>>> dhenwood at panix.com 12/15/00 01:38PM >>>
Dennis Perrin/Nancy Bauer wrote:
>They'll never know the dignity of inspired labor, of a physical job
>well-done, of the sweet soreness one feels the day after some heavy lifting,
>hammering, digging.
That, like Chuck's
>The soul needs labor. The deep, hard, sweating, and crushing kind
>of labor that connects every fiber and bone of the body to the
>earth...
sounds like a load of organicist claptrap to me. And also extremely masculinist - I don't see any evocation of the beauties of cooking and cleaning and caregiving, just the manly pursuit of grunting toil.
(((((((((((((((
CB: Homo sapiens sapiens' significant hardwiring ( speciation) occurred when the mode of production was foraging, in which running was probably one important activity. Our bodies probably have an affinity for more running than most people do in today's work. The evidence from the 1970's of the health benefits of running for homo sapiens today as exercise fit this idea. So , sports with running may be a natch for people. This is bipedal activity more than use of the hands or manual labor
Childrearing may be a natch too, as long childhood is a distinguishing characteristic of humans.
Cooking: the raw and the cooked ( See Levi-Strauss, book by the same name) . Can't think of any other species that cook their food . Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to people.
There is some human natch, however, contra-anti-essentialism.