[lbo-talk] Emma v Ralph

Dennis Perrin dperrin at comcast.net
Tue Mar 23 09:13:10 PST 2004



> So, you think sex is brutal? ;- > Or you think Emma
> thought it was? That is not my impression of her view
> on the subject. But --watching your kids grow -- don't
> you think that morality is a rather late developmental
> stage? Of course so is an interest in sex. My
> impreesion of the little ones is that they tend to be
> cheerfully amoral, fairly selfish, and casually cruel.
> "Brutal" seems to to me to go too far. jks

My use of "brutal" was mostly rhetorical, but there are indeed brutal aspects to our make-up (esp in sex), no?

I don't know if kids are naturally amoral -- I think there's a lack of cynicsm and self-delusion that afflicts many adults. But, yes, very young kids must be shown how to deal with others, so in that sense "morality," or to be more exact, socialization, is imposed from without. But without there being a natural human tendency toward kindness, cooperation and love, these lessons wouldn't take. Instead of grafting on morality, aren't we merely helping the young to tap what's already there?

DP



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