Humans, nature and the human nature
At
some point in my life, I have read the books by Richard Dawkins. He is
not my favourite writer by any measure, but anyone who is
simultaneously disliked by both the Right (for his aggressive atheism)
and the Left (for his support of sociobiology) might very well be doing
something right. Of course, this is what every nutjob likes to proclaim
of himself, but few nutjobs tend to reach the same prestige and
recognition as Dawkins.
My favourite internet thinker Daniel Mocsny has always been a bold and explicit supporter of sociobiology, and his various writings pointed me to the right direction for further learning. Often despised, sociobiology concisely explains many phenomena that the social constructionists either have to completely deny or if this is impossible, pretend that they don't see. This means basically every social phenomena in which the progressives stomp their feet and angrily insist that X is true, but for some reason, the masses people stubbornly keep behaving as if not-X were true. I am sure my readers can think of several such phenomena immediately.
Actually, one of the most convincing features of sociobiology for me personally is that its opponents don't seem to be able to formulate insults that don't require or assume at least the core of sociobiology in order to work at all. For example, the curious fact that the word "wanker" is used as a derogatory term (even by people who otherwise claim that human sexuality is a positive thing), and as such it is used only for men, whereas the opposite term "whore" is used to insult only women.
Back in the day when I read the Old Testament (kind of slowly, purely for educational purposes), I was constantly reminded how in primitive times, when a conquering tribe had vanquished another tribe, its warriors typically killed the enemy men and took the women into their tribe as wives and concubines. In fact, I read that even roaming chimpanzee troops tend to behave like this. But where was the primitive tribe that behaved the opposite way so that they killed all the enemy women and let the men join their group? (Men, after all, would be useful as warriors in future wars in further conquests.) I have never heard of such tribe, and I kind of doubt that one has ever existed. It is quite astonishing that the primitive societies, independently of each other and separated by vast gulfs of time and space, all tossed the coin the same way or went "eenie meenie miny moe, men!" when deciding which sex to kill and which sex to keep. Or at home, choosing which sex should rule. The coin tosses were surprisingly uniform for me to doubt that the coins were "weighted" by some outside constraint.
In modern times, prospects who want to join street gangs have to prove their worth and motivation by taking a massive beating from the members of the gang. If the gang is lead by men, a female prospect is sometimes given a choice of having sex with all the men in the gang instead of taking the beating. Now, I am not any kind of expert of gangs and street culture, but I am willing to bet serious money that nowhere in the world there is nor has there ever been a gang that allows a male prospect to avoid the beating by having sex with all the female members of the gang.
Regularities like this that keep popping up in every place and every time make it hard to believe that all human behaviour is socially and culturally constructed, and could therefore be freely changed to whatever the progressive blank-slate avant-garde wants it to be. A sociobiology supporter, of course, has no difficulty whatsoever explaining the above phenomena. But what kind of explanation does the opponent of sociobiology have to offer, other than handwaving and conspiracy theories about the capitalist patriarchy?
As an end note, I heartily recommend reading the Bible for every fellow atheist. (I recall Mocsny once writing that he read it from cover to cover seven times during his youth as a fundamentalist Christian.) You can always read it as a historical adventure book the same way you would read The Silmarillion. Even though the contents, message and storytelling of the Bible are surprisingly banal and amateurish, nobody can be considered educated unless he has a certain level of knowledge about the biblical history and events. Besides, the merry ethnic cleansing tales depicted in Book of Joshua alone should give you all the ammunition that you'll ever need to counter the standard morality claims of religionists. And after that, Book of Job and Ecclesiastes are truly great and excellent books on their own, and I am stating this without any irony or sarcasm whatsoever. If only the rest of the Bible were of the same quality.
My favourite internet thinker Daniel Mocsny has always been a bold and explicit supporter of sociobiology, and his various writings pointed me to the right direction for further learning. Often despised, sociobiology concisely explains many phenomena that the social constructionists either have to completely deny or if this is impossible, pretend that they don't see. This means basically every social phenomena in which the progressives stomp their feet and angrily insist that X is true, but for some reason, the masses people stubbornly keep behaving as if not-X were true. I am sure my readers can think of several such phenomena immediately.
Actually, one of the most convincing features of sociobiology for me personally is that its opponents don't seem to be able to formulate insults that don't require or assume at least the core of sociobiology in order to work at all. For example, the curious fact that the word "wanker" is used as a derogatory term (even by people who otherwise claim that human sexuality is a positive thing), and as such it is used only for men, whereas the opposite term "whore" is used to insult only women.
Back in the day when I read the Old Testament (kind of slowly, purely for educational purposes), I was constantly reminded how in primitive times, when a conquering tribe had vanquished another tribe, its warriors typically killed the enemy men and took the women into their tribe as wives and concubines. In fact, I read that even roaming chimpanzee troops tend to behave like this. But where was the primitive tribe that behaved the opposite way so that they killed all the enemy women and let the men join their group? (Men, after all, would be useful as warriors in future wars in further conquests.) I have never heard of such tribe, and I kind of doubt that one has ever existed. It is quite astonishing that the primitive societies, independently of each other and separated by vast gulfs of time and space, all tossed the coin the same way or went "eenie meenie miny moe, men!" when deciding which sex to kill and which sex to keep. Or at home, choosing which sex should rule. The coin tosses were surprisingly uniform for me to doubt that the coins were "weighted" by some outside constraint.
In modern times, prospects who want to join street gangs have to prove their worth and motivation by taking a massive beating from the members of the gang. If the gang is lead by men, a female prospect is sometimes given a choice of having sex with all the men in the gang instead of taking the beating. Now, I am not any kind of expert of gangs and street culture, but I am willing to bet serious money that nowhere in the world there is nor has there ever been a gang that allows a male prospect to avoid the beating by having sex with all the female members of the gang.
Regularities like this that keep popping up in every place and every time make it hard to believe that all human behaviour is socially and culturally constructed, and could therefore be freely changed to whatever the progressive blank-slate avant-garde wants it to be. A sociobiology supporter, of course, has no difficulty whatsoever explaining the above phenomena. But what kind of explanation does the opponent of sociobiology have to offer, other than handwaving and conspiracy theories about the capitalist patriarchy?
As an end note, I heartily recommend reading the Bible for every fellow atheist. (I recall Mocsny once writing that he read it from cover to cover seven times during his youth as a fundamentalist Christian.) You can always read it as a historical adventure book the same way you would read The Silmarillion. Even though the contents, message and storytelling of the Bible are surprisingly banal and amateurish, nobody can be considered educated unless he has a certain level of knowledge about the biblical history and events. Besides, the merry ethnic cleansing tales depicted in Book of Joshua alone should give you all the ammunition that you'll ever need to counter the standard morality claims of religionists. And after that, Book of Job and Ecclesiastes are truly great and excellent books on their own, and I am stating this without any irony or sarcasm whatsoever. If only the rest of the Bible were of the same quality.
Very cool design! Useful information. Go on!
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