Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Phil Hannum's avatar

About 55 years ago, in a Philosophy course, we examined Roseau’s “Tabula Rasa” theory that held that everyone is born with no Jung-Ian hard-wiring (like primordial archetypes). The theory being that behavior was learned. Bad boys were not born that way, instead, they learned by observing other Bad boys and new tracks were laid-down on their brain’s “tabula.” The class used the book “Lord of the Flies” to take sides on Roseau’s theory. Of course, we never resolved the issue. I resolved it personally after studying universal archetypes (ascent, descent, journey, water, etc) in Literature, some which the readers observed but the author denied.

Expand full comment
PigeonReligion's avatar

I love the correlation between immaculate conception and the blank slate. I am reminded also of the south park episode ‘the goobacks’, about the time travelling immigrants from the future who all look the same, all differences disappearing through centuries of intermixing.

And then the blank canvas from different artistic perspectives, some seeing the canvas as completely determined by their mark making, others may consider the canvas a threshold with latent possibilities anchored by history, material. The former reminds me of old stories where the woman/mother was seen as passive vessel and the life was determined completely by the male ‘seed’.

I think the biofoundationalist canvas is a better one

Expand full comment
6 more comments...

No posts