People's behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting

Human being, being the most social creature on this earth, interacts with people, milieu, cultural, political and social forces and these forces help him in shaping him as an individual. It is very true that people learn through their interaction with all these factors present around him from his birth to his death. The environment in which a person is brought up, the way he has been brought up influence his behavior in large.

The foremost interaction a person has, after his birth, is with is his/her family. A child is naive and ignorant to anything else in the world, prevalent around him. Though, genetically, a lot of traits are already imbibed but at the same time the influences of social and cultural environs are more significant. The cultural practices followed in the family and the nature and demeanor of his parents and siblings differentiates an individual from other. Say for example, a person brought in India in a rural area will have a different perspective of things than someone brought up in Germany or any other western country. Though for a country or region a behavior can be generalized but each individual is distinct in his own way. Like for example, for Germans, it is said that they are very particular about punctuality and rules and privacy whereas, an Indian or an Asian will be little lax regarding punctuality but they, generally, keep social life before private in terms of priority. The rearing of children also is more individualistic as compared to Asian countries like china and India. Further, people in naxalite or terrorism-stricken area are aggressive because of the environment they see since they were born. An individual has very little control on how his behavior is being shaped.

However , one could argue that throughout the pre-historic times we have seen people whose behavior have been way different than what was evident in their family or social surroundings. For example, Mahatma Buddha, who comes from family of rulers but he declined all the luxury and took refuge in preaching and his teachings led to creation of a whole new religion Buddhism, though he himself was a Hindu. Similar was the case with Mahatma Gandhi and many freedom fighters in India and world. But the, point to be noted, here, is that even though these people were different form the typical behavior exhibited by their family , it was the external forces only which influenced them and they took these roles. In today's life also, children spend a lot of time with their peers in school, college and hostel than their parents. So, there behavior and thinking is more determined by this interaction with peers. The role played by an individual’s conscience in his development cannot be ignored. But we cannot ignore that, this force, which is compelling someone to think and brood on some topic or situation, is also external.

Succinctly, it can be said that external forces pay a deterministic role in making an individual whether by influencing him directly or indirectly by making him introspect and think and brood and develop an opinion of his own.