Facile answer: Why, that’s just what the Soviets believed, this Skinner-box model of human psychology devoid of innate instincts, and they tried to build New Soviet Humans that way, and failed, which was an experimental test of their model that falsified it.
On one hand, I’ve heard a few things about blank-slate experiments that didn’t work out, and I do lean towards “they basically don’t work”. But I… also bet not that many serious attempts actually happened, and that the people attempting them kinda sucked in obvious ways, and that you could do a lot better than however “well” the soviets did.
On one hand, I’ve heard a few things about blank-slate experiments that didn’t work out, and I do lean towards “they basically don’t work”. But I… also bet not that many serious attempts actually happened, and that the people attempting them kinda sucked in obvious ways, and that you could do a lot better than however “well” the soviets did.