Sad times

[french frank]

So there's no point in focussing on the precise meaning of 'nurture' in isolation from its context here.

No, though this quote makes it fairly clear how the term is used now: 'The personality of a person consists of hereditary factors, the products of original nature, and of acquired factors, the products of environment or nurture.'

NB The sentence, as it stands, is an assertion: as such, it may be open to challenge. The use of the term seems, to me, quite clear. (I know that quoting an opinion with which one agrees doesn't strengthen an argument - it shows confirmation bias; but most of us do that at one time or another).

[jean]

I think it's clear - but Tippsy didn't seem familiar with the collocation when he wrote

So I take it you used the word 'nurture' in very broad terms as a substitute word for society/environment...

I posted that for his benefit, really.

[Richard Barrett]

I posted that for his benefit, really.

Good luck with that.

[jean]

I thought of trying to help him with the concept of self-hatred too, but decided life was probably too short.

[french frank]

However, I refer the Honourable Gentleman to my answer #149 and particularly: 'Some people may be naturally more susceptible to persuasion, to outside influences, to peer pressure. These aren't 'moral failings' in themselves, but they create pressures for those individuals which other people aren't called upon to wrestle with' as my own explanation as to why social environment affects different people in different ways, and why we don't all become mass murderers just because we live in the same neighbourhood at the same time and go to the same church/school. And you cannot just pin this on 'morality' or 'moral failures'.

[P. G. Tipps]

The alliterative expression "nature and nurture" in English has been in use since at least the Elizabethan period and goes back to medieval French. The combination of the two concepts as complementary is ancient (Greek: ἁπό φύσεως καὶ εὐτροφίας).

So there's no point in focussing on the precise meaning of 'nurture' in isolation from its context here.

You are the first to have now really 'focussed' on the word.

Obviously parents normally have the prime role and responsibility in nurturing a child so there was some ambiguity in the use of the word especially in the context here.

After french frank's clarification, that uncertainty no longer exists.

[P. G. Tipps]

I thought of trying to help him with the concept of self-hatred too, but decided life was probably too short.

If you have been around since Elizabethan times, and even before, then you have fared pretty well so don't be so ungrateful!

[jean]

Good luck with that.

I didn't have much, did I?

[aeolium]

While I completely agree about the need to stop the inflammatory comments in the debate, on both sides, I totally disagree with the insinuation that the killer of Jo Cox was simply taking Brexit concerns about immigration to their logical conclusion. That seems to me as absurd as suggesting that all Muslims are implicated in terrorist acts committed by someone inspired by Isis.

From what we know so far about the killer, he had links to white supremacist groups in the US, and was a neo-Nazi, and had been so since at least the 1990s - when immigration concerns hardly figured in political debate. He had taken out a subscription to a pro-apartheid South African magazine in the 1980s. He had also suffered from mental illness.

Can we please stop the suggestion that every concern about the free movement principle in the EU is necessarily racist as it is founded on no evidence whatsoever, mere prejudice? I have such concerns and I am not a racist. I am married to someone of Indian origin from South America. Such concerns are to me entirely valid and I am convinced that free movement has played a large part in the rise of nationalist and populist parties in Europe - exactly the thing many people here deplore.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/17/death-jo-cox-nuance-agendas-tragedy-consensus

"I don’t understand why people can’t see that it is an outrage to claim that Brexiters are somehow collectively responsible for his actions, and just as incendiary as anything Brexiters themselves may be capable of."

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The EU thread has been suspended along with the national campaigns. Please do not try to resuscitate it here.

[teamsaint]

If people want to point a finger of blame at those responsible for creating the conditions that perhaps lead to the kinds of awful behaviours that we see happening,( and I don't just mean the last week) I'd suggest that finger should be pointed firmly in the direction of the leaders of our mainstream political parties, over the last however many decades you care to name.

They are the ones who have relentlessly driven wealth and income inequality wider
They are the ones who took us into a string of unwarranted wars, and lied about the need for them.
They are the ones who stripped away the bonds that helped working communities survive and thrive in healthy ways.
They are the ones who kept the best of what our country has for their own small groups.
They are the ones who refused to invest in housing in the world's fifth biggest economy.
They are the ones who did the billion pound arms deals with some of the world's nastiest regimes.
They are the ones who played the " Might is right" card.
They are the ones who monetised everything, including education.

What those politicians like the Leave leaders did was pick at the scabs that the mainstream created. They would never have flourished in a more equal , more decent society. With better housing, jobs, opportunity,the vast majority would have been happy with the status quo, and that includes being in the EU, and with their newly arrived neighbours.

[aeolium]

The EU thread has been suspended along with the national campaigns. Please do not try to resuscitate it here.

I was in fact responding to comments made on this thread arising from the Spectator article, comments which I disagreed with.

[Richard Barrett]

Thank you teamsaint.

[french frank]

Shall we take a check on referendum material tomorrow? The first thread did survive for a long time with tolerable exchanges and, in the same spirit as I started the original board, I do believe serious issues should be debated seriously without people getting wound up about their opposing views. On an issue like this, where there is something akin to hatred on both sides, it's not easy.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thank you teamsaint.