I'll take my good things where I find them...and be happy...

In the end, as one can probably guess, I'm a contrarian. I don't put much faith in one side winning over the other, I've never seen an argument that didn't have something behind it, even if at first that something wasn't obvious. Even if the argument was plain wrong, there was always something to be learned from the questions asked. To me, enlightenment is the name of the game.

So I was very happy a short while ago when I stumbled on this over at feministing.

"A Balance Between Nature and Nurture" by Gloria Steinem.

So I no longer believe the conservative message that children are naturally selfish and destructive creatures who need civilizing by hierarchies or painful controls. On the contrary, I believe that hierarchy and painful controls create destructive people. And I no longer believe the liberal message that children are blank slates on which society can write anything. On the contrary, I believe that a unique core self is born into every human being -- the result of millennia of environment and heredity combined in an unpredictable way that could never happen before or again.

The truth is, we've been seduced into asking the wrong question by those who hope that the social order they want is inborn, or those who hope they can write the one they want on our uniquely long human childhoods.

I needed that, and of course I whole heartedly agree. Thanx Ms. Steinem!