Tabula Rasa: Nature or Nurture?

Throughout history philosophers and psychologists have been discussing, writing about, and debating word #3 in the Powerful Words series:  tabula rasa.  Just talking about this word would cause tempers to flare and arguments to heat up among great thinkers of the past, so what better choice than this one to give power to your diction.


Okay, another word borrowed from Latin.  So what does it mean?


Definition of  tabula rasa: a blank slate


Take a look at the famous people who have expressed fiercely different opinions about this word and its meaning:  Aristotle and the ancient Greeks, Avicenna the Persian, John Locke, St. Thomas Aquinas, Steven Pinker, B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung, to name a few.


The early philosophers like Aristotle believed that the human mind begins blank but acquires knowledge as it is learned in a variety of ways.


John Locke wrote that at birth, the mind is a blank slate that is filled by sensory experiences.


Jean-Jacques Rousseau said that humans must learn how to engage with others, even through warfare, and that this information was not innate.


Sigmund Freud, known as the father of modern psychology, believed that the human mind, in particular personality traits, is formed through the interaction of family dynamics.  In other words, we are what we are because of our upbringing.


Although a more modern psychologist, Skinner, too, implied that individuals are born with a blank slate, but as time progressed, these great thinkers began to acknowledge that perhaps the brain is receptive or actually programmed to pick up certain kinds of information spontaneously.  Not so blank any more, eh? 


Today we frequently hear that human beings are formed as much by nature (innateness) as by nurture(experience and teaching), but the debate is far from over.


My favorite theory comes from Carl Jung.  He said humans are born with a psychological heritage as well as a biological heritage as a result of a long evolutionary process.  He clearly did not believe in the tabula rasa idea as an explanation for how we learn.


In Jung's theory of the collective unconscious, he wrote that certain images or symbols represent those instinctual energies called archetypes.  Take for example, the tree, the most dominant symbol of life.  Every culture across the bounds of time recognizes this same symbol and its meaning without having learned it.  Thus Jung believed that all humans are born knowing these archetypes and archetypal patterns such as the hero's journey, which are stored in the collective unconscious, that mysterious, seemingly unattainable part of our minds that we have access to only through our dreams. 


Well, when you think about it, how did ancient people all over the world have the same story patterns and symbols that we have today?  They obviously did not learn them from us.


There's so much more, but let's stop here with the backstory.  The question is, how can you add this word to your speaking and writing vocabulary without having to be an expert on the history/philosophy surrounding the term?


You might find it easier to use the words clean slate/blank slate instead of the Latin tabula rasa.


Look at the four sentences below for some examples:


1.  My career has taken an interesting direction with this new job, and I finally feel like I have a blank slate to introduce my ideas.


2.  Jack's blank slate theory of dating resulted in starting over with a new girlfriend every six months.


3.  Much to Amy's relief, the new grading period offered her a clean slate and a fresh start with her math class.


4.  Forgiveness led to a clean slate in our friendship, and we began what would become a much happier journey together through high school.


One last thought.  You can still use the expression tabula rasa in place of blank slate.  This decision is part of the good news about working on your diction.  You have so many choices when you're trying to find your writing voice.  Learn to enjoy words and they will do half the work for you!