[lbo-talk] Naturally organized sociality and symbolically organized sociality

[Voyou]

On Thu, 2008-06-05 at 17:14 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
> As sexual instinct is an instinct that shapes a _social_ relationship it
> is different than some other instincts. Since culture or symbolic
> systems or social structures or_social_ construction by symbol systems
> constitute socialities or social relations,  the social feature of
> biological sexuality impinges on that social structure in a way that
> other instincts like thirst or hunger do not.  Thirst and hunger relate
> body and object. Sex relates body and body, i.e. is social.

This was Rousseau's argument in "Essay on the Origin of Language," but
I'm not sure it's true. If I understand you right, you are arguing that
the sexual instinct is fundamentally social because the instinctive
sexual urge requires other human beings to satisfy it. But humans always
acquire the means to satisfy our hunger or thirst through social
production, that is, hunger and thirst require others for their
satisfaction too; so wouldn't these instincts be just as social?

I think Marx makes this point somewhere in the 1844 Manuscripts, but I
can't find the exact reference right now.