[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Glice

I really loathe !£"$%'s point about genetics and biology - not that I consider this a criticism of him, I just think it's very dangerous to be so prescriptive. I don't think it's that far-fetched to say that you can just as easily say men act like weightlifters 'because of testosterone' as you can say that some men are rapists for the same reason. The point being not that biology isn't a part of identity, but I don't think it forms a rationale, or defining epistemic.

no no, you missed the part where i said i wasn't being prescriptive, this is where scientificism is confused with science. my point is more subtle, maybe i didn't make that clear. i'm refuting the dangerous and naive notion that culture determines everything, but i'm not saying that biology dictates everything either.

scientificists (my term, i admit) are "naturalizers" in the sense that they misunderstand science as giving us ethical mandates, as an ersatz religion. "it's in your genes, go kill people"-- no. no no no. that is fucked and wrong. i loathe that as much too. same with people who say "you're a male, you have balls, you must go and fuck a woman and beget children". "you're a woman, nature commands that you raise children". fuck no. it's not a fucking legal mandate.

but there IS a lot of behavior that is bred over millions of years and there are instinctual urges and behaviors that are central to what we are. now remember, in evolution theory diversity and mutation play a very important role, it's not all squares and straight lines. evolution is based on bad copies. so there is a genetic drift that is always taking us to new places. and that is vital to our survival-- getting stuck means death.

now, like with domesticated animals, you can cut a bull's testes and make him pull a plow for the rest of his life. a lot of our berserker genes now watch or play sports and trade in the stock market. removing those berserker genes completely is impossible-- you can only domesticate them and hope for the best.

so, culture bends the original genetic impulse, does not completely transform.

if neuroscience is telling us anything these days it's that kant was partially right-- we're not a tabula rasa, we have a lot of our knowledge preprogrammed from birth.

so even as we alter our education and social policies to obtain the results we want (before genetic engineering takes over), we need to take into account the raw material-- the raw material wasn't cooked up by the elite, the empire, the dead white male, the man, the schools-- the raw material is this huuuuge miasma of genes that we share with our ape cousins. 99% of it we share with chimps in fact.