Everything a Person Does Is Influenced By Society

====FRAMEWORK==== First I will be countering my opponents arguments, before proceeding on to my own. Given the theme/topic of this debate is philosophical, I ask that both the debaters refrain from using semantics as much as possible. I also ask that given this is a more prestigious debate, that a forfeit concludes a loss for the debater who misses the round. Let's be friendly, cordial, yet aggressive, and treat this debate no differently as it was a live tournament debate. To start I will give my Rebuttals to the Pro's opening Case, Then proceed to making my own case. Also some people like to cite their sources at the bottom of the debate, I will not be doing that in my cases. I find that it is easier to keep track of an argument without having to constantly scroll to the bottom, to view the source right next to the argument. (Also please note, me and my opponent agreed on doing this debate normally rather than LD style, so please dis-regard the the spot about this being an LD debate. We will still be sticking as closely as possible to the framework, of an LD debate, however.) ====NEGATIVE REBUTTALS==== C1: Thinking "One does not think fully isolated from others. Although one may think away, the thoughts themselves are influenced by society. The thoughts are a construction of society. Also, the ability to think comes from the genes that were passed on from our parents, which is a group that can count as a society by the smallest means." I will argue this contention with the "Nature Vs. Nurture argument",by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton. The book talks about the influential differences of environmental and hereditary distortion for human beings. Philosopher John Locke, was one of the first to propose that humans develop from environmental influences. http://books.google.com... http://en.wikipedia.org... Now let me explain the difference between how human conception differs between environmental influences and societal influences. I have agreed to my opponents definition of Society. Society: An enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another. Comparing this to Environment. Environment: the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences; surroundings; milieu. http://dictionary.reference.com... The main differences between the two influences are: 1. Environmental influences deal explicitly around the argument of natural surroundings. 2. Societal influences, as implied, and inferred by my opponents definition, deal with human understanding, and conception of their surrounding social members, and the influences they personally have on the human in mind. So is the human brain really developed based on the thought processes of other human beings? No, I contest that human interpretation is brought upon by more natural means, IE environment, and instincts. More on instincts later. Humans are independent in thought, action, and emotion from their kin, and the behavioral patterns that each human contain that are different from each other, lie heavily in the aspect of environmental influences. Another great book to reference this would be "On the Origin of Species", by Charles Darwin. http://en.wikipedia.org... C2: Physical Actions "We have learned to do a particular action from society. We are influenced in the actions that we do by social norms, or by the circumstances that society has allowed us to participate in. The tools we get are also determined by society. We live in our lives as part of a group in which we learn how to perform an action. We also learn from society how to do some actions such as how to walk, run, etc." I contest that this argument is fallible, strictly due to the fact that most movements, and basic neccesary actions can be learned naturally apart from societal impact. It is impossible to say that that EVERY human action was not learned or influences by another human being, but we can safely assume without the presence of human life, most basic actions are learned independently. Again, I will give more on this in my contention later, However, instinctually, all humans from different societies knew the same neccesary actions before learning of the other cultures and societies. Studies can be found here: http://www-personal.umich.edu... C3: Unconscious Actions Others, such as sleeping, is determined by where we can sleep, on what, when, and how is determined by society's interactions with us. Even if we woke up, fully unclothed, in a forest, unaware how we got there, society has made it the cultural norm to sleep at night, and wake up and be aware during the day. Not neccesarily. This whole argument is un-founded for a few reasons. Most human behavior is developed naturally. If a humans wakes up in the middle of the forrest with no memory of literally anything, and was awaking as if he were just born we can assume he would assume most of human like qualities, based on the fact that he is human. Why would a human choose to sleep at night? 1. Human sight is limited in the night, thus potential predators would be likely at an advantage to hunt at night. A human would have no reason to not be more active in the day time, as a humans abilities are more comprehensible to the day time, mainly due to the factor of sight. http://en.wikipedia.org... 2. During the night, the human will be dis-advantage due to being a mammal. Being a warm-blooded creature, A human must take shelter and find warmth through his own means in order to survive. Traveling and being active in the daylight will be more productive because of warmth. http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu... ====NEGATIVE CONSTRUCTIVE==== I am going to limit my contentions to brief descriptions, to due remaining characters issues. C1: Natural instinct As briefly described in an argument on my opponents case, Natural instinct is the major argument on how human actions are learned. I cited how different cultures and nations before even recognizing each others existences, had similar human actions and reactions. This is so even though societal boundaries differ so much from each other. Humans while gaining some societal impacts, gain most naturally and instinctually. C2: The Scientific approach In the "scientific approach" area in the link below, we can see several places where Psychologists such as Donald Hebb Source biological and psychological evidence on how behavior is influenced naturally, and is only influenced by society slightly. This contention is used to support contention 1. http://en.wikipedia.org... ====CONCLUSION==== I am officially just about out of characters, so I won't be able to run anymore contentions, however I contain that through the use of scientific and natural means I have successfully proven that behavior, and actions are not produced through the means of pure societal methods. While society has en ever impending impact on a lot of humans actions, A human would learn most of the neccesary actions that me and you use today, by himself upon being naturally convicted to do so. More so human emotions compare similarly to each to one another in different societies, and cultures, with no knowledge of the other. That alone is proof of human societals differences not individually pushing human actions a certain way. I have countered my opponents arguments successfully, and eagerly await await his rebuttals.