Date: Wed, 01 Apr 1998 09:58:25 +0000
From: Mark Jones <Jones_M-AT-netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BIOLOGY (was Re: M-TH: Re: Porn)


I re-entered this debate (briefly) because I'd clarified my
thoughtts about porn, so it served a purpose. I'm happt yo
continue with you, Yoshie, on the basis of rational discourse and
not feminist obscurantism and hectoring.

Yoshie wrote:

> Lots of people go fight in imperialist wars as cannon fodders for the
> ruling class.
> Does that activity have a biological basis? Is it a marxist thing to do to
> explain it biologically?
>
  And I'm happy to discuss the dialectics between biology (genes,
instincts) and social forms of behaviour (which, despite James's
views, apply to other species as well as ours).

If you want to have a discussion about epistemology, and the
*social* basis of *science*, that might also be a proper starting
point. What in my opinion you cannot do is simply ignore the
biological basis of behaviour and species-life on the grounds that
science is patriarchal, etc; or that science is 'social relations'
etc. Not with me as a discussant, you can't. Find someone else.

Are you telling me that male aggressions, group psychology,
leader-following etc, gestalt etc, has no basis in biology,
instinct, genes? You're as wrong as could be.

Does rape have a biological basis? And is this a French ormolu
clock I'm looking at, which tells me to stop kidding myself?

> I don't think sociobiology is really a science, in fact.
>

  True, but neither can biology be reduced to sociobiology, as you
keep doing. This is like epistemological mud-wrestling.

> Can't you make a distinction between sex acts that lead to
> reproduction--and not all sexual activities between a man and a woman lead
> to that--heterosexuality as institution, naturalized norm that abnormalizes
> other preferences, heterosexuality as idealized + naturalized + socially
> enforced identity-fetish, etc.?
>
How do you (on what basis do YOU) define an act as a sex act if it
is not related to reproduction? You only permit yourself to do
this by first arguing that ALL sexual behaviour including straight
fucking, is culturally-determinate, but that, my dear, is merely
logical circularity.

> One doesn't have to be heterosexual to reproduce. Ancient Greeks seems to
> have reproduced themselves without thinking that homosex negates their
> masculinity, etc., as many straight guys think now. Their practices can't
> be called heterosexual with the meanings we attribute to the word now.
>
True; and irelevant. Or again circular. You can't assume what you
are trying to prove.

> Regarding BIOLOGY, to reproduce (even without a help of modern medicine),
> the only thing one has to do is to insert semen in a vagina, during the
> period when one is fertile. You don't even have to do anything sexual to
> reproduce. This is a BIOLOGICAL fact of life.
>
  Inserting semen into a vagina is indeed the biological fact of
life; and all of our evolution is dictated to ensure that we run
around days and nights trying to do that to each other whether we
conscious want to or not.

Those who merely philosophised, were selected out and became
extinct, which sometimes seems almost painfully self-evident.

Gimme a real argument, or take your ball to another part of the
park.

Mark



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