Nature vs. Nurture

  A topic explored throughout The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui is the idea that our circumstances often shape who we become later in life. This theme serves as an extension of the nature vs. nurture debates, where people wanted to see whether a person's genetic disposition or environment had a greater effect on their life. Although the consensus is that both factors play a vital role in a person's development in life. I share a view, and I believe Thi Bui would agree, that nurture plays a bigger role in a person's life than nature does. To understand this complex relationship between nature vs. nurture, I believe that this debate is best represented in terms of supply and demand. Although some might object saying how economics, a field dedicated to the study of money and finance, allows for the representation of this nuanced situation. The truth is economics, although often associated with money, is more the study of people and how they make the many decisions that they engage in everyday life. Not all transactions are with a tangible other party, nor do they all use money to engage in transactions.

Before we jump into using supply and demand, to figure out nature vs. nurture, there are some assumptions we must make. People's nature does not change, below a certain quantity no horrible deeds are committed, and society sets a single price for horrible deeds. Nature in this case is defined as what a person’s innate moral code is, before societal influences take hold. The single price for society makes the supply curve perfectly elastic, the implications of which we will discuss later.

To represent this debate, we must first find a market, one aptly called, the market for horrible deeds.

In this market, we find that everyone, regardless of what they say, has a point at which an alignment of their morals and societal pressure has a price they are willing to pay to commit horrible deeds. This graph is going to be the base for the rest of the discussion. Now, the “nature” of any person is represented by the elasticity (how quantity responds to price) of demand. The more evil a person is the less elastic (quantity changes less than price) the demand for horrible deeds is. The more benevolent a person is, the more elastic (quantity changes more than price) the demand for horrible deeds is.

So now that we set up our market, how do we, as a society, “shift” the quantity of horrible deeds? There are 2 main ways we can achieve this, society can change the price of committing a horrible deed, or we can change the benefit a person receives from a horrible deed. Changing the price of a horrible deed is dependent on more tangible things that society places on all people. Things like severity of punishment, length of incarceration, quality of life in prison, and other similar factors that affect people who buy (commit) a horrible deed shifts society's price on horrible deeds. 

Here we see the effect of nature altering the outcome of our nurture. The person with an “evil” disposition (more inelastic demand), responded to the increased price of committing a horrible deed, with a small decrease in the quantity (or likeliness) to commit a horrible deed. A person with a “benevolent” nature (more elastic demand), responded to the equal increase in price, with a much larger reduction in quantity (or likeliness) to commit a horrible deed. The power of nurture is that we can change that quantity and price in response to the nature that we find in people.

If the first method of changing incentives works so well for people with a naturally benevolent disposition, what about people with a naturally evil personality? The 2nd method of “nurture” where we change the benefit received from committing a horrible deed, applies more directly to more evil people, and relates closely to the ideas of generation trauma and environment in The Best We Could Do. Changing the benefit received, known as shifting the demand curve, represents how at any given price, the likelihood of committing a horrible deed can be increased or decreased for people.

When Thi Bui talks about how her emphasis on education was an important reason she became who she is now, we can apply that here. Educating people on the impact of their horrible deeds and why these deeds are so horrible, decreases the demand for horrible deeds altering the final outcome.

Here we see a stark difference in this approach of changing people directly, than applying a broad stroke nurture effect to society. Despite the evil (inelastic) nature of people, the shift in their nurturing has drastically reduced their likelihood of committing a horrible deed.

Constratingly, we can also increase the likelihood for people of all dispositions with an improper approach to nurture. When looking at Bô, we see how the trauma and experiences he had as a child would have affected his market for horrible deeds.

Regardless of Bô’s original nature, the people in his life caused him to believe the horrible deeds are good or an acceptable part of society, shifting his demand right and increasing his likelihood to commit these horrible deeds. This also explains the reasoning behind why some areas of America seem to be so consistent at producing offenders and one of the main criticisms with incarceration. Prision, takes small-time offenders, surrounds them with hardened criminals, shifting their demand curve and transforms them into repeat offenders.

In the Best We Could Do the theme of the role of nurture in nature vs. nurture is supported through anecdotal evidence of Thi Bui’s life and her families. When looking at this same debate through a slightly more academic lense, we see the same claim reflected back. This provides new perspectives on how the justice system should be reformed within the US and how people often internalize these moral debates/issues.