When I was in my mid-twenties I received my very first creative-writing "byline" for a poem I'd written, which was published in an anthology of other verses. (Yes, in those early years as a writer I actually wrote verse.) The theme was a good one, I thought, despite the fact that the poem's rather rudimentary A-B rhyming scheme was not exactly the stuff of a Frost or a W.B. Yeats. But I had wanted to write a "sonnet": 14 lines of verse, as inspired by the sonnets of William Shakespeare, whose own sonnets are of course timeless.
Anyway, the following is my Sonnet on Determinism:
In what manner of clay art thou so encased?
Of what form could this mold have been otherwise cast?
And is not the flower that blooms in the Spring,
At the mercy of warmth that the early sun brings?
And if the sun to the flower gives not its full light,
How well can it thrive from the lack of its might?
And a man is eclipsed by the shadow of his youth,
That chooses the course of his fair life's book.
And had not the cradle been robbed from the first,
There might be a chance to quench thy own thirst.
But for better or worse, blessing or curse,
A man never writes his very first verse.
But leaves it to others to point out the way,
And hopes they resemble, the gods that they play.
(copyright Michael Hobren, August 1976)
The poem's theme is about parenting, and the role that parents play in how their children turn out in Life. A more recent work, my book The Gauntlet (click on the title for shameless commercial "plug"), hits upon the same basic theme, only from an entirely different and convoluted angle which my publisher has categorized as a Suspense/Thriller, totalling some 97,000 words rather than a mere 14 lines.
The 'New' Determinism: The Endpoint
Since the late '90s, when the Clinton Administration first announced breakthroughs in the mapping of the Human Genome, large-scale "genotyping" research has been in motion. Genotyping is the techniques used to identify the genetic markers that make up a person. These markers can indicate if the individual has a predisposition toward certain diseases or even behaviors.
There is also what's been termed the Phenotype and the Endpoint. Many scientists have argued that human behavior is not caused by genetics alone, but is the sum of the genotype combined with the environment a person grows up in, and the manner in which someone is reared. Such things as whether a person was nurtured or abused as a child, the kind of neighborhood they grew up in, their relationship with their siblings are all factors in determining how a person turns out in life.
These determinants comprise what is called the Phenotype. The Phenotype is the interface, if you will, between an individual's genotype and their environment. The end result of these combined influences – that determine human behavior, even character traits – is what's known as the Endpoint.
Parenting, for Better or Worse
So where am I going with all of this? Obviously, this brief essay only raises a lot of questions: Does good or bad parenting alone (as per my sonnet) determine one's life course? What role does our genetic profile play in the total mix? How much of who and what we are is due to environmental factors versus genetic predisposition? And to take a side-step into the metaphysical, what roles do personal faith and even divine intervention play in this "Gumbo of Self" that we call US?
"They mess you up, your mom and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had, and add some extra, just for you." -- Philip Larkin
I don't know if there is any single, conclusive answer to what determines who and what we are. Surely there are a lot of people in universities and think tanks all over the world pondering these questions right now. The modern-day resurgence of Humanism in our culture would suggest that people are preoccupied with themselves and personal gratification. But certainly there are other factors that play a role in our being something more than a collective group of evolved apes, things that even Charlie Darwin couldn't have foreseen in his day.
I suppose some day soon, someone will write THE seminal work on the human genome and the Endpoint, attempting to do for genetics what Stephen Hawking tried to do with his books on the cosmos and time itself. Then, maybe a hundred years from now, other scientists will look back at all of the human-centric works of today, and with a disbelieving nod, wonder how anyone could ever have cast humanity in such a ridiculous and unfounded light.
