Posted on 03/01/2011 12:38:28 PM PST by Kaslin
No, what he described was genes.
Which made him, and to an extent all his followers (especially the stupid, stupid sociobiologists), ignorant of human nature.
Actually, he wrote about exactly that, how the strong would protect the weak in human society, quite the opposite of pure genetic natural selection where the weak would be killed off or allowed to die. He realized that what makes our societies strong is our cohesion, even our willingness to die for others even if it takes us out of the gene pool. That makes a stronger society than one made of selfish individuals.
It's quite possible. Of course I believe they've found a predisposition to religion too. I wonder if they're related.
Have you read Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents ?
You sound like a Straussian. They say, let people believe what they believe: happy people make a better world; and moreover, Judaeo-Christian morality is conducive to public felicity because of the personal values and choices it promotes, which tend to virtuous ends and happy outcomes.
Our current situation reminds us of John Adams admonition. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
BTW, I don't think you have to have a "predisposition to religion" in order to be a religious person. Though it doesn't hurt. I think temperament, predispositions and orientations function as suggestions --- even persistent suaggestions--- but not as commands.
“No, what he described was genes.”
Maybe, in a vague way, but that’s still giving him way too much credit. What’s next, saying he invented the concepts of dominance and recession, chromosomes, and DNA? Just because they fit (more or less) perfectly with what he said does not mean
“he wrote about exactly that, how the strong would protect the weak in human society, quite the opposite of pure genetic natural selection where the weak would be killed off or allowed to die.”
Could you tell me where he says this? Because it doesn’t sound familiar. Maybe there’s some dicta on it; I wouldn’t say out of hand that he never expounded such opinions. However, it did not join the main line of his theory, which treated men as no different than any other organism. Our lives were thought to be a constant war of each against all, and our population limited mainly by the supply of food, and partly by violence, disease, contraception, etc.
If he noticed the strong protected the weak (and who could miss it?), his answer didn’t merge into the main line of his teachings. I know this because the problem posed by altruism to evolutionary theory persists to this day, and no evolutionist has yet satisfactorily answered it. No odubt they would have moved on had Darwin settled it as you indicate.
“He realized that what makes our societies strong is our cohesion, even our willingness to die for others even if it takes us out of the gene pool. That makes a stronger society than one made of selfish individuals.”
Did Darwin address himself to the strength or weakness of human society? If he did, it wasn’t what he was famous for, which was namely explaining the differentiation of lifeforms by evolution via natural and sexual selection. That sort of thing happened on the individual, not the societal level, and what happened to entire collectives was merely a result of the struggle for individuals to live and reproduce. Darwin was not, so far as I know, a Social Darwinist (as we know the term), and he was not concerned with group hygene.
Again, if he addressed himself to such subjects, it formed no part of what he was famous for, and would have no more weight than, say, Einstein’s opinion on “Gone With the Wind.” Let’s say he talked about how great it is that humans are kind and magnanimous, and how much stronger, ultimately, that makes their societies. This would immediately hazard the question, “WHY, given what you’ve already said?” There would be no answer, because there is none.
It's like early atomic theory. They knew something was there to produce the behavior they saw, they just didn't know what it was.
Could you tell me where he says this? Because it doesn’t sound familiar.
Descent of Man, chapter 5,
"...if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil."He considered "sympathy" to be an evolved instinct.
... could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. ... we must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind."It's not in some orbiter dictum, it's in the main line of his theory describing how natural selection applies in humans. Due to our social nature, our "sympathy" making societies more cohesive and stronger (the whole greater than the sum of its parts), strict animal natural selection is secondary.
Again, if he addressed himself to such subjects, it formed no part of what he was famous for
The ignorance of the masses concerning the theory doesn't dictate the content of the theory.
Nope, never been much of a Freud fan. What's it about?
"... the irremediable antagonism between the demands of instinct and the restrictions of civilization ..." in the words of the editor of the Norton edition.
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