cigarick: to an extent, it IS true that we are products of our environments. that's not just for our negative traits, but for our positive as well.
i do think that there is a goodly amount of our "personhood" that is a result of our total experiences in life. for instance, if you grow up in a neighborhood where every single person smokes pot, you're going to "absorb" that there's nothing wrong with pot smoking. when someone comes into your neighborhood and says "this is wrong!" you're going to be incredibly defensive, because hey -- you've never heard of someone NOT smoking it. so smoking has become "the norm" for you. it's only when you have had the opportunity to go beyond that neighborhood and see that it is NOT, in fact, the norm for all people that you'll even have the capacity to change your beliefs.
that said, most folks dig up the notion that we are all products of nature and nurture. i'd add another aspect to the mix and say that we are also products of our free will. i grew up in a neighborhood full of gang violence, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, etc. -- instead of becoming another buzzed out criminal, though, i got out of the neighborhood and worked in law enforcement. i don't believe for one second that i was "doomed" to be like those around me when i was growing up.
on the other hand, me and a friend of mine were the ONLY two people who, by the time we reached adulthood were not abusing drugs or alcohol or had done time in jail. out of about 40 or so of us who had grown up together, that's a pretty shocking statistic.
the one difference i can see between us and those we grew up with is that both he and i had dreams that extended beyond our neighborhood -- and we were both prolific readers.
i do think that people tend to "go with what'cha know." at the same time, i KNOW that we're not doomed to ONLY be what we've seen firsthand.
