Response to "Nature vs Nurture?" by Corbin Brassard

In this blog, I will be responding to Corbin Brassard's post entitled "Nature vs Nurture?"
http://corbinbrassard.blogspot.com/2013/04/nature-vs-nurture.html

In his post, Corbin points out how Marx's quote "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness" seems to relate to the nature vs nurture debate. According to the quote, Marx would have sided with the nurture side of the debate, claiming that society shaped people, rather than people shaping society. I was excited upon reading Corbin's post because I was thinking the same exact thing when I first read the quote and analyzed its meaning. Like Corbin, I also find it very interesting to see how these topics tie together. 


Although I agree that Marx's quote can be interpreted as his answer to the nature vs nurture debate, I also interpreted the quote as Marx's description of his superstructure/house model of society, which we looked at in class. In this case, the social being that Marx is referring to would be the bottom level of the house, or the means of production. The consciousness would be the components of the top level of the house, like education, politics, mass media and religion. Marx believed that the means of production of a society shaped the people's views when it came to education, politics, religion and mass media. In turn, he believed that these views supported, rather than determined, the means of production of the society.