Can we override our programming?
I’ve been watching a couple of TV series recently – East of Eden and Lanterns – and a strange juxtaposition happened yesterday as I switched from an episode of one to an episode of the other. Both shows have a running theme exploring how we become the people we eventually are and how much choice and agency we can exercise in the process. But the episodes I watched last night had an even closer parallel: both had characters expressing the desire to “override their own programming” (one of them explicitly using that wording). In both cases, the character expresses a conscious wish to be kind and good, while recognising that their own nature is neither of those things. This is, more generally, a perennial theme in literature and also a constant in our personal lives. Most of us recognise that we have some set of deep-rooted dispositions, tendencies, proclivities, and motivations from which our inclinations and impulses issue. There may be arguments about where these dispositions come ...