Naturalism

This is why people hate science.

Naturalists studied human nature. Not because they wanted to, mind you, but because actual nature didn't really care about people, so the naturalists took it upon themselves to study the nature of humans to create a broad statement that would apply to every person in existence. How generous of them. They came up with what's called determinism. Determinism works by having the genetics of a person at birth not just dictate for height and eye color, but for literally everything the person will ever do ever. How they live, who they like, what they do. All genetics.

She tried to tell us.

People I actually respect were part of this movement, and that kills me. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution supports the idea that the behaviors that we exhibit as individuals are in some part due to ages of genetic modification. Karl Marx argued that the social hierarchy determined how we would all live and act. And Sigmund Freud conducted behavioral studies that determined that things that happen to us when we're very young can have a great impact on us in the future. Basically, we had no control over our lives, everything was decided by a random set of factors. We were just rag dolls, tossed about in the winds of fate.

We're no better off than Raggedy Ann.

Naturalism arose reflective of the struggle to survive. Times were somewhat dark for Americans (what with the Great Depression and whatnot), and so people wanted gritty literature to match. And match it did. Naturalist stories often talk about awful people and end badly for everyone involved. This is because characters are portrayed as "realistically," so naturally they're all self serving jerks. But then, at the same time, there was nothing tragic about naturalist stories, because the things that happened in them were doomed to happen from the start. So getting upset over them would be illogical. Naturalists are bitches.

Oops, sorry, heredity.

I give them one star, because genetics told me to.