[lbo-talk] Caroline Fourest: In Praise of Consent

[Carrol Cox]

On 5/27/2011 11:13 PM, Miles Jackson wrote:
> c b wrote:
>>
>> CB:  In fact, that in humans which "simply exists" is their biological
>> or natural selves.  Biological sexual intercourse and conception
>> precede existence. Then the resultant new born babies are completely
>> natural beings. 
>
> This is wrong through and through.  The womb is an environment, and 
> what happens in this environment shapes the development of the embryo 
> and fetus.  Newborns are far from "completely natural"; they are a 
> product of the complex interaction of the intrauterine environment and 
> genetics.
>
> Miles

In addition, childbirth procedures as well as the handling of the infant 
in the first minutes, hours after birth, differ widely. By a day or two 
(at most) after birth the baby is enmeshed in an ensemble of social 
relations.

It is the uterine environment which causes the fingerprints on the left 
and right hands to differ. This is Lewontin's illustration of the point 
Miles makes. CB is parting from his _own_ Marxist tradition here.

Carrol