Free Will?

The other day, I started really thinking about free will and the society mankind has created. A good amount of it relies on people following the rules that have been set up around society, and when these rules aren’t followed, it causes discord. Yet, this small percentage of the population has the ability to make a huge impact on the world. They have the ability to wage war, or to cover a building in graffiti, or to shoot an innocent person, or something as seemingly small as steeling poor Billy’s lunch during school. These acts, whether big or small, lie outside of the “norm” created by society.

A few years ago, my Dad bought a new printer. Traditionally, whenever we bought a new electronic, we would smash or take apart the old one before throwing it out. Dad set the printer on the driveway, asking if I wanted to take the first hit. I bounced up and down; I was eager to smash just about anything to pieces. He handed me the sledgehammer, and as I looked down at the printer, a feeling of uncertainty washed over me. Smashing printers was bad. Breaking expensive things was bad. Yet, my dad had given me permission to destroy it. I brought the hammer down, leaving an unfixable dent in its wake. Part of me was thrilled, yet the other part was cringing. Why did I feel so bad about bashing our family printer that was just about to be thrown out?

Often, I have found, people make big talk about wanting to be unique and try different things. Then when the opportunity presents itself, more often than not, we turn it down. Why is this?

Ironically, my English teacher gave my class an excerpt from Steven Pinker’s book, Blank Slate, which deals with the battle over the denial of human nature versus surrounding culture. Pinker believes that humans grow into themselves through a combination of culture and biology, a combo which makes a good amount of sense to me.

On one hand, you can’t completely disregard human nature and genetic makeup. But at the same time, what element in our genes stops us from getting up in school and leaving for no reason? Or from pulling the fire alarm, even when there’s no fire? Perhaps our genetic coding has come to need some sort of orderly culture. Humans do tend to resist change, and by creating a society with standard rules, our “human nature” is satisfied in the process.