Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tt00251)

>Chuck wrote:
>
>>Wrong.  Conscience is something created by social conditioning for the
>purpose
>>of making the individual fit in with their society.  Other than that it
>serves
>>no purpose whatsoever.
>
>Then please explain why some young children, being raised in the same
>household, appear to exhibit different types of conscience.  For example,
>one sibling may show no horror at kicking a small dog, yet another of their
>siblings would never do such a thing, is very upset at the siblings
>behavior, and would rather spend time petting the dog rather than kicking
it.
>

Professionals have studied this very phenomenon and have concluded
that its not necessarily the parents' fault if a child turns out to be a bad
apple.
Why? because two children can indeed be brought up together the same
way and come out different. It has to do with how they react to
environmental
stressors, this coming from what science calls genes and Theosophy calls
past lives. Two children of the same parents can take on different genetic
characteristics (their brains can be wired differently from birth).


>If conscience is ONLY developed after social conditioning, why the
>difference between people at very early ages - even with exposure to the
>same ideas?
>

Research has shown that conscience must develop before age 2 or
it likely never will. The basic factor in developing a conscience is
trust (Erikson's stage of trust vs mistrust seems to be holding up under a
lot of research). My adopted daughter has absolutely no conscience.
She has never, that we know of, felt regret, shame, guilt, or remorse.
Her reaction to being caught doing something wrong is anger. She is
not a lot of fun to live with, and all the research indicates that she will
never develop a conscience at this late state (she is now 13). I have
done extensive research on conscience and its development because
of my daughter, and find that its mostly (maybe not completely) a social
thing because if a child's primary caregiver doesn't allow the child to
trust others during its first two years, it will never have a conscience
(this is true of most borderline personalities as well as conduct
disorder types). With two children, all one of them requires is to feel
untrusting of others in order for it's behavior to deviate from that of
the other.


>Or, for that matter, why, if conscience is ONLY developed after social
>conditioning, do so many adult people have such varying types of
conscience?
>

The degree of a person's having a conscience is largely in proportion
to their ability to trust other people. This is a scientific fact. Now, if a
person wants to somehow get past lives sinto the picture, then you can
always ask, why does Joey mistrust people while Suzy has complete
trust? According to what I have studied in psychology, genes and past
lives notwithstanding, if a child is not allowed to develop trust during the
first two years of life (someone cleaning him/her when dirty, and feeding
him/her when hungry and so on) it will never develop a conscience. So,
maybe reincarnation and past karma allow us to be born into specific
households with caregivers who meet our karmic needs? I would like to
think so.


>>As to the role of it in other aspects of life, I might point out the
example
>>of a man who had no conscience about killing whatsoever and yet was a very
>>talented artist, a brilliant writer and attained enlightenment in a single
>>lifetime, the Japanese Sword Saint Musashi who killed at least 60 men in
>>single combat and wrote one of the best tactical manuals around.
>

It is possible to not trust people and still be a good artist or writer.

Jerry S.