but sometimes people are unaware of it. For example, "sinister" has etymological connections with the Latin for "left," and left-handed people used to be pressured to become right-handed because of Christian mythology's associations with left being evil, but now people use sinister without being aware of the strange cultural history of that word.

 

You made me realize that the prompt I wrote was pretty characteristic of someone who speaks English. Because my language is so widely spoken, I don't tie language to culture the way people who speak other languages might.

 

But... What's up with 'no friendship allowed'?

And I don't understand all the difficult words of what you guys have been discussed.

 

One thing I do know is, I can't do the job of 'training' him to become a person without being emotionally involved with him (in another word, by being a friend).

 

This is another aspect of the prompt that was designed to see how possible my project was. If you "love" your islander, then you help him grow with something besides just knowledge and information, and I want to know if it's really possible to culture him without that fostering care.

[Palantir]

What an intriguing post.

Just a few thoughts.

I don't think there is a specific answer for the way to 'train' your hypothetical person. What might work for one person could be completely ineffective or even negative for another. - people are individuals.

The answers you seek are the answers evolved by all of us as we adapt to the specific norms of all the communities we are involved in - family, friends, work,culture,interest, etc. For each person this chain of communities can be ever changing, incredibly varied and with different degrees of importance for different needs.

Sometimes the answers involve acceptance, mimicry, knowledge, understanding of new ideas and sometimes there are no answers compatible with a particular person and a particular community.

 

There was nothing cheap about Markycielo's post number 10.

His idea of having opportunities which can be developed and the person adapting and evolving in their own way is far more respectful of the individual than 'training' which has a kind of dictatorial overtone to it.

His idea that the hypothetical person is already normal is spot on. He points out very well that 'normal' is defined by each particular community.

 

'and I want to know if it's really possible to culture him without that fostering care.'

You don't have to 'love' your subject but you do need to care.

Are you saying the city culture is unloving/uncaring and your subject needs to be the same to fit in? If that's the case then it's the city culture that needs the 'training' and the subject should have nothing to do with it.

[Celethiel]

actually according to the Tarzan theory, and actual real problems with people lacking in social human contact, he wouldn't be able to make it simply because of the contrast between how he was raised and what society is actually like. Though these both have things with the main character having NO Human social contact, even from parents...

However this being said, I think the kid would end up with being able to do a low end job, something blue collar...

However the social contact with his own age group needs to be helped with, not to mention sex...

He'd still have trouble adjusting to the big city... I know I would and I live in a tiny little town in Montana.

[hh5]

if he has a thirst for knowledge and hunger for companionship then encino man is a great illustration on taking on the challenge in the short term

lol he be left back several times before he passes his exams ... unless he be the product of our no expectation school system

 

oh tarzan was raised by apes .. since baby

 

http://en.wikipedia....ctor_of_Aveyron Victor would be a relevant case study ... they made a movie called The Wild Child

 

The issues of what pyscho damages any kid suffered maybe his death sentense

PTSD, depression, abandonment, autism, he may develop schziod ... he lived only 38 years total ... i think 15 years in civilization

 

remember ben gun in treasure island ... the re-re-make ... ben chose not to return to civilization ... going back holds no future ... he's made his home n survival on the island on his own terms

 

Pocahontas died 4 years later

 

Ishi, last member of the Yahi ... he lasted five years in civilization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishi

 

so perhaps Ben Gun made the right decision to stay in his home land ... live by his means ... and eventually die by them .. but he lived happy

 

I haven't read the novels of Tarzan .. I presume there was a one of story before they ever made a series ... so I'm not sure how long Tarzan truly lived

 

so this hypothetical teen

he would endure only 14 years ... if he endured trauma then perhaps that maybe his death sentence ... he need a sponsor ... if he doesn't live up to the sponsor expectations then his days are numbered ... there be doubt if any inheritance waiting for him ... all be gone due to searching for him n the family

Edited June 6, 2012 by hh5

[Celethiel]

if he has a thirst for knowledge and hunger for companionship then encino man is a great illustration on taking on the challenge in the short term

lol he be left back several times before he passes his exams ... unless he be the product of our no expectation school system

 

oh tarzan was raised by apes .. since baby

 

http://en.wikipedia....ctor_of_Aveyron Victor would be a relevant case study ... they made a movie called The Wild Child

 

The issues of what pyscho damages any kid suffered maybe his death sentense

PTSD, depression, abandonment, autism, he may develop schziod ... he lived only 38 years total ... i think 15 years in civilization

 

remember ben gun in treasure island ... the re-re-make ... ben chose not to return to civilization ... going back holds no future ... he's made his home n survival on the island on his own terms

 

Pocahontas died 4 years later

 

Ishi, last member of the Yahi ... he lasted five years in civilization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishi

 

so perhaps Ben Gun made the right decision to stay in his home land ... live by his means ... and eventually die by them .. but he lived happy

 

I haven't read the novels of Tarzan .. I presume there was a one of story before they ever made a series ... so I'm not sure how long Tarzan truly lived

 

so this hypothetical teen

he would endure only 14 years ... if he endured trauma then perhaps that maybe his death sentence ... he need a sponsor ... if he doesn't live up to the sponsor expectations then his days are numbered ... there be doubt if any inheritance waiting for him ... all be gone due to searching for him n the family

 

I seem to remember Pocahantas dying of a disease she'd not have encountered but for "civilization"

I am also reminded of the kid who sailed around the world, and tried to come back to a normal life, and wasn't doing it too well (having spent so much time away from normal teenage things he had a hard time adjusting...

[hh5]

oh who is this kid?? lol nice triva test!!

 

lol now every one gonna have to add inoculations or their 24yo will die!!

I seem to remember Pocahantas dying of a disease she'd not have encountered but for "civilization"

I am also reminded of the kid who sailed around the world, and tried to come back to a normal life, and wasn't doing it too well (having spent so much time away from normal teenage things he had a hard time adjusting...

 

Edited June 7, 2012 by hh5

[Celethiel]

oh who is this kid?? lol nice triva test!!

 

lol now every one gonna have to add inoculations or their 24yo or he will die!!

 

I forget, I read it in highschool, and it was the half-naked guy that drew me to the book LOL!

[Ashi]

I found your entire post very illuminating, but this paragraph in particular makes it seem as if you've been reading my mind lately. When the shootings happened last year in Arizona, a lot of people pointed at Sarah Palin because on her site she had a map of the United States with what looked like the crosshairs of a gun focused on what her camp considered overly leftist areas. One of those had been on Arizona, and some complained that Palin's map had encouraged the violence. I don't particularly believe that account, but Palin's response to that accusation was, I thought, flawed and symptomatic. I remember she said something to effect of acts of violence "beginning and ending with the perpetrator." To me, that sentence is typical of a lot of right-wing thought: that societal outliers are products of only themselves, and that society can wash their hands of them and disabuse themselves of any evil performed by those outliers. Study after study, of course, indicates otherwise: environment seems to be more powerful than individual agency, especially because it's one of its major constituents. I ask myself, when individuals take violent action, what events sent that person down that road, and often I conclude that the perpetrator was in many ways likely a victim of others, and felt that he only had one available option for recourse against them.

 

Well, you're a beautiful person, because you have an empathetic mind. I don't think I'll be engaging in a thoughtful conversation with someone if I don't find the person would find it stimulating. Not everyone wants to make a sense or reconcile with the world they live in. By the way, I am a conservative.... Not your stereotypical conservative of course, and I agree with the saying you must have the a cold iron heart to be a conservative, and in some way I am like that, especially when it comes to decision that has no human factor. I think know when to believe in your brain or when to believe in your heart (or the right mix of the two) is a very important skill.

 

Environment does affect people. I really think some people should wake up and realize we're all animals. We're still affected by the environment, more than they think. However, the degree it affect each individual varies. You can give a gun to two different people, and they'll use it differently. One might blame it's gun that leads him to violence, while another will never do anything bad about it. Education is a big factor also, of course.

 

Okay, about this quote I wrote.

 

"Too obsessed with that leads to disappointment and depression, possibly suicidal or homicidal."

 

I think Flowers for Algernon was in my subconscious mind when I wrote it. A similar passage is in the book, from Progress Report 16 of the book:

 

"Don't misunderstand me," I said. "intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain.

 

I hope some conservatives (and some hypocritical liberals) would recognize the importance of love, to homosexuals, and will finally recognize the policy must to remake, even if they don't understand homosexuality, but as a compassion toward fellow human beings. Of course, we don't need human laws to tell us what is right.

 

A much shorter reading you can do is Patricia Highsmith's Chorus Girl's Absolutely Final Performance. Probably a very appropriate literary answer to your hypothetical person's adjustment to the world, though Chorus Girl was an elephant, who was deprived from its native land and took from her mother to work in a circus, and one day she snapped. I'll let you do the reading.

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=lAlLZfvRFiUC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=chorus+girl%27s+absolutely+final+performance+highsmith&source=bl&ots=tjeBuVOuCB&sig=MsxX206qrauqgB1rxZUVUXUa4aM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tv_QT8DeForg2AXShqi2Dw&ved=0CGMQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

It's collected under the short story collection The Animal Lover's Book of Beastly Murder. Highsmith is best known for her The Talented Mr. Ripley.

 

You made me realize that the prompt I wrote was pretty characteristic of someone who speaks English. Because my language is so widely spoken, I don't tie language to culture the way people who speak other languages might.

 

Language has a strong subconscious effect on behavior and what is considered societal norm. It's the basis of culture. Whenever someone speak the language, they're constantly reminded what is considered norm in the society, whether it be the word itself (Japanese verbs can take on conjugates with various degrees of politeness), or the connotation of the word (the word "ambition" in East Asian language has negative connotation, which is the antonym of "loyalty").

 

In standard English structure, it is subject-verb-object, same for most language around the world, as subject is the most important part of the sentence, at the beginning of the sentence. It tells you "who" is doing what. Japanese puts verb at the end (same as German), as that's the most important part of the sentence, at the end. Which literally shows it's a culture that value action over words.

 

In American English, active voice is better, as it's stronger (a culture that values strength). In Japanese or most Asian language, passive voice is more polite and less confrontational.

 

'and I want to know if it's really possible to culture him without that fostering care.'

You don't have to 'love' your subject but you do need to care.

Are you saying the city culture is unloving/uncaring and your subject needs to be the same to fit in? If that's the case then it's the city culture that needs the 'training' and the subject should have nothing to do with it.

 

I personally find mix personal feeling with professional care is a bad mix. I've had teachers put too much feeling (usually young male teachers...), and they looked like they're about to break down and cry at the end of the semester.... Of course the person who teaches care, or why would they do it in the first place. I wanted to be a teacher myself, and from the experience I just talked about, I knew I had to separate personal feeling. There will always be some students you'll feel very attached to, but it's not going to be a healthy relationship if anything other than professional duty is involved. Same thing for medical career (among many things I had some training). You just can't cry whenever a patient "moved on" as you still have to take care other patients.

 

As for it's the city culture that needs training, I somewhat agree with you. Though we cannot change the world, but even within the city, there are some heart-warming gestures. The world won't change overnight, but we can however, start being those warming souls (just not create global warming..., we don't need that! ).

 

However the social contact with his own age group needs to be helped with, not to mention sex...

 

I see someone is putting his priority straight (or not so straight). Though I must agree with your later post, half-naked guys are pretty tempting.... I must resist. Yesterday I went to Target and found an employee there staring at me staring at a sign with half-naked guy on the shelf.... Very embarrassing. I wonder how Myself_I_Must_Remake's (what a long name...) hypothetical person will feel if he was brought to the city half-naked, and being stared at....

 

BTW, the half-million dollar question, is this hypothetical personal gay? LOL! Gay people must be taught some extra skills!

[Zombie]

I forget, I read it in highschool, and it was the half-naked guy that drew me to the book LOL!

 

Dove, Robin Lee Graham?

[Celethiel]

Dove, Robin Lee Graham?

 

I think that's what it was called

[Celethiel]

On a side note I found this today...:

http://news.yahoo.com/berlin-police-release-photo-forest-boy-065525936.html

[Cia]

I wonder if anyone who has answered has raised any children? That's where you're starting from, and while the man would have the ability to learn new things faster and easier than a child, you are changing his entire environment and almost every single conception he has. The first thing I'd do would be to take him home; then call a doctor to do a house call. Yes, some still do. His health is likely to be sketchy, and yes-immunizations would be key just as they are for any newborn infant.

 

As was said previously, you can acclimate a person to modern society and still include things like fresh water from a well-not city water and fresh food. My best friend has a garden for veggies every year and I live a mile from a fresh produce market. We all hunt/fish for our own meat, even though I live just outside a city. That wouldn't be an issue, imo.

 

I'm assuming he's intelligent as the average 24 year old which is a better starting point than a toddler so you first introduce him to the wonders of modern society. That starts small; you cannot expose him the world at large because up til that point he's lived in a very limited microcosm. However, he's had social interaction with people-his parents-so he does have limited skills, though those would be damaged and extremely limited. The true test comes after you've taught him about toilets-because you can't have him using whatever corner or shrub is closest and trust me, if that's what he's used to, it's what he'd do-showers, microwaves (source of all things hot to eat for many 20 something males, lol) and the things like that. That's when you have to start showing him things in the wider world.

 

Roads, cities, vehicles, crosswalks ... you have to introduce him to everything AND explain it. The most basic skill, how to cross a road safely, would be beyond him. Taking him in a store would be VERY interesting because you have to introduce the concept that whatever you gather isn't yours. Collecting food with his parents, or his parents providing food, would leave him with the impression that if it is sitting around and he's hungry or wants it, he can have it. All those skills can be learned, however, if you take the time to do teach them.

 

Basic human skills to survive aside, society-whatever one you live in and introduce him to-is MUCH more complicated. You cannot simply give him advice and set him free; he'd be eaten alive. Even if you explain about money and how to earn it-spend it-save it, where and how to live somewhere, help him find a job ... there is so much more to life than basic ekeing out existence. A society is a group of individuals that has come together to make a life better than what one can have alone. That has evolved over time, but at it a basic level we still depend on our family and friends, co-workers, and the people we intersect with to some level of degree or another. To do that involves placing a good amount of trust in your fellow man.

 

Do you know how much time you'd have to spend with this person to produce a competent member of society? We're talking years. Then you say nope, I'm not your friend; I've introduced you to what I wanted to show you, so you are on your own.

 

What would that do to their psyche? How can you expect them to become a part of a society where the very first person they met and the one who took on the role of a parent-because that is what you'd be doing-tells them that they have no emotional investment or connection to them and are done with them now that they can manage on their own? You'd undermine their entire ability to trust and reach out to people, therefore cutting them off from the world as surely as if you'd left them on their deserted island. After something like that they might be able to survive in the world at large ... but they wouldn't be living in it.