Good Afternoon,
There are several posts I want to respond to. These posts are by Jay,
Mark, and Mike. I answer them in that order.
On Sun, 26 Jul 1998, Jay Hanson wrote: "...would any of you argue that
"breathing" is not genetic?"
Nobody is doubting that we are physical animals, Jay. We have already said
this. Breathing is a reflex. There is nothing special about human
breathing. All animals breathe. But do all (any) animals instinctually
develop capitalism? Do all (any) animals instinctually destroy their
natural environment? Do all (any) animals instinctually develop political
systems and then do and say anything to acquire power within these
systems? Breathing is not an instinct or a behavior anymore than our cells
undergoing mitosis and meiosis, the skin covering our bodies, the
mobilization of our immune system, or the need for sleep constitute
instincts or behaviors. You have been making claims about specific *human*
behaviors, about *human* nature. We are talking about social behaviors and
relations relative to humans, i.e., capitalism, politics, racism, and so
on. How does one move from the empirical fact that all animals breathe to
the ideological argument that capitalism is genetic? You need to come down
off this constant sloganeering and endless production of strawmen and non
sequiturs if you want people to treat your position with even a remote
degree of seriousness. Given everything I have seen so far, I don't see
how anybody can treat you seriously at this point.
I am a scientific materialist to the bone and believe in biological
evolution. It is on scientific materialist grounds that I am first opposed
to sociobiology. Sociobiology is a false application of evolutionary
science to the study of social relations and behavior. It is, for this
reason, an ideology, and not a science. Given that it is an ideology, I
subsequently oppose sociobiology on the grounds that I oppose the
political program it covers and legitimates. You would be served by
reading the rest of this post where I criticize both Dawkins and Wilson,
the latter of whom I suspect you draw your claim that human beings are
genetically driven to destroy the environment.
Mark's post today attempts two things. It is foremost a rhetorical attempt
to dismiss my critique of his position on gender; more on this in a
minute. Secondarily it is a continuation of Mark's need to drag Richard
Dawkins into this conversation, as if Dawkins somehow represents the strong
hand of sociobiology. To answer his question about Dawkins, I first admit
that I find the whole sociobiological discourse to be ideology and
intrinsically reactionary. There are sociobiologists like Pearson,
Cattell, Lynn, Rushton, Murray, Herrnstein, etc., who operate quite openly
in the realm of racism and eugenics. They are honest and conscious
racists. It requires only a little bit of decoding and consciousness
raising to expose them. However, sociobiologists like Wilson and Dawkins
operate under a more clever scientism. Perhaps this is what has mislead
Mark.
But is Richard Dawkins really so clever? Would Dawkins ever employ the
traditional reactionary attack on the critics of sociobiology, the attack
that characterize them as "biological egalitarians" and connecting this up
with the spectre of Marism-Leninism (this was the form of critique
launched by the Pioneer Fund, a principal source of research funding and
coordination of sociobiological research)? You tell me. In reviewing Rose,
Kamin, and Lewontin's Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature
(Pantheon Books, 1985), Dawkins ("Sociobiology: the debate continues," New
Scientist January 24, 1985) attacks Rose et al.'s work in the following
terms:
Where others might thank colleagues and friends, our authors
acknowledge "lovers" and "comrades." Actually, I suppose there is
something rather sweet about this, in a passe, sixtiesish sort of
way. And the 1960s have a mythic role to play in the authors'
bizarre conspiracy theory of science. It was in response to that
Arcadian decade (when "Students challenged the legitimacy of their
universities...") that "The newest form of biological
determinism, sociobiology, has been legitimated...."
Getting beyond the sheer pettiness of Dawkins' language, we find that in
one short passage, Dawkins, up there with the best of the sociobiology
ideologues, has managed in his assault on his critics to let his readers
in on the fact that Rose and "comrades," in a "passe, sixtiesish sort of
way," are commies and hippies (probably druggies) who advance a "bizarre
conspiratorial theory of science." Yes, Mark, serious science is going on
here. Dawkins, in attacking those who dispute his claims about human
nature, characterizes the domination of capitalist ideology in science,
domination that both you and I know is real, as a "bizarre conspiratorial
theory of science." He red-baits and ridicules those who refute his
position. It would appear that Dawkins reacts to challenges to
sociobiology, on both scientific and ideological grounds, in the same
fashion as do some of his fellow sociobiologists who are a little more
conscious of the politics of their position: although Dawkins refers
sarcastically to class struggle throughout his defense of sociobiology, he
is clearly engaging in class warfare himself.
What *are* Dawkins' claim about human nature that Rose and comrades are
criticizing? From the publisher's blurb on the jacket cover plugging the
merits of Dawkins' best-selling The Selfish Gene:
We animals exist for their preservation and are nothing more than
their throwaway survival machines. The world of the selfish gene
is one of savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit.
But what of the acts of apparent altruism found in nature - the
bees who commit suicide when they sting to protect the hive, or
the birds who warn the flock of an approaching hawk? Do they
contravene the fundamental law of gene selfishness? By no means:
Dawkins shows that the selfish gene is also the subtle gene.
Basically, Mark, Dawkins provides scientific proof for Ayn Rand's claims
that all behavior, even altruism, is essentially selfish behavior, and all
this exist at the level of the gene. (Is this what mainstream scientists
really mean when they talk about "objectivism"?) It is this selfishness
that is the real explanation for evil in the world, an evil that Rand
elevates to a virtue. So do many of Dawkins' colleagues. E. O. Wilson
makes similar arguments about our inherent selfishness and how this leads
us to destroy the environment. This is Jay Hanson's argument.
But I don't want to overdraw the importance of human agency here; it does
not necessarily matter the conscious intentions of the sociobiologist.
They may believe they are operating in the realm of science and remain
unaware of any ideological commitments. Indeed, ideology is more effective
when it operates at the deeper levels of legitimacy. Rather it is
*knowledge systems* that are racist, sexist, etc.. Most people, including
very perceptive and intelligent people, are ignorant of the real character
of certain scientistic forms of intellectual discourse, and they
unwittingly accept these tenets. Sociobiology is particularly effective at
tapping unquestioned and uncritical sources of legitimacy because it prays
on the most basic common sense assumptions that people have about the
world. Sociobiology represents the biologizing of tacit daily common
sense. It is for this reason a particularly dangerous form of
racist-sexist discourse.
In his post of this morning Jones refers to us as "old sparring partners"
and that I like to "rile him up." I appreciate Mark's understanding that
the points I make are valid. However, I neither set out to nor enjoy
riling Mark up; I don't contribute to these listservs for the personal
satisfaction of jibing people. I don't know Mark Jones very well. We have
had a handful of confrontations on a couple of listservs, but these didn't
get very deep, mainly because he resorts to personalizing everything and
avoiding the issue, as he has clearly demonstrated today. But it is not
in my nature to rile people up purposely. If they get riled up that's
their business. All this posturing by Mark is designed to trivialize my
argument by reducing it to a mere polemic designed to rile him up, as if I
really don't believe what I am writing, but rather designing it around
what I perceive to be the hot buttons of an opponent, an "old sparring
partner" (of course, sparring partners are useful only insofar as they
stand up for a few rounds so that a good workout can be had). This red
herring is meant to avoid the initial post in which Mark's understanding
of these issues was shown not pass the most basic level of understanding.
In another post this morning, Mike felt that my Hitler reference was
overkill. But it is not. This is the history of sociobiology that people
don't like to admit, for obvious reasons. US and British sociobiologists
helped Hitler's scientists get on track with their sociobiological
research, and eugenics organizations that funded these scientists helped
Hitler draft his extermination and sterilization programs and laws,
justified on the basis of sociobiological "findings." Hitler put
sociobiological tenets in practice on a mass scale. We have to remember
that these tenets were put into practice in the US, as well, as they were
in dozens of other European countries. After Hitler was exposed as a
ruthless mass murderer, this made sociobiology and eugenics look bad, so
the US scientific and medical community reflected on their sterilization
laws and many states repealed them. The eugenics societies changed their
names - e.g., from the "American Eugenics Society" to the "Society for
the Study of Social Biology" - began re-writing their history, and now
cloak themselves in what Mike characterizes as "a method of analysis."
Much of the talk today among sociobiologists is expressing their regret
that Hitler spoiled their "method of analysis" by tainting it with this
matter of sterilization, genocide, and other such nasty sounding business.
They decry those critics who drag Hitler into the discussion, claiming
that appealing to a single madman's obsession with social biology is a non
sequitur. What they never admit is that the sociobiological community
organized Hitler's project. Nazi scientists were colleagues with American
and British scientists working towards a common project of social biology.
When Hitler's name comes up it is not bringing in a single ideologically
driven madman, but bringing in the bare face of a whole ideologically
driven scientistic culture.
Mike insists that sociobiology is "not an ideological program, after all."
But this dismisses as an aside what has been the main point all along.
Sociobiology is so successful as a political program because its scientism
has convinced people that it is a "method of analysis" and "not an
ideological program." I re-emphasize that practitioners of sociobiology do
not have to be conscious of the character of their ideology. But knowing
that these scientists rub elbows with one another, go to eugenics
conferences, accept funding from racialist-eugenicist organizations,
publish in eugenics journals and publish with racialist-eugenicist
publishing houses, are conscious enough about it to change their
organizations names and hide their funding sources - it is hard for me to
believe that they are not aware of the true character of sociobiology.
Perhaps unfortunately, however, is not hard for me to understand that many
of those contributing to this discussion are not aware of this, however,
given the degree of ignorance concerning the field and the unwillingness
to be critical of the position.
So the Hitler example is shocking not because it is hyperbole, Mike. It is
shocking because Hitler and the Nazi movement was a major figure and event
in the development of sociobiology, both in its explicit and programmatic
forms, and that it represents one of the causes of sociobiologist's
cloaking after things didn't go so well for the Nazis. Hitler believed
these things with a fervor; he was consumed by what he considered the
force of social biology. Men and women had their places in society because
these were their places in nature. Races were real and there is also a
natural hierarchy of racial types, different types that not only explain
why groups differ from one another, but to justify differential treatment
of human beings based on the natural hierarchy. Nazi doctors and
scientists, along side leading US and British intellectuals, worked to
prove the theory true. They are still working to prove it true. The
theories have no changed. And they have acquired no more evidence.
Ever hear of George Lincoln Rockwell? He was the founder and leader of the
American Nazi Party. He sought to systematize national socialist
philosophy and their sociobiological science. He was a very bright fellow.
In his work he lays out a sophisticated sociobiological view of the world,
and from this view claims he legitimates his political position. He is
(was, one of his followers murdered him) a different sort of
sociobiologist in that he basically admits that his science is designed to
legitimate his political position. Of course, the science he advanced is
nothing more than his political position. Rockwell was instrumental in
bringing sociobiologists together in the post-Nazi era, and those who
worked with him and his associates are the leaders in the field today.
Sociobiology must be understood not only in terms of the explicit claims
of its practitioners - though these are revealing enough - but it must
also be understood in terms of its function in the structure of white male
capitalism.
Peace,
Andy