We often talk about the influences of man as being Nature vs. Nurture, but in fact this is false.
I’ll explain.
You see, the basic aspects of man are finite. Yes, there is a spectrum of most any action or like you can think of, but in truth, each of us falls someone where on a spectrum. And the number of spectrums are finite, resulting in the basic aspects of man as finite as well.
Jung referred to those aspects of self that we repress as the shadow, but what is one man’s shadow is another man’s open personality.
The upshot is that we are of mankind is predisposed to a finite amount of characteristics. Those charistraristics that we assume are defined by nature – our natural inclinations, and nurture, those that come from our environment.
However, what is important to realize is that since the range of attributes is fixed, those external influences from our environment are already part of our nature, that we then assume
Further, if we weren’t predisposed to these outside effects, we would probably not learn them ourselves. For example, if we grew up in an environment that before we ate we howled at the moon, would we really hold on to that once we were not in the environment when it was needed? Of course not.
However, even if you disagree with the previous thought, it should be clear that even those aspects which we attribute to “nurture” are really just part of our nature. The only difference is if our nature is influenced by internal forces (aka nature) or external ones (aka nurture).
Just a thought.