@Jack Cummins This from PubMed.gov, T. A. Judge, D. M. Cable

Abstract

In this article, the authors propose a theoretical model of the relationship between physical height and career success. We then test several linkages in the model based on a meta-analysis of the literature, with results indicating that physical height is significantly related to measures of social esteem (rho =.41), leader emergence (rho =.24), and performance (rho =.18). Height was somewhat more strongly related to success for men (rho =.29) than for women (rho =.21), although this difference was not significant. Finally, given that almost no research has examined the relationship between individuals' physical height and their incomes, we present four large-sample studies (total N = 8,590) showing that height is positively related to income (beta =.26) after controlling for sex, age, and weight. Overall, this article presents the most comprehensive analysis of the relationship of height to workplace success to date, and the results suggest that tall individuals have advantages in several important aspects of their careers and organizational lives.

So, this showed some relationship between height and 'success'. I think the popular thinking is that height and success are strongly correlated. I'm 5'10" -- 178 cm tall, close to the average American male height of 175.4 centimeters). That's about 5 feet 9 inches. Obviously there are numerous other factors contributing to "success": weight, intellect, social background, race, sex, geographical location, personality factors, and so on. One reason for the popular thinking on height may be the relative success of tall males in school athletics. Short, light-weight boys are usually not going to be stars of the team. Even if lighter weight shorter males are excellent athletes in individual sports, those usually don't get the acclaim given to team sports.

Tall athletically successful males leave school with a certain amount of social capital (personal confidence, self-esteem, status...). What gave them social capital in school may be entirely irrelevant in corporate work settings, so performance has to be exhibited for the former stars to get ahead in their jobs. Never-the-less, self-confidence and self-esteem help.

Everyone knows tall men who did not succeed. The upshot: height helps but is not deterministic.

I think that could explain why I have poor self esteem in groups. I am only about 5 ft. When I was 18 people used to often think I was about 12 or 13. I am also very poorly coordinated and atrocious at sport, although I am not interested in sports, even watching them. Perhaps that is why I became so interested in philosophy, art and literature. It is interesting to think about how the way we look affects the paths we follow in life.

Of course, we do have choices about how we present ourselves, especially clothes, and one book which I have read is Erving Goffman's, ' The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,' and that looks at the whole social management of personal identity. I also read quite a lot on the sociology of deviance, which looks at the way the way the construction of deviant identities are created. Howard Becker's book, 'Outsiders' looks at the whole process of labelling and how people are viewed as deviant, and thereby, become deviants.

Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life — Jack Cummins

It really is a damn shame that this book wasn't taught in kindergarten. So many things would have been clear so much earlier.

I executed my stage presentation worse than many others did/do; preferred time back stage more than front stage; and sort of managed my presentation of self in everyday life. I just didn't realize that I was doing it, or that it could be done 'better', more congruously. I was, in a word, oblivious a good share of the time.

At the end of a voluntary public service stint Boston in 1970, I decided to grow a beard. When it was grown out, I realized that was the sort of anti-war demonstrator, hippyish, somewhat radical 'look' I had been looking for, and have kept it ever since, What was once curly brown is now white, but it still works. I generally have preferred working class clothes over 'professional dress' even though I was a professional (in education). Vestis virum reddit! Clothes make the man, they say,

Among the anti-war demonstrators, hippies, and several variety of radicals, there was a firm rejection of one kind of self-presentation (the corporate look) and a firm embrace of the counter-culture look. most of the counter cultural radicals eventually dumped the counter-cultural look and went back to the conventions of ordinary work life. The genuine long-term radicals I have known avoid counter-cultural appearance. It's all very confusing.

Back in the medieval period there were 'sumptuary laws' that specified what various classes of people could and could not wear--could not use in their self-presentation. For instance, fur and silk were forbidden to most people -- those being the preserve of the top class. Nicer colors were not to be found in peasants' clothing. It was a matter of considerable irritation when the shop keepers got their hands on a bit of silk or bright cotton and wore it in public. Disgusting!

At any rate, I have generally cultivated a deviant look -- just deviant enough to signal that I was busy marching to the beat of my own drummer. But in my old age, that's pretty much over. I'm not marching any more, and the world is too cluttered to know what is dominant and what is deviant (which is annoying).

:up:

To some extent we are stuck with our bodies and their changing nature. We can clothe them and modify them to some extent. They can enable us to achieve a certain amount of identity and style.Personally, I am rather attracted to punk, but in the original shabby sense of fashion rather than designer punk. But I do believe in a way, our bodies give us so much limitation in expressing who we are and how we would like to be perceived, sexually and artistically.

To some extent we are stuck with our bodies and their changing nature. ... But I do believe in a way, our bodies give us so much limitation in expressing who we are and how we would like to be perceived, sexually and artistically. — Jack Cummins

Our intellectual development is preceded by, and flows from our physical bodies and our interactions with the physical world. Our egotistical brains want to claim credit for everything, but nature made the first design decisions that determined much of who we are, who we became. Yes, of course we adapt, resist, strive, and so forth on our way to maturity, but it's quite possible that how much we adapt, resist, and strive is biologically determined.

I would never counsel someone to live passively, taking whatever comes as fated to happen. On the other hand, I would never counsel someone that they can be whatever they want to be. There is a critical role for acceptance balanced with striving. We should strive to achieve (provided that what we want to achieve is worth having), but we should also accept who we are.

I can look back over my life now and accept that I made some really stupid, cockeyed decisions--not just when I was younger, but more recently too. It's way too late to start over (75 is not the ideal age to start a new career). But what one can do post-retirement is pursue avenues not previously investigated.

Yes, of course we adapt, resist, strive, and so forth on our way to maturity, but it's quite possible that how much we adapt, resist, and strive is biologically determined. — Bitter Crank

I have had a long career where the physical and the intellectual were intertwined with each other. I realize now, despite that extensive tutorial, I believed all along that the intellectual element was free from the constraints of the other.

The desire to have some things conclusively demonstrated has a down side.

What you are saying is interesting. I am wondering how you see the physical and intellectual intertwined? What role does body play, and where does mind and thought come into this, especially the wish to have certain things demonstrated?

It is hard to know to what extent we are determined and how much of a role we have in determining our lives. It seems to me that some people get a better chance than others, because they experience more advantages physically and socially.

It seems to me that some people get a better chance than others, because they experience more advantages physically and socially. — Jack Cummins

Quite true.

It is quite possible to think that we have an extremely large role in making ourselves who we are because our physical selves form "in the background", shaded by our very noisy foreground brains--chattering away as they do. Of course, the brain is body too, and even if it's content is open ended (whatever got stuffed into our heads by unauthorized and authorized agents) its shape is controlled by genes.

It's quite possible that many behavior traits are inherited (or at least expressed biologically): thrift vs. gambling; caution vs risk; big-picture vs detail orientation; gay vs. straight; good way finding skills vs. lost without a map; language acquisition vs. language difficulty, mathematical skill vs. innumeracy; good spatial relationships vs. none; and so on.

Working in reverse, I think there is a desire to have things proved through bitter experience. Thomas needs to touch the wound. Seeing that connection makes me less inclined to make a general observation about it.
It seems to me that I have had the best understanding of other people when the boundary has been established by them.
And that is a lot like our own bodies trying to interest us in something we rather would ignore.

Thomas needs to touch the wound. — Valentinus

Noli me tangere. :flower:

Thomas needs to touch the wound. — Valentinus

Or so the gospel of John says (but not the other three canonical ones). I've read in a book on christian gnostics -- could dig the source if anyone is interested -- that some of them did not believe in the resurrection of Christ in the flesh. They thought it was Jesus appearing to his disciples as a sort of supernatural deity speaking from heavens. A ghost, in other words. This gnostic interpretation of the resurrection as visions of a ghost is consistent with the 'noli me tangere'.

According to the theory, St Thomas was connected to (had evangelized) the gnostics (as evidenced by the gospel of Thomas). The authors of John's gospel would have added the story about Thomas doubting that Jesus had come back in the flesh, touching the wounds himself, and then believing, as a rhetorical weapon against them heretical gnostics.

:up:

I think that many, including Jung, have interpreted the resurrection in this way, although most people who adhere to mainstream Christianity believe firmly that the physical body of Jesus was resurrected. Related to this, is the whole idea of the eucharist as the body of Christ in communion. For some Christians, this is seen as symbolic but I know that in Catholicism it is seen as literal, as the mystery of transubstantiation. In other words, when taking the bread and wine, it is believed that one is really eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ.

You speak of behaviour traits as being inherited, and one idea which I came across in biology is that generally it has been maintained that only 2 strands of DNA are active and the rest is junk DNA, but now it is thought that this 'junk' may contain potential for understanding psychological characteristics. I do think that it is mainly speculation by some biologists, but if it shown to be true through evidence it would have profound implications for the biological basis of behavioural characteristics.

Junk DNA might not be all that junky. But the workings of DNA are not something I know much (like, anything) about.

I take my guidance on DNA-influencing-behavior from other animals. Dogs, for instance, exhibit a lot of similar behaviors: gaze following (dogs are unique in this ability), retrieving, assistance seeking, playfulness, and so on. Dogs have been bred to herd. True, useful work-dogs have to be trained, but some behaviors are bred in the bone. You won't teach a retriever how to herd.

Children exhibit behavioral differences early on. Of course, parents also influence babies from the start, but still. Some babies seem to be more inquisitive, more reserved, or risk-taking than others. Then there are the differences among children in large families. There are major differences among children; the easiest explanation is the scrambling of genes. Fraternal twins are as unlike each other as children born years apart.

The Russians did an interesting experiment on the silver fox. http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160912-a-soviet-scientist-created-the-only-tame-foxes-in-the-world The selectively bred animals that showed less aggressiveness toward humans. Within a surprisingly small number of years they had produced a silver fox that a) no longer had nice fox fur, b) held its tail more erectly than ordinary silver foxes, c) had less erect ears, d) were readily friendly, and e) cortisol levels had decreased significantly.

It took quite a few generations, but it revealed that there were genes controlling silver fox behavior.

There is no reason to think that Homo sapiens operate differently, when it comes to genetics. We behave the way we are bred to behave. (And that may well be a supremely depressing fact.)

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160912-a-soviet-scientist-created-the-only-tame-foxes-in-the-world