Re: sociobiology: real and imagined

Richard Hutchinson slung a lot of red-baiting mud at me, but he 
did manage to convey his own viewpoint:

> Personally, I admire Wilson and "Consilience."  I don't agree with all
> of it (I don't think he understands sociology), but I think its intention
> of reestablishing the Enlightenment project is inspiring.

Richard, what do you admire about "Consilience?"  Do you admire 
its analysis of genocide in Rwanda, which attributes it to human 
nature and overpopulation?  (I guess that is why the Nazis did it, 
too.)  Do you admire its assertion that humans are "naturally" 
dogmatic, easy to indoctrinate, patriotic, racist, and sexist?

And what is inspiring about "reestablishing the Enlightenment 
project?"  Is it Voltaire's belief that Africans, Asians, and Native 
Americans originated from different inferior species than Europeans?  
Is it the enlightenment belief that slavery and colonialism were 
forms of human progress?  Is it the creation myth that "Western 
Civilization" was born in ancient Greece?  Goerge Mosse, David Theo 
Goldberg, David Brion Davis, Martin Bernal, and many others have 
demonstrated clearly that the Enlightenment ushered in the "Dark 
Ages" of Western colonialism.

Richard also wrote:
> 
> Here's an example of "sociobiological" research, broadly speaking, with
> progressive implications.  There's a new book out on inequality and health
> on the New Press.  (I don't have it handy, I loaned it to a colleague.
> I'll follow up later with the citation.)  It's a collection of public
> health journal articles.  A solid finding of this research is that we
> humans, like other primates and mammals, are intensely status-conscious.
> It's not choice, it's not ideology:  it's hard-wired.  The upshot is that
> countries with lower levels of income inequality have higher life
> expectancy.  The social engineering this research recommends is to reduce
> inequality because it will improve the health of people.
> 

I invite readers to judge who is bringing unsupportable ideological
preconceptions to this discussion.  It is certainly well documented 
that increasing inequality shortens life, and that increasing poverty 
reduces health.  It certainly is not established that social 
inequality is "hard-wired" into human nature.  What is well 
established is that such an argument is an example of crass biological 
determinism and reification.

There is nothing progressive about an argument that attributes social 
inequality to "hard-wired" human biology.  The ideological function 
of such an argument is to deflect attention from the social (and 
therefore changeable) sources of inequality.  What Richard is doing 
with this argument is what E.O. Wilson has always done throughout all 
his writings.  No wonder Richard Hutchinson likes E.O. Wilson.

Steve Rosenthal