>Settle down, Sheldon.
Harrumph!
>Carrol isn't saying there's no biology in our nature,
...didn't think he was...
>just that it's not fixed by nature. Instead of having an "essence," we
>define ourselves historically according to our labor and our social (class)
>organization.
Well, see "having" and "defining ourselves as" are not on either side of the same scales, Ted.
What's fixed is our bodies and instincts. What's human is
>class consciousness. Of course, Carrol would never deny that human
>consciousness, as we experience it, is a sort of self-generated
>misunderstanding by which the brain imagines it's something other than
>either: a) a mass of blinking cellbodies and the proteins spewed from their
>quivering axonic cables; or b) the vanguard of the proletariat.
A self-generated misunderstanding. I like that. There's a lot of value in living out misunderstandings -- as with accidents in chemical labs, they're often the source of new material that couldn't have been arrived at through plodding, methodical logic.
>Of course, there's nothing else besides genes to define our brains and
>nothing other than brains to make societies, so it all comes down to
>good-old deoxyribonucleic acid in the end. Fortunately, the code that tells
>our bodies how to make themselves from thin air also instructs the alienated
>worker (due to her inability to define herself through her labor) to reclaim
>her lost birthright of self-expression and solidarity.
And I'm not arguing that biology is fate (that we are only the product of our biology). I'm arguing for considering the possibility that biology and history -- biology and choice, biology and consciousness -- carry on a sort of conversation within us.
>This is the basic idea. Our nature is open, and we define it socially
>according to the functioning of our brain and-- ultimately-- our genes. Of
>course, you might say this means it's really not open, since it merely plays
>out according to physical necessity working through our macromolecules and
>is therefore completely determined. But we go on merrily saying it's open
>anyway, because our genes tell us to be good communists and do our
>catechisms at least twice daily (though when we go past three, we have this
>ritual we like where we go apologize to Father Doug and promise never to say
>"Stalinist" when having sinful thoughts.)
Snrk! Lovely paragraph. It's my guess that we do come up with new material that nature never thought of, and that may be what makes us different from all the other critters -- uniquely human, you might say. Other animals have rudimentary language, other animals can learn to use tools, but none of them bother to (re)write themselves the way we feel compelled to do. And isn't it likely that the process of writing and rewriting our history (our relationships to each other) is what gives us the chance to define who we are? And doesn't this often require that we reject our biologically impelled urges? Such that for example forced sex, which among most animals is de rigueur (if it rarely succeeds, it's because females of other species are relatively strong, but it's not for lack of trying), is widely condemned among human beings?
>>Thankfully we're more complicated than chickens
>
>Have you ever carved a whole chicken? Those things are highly
>ideosyncratic. And that's without the head.
Heh heh. I've raised, killed and carved chickens, and I think their physical bodies are the most complicated things about them.
>>Well you have to admit we had no history before we were biological, don't
>>you. I figure there'll always be interplay between the two.
>
>Alas, not if it's all just matter and its forces. When history's a mere
>subset of biology, then it's really one thing "interacting" with itself,
>isn't it?
In a sense, and yet, in the alchemical lab that is the human brain I believe we're capable of coming up with definitions of humanity that go right over evolution's head -- that allow us to leapfrog over the shackles of biology. It's a quaint concept, perhaps, but it has its merits.
Might as well forget about that secondary "text" known as history
>and genetically engineer a collective paradise before those damn capitalist
>geneticists create a paradise of atomized consumers.
But of course that would be to deny ourselves any chance at freedom.
cheers, Joanna
www.overlookhouse.com