stuartw2112
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Hi Dave,Chomsky's just taking as read the standard view – or it was last I paid attention. See work of Chris Stringer.cheers
I promised not to feed the troll any more, but I couldn't believe what I just read above – that it is seriously proposed to "enforce" only the science that the masses can get their heads round, and that physicists who talk in maths – and presumably biologists who talk about genes – will be rounded up and sent to the Gulag. Unbelievable that people are still arguing for this kind of thing. I think the USSR holds more lessons and useful warnings for socialists than we sometimes glibly assume.
Thanks Robin, will leave it there. Just to be clear, if it's not already, I'm not arguing that violence is inborn and hence inevitable. I'm a pacifist! But if you're going to be a pacifist, it is no help to pretend you're not violent – can't see it arise in you, see your (probably inborn) tendency to violence rise up from potential to the danger zone of realisation. To see this, you don't need any scientific or anthropological theory. You can just pay attention. (Unles of course it's just me – perhaps I have the warrior gene!)All the best
Thanks Robin, good points well made!On your first, I think you're just playing with words. No one I've ever read on the subject has made your distinction that, to count as human nature, something must be irrepressible. In that case, eating and sex are not part of human nature!Your points about war are well made, but I'm not sure what they amount to. Chimps, for example, engage in one-on-one violence, and collaborate collectively to inflict violence to the extent that they're capable of such cooperation. Perhaps humans, building on their natural capacities, go to war, ie organise their inborn individual violence collectively, simply because they can. As with any inborn part o our nature, no doubt circumstances play a big part. It's hardly a surprise that collective violence is more likely if you have to defend your territory thn if you wander free in a forest of abundance. As for the warrior gene, it's a shorthand for a statistical phenomenon – I don't think anyone knows precisely what the gene does except to predispose its carriers to violence and psychopathic behaviour. But that's what "gene for" means.
Much the same as what I learned in the SPGB!“If town meeting teaches anything, it is how to suffer damn fools and to appreciate the fact that from time to time you too may look like a damn fool in the eyes of people as good as yourself.”http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21645854-what-elected-dogcatcher-reveals-about-small-town-america-dogs-and-democracy
OK, LB, this is my final word. You didn't answer my question, despite your claim, as anyone could see from reading the question, then the answer. What you did was try to steer the discussion from what it was about, back to your pet subject of the philosophy of science. In other words, as a previous post of mine claimed, you saw a bus coming and once again took it as an excuse to pedal your pet theories. There's a name for this: it's called monomania. There's also a name for what I'm doing: feeding the troll. I'll now stop.
[The thing I wrote above but with para breaks, which got lost in technotranslation.]There was an interesting programme on the Beeb last night that relates to our discussion here. Interestingly, it kind of gives support to all sides of the debate. In other words, it's complicated.So, are human beings naturally violent? Actually, something like the opposite. From a very early age, ie before you would say it was likely that such behaviour had been learned, children tend to be naturally cooperative, empathetic, eager to help, and to feel your pain. (I hope those against the idea of a genetically determined human nature, to be consistent, will complain that this must be rubbish.) However, as any sociobiologist would expect, there is variation. Genes "for violence" have indeed been identified, and, when present, will tend to make an individual more prone to aggressive, violent, even psychopathic and murderous behaviours.Note the "prone" and "tend to". Fascinatingly, one of the scientists working on this discovered during his work that he too had the "warrior gene" and the brain patterns typical of psychopaths. Obviously, this disturbed him and he wondered why he had not himself killed anyone (it turned out that close genetic relatives of his had). Part of the answer is that the gene expresses itself most strongly only when it is present at the same time as certain environmental stimuli – particularly child abuse. The scientist had been lucky enough to be brought up in a loving and caring family environment. Nevertheless, it's not entirely a case of "nurture trumps nature". The scientist admitted that certain moral behaviours he knew rationally to be "right", but that nevertheless he couldn't deep down, to use his own words, really give a shit. And, as his family told him, he was more prone than others to anger and aggression if not violence.Interestingly, and perhaps most relevant to our argument, such knowledge has been put to use in the US military. Soldiers, according to the programme, are no longer taught to hate their enemy and treat them as subhuman vermin. Although this is useful if your job is to go off and kill them, it is also horribly destructive to the long-term health of the soldier and of society. It is, in effect, against human nature to be so evil. So, instead, the emphasis in military training is not on hating and killing the enemy, but on doing all that is necessary to protect your country, your comrades, your family, your values etc – things which human beings tend naturally to approve of, up to and including, in some circumstances, killing for them.This is what I meant when I said Robin was in danger of making his socialism a hostage to fortune. Violent and warlike tendencies almost certainly are a part of our human nature. And it's also why I said I was relaxed about it. Because whatever the case is, whatever our human nature turns out to be, we are more than capable of moulding human institutions, including those involved in war, to engineer the happiest outcomes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014kj65R
Thanks for the link YMS. I wasn't expecting to be able to understand a word of it, but it is a short, clear and (as you say) recent summary of the ideas from the horse's (horses') mouth(s). Seems perfectly reasonable – totally unlike the caricature offered by Knight, whatever the appeal of his rhetoric.
I'll be happy to try to answer your questions, LB, when you can give a straight answer to the one question I have asked you over and over again, and got no reply to. I'll try just one more time.What is the point of a discussion if one doesn't try to evaluate truth-claims by reference to the real world (a practice that made Einstein's name, by the way)?My prediction, as before, is that we'll get another message, much the same as the one above, with no answer to the question.
To test your claims, LB, we'd have to do a cross-cultural comparison. But as you say this is pointless and throughly ideological, why discuss it?
There was an interesting programme on the Beeb last night that relates to our discussion here. Interestingly, it kind of gives support to all sides of the debate. In other words, it's complicated. So, are human beings naturally violent? Actually, something like the opposite. From a very early age, ie before you would say it was likely that such behaviour had been learned, children tend to be naturally cooperative, empathetic, eager to help, and to feel your pain. (I hope those against the idea of a genetically determined human nature, to be consistent, will complain that this must be rubbish.) However, as any sociobiologist would expect, there is variation. Genes "for violence" have indeed been identified, and, when present, will tend to make an individual more prone to aggressive, violent, even psychopathic and murderous behaviours. Note the "prone" and "tend to". Fascinatingly, one of the scientists working on this discovered during his work that he too had the "warrior gene" and the brain patterns typical of psychopaths. Obviously, this disturbed him and he wondered why he had not himself killed anyone (it turned out that close genetic relatives of his had). Part of the answer is that the gene expresses itself most strongly only when it is present at the same time as certain environmental stimuli – particularly child abuse. The scientist had been lucky enough to be brought up in a loving and caring family environment. Nevertheless, it's not entirely a case of "nurture trumps nature". The scientist admitted that certain moral behaviours he knew rationally to be "right", but that nevertheless he couldn't deep down, to use his own words, really give a shit. And, as his family told him, he was more prone than others to anger and aggression if not violence. Interestingly, and perhaps most relevant to our argument, such knowledge has been put to use in the US military. Soldiers, according to the programme, are no longer taught to hate their enemy and treat them as subhuman vermin. Although this is useful if your job is to go off and kill them, it is also horribly destructive to the long-term health of the soldier and of society. It is, in effect, against human nature to be so evil. So, instead, the emphasis in military training is not on hating and killing the enemy, but on doing all that is necessary to protect your country, your comrades, your family, your values etc – things which human beings tend naturally to approve of, up to and including, in some circumstances, killing for them. This is what I meant when I said Robin was in danger of making his socialism a hostage to fortune. Violent and warlike tendencies almost certainly are a part of our human nature. And it's also why I said I was relaxed about it. Because whatever the case is, whatever our human nature turns out to be, we are more than capable of moulding human institutions, including those involved in war, to engineer the happiest outcomes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014kj65R
You've missed my point again, one I've made a few times now, but you haven't grasped it, perhaps because I've been making it in sentences dripping with sarcasm. So I'll try one more time, without the irony! You say here that you wish to discuss, among others things, whether and to what extent science is political. Rather than try to tell you my view, I ask what the point is. If, as you say, our respective ideologies are socially determined, and individuals can only see what they want to see, and "the facts" are no use to us because ideologically contested, what is the point? I ask you, in all seriousness, what the point is. Because, if we were going to discuss it seriously, genuinely, wouldn't we have to begin by assuming that one or both of us were wrong? Granted, it's rare for there to be any genuine meeting of minds, on Internet discussion forums least of all. But if we don't grant the possibility of deciding between rival ideas, as individuals, by referring to what we at least believe to be the facts, what is the point of the discussion? I predict that you won't answer this question but will merely reiterate your position. Either way, my question will be answered.
You say that I make a clear statement, then ignore it and put words in my mouth! So I'll ignore most of it. As for the Societ Union having nothing to do with "workers democracy", well, that's your ideology. I have other ideas. But according to your own oft-repeated ideology, there can be no point resolution to the debate by referring to the facts. So I guess that's our conversation over.
Actually, yes, I do believe that rational thought, Enlightenment values and science should be independent of political control – that it should be pursued by independent, critically aware, free individuals, who combine for the pursuit of common interests, and not be placed under the control of or be subservient to any collective ideology. That's Lysenkoism.
I think Marx would have been very surprised indeed to hear that his ideas – including those to do with the proletariat democratically organised – constituted an alternative to rational thought, Enlightenment values and science. I think he would very quickly have reiterated his insistence that he, for one, was no Marxist.
