Posted by Dinah on January 7, 2002, at 20:02:06
Hi Jannbeau,
I guess I come down pretty heavily on the nature side of nature vs. nurture. As a long time dog breeder and a one time Mom, I'm always astounded at how they pop out with their own little personalities. And how you can trace certain characteristics through the generations.
As far as Darwin goes, it's survival of the fittest, not survival of the strongest. Anxiety and depression do have their evolutionary plusses, especially in times of danger. Mildly depressed people have been shown to be more realistic in assessing risk and likelihood of outcomes than those who are happier and therefore more optimistic. Mildly depressed people are more realistic in assessing their abilities. Anxious people are constantly scanning their environments for danger and making plans for disaster. Both of those qualities can be adaptive in times of danger.
I don't think any generation has seemed to nurture its young all that well. My ancestors were mainly Saxon serfs. There was a good chance that they would lose their mothers at a young age in childbirth (highly stressful). There was such a high rate of infant and child mortality that most parents probably tried not to invest themselves emotionally in their very young children. Not only was survival dependent on the weather, but at any given moment there might fighting among the nobility that would lead to the burning and pillaging of a village and the rape of the women and murder of the men and children. Talk about lack of control in the workplace. And fathers were legally allowed to beat their wives and children and probably spent a good part of the evenings drowning their sorrows in mead.
Pass forward a few hundred years and I know my family were coal miners. Long hours in dangerous conditions. Young children forced into the mines or the factories at very young ages. Again lots of drinking and family abuse. I doubt family values were high on the list of priorities.
Probably we are a more compassionate and nurturing society today than at any time in human history (not that that's saying much). Yes, we may be a bit spoiled, but that seems like a small cause for anxiety and depression in comparison to, say, the Inquisition.
Just my humble, and slightly depressed, and very unromantic opinion.
Dinah
By the by, I tend to agree with you about drugs. Certainly some, like those to treat bipolar or schizophrenia, are lifesavers. But the drug companies and books like Listening to Prozac raised our expectations way too high. They don't mention the inevitable trade offs with the current generation of antidepressants.
poster:Dinah
thread:16409
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020102/msgs/16409.html