A DNA Liberal



When I was going up Kierkegaard and the French philosophers were all the rage as we played back and forth with the greatest notion of our time, Free Will. We believed that we could decide our own fate; it was the ultimate Darwinian expression of freedom and it influenced our times in more ways than one... Free Will, I suspect, saw its ultimate manifestation in the Hippie movement and later in the selfish seventies when the earlier hippies gave up the sense of community and decided it was more important to enrich themselves.



Free Will was also peverted by those in government who failed to fulfill their obligations to the people.

The idea so dominated our young lives that we really believed we could be anything we wanted to be. It didn't matter that I was the child of the Depression, if I was so inclined, I could become president of the United States.

But with the findings of Edward O. Wilson, all that is changing.



Wilson, you see, from his study of insects has told us that we are all hard-wired from birth.



Oh no, you mean we were born all circumscribed with invisible binds that caused us to become workers, or guards, or soldiers?

What a thought.

That had to put the brakes on for all of those who were busy inventing the next best thing.



Of course, this has Darwinists jumping out of windows…



That was just too grim a thought to endure.



To make matters worse, it doesn't end there. Now , we are told, our political orientation may be part of our genetic being.



You are either liberal or conservative by birth. God forbid!



Of course, that suggests that free will is all la canard, a sick trick to make us think we are important players on the stage of life. And that free will actually plays no role in who we are and what we become. We are all products of our DNA; and forget the "nurture" stuff.....



That no matter what we do, we can’t change the outcome.



But how true could that be.



Remarkably so, if we follow the studies of identical twins; not twins who have lived together but who have been separated at birth.



These studies show that the twins traits are remarkably similar for identical twins.



That means no matter how much “nurture” that we are essentially hard-wired to be either liberal, libertarians, conservatives, or “Greens…”



Being a dedicated Darwinist, it’s hard for me to give up on people like Stephen J. Gould for Dawkins or some of the others who believe that there is no such thing as your surroundings, your environment, parents, etc, it has already been predecided.



Shades of St. Augustine, that is a depressing thought.



I wonder if I have a genetic twin who feels precisely the same way?



Anyway, it seems finding all the genetic twins would be like getting two votes for the price of one…..but that’s really grasping for straws if you’re a Darwinian by disposition.



Something to think about during the long four months ahead of us!



Les Aaron

The Committee for Positive Changer