Thinking about Genie

For some sociologists, we're not born human. We learn to be human through interaction. So what happens when we stop interacting?

This week in my introduction to sociology class, we’re talking about socialization. If you Google the term socialization (which many of my students sadly do) the first definition is “the activity of mixing socially with others.” This is not what sociologists mean when we talk about socialization because we like to make our discipline extra confusing.

Socialization is how we learn to become part of a group. It is one of those very simple and yet very fundamental concepts to understanding how the social world works. We get socialized into groups like our family and our religion. We also get socialized into racism and cisheterosexism and xenophobia. We’re not blank slates at the get-go, but we do have a hell of a lot to learn.

In fact, for some sociologists, socialization is how we become human. Sure, we’re born (most of us, anyway) with the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up this “species” called homo sapiens.* But if being human is more than just our genetic makeup, the others parts are things we have to learn along the way.

Take the case of wild or feral children. The most famous case is Genie, who due to her abusive father, lived in almost complete isolation, locked in a room with little to no interaction, until the age of 13. When authorities discovered Genie, she could barely walk. She couldn’t chew. She spit often. She didn’t make recognizable facial expressions or use body language that communicated her emotions. She didn’t seem to much distinguish at first between people and objects. She could understand only about 15-20 words and could not speak at all. Even after 5 years under the care of a team of scientists, Genie was unable to fully master language. If the ability to use language is what makes us human, was Genie human?

Feral children are one example of cases of extreme isolation. You don’t have to be shut in a room by yourself for 13 years to feel the effects, though. Short periods of isolation can have extreme effects. It’s why solitary is one of the worse punishments in prison. It’s not like being around people in a prison setting is particularly pleasant, but it says a lot about who we are as human beings that being alone is still worse.

I’ve been thinking about socialization and extreme isolation this week because the pandemic has been an extended, terrifying and involuntary experiment in isolation and lack of socialization. I guess some people who live alone shut themselves in their apartments for months at a time during the pandemic. Not quite solitary confinement, as I guess they Zoomed with people, but definitely not healthy, either. We did this because experts told us it was necessary, but I also wonder at our ready acceptance of being alone as something that we could do. As something that was possible. There seemed to be this attitude suggesting that isolating yourself wasn’t really that big of a deal and I’m not sure what this says about us as a society.

I also think about the socialization of my students. Some first-years and sophomores have now spent over a year without being in a physical classroom. They have lost crucial years of socialization into what it means to be a student, let alone what it means to be a teenager. The situation has to be much worse for younger kids at key stages of their development. What about babies and toddlers who haven’t seen any faces but those of their parents for months and months? Or the fact that the faces they do see are mostly covered in masks?

Socialization is not the activity of mixing with others, but the activity of mixing with others is essential to socialization. We can’t learn how to be human without it. At one point during the pandemic, a friend joked that people would become feral, shut away in their houses for so many months. Maybe we’re not spitting and biting, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t real, long-term costs.

I guess what bothers me most is the idea that seemed to circulate during the pandemic suggesting that interacting with other human beings was, in the end, dispensable. This makes sense in a society as individualistic at the United States. Of course we don’t need each other. But this is one of those sad, American lies we tell ourselves. We do need each other. Interaction is essential. It is the deep foundation upon which our humanity is built.

* I put “species” in parentheses there because species are a made up category, as all categories are made up. Even Darwin knew that the categories were made up. Otherwise, how does a wolf over time slowly become a dog? At what point does the wolf-thing stop being a wolf-thing and start being a dog-thing? Or as I heard in a podcast recently, nature has no edges.