I'm sure we could all spin out our own sorry lists of inherent ("essential")
drives/qualities/innate characteristics quite contentedly and with immense
self-satisfaction since by recognizing these in others we are finding an
"objective" basis for our own prejudice and prejudices.I for example, find (found) the English to be unutterably smug and self-satisfied and deeply deeply tribal and zenophobic. The Americans are open and shallow, women are "the weaker sex"; humankind is inherently tribal, greedy, pleasure seeking, profit maximizing; black people are inherently..., Jewish blood is...., Muslims... blah, blah, blah... Pays your money and takes your choice (Spengler redux). The point of the whole shallow, sad and ultimately dangerous litany is to remove responsibility for making/remaking the (risky) future and the (out of control) present from those who could have an effect--ourselves, and place it somewhere else--in instincts, blood, bio-genetics, the stars... who knows what. Not a problem, I guess, until it hits home/becomes real (LePen in two weeks?), the camps... MG Keith Hudson wrote: ... All this shows that many opinion moulders who should know better don't have much idea about the essentially tribal nature of our species. This in-group out-group behaviour is one of our strongest genetic traits. We'll never lose it. If the present cultural differences subside, then we'll invent new ones. To try and prevent an onslaught of criticism from those one or two FWers who might misinterpret me on purpose, I am *not* saying that we should accept tribalism passively and put up with fierce racial riots in our northern towns or 20ft steel walls presently existing between Protestant and Catholics areas in Northern Ireland. All I am saying is that if our politicians were better educated in our evolutionary origins and anthropological history, then they could design legislation a great deal more intelligently than they do now. (Out of 600-odd MPS in our House of Commons, there are less than six with any sort of scientific degree, and not a single one as far as I'm aware with any sort of qualification in the biological sciences.) Keith Hudson __________________________________________________________ Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say. John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
