A column by David Brooks entitled “Wild things and our character” states in part:
“The psychologists thus tend to gravitate toward a different view of conduct. In this view, people don’t have one permanent thing called character. We each have a multiplicity of tendencies inside, which are activated by this or that context. As Paul Bloom of Yale put it in an essay for The Atlantic last year, we are a community of competing selves. These different selves ‘are continually popping in and out of existence. They have different desires, and they fight for control — bargaining with, deceiving, and plotting against one another.’”
WATCHDOG: This article is well worth reading. It can be found at “Where the Wild Things Are”. A wag of the tail!
Interesting. It may very well be that we are founded with character but the programming from our peers and culture takes over to make us behave the way we do. Perhaps those that become aware of the programming can act independently of it and therefore discover their true character.