On Imitation

You have probably heard the saying, "You are what you eat." In one sense, that saying is obviously false; you could not really become a chocolate-chip cookie no matter how many of them you eat. But in another sense, the saying is obviously true; your body can only make cells from the raw materials it is provided. It is now well established, for example, that malnutrition in childhood has devastating effects on the development of the brain. The saying is also true in yet another sense; the body must somehow dispose of everything it is fed. Whether it be a toxic substance such as alcohol or an excess of a nutrient such as sugar, your body somehow processes whatever you eat (or drink). Even more than the body is what you eat, îthe mind is what you learnï. A classic view is that a mind begins life as a tabula rasa (a clean slate). A more contemporary view is that the mind begins with a number of pre-dispositions to develop in one way or another but even according to this view, the mind is primarily a result of the experiences the person has. In contrast to the hard mental effort required to learn the kind of verbal material covered in college courses, other forms of learning are remarkably rapid and durable. Acquiring an emotional reaction of liking or disliking something can happen from a single experience. In such cases, learning results from mere exposure to the situation. Which is more, the experience does not have to be real. Beginning very early in life, we humans acquire most of our attitudes, beliefs, values, styles, and dispositions vicariously, from observation of others. Some psychologists think imitation is an innate human tendency; others contend that it is learned. Both agree, however, that a large part of socialization is derived from observational learning (imitation). This means that your mind is whatever is has been "fed" in the past, and it will become whatever you feed it in the future. You feed your mind by the kind of books you read, as well as the kind of music you listen to and TV you watch. There is simply no doubt that exposure to sex/drugs/violence begets sex/drugs/violence. It equally follows that exposure to love/health/benevolence begets those qualities. Some people conclude from this fact that socially undesirable activities should be banned from the public media. My own belief is that attempts to proscribe behavior will not work in modern society, and that knowledge is a much more powerful weapon than rules and regulations. Accordingly, it is your choice whether or not to consume junk foods and obscene publications. It is not so much an occasional bite as your regular diet that determines who and what you are.