[lbo-talk] Chris Doss
>
> ^^^^
> CB: Kinship is central to culture. Chimps don't have
> kinship.
>
> ^^^^^
>
Seems pretty arbitrary to me. If a society of people, say, as some of the odder utopian socialists wanted to do, were to do away with family relations (taking children from their parents and rearing them with no knowledge of their parentage), they wouldn't have culture?
^^^^^^ CB; They'd probably still be relating to each other based on relations to dead ancestors. In this case, they probably got their socialist theory from dead ancestors. Their language would consist mostly of words and concepts invented by dead ancestors. Most of their technology would be rooted in ideas from dead generations.
Culture is heritage, custom
^^^^^
If human beings were a different intelligent species that was identical in all ways except that family bonds were meaningless to them, they wouldn't have culture? If the Giant Intelligent Jovian Gasbags reproduce impersonally through random drifting of genetic material through the atmosphere, like plants, they a priori don't have culture too?
^^^^^^ CB: They'd probably still be relating to each other based on relations to their dead ancestors. Most of their "intelligence" would be ideas and concepts they got from dead ancestors.
^^^^^
Anyway, chimps DO have relatives. A relative is someone that you are biologically related to.
^^^^ CB: Not a _kin_ relative. A kin relative is a cultural , not biological relation. The culture might define relations based on biological relations. Much of culture uses aspects of nature to build its structures.
^^^^^
I am related to my great-grandfather even though I don't know who the hell he was. A kitten is related to its mother. Whether chimps attach significance to blood relationships is another matter and an empirical question. Jerry?
^^^^^^
CB: You are culturally and biologically related to your great-grandfather. A kitten is only biologically related to its mother, because it doesn't have culture.