"Life consists not simply in what heredity and environment do to us but in what we make out of what they do to us"
About this Quote
Fosdick’s line is a theological mic drop disguised as a mild self-help slogan. He stages life as a two-part drama: the forces that shape you (heredity, environment) and the response that decides you (what we make of it). The wording matters. “Not simply” concedes the modern world’s new gods - genetics, psychology, sociology - without surrendering to them. It’s an argument for agency that doesn’t require denying circumstance, which is precisely why it lands.
The subtext is a quiet fight against fatalism. Early 20th-century America was awash in explanations that made the self feel determined: Freudian drives, industrial class pressures, the emerging language of “traits” and “conditioning.” Fosdick, a liberal Protestant who preached to urban, educated congregations, doesn’t try to out-science the scientists. He reframes their findings as raw material rather than verdict. Heredity and environment “do” things to us - the verb is blunt, almost violent - but the sentence turns on “make,” a craft word. You’re not an exhibit; you’re a builder working with flawed lumber.
Contextually, it’s also pastoral strategy. A clergyman can’t afford the cruelty of pure bootstrap talk, especially amid war, migration, and economic instability. Fosdick offers consolation without absolving responsibility: you can’t choose your inheritance or your neighborhood, but you can choose your meaning and your next move. It’s Protestant ethics updated for the age of social science: grace as possibility, character as response.
The subtext is a quiet fight against fatalism. Early 20th-century America was awash in explanations that made the self feel determined: Freudian drives, industrial class pressures, the emerging language of “traits” and “conditioning.” Fosdick, a liberal Protestant who preached to urban, educated congregations, doesn’t try to out-science the scientists. He reframes their findings as raw material rather than verdict. Heredity and environment “do” things to us - the verb is blunt, almost violent - but the sentence turns on “make,” a craft word. You’re not an exhibit; you’re a builder working with flawed lumber.
Contextually, it’s also pastoral strategy. A clergyman can’t afford the cruelty of pure bootstrap talk, especially amid war, migration, and economic instability. Fosdick offers consolation without absolving responsibility: you can’t choose your inheritance or your neighborhood, but you can choose your meaning and your next move. It’s Protestant ethics updated for the age of social science: grace as possibility, character as response.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Improvement |
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