 The Purity of Essence (alright so Im rippin off Bathory)
This is to address the illogical, misunderstood, totally false claim that morality and instinct contradict each other.
First of all, lets not confuse instinct with impulse. Instinct is a biologically created unconcious drive that forwards the life of our species. Later I will discuss how this evolved to be concerned not with the species but with the tribe. Impulse, however, is just a reflex we get that has nothign to do with the betterment of our kind. Wanting to kill someone who displeases you is not instinct, it is impulse, for example.
So, I figured the best way to break this down would be by topic after misunderstood topic:
Tribalism: Because we left the trees and were built to eat fruit, roots, bugs, eggs, and meat, we couldnt compete with the real herbivores of the day. They outbred us, outran us, and covered far more ground then we could hope to control. So we couldnt just eat green shit.
We also couldnt depend on hunting and killing things like the large dominant predators. First of all, we are small, frail, and ill equipped to run from or fend off attacks of predators. Also, they are far superior if we lacked any organization or cooperation and would eat all our food befoer us.
So, we evolved as group hunters. Like other packs of carnivores, we evolved to be territorial. Rival tribes or clans competed with us for hunting rights. That subjugated the instinct to better our species as a whole, and concentrated that instinct on our own tribe.
Society: Obviously, to hunt successfully as a group, wed have to cooperate. It is our instinct to do so with our own people. Cooperation does not mean slavery, and it does not mean to each his own. Everyone is programmed with very basic drives that oblige them to fill some natural role.
Marriage/ Family: Hunters who go home to a competitive alpha male society dont cooperate. Pair bonding reduced tension between hunters in a pack, because basically every hunter figured he was coming home to some.
Humans evolved Very sexually. The existence of the hymen, unique to us, the female orgasm, the proximity of odor centers to your mate's face in intercourse, all these point to a superdeveloped sex life. We can debate and theorize as to why this is, but it is improbable it was so we could have fun. An exciting and emotional sexuality keeps people together.
The offspring of humans enjoy a childhood relatively much longer than other mammals. This makes cultural learning very important, and very beneficial. A mother to nurture, raise, and educate children (and provide models for the females) and a father who protects, defends, provides for, and nurtures his children (and provides models for his sons) makes for more children more suited for nature's toils.
Warfare: It is obvious that war is in our blood. This is because of the territorial behavior inherent in all carnivorous social animals.
Also, the need to hunt is a seperate drive than the need to eat. Like other carnivores, killing and eating are sometimes far apart. Food has to be brought somewhere to be eaten safely and shared with the clan. Also like in other carnivores, humans developed a love for killing seperate from their need to eat. The fullest cats will still kill mice and birds, with no intention of eating them. We have a programmed desire to hunt and kill.
Because we no longer hunt for food, or even call on those instincts in todays society, and partly because we are made to feel guilty for them, we repress it and it manifests itself in other ways. This is my theory, but it makes sense. The establishment of agriculture led to the quieting of mans hunter instinct, but not for long. Almost immediately after, bands similar to hunting parties, all male, hierarchal, ritualistic killing parties sprang up. Armies were born.
Instinct and morality are one. There is nothing that makes a people strong that is immoral. There is nothign moral about making a people weak.
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2001-08-29, 00:58
