Jay Hanson wrote:
>
> From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> >If it is all in our genetic fate, why we bother doing anything?
> >We should go for rape and pillaging, that will make us
> >again blissfully sustainable? What's your point?
>
> I saw one estimate that behavior was 1/.3 genetic, 1/3 family, and 1/3
> culture. The point is that if we are ever going to solve these problems, we
> are going to have to stop making excuses and start dealing with people as
> they really are: animals.
Ah! Bue what *kind* of animals? Like our closest relatives, the
peaceable pygmy chimps who hold their society together
with liberal sexual gratification of just about everybody by
just about everybody else? Cuckoos who avoid having to parent
by depositing their eggs in other birds' nests and tricking
the other birds into raising them as their own? Over-sized
beavers whose dams drastically modify the natural ecosystem?
Horses, who, even though vegetarian, are alert and active?
Cows, who are eponymously "bovine"? Clear-sighted and
high flying eagles? Or blind burrowing moles? Or maybe that
animal we uniquely are: the being for which its being
can become a theme of disciplined and sustained mutative
inquiry over generations?
Shall we be weak animals like Darwin and Stephen Hawking,
or strong ones like Mike Tyson and OJ? Shall we protect the
week, or "expose" them (or maybe *eat* them?)?
Yes man is an animal (I have sores in my mouth, which surely
are an index of animality -- minerals don't get them, e.g.).
I do not find the man-is-an-animal
metaphor (self-conceptualizaton) very rich or enriching -- unless
we're perhaps talking about reorganizing social life and
genetic engineering so that everyone would have
a body in which they could always take delight.
Others may like comparing what they do on Wall Street
or on the tennis court to dog fights, dogs sniffing
each other's behinds, etc.
But, please, if you do, don't think I've
signed up to participate in *your* fantasy.
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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