I was replying to your last post on this thread when the goddamn thing just disappeared. You had said something about the need to use the scientific method , not just refer to scientific principles; and I replied were you saying that I was referring to scientific principles and not using a scientific method. Then you said something about the need to address pseudo-science first and I asked why not just enter into a good scientific approach first. Then at the end you referred to _The German Ideology_ and quoted a passage asking whether that was what I was referring to when I mentioned eating, drinking, sleeping etc. as part of the biological determination of human and the root of historical materialism. You had a passage close to the one below , but not the exact one. When I went to look for an old post where I had copied the passage I was referring to POOF everything went away. I even lost your original post and it's not in my trash. If you have a copy please send it. Meanwhile I'll copy the exact passage in _The German Ideology_ which explicitly mentions eating etc. Marx and Engels error ,though, because species not only have to have production but also reproduction. Whoever heard of a one generation species ? They premise historical materialism on one generation existence but not equally species perpetuation. History must take place in a "material substratum" which is multigenerational. So, in _The German Ideology_ when they discard the "original division of labor" that between men and women "in the sex act", they fall into idealist error, abstracting from the real social life activities of the individuals, the same error they are famous for pointing out in others (and mention at the just before the passage you quote).
On race, I had asked , I don't know whether you noticed from an earlier post. what is Murray's genetic test for race ? Does he have one ? I'll follow up. I have a line of questions to for the critique.
Here's the precise passage from _The German Ideology_(International 1981; page 48)
History:Fundamental Conditions
Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises, we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and , therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men (sic) must be in a position to live in order to be able to "make history". But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life..." (end quote).
I think the passage you quoted was from a few pages earlier.So by "rooted in" I mean a fundamental, the first fundamental condition of history .They state here a necessary but not all the sufficient fundamental material conditions for history. Reproduction is also a necessary material premise. They two paragraphs later make sex the third circumstance, but then , but then sort of lose it by making it as a "subordinate " fundamental. Nope. It's a fundamental fundamental all through history.
I have a longer discussion of this directly related to women's liberation which I will find and post.
Charles
>>> Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU> 02/10 10:42 AM >>>
"It is worth a moment's reflection as to what sort of genetic system would
be involved if it ever turned out that homosexuality is genetically
determined. We would have to accomodate, within the same system of
genotype/phenotype transformation, the Native American berdachs, the Celts,
and the ancient Greeks, as well as the homophobic society of today's US.
What sort of genetic basis could account for all of these patterns? If
homosexuality were genetically determined, it would take a very complex
genetic system indeed to be able to account for all these forms. On the
other hand, we can say that with a great deal of confidence, although
rather trivially, that if genes are involved, we all have the gay gene
(since several societies are or have been almost completely homosexaul in
the sense that virtually all of the males regularly engage in homosexual
activities, all male members of the society must carry those genes)."
John van der Meer, Reconstructing Biology. Wiley, 1996, p. 195