Durant wrote:
>
> I cannot see where the genetic evolution can be paralleled with
> the development of human social behaviour.
[snip]
Human behavior is in large measure a result of
social conditioning. We do not know the limits of the
"plasticity" of human life, although the studies
of "hospitalism" ("failure to thrive") of infants
sets one "lower limit".
At the *positive* end of the
scale, where we seek to determine what persons
might *hopefully* become, persons such as
Lloyd deMaus(sp?), in _The History of Childhood_, and
Frederick Leboyer, in _Birth Without Violence_ (Also,
Alice Miller, in _The Drama of the Gifted Child_,
_For Your Own Good_, _Thou Shalt Not be Aware_), show
substantive evidence that what we take to be normal and
even optimal in human development may be a universal
distortion and restriction of what we could be, due
to traditional childrearing practices.
These persons (and others) suggest the possibility of a
hmuanity which is both cooperative and also immune to
the traditional dynamic of power and domination
(see, e.g., Elias Canetti's _Crowds and Power_).
Neither leaders nor followers, but cooperative
co-creators of a more truly human(e) world....
\brad mccormick
