People’s behavior is largely determined by forces, not by their own making.

People’s behavior is largely determined by forces, not by their own making.

The speaker suggests that people’s behavior is most likely to be determined by exotic forces rather than be made by their own. In my opinion, this statement is too extreme and it ought to be examined meticulously. After all, the ability for people to determine their behavior and the outside forces are always changing, as well as the boundary between individual and outside world is defined differently by different people, and most time we need to make case-by-case study rather than drawing a general conclusion.

It can not be denied that outside forces play an important role in people’s behavior——emotion could interrupt one’s decision making and cause some unreason or uncontrollable behavior; Environment could contain one’s ability to make some unique behaviors as human always depend on their environment; Society will force people to act in some certain behavior pattern which are coherent with their culture. For instance, in the mid-century, it is not likely for woman to speak in front of public, not even to participate in politics because of the sex discriminate culture at that time. Also, it is impossible for the nomads who grow up on the grassland to generate a skill as fishing and to practice it due to the unchangeable environmental factor.

However, these kind of decisive outside forces have been disappeared gradually in the past several centuries, as human have achieved huge developments in humanity and science, which brought unprecedented enlightenment and technologies. Especially in the modern world, there is not too much psychological limits to tell people what to do or not to do, the culture and societal changed so much that the moral rule is becoming more comprehensive with huge tolerance. As well as physic limits stipulate people what can do or can not, no matter where you born and grown up, you could buy a plane ticket to a totally different environment, like making a trip from desert to ocean. Therefore, people’ behavior is more likely to be determined by themselves rather than forces not of their own making nowadays.

After all, the essence of the question is about how to define the boundary between individual and outside world, which also means how much you are willing to be responsible for yourself, and it is different among everyone. The speakers’ claim may be appropriate to some people who lack the motivation to make certain behavior and attribute it to someone else. But in other people’s eyes, their behavior is determined by themselves and had to be like that, all the obstruct for them to achieve their goal could be changed——emotional could be controlled by self-awareness, environment could be changed through hard working and societal perspective could be overlooked. Moreover, people are more likely to form this mentality thanks to the information you can gain from the internet, there are so much great lessons and examples which facilitate you to build self response, we are born in a period that people’s behavior will be largely determined by themselves.