Dear Andew Austin,
You wrote [to WSN]:
>I make a distinction between the biological entity, Homo sapiens, and the
>social entity, Human. I never denied that we are natural. This was even
>implied in my admission of capacity due to morphology. But these physical
>things are not human. What is human is socially bestowed, that is thru
>language, culture, motivations, social action, etc.. ...Moreover, I disagree
>with the assertion that we are naturally social.
This view is demonstrably false -- it denies all that is known
about human evolution. There is indeed a SOCIAL heritage which is
pre-human, even an ECONOMIC heritage -- these EVOLVED into a more
cognitively-aware set of social & economic arrangements. This is simply
fact.
For some reason you seek to force a clear distinction between the
pre-human and the post-animal, as if proto-man had gone into a cacoon as a
baboon (so to speak), and came out as homo sapiens, with behavior patterns
as distinctly different as between a caterpiller and a butterfly.
It simply didn't happen that way, and the attempt to force analysis
into that mold undermines the validity any investigation before it begins.
The reality is that man DOES have _some degree_ of inborn societal
pre-dispositions. How extensive they are, and how overridable -- and at
what psychological cost they are overridden -- these are questions worthy
of study. This innate layer needs to be identified and "subtracted out" of
current data if you want to measure what is uniquely human.
If you look at DNA -- and DNA carries LOTS of behavioral content in
most species -- you find that man's DNA is incredibly similar to other
species that are much "lower" on the evolutionary chain. In a biological
sense, what is uniquely human is a very small patch indeed on animals,
tinier yet with respect to primates. This small patch is mostly related to
the cognitive centers, and seems to have given reason and imagination
dominion over behavior. But within what parameters?
Some "mystics" can cognitively control bodily functions, but I
think we'd agree "human nature" includes nonetheless a normal heartbeat,
body temperature, and breathing rate. Similarly man can be coerced into
abandoning community and pursuing narrow individualist self-interest -- but
that doesn't make it healthy to his phsychological nature, nor does it
prove no such nature exists.
Until the advent of modern ethology, animals were studied mostly in
captivity, and researchers imagined they were learning something useful
about animal behavior. They were deceived. We now know that animal nature
requires a natural context before it can express itself and be observed.
And if animals are kept too long in captivity, they often lose the capacity
to develop their latent behaviors, even if released back into the wild.
The question re/ man is what is "the wild" and how does man behave
there? It is clear from observing so-called primitive societies that man
naturally lives in close-knit communities (fixed or mobile) in which social
behavior and economic activity are intimately intertwined, and in which
community obligations and individual prerogatives are both valued, to
varying degrees.
This may not suit your political agenda, but it's the way things are.
Regards,
Richard