mentally—in this manner. But this would represent the destruction, not the "conditioning," of a child's mind; and
this is not what is meant by those who claim that man is a product of his background.
Let us consider the case of the individual who does appear to be the product of his background, of his social
environment. Let us analyze, as an example, the case of the boy who, brought up in a bad neighborhood, becomes a
criminal.
In the actions of a boy who thus allows himself to be shaped by his environment, the most obviously apparent
motive is the desire "to swim with the current." The root of that desire is the wish to escape the effort and
responsibility of initiating his own course of action. In order to choose one's own actions, one has to choose one's
own goals, and to do that, one has to choose one's own values, and to do that, one has to think. But thinking is the
first and basic responsibility that such a boy rejects.
Having no values or standards of his own, he is led—by his desire for "security"—to accept whatever values are
offered to him by the social group in which he finds himself. To swim with the current, one has to accept the ocean
or the swamp or the rapids or the cesspool or the abyss, toward which that particular current is rushing. Such a boy
will want to swim with the current, he will want to follow any course of action ready-made for him by others, he
will want to "belong."
And so, if the boys in the neighborhood form a gang at the corner poolroom, he will join; if they start robbing
people, he will start robbing people; if they begin to murder, he will murder. What moves him is his feelings. His
feelings are all he has left, once he has abandoned his mind. He does not join the gang by a conscious, reasoned
decision: he feels like joining. He does not follow the gang because he honestly thinks they are right: he feels like
following. If his mother objects and tries to argue with him, to persuade him to quit the hoodlums, he does not
weigh her arguments, he does not conclude that she is wrong—he does not feel like thinking about it.
If, at some point, he begins to fear that the gang may be going too far, if he recoils from the prospect of becoming a
murderer, he realizes that the alternative is to break with his friends and be left on his own; he does not weigh the
advantages or disadvantages of being left on his own; he chooses blindly to stick with the gang—because he feels
terror at the prospect of independence. He may