Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 17:22:07 -0400
From: "Matt D." <afn02065-AT-afn.org>
Subject: Re: Chicken or Egg -Reply -Reply


>Lisa:  If quant ---> qual is enough to satisfy you, then we won't
>have much more to talk about on this thread.  This general assertion
>and various examples have been tried on me before, but what I might
>find more convincing is a view of how exactly that works inside of a
>society, just a small foraging one to begin with.

To be clear, you would _deny_ that the transformation of
quantity into quality is a useful, even necessary, way of
analysing historical development and natural processes?
There's some good Engels we could chew on here if you
want to discuss that.  Or we can pass on it.  Whatever.

>I believe that some methods of understanding some things are
>applicable to all lifeforms, because they all have certain things in
>common.

Uh-huh.  And?

>This is not to deny historical factors.

And yet isn't the essence of your project, as you have been
presenting it in previous posts, to "deny historical factors" any
determinative power other than those they might exercise under
the guise of _ecological_ factors?  Isn't your the basis of your
project the explanation of human history by means of "the
modern synthesis" in biology?

>This is to try to
>make some sense of the ways that people both create and respond to
>all kinds of factors.  Don't you think that living things have or
>pursue any self-interest?  Competition, and sociality [as I
>understand it], is not limited to capitalist societies, or human
>societies.

Right.  So?

>And am I not dealing with material reality?  'Culture uber alles'
>sounds like putting the superstructure in control.

Well, you might be familiar w/ the distinction some draw between
"vulgar" or "mechanical" materialism and historical materialism.
"Culture" can be a material force.

>Lisa: 'Sociality' just IS ?  Maybe that's enough for you, but I want
>to get inside it, rather than take it as a 'given'.

Chicken, egg.  Egg, chicken.  What do you think you're
"getting inside of"?  There's no there, there!

>I'm applying a proper biological EE approach to human behavior, 
>and it's not easy.

Well, consider this a cyber pat-on-the-back.

>If you're not interested in the origin and evolution of
>_Homo sapiens_, or you don't think it's at all relevant to anything
>people do today, then we can just disagree.  

If I don't agree with you, don't talk to you?  Has this really become
your new mantra?

-- Matt "As for me, I'm anti-social" D.



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