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Self-Selection and Social Life: The Neuropolitics of Alienation—The Trapped and the Overwhelmed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Elliot White
Elliot White*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122
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Abstract

This article proposes an interactional model in which individuals may actively seek suitable environments. Rejecting either a hereditarian or an environmentalist emphasis, this approach recognizes that both genetic endowment and social background determine the mobility of the individual. The article treats the following five topics: the basic biosocial assumptions underlying the interaction model; the operation of self-selection as an integral part of this model; the capacity of individuals to envision alternative environments; an examination of three basic genotype-environment interactions; the political ramifications of these interactions both on an individual and on a societal level.

Type
Articles and Commentaries
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , February 1989 , pp. 154 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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References

Notes

1. While I do not want to urge this proposition too strenuously, listen to the following testimony by Malcolm X and by Milovan Djilas, respectively: “I don't think anybody ever got more out of going to prison than I did. In fact, prison enabled me to study far more intensively than I would have if my life had gone differently and I had attended some college.” (Autobiography of Malcolm X, New York, Grove, 1966:184); and “Prison is a unique place in which a strong, healthy man, able to resist, can discover his own capabilities,” New York Times, May 16, 1972.Google Scholar

2. Emerging technologies have had their own impact on academia. Thus Sternberg (1985:110) speaks of the “need to bring developments in cognitive research into the area as of current technology.” As Bruner (1984:63) states: Google Scholar