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You could approach the problem from the opposite direction. How do you define human nature, and what evidence do you put in favor of that definition and your as

You could approach the problem from the opposite direction. How do you define human nature, and what evidence do you put in favor of that definition and your assertions about it?

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
There's the entire history of ethology. It's sad that Foucault laughs at it, because it's essentially an argument by authority (his own) and not based on anything with scientific substance. Of course if you pretend that "Science is always a power play" you can say whatever you want, because you've elevated your opinion to a position above criticism. Oddly enough, this is a common ploy used by cult leaders. My disdain for the pomo and Crit Theory people has no limits - because while academics have persuaded themselves that Foucault etc are geniuses who offered the humanities profound insights into culture and power etc, they've also been completely marginalised and screwed over by neo-capitalism, and have offered no useful resistance to it. Somehow I can't help wondering if the two are related - because the whole nub of Critical Theory is the utterly mistaken assumption that deconstruction and tentative subjectivity have political power, when in fact they're the opposite of political power, and offer neither a useful insight into how power really works, nor any effective strategy for resisting its excesses.
- RodericDay 12y ago
  I'm sorry that you ineptly pin the blame on the victim re: neo-capitalism. What you call "the history of ethology" hopefully comprises the blunders that at different points in history "the scientific establishment" made regarding the "nature" of a) black men, b) women, c) gay people, d) irish people, e) jewish people, f)... you get the idea. These observations of "animal behavior" are both extremely unsophisticated, always failing to control for critical variables, and very tied up to what the society of the day wants the conclusions to be. Even today, ignorant people go around talking about how "human nature is selfish". I think Foucualt's contributions were pretty great re: this precise discussion we're having over here. Certainly more important than the vast majority of ethological work out there. If you want to challenge me on this, just answer my question: What is human nature, and what do you claim to know about it in 2015?
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    Do you think human nature might consistently include an interest in power, and a not-entirely-unrelated interest in sex? Are you going to try to explain the remarkable consistency of these interests across all political systems and historical periods as a purely political phenomenon? If so, why are there clearly analogous interests in many primates and other animals? I say you're wrong - and challenge you to provide solid observational evidence to prove conclusively that social and political traditions generate these interests.
    - RodericDay 11y ago
      > Do you think human nature might consistently include an interest in power, and a not-entirely-unrelated interest in sex? No, I do not think so. There are vast, vast numbers of people who opt to teach and nurse instead of gunning for leadership, who opt to do salaried engineering instead of management, and I don't see why the latter in each case have a better claim on our "nature" as a species. What do you mean by "interest in sex"? Human nature seems to also have an "interest in food", that in places like america is exacerbated into an obesity epidemic, but doesn't seem to say anything super meaningful about our relationship to eating. Isaac Newton died a virgin, I guess he wasn't human? Gay men have no interest in reproduction... is their humanity in question? You should read stuff like UBC's "WEIRD" study, or how women were believed to have bigger sexual appetite than men at various places in time, before going off about observations "across all political systems and historical periods". You seem to be obliquely pushing some notion that we are more dominant than cooperative, which is pretty ignorant in a thread about Foucault and Chomsky.
      - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
        > Human nature seems to also have an "interest in food" Indeed. And sex. And status in herd hierarchies. That was my point. But it doesn't stop there. I'd also include symbolic abstraction, myth-making and narrative logic (as an efficient but flawed heuristic for passing on knowledge), persistent shared memory, embodied metaphors as per Lakoff - and so on. It seems to me - and maybe to a lot of the Internet - that humans spend a lot of time and energy on these things. Other species spend a lot of time on some of them, but not all of them. There may be a reason for the difference. So I have issues with the suggestion that they're always evidence of pathological socialisation - or that writing impenetrable books and laughing at and condescending to anyone who disagrees with their content is likely to make that socialisation any less pathological, where it does exist.
- AnimalMuppet 12y ago
  > It's sad that Foucault laughs at it, because it's essentially an argument by authority (his own) and not based on anything with scientific substance. > Of course if you pretend that "Science is always a power play" you can say whatever you want, because you've elevated your opinion to a position above criticism. Or at least to a position where science is not a valid source of criticism. If I understand correctly, poststructuralists say that all truth claims are about power, and only that, because objective truth cannot ever be determined. That leaves them free to make ever-more-blatant power plays in their own claims.
- msutherl 12y ago
  This is becoming a widely held belief within the humanities via Accelerationism[1]. If anybody's interested, I know folks in the Bay Area organizing events around these ideas. [1] http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/ http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manif...

You could approach the problem from the opposite direction. How do you define human nature, and what evidence do you put in favor of that definition and your assertions about it?

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago

There's the entire history of ethology. It's sad that Foucault laughs at it, because it's essentially an argument by authority (his own) and not based on anything with scientific substance. Of course if you pretend that "Science is always a power play" you can say whatever you want, because you've elevated your opinion to a position above criticism. Oddly enough, this is a common ploy used by cult leaders. My disdain for the pomo and Crit Theory people has no limits - because while academics have persuaded themselves that Foucault etc are geniuses who offered the humanities profound insights into culture and power etc, they've also been completely marginalised and screwed over by neo-capitalism, and have offered no useful resistance to it. Somehow I can't help wondering if the two are related - because the whole nub of Critical Theory is the utterly mistaken assumption that deconstruction and tentative subjectivity have political power, when in fact they're the opposite of political power, and offer neither a useful insight into how power really works, nor any effective strategy for resisting its excesses.

RodericDay 12y ago
I'm sorry that you ineptly pin the blame on the victim re: neo-capitalism. What you call "the history of ethology" hopefully comprises the blunders that at different points in history "the scientific establishment" made regarding the "nature" of a) black men, b) women, c) gay people, d) irish people, e) jewish people, f)... you get the idea. These observations of "animal behavior" are both extremely unsophisticated, always failing to control for critical variables, and very tied up to what the society of the day wants the conclusions to be. Even today, ignorant people go around talking about how "human nature is selfish". I think Foucualt's contributions were pretty great re: this precise discussion we're having over here. Certainly more important than the vast majority of ethological work out there. If you want to challenge me on this, just answer my question: What is human nature, and what do you claim to know about it in 2015?
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Do you think human nature might consistently include an interest in power, and a not-entirely-unrelated interest in sex? Are you going to try to explain the remarkable consistency of these interests across all political systems and historical periods as a purely political phenomenon? If so, why are there clearly analogous interests in many primates and other animals? I say you're wrong - and challenge you to provide solid observational evidence to prove conclusively that social and political traditions generate these interests.
  - RodericDay 11y ago
    > Do you think human nature might consistently include an interest in power, and a not-entirely-unrelated interest in sex? No, I do not think so. There are vast, vast numbers of people who opt to teach and nurse instead of gunning for leadership, who opt to do salaried engineering instead of management, and I don't see why the latter in each case have a better claim on our "nature" as a species. What do you mean by "interest in sex"? Human nature seems to also have an "interest in food", that in places like america is exacerbated into an obesity epidemic, but doesn't seem to say anything super meaningful about our relationship to eating. Isaac Newton died a virgin, I guess he wasn't human? Gay men have no interest in reproduction... is their humanity in question? You should read stuff like UBC's "WEIRD" study, or how women were believed to have bigger sexual appetite than men at various places in time, before going off about observations "across all political systems and historical periods". You seem to be obliquely pushing some notion that we are more dominant than cooperative, which is pretty ignorant in a thread about Foucault and Chomsky.
    - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      > Human nature seems to also have an "interest in food" Indeed. And sex. And status in herd hierarchies. That was my point. But it doesn't stop there. I'd also include symbolic abstraction, myth-making and narrative logic (as an efficient but flawed heuristic for passing on knowledge), persistent shared memory, embodied metaphors as per Lakoff - and so on. It seems to me - and maybe to a lot of the Internet - that humans spend a lot of time and energy on these things. Other species spend a lot of time on some of them, but not all of them. There may be a reason for the difference. So I have issues with the suggestion that they're always evidence of pathological socialisation - or that writing impenetrable books and laughing at and condescending to anyone who disagrees with their content is likely to make that socialisation any less pathological, where it does exist.
AnimalMuppet 12y ago
> It's sad that Foucault laughs at it, because it's essentially an argument by authority (his own) and not based on anything with scientific substance. > Of course if you pretend that "Science is always a power play" you can say whatever you want, because you've elevated your opinion to a position above criticism. Or at least to a position where science is not a valid source of criticism. If I understand correctly, poststructuralists say that all truth claims are about power, and only that, because objective truth cannot ever be determined. That leaves them free to make ever-more-blatant power plays in their own claims.
msutherl 12y ago
This is becoming a widely held belief within the humanities via Accelerationism[1]. If anybody's interested, I know folks in the Bay Area organizing events around these ideas. [1] http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/ http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manif...