Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 19:17:39 -0800
From: Jonathan Kratter <jonathan-AT-kratter.com>
Subject: re: baby food


I never said I was a Social Darwinist, I said I believed in the survival of
the fittest as it occurs in nature; the two are not the same, because
Social Darwinism assumes that there is a genetic basis to capitalist
success and that survival in the marketplace is the same as survival in
nature, two tenets which I DO NOT believe.

Humans do band together for mutual aid - that's what tribes are.  However,
if a tribe is starving and dying because its lifestyle has destroyed all
possible food sources, and you go and help it, you're probably going to
starve right along with it, because you're going to be encouraging a
lifestyle which is not successful...

Your comments that "neither evolution nor nature in general are moving 
towards a goal--they're simply playing out the interaction of natural laws.  
Human beings have intentionality, and it's my intention to work towards a 
happy anarchistic little society where mutual aid is the accepted ethos"
are the root of so many of the problems humans have with their environment,
because they think they're somehow superior or better than it, that they
have some higher goal, that nature by itself is random, or any other such
anthropocentric attitudes.  Again, I ask you, looking at the entire planet
AND at humans, was everything better of or worse of before "human
intentionality" came along?  

 -- jonathan

At 02:46 PM 2/2/99 EST, Brian J. Callahan wrote:
>Jonathan writes:
>>Then you're not really an anarchist, now are you, because you're seeking to
>>impose rules upon others. Survival of the fittest kept our planet running
>>just fine for 4 billion years until a few humans thought they could do a
>>better job back around the start of the agricultural revolution.  Compare
>>the state of the planet then with the state of the planet now, and tell me
>>which system is more effective: survival of the fittest, or the
>>conflicting, unclear, ephemeral "moral" value systems that we feel must be
>>imposed on everyone around us.
>
>No, I think I am in a long tradition of anarchist when I say I would impose 
>the rule of non-oppression on others.  We hafta take down the whole
machinery 
>of state and capital--eliminating only my own boss is futile.  I do so not
in 
>the interests of others, necessarily, but in my own long-term self-interest, 
>i.e. oppressors always seek to expand there oppression.  The whole idea of 
>anarchism is that the mass of humanity band together to eliminate our mutual 
>oppression.        
>
>As for this survival of the fittest mentality that you display--I am
puzzled. 
>Social Darwinism is generally the province of the extreme right.  Less able 
>beings are "weeded out".  That ain't anarchism as I understand it.  Check
out 
>"Mutual Aid" by Peter Kropotkin for a thorough critique of Social Darwinism.
>In short, humans naturally tend to band together for mutual aid, and if we 
>encourage that tendency (rather than some feeling that a starving person or 
>community represent evolution in action) we have hope of building a btter 
>society.
>
>As for which is more "effective", the question is, effective at what?  I 
>would say we want to try to create a society where people are happy.  Would 
>it be effective, then, to let children be beaten?  Not with that goal in 
>mind.  Don't forget, neither evolution nor nature in general are moving 
>towards a goal--they're simply playing out the interaction of natural laws.  
>Human beings have intentionality, and it's my intention to work towards a 
>happy anarchistic little society where mutual aid is the accepted ethos.
>
>
>As for
>
>





--!-- jonathan --!--
jonathan-AT-kratter.com
http://www.kratter.com
B Lives!