Nature versus nurture has always been a theory questioned by many humans. Many people find it important to know what causes their actions and how exactly they occur in the ways which they do, whether it is due to the environment surrounding us or if it is hereditary. It becomes quite clear to me that society itself and experience with the outside world play huge roles in how humans develop mentally. In Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle he addresses “children’s play” and when observing an eighteen month old baby he discovers that the baby has turned an experience into a game. He states that the baby “was in the first place passive, was overtaken by the experience, but now brings himself in as playing an active part, by repeating the experience as a game in spite of its unpleasing nature” (14). As a child, you are yet to discover new wonders in the world, so through experience you begin to form reactions that enable you to feel different emotions that you are born with. Such an example is one that leads me into believing that nature and nurture come hand in hand. Without nature you would not have nurture since nature is what enables us humans to practice the innate traits we are born with, such as happiness.
In Plato’s The Republic Book Seven “Allegory of the Cave” he tells a story about prisoners who are chained and live their entire lives in a cave having no connection to the outer world other than a bright fire off in the distance. I believe that its significance of this allegory is to demonstrate that one’s surroundings is a vital part in determining their morals and beliefs. Since the prisoners grew acceptance of the dark cave they were in, they did not know that there was actually much more in the world, and having lived such a long time without any doubt, it was hard for them to believe that there really could be something beyond the bright fire. Their senses and innate traits had adapted to the surroundings of the cave and they had become content and satisfied with their lifestyle. In both Freud’s and Plato’s pieces, nature and nurture intertwine and enable the characters to further develop mentally and create certain beliefs and morals that shape one’s own personal idea and definition of happiness.
