Violence and the Neanderthals

Projecting our morality back onto nature is to anthropomorphize it. How does that lead to understanding (of morality or nature)? Modern violence and cruelty is less a matter of "unleashed Ids" than psychological/emotional repression fueling (class, ethnic, racial, national) resentment (or hatred) of the "other" (or out-group).
 
Projecting our morality back onto nature is to anthropomorphize it. How does that lead to understanding (of morality or nature)?

This is a valid point. I agree that putting moral labels on the animal itself, for it's behaviour is unreasonable.

It is a different thing though to speak of chimp-like behaviour from an evolutionary point of view within the context and as a reference point for human behaviour, since we share 96% of our DNA with them. This is not so different from chimps being used in experiments.


Modern violence and cruelty is less a matter of "unleashed Ids" than psychological/emotional repression fueling (class, ethnic, racial, national) resentment (or hatred) of the "other" (or out-group).

I don't see human violence in this Freudian framework, be it mythical "Ids" or repression or whatever. Just my opinion, but Sigmund Freud deserves a posthumous medal of dishonour for doing more damage to mix up the modern mind in the last 100 or so years than any other modern "intellectual". The ironic thing with all this psychological theorizing, some of it ridiculous creations of imagination, is that it has it's own built-in bias, not to mention hubris.

Analysis of behaviour is best kept free of fanciful ideas. In this vein, when I use words like "nasty" in a casual conversation about chimps, it is simply only a descriptive based on my personal level of distaste, not a moral injunction on the chimp himself, :LOL: or anything like that.
 
Laying psycho-analytic ideas like repression onto basic in-group vs out-group territorial protection and aggression really does no service to better understanding human violence. This is animal behaviour, as basic as it comes.

"Biomedical studies of aggression and its genetic basis are most often focused on pathology, yet aggressive behaviors and related agonistic displays are essential, adaptive components of social behavior that enable animals to secure and defend food, mates, and territories. For many species, aggression is also required to protect offspring from would-be predators. Thus, given that effective aggression is often essential for gene propagation, we can expect that it will be under strong selection to meet species-typical and population-specific demands. Further, for any given species, aggression will be adaptive in some contexts but not others, and it may therefore be the case that the neural and neurogenomic mechanisms of aggression vary in relation to the functional goals of the behavior."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/territorial-aggression


There is no mystical cause of hatred because of our shadow or some such (that would be Jung, not Freud, but nonetheless...). This kind of thinking is just fooling ourselves. It's no wonder that talking it out how your father was mean therapy, re-education programs and public advertising campaigns to be more welcoming or any other type of attempting to "fix the problem" doesn't work.
 
This is a valid point. I agree that putting moral labels on the animal itself, for it's behaviour is unreasonable.

It is a different thing though to speak of chimp-like behaviour from an evolutionary point of view within the context and as a reference point for human behaviour, since we share 96% of our DNA with them. This is not so different from chimps being used in experiments.




I don't see human violence in this Freudian framework, be it mythical "Ids" or repression or whatever. Just my opinion, but Sigmund Freud deserves a posthumous medal of dishonour for doing more damage to mix up the modern mind in the last 100 or so years than any other modern "intellectual". The ironic thing with all this psychological theorizing, some of it ridiculous creations of imagination, is that it has it's own built-in bias, not to mention hubris.

Analysis of behaviour is best kept free of fanciful ideas. In this vein, when I use words like "nasty" in a casual conversation about chimps, it is simply only a descriptive based on my personal level of distaste, not a moral injunction on the chimp himself, :LOL: or anything like that.

So, you believe simple repression is the solution? My point was more about resentment (resentiment, in Nietzsche).

Territorialism can, of course, come into play, but it does not explain irrational racial/ethnic hatreds.
 
So, you believe simple repression is the solution? My point was more about resentment (resentiment, in Nietzsche).

How do you come to this? Please read my post more carefully. No. I said the opposite. It has nothing to do with so-called psychological repression.

Territorialism can, of course, come into play, but it does not explain irrational racial/ethnic hatreds.

Territorialism, competition, survival, advancement, all of these and many allied instincts explains it well enough. Psycho babble and twisted philosophical ruminations have no business in this area, in my opinion. I have as much use for Nietzsche as I do for Freud.
 
How do you come to this? Please read my post more carefully. No. I said the opposite. It has nothing to do with so-called psychological repression.



Territorialism, competition, survival, advancement, all of these and many allied instincts explains it well enough. Psycho babble and twisted philosophical ruminations have no business in this area, in my opinion. I have as much use for Nietzsche as I do for Freud.

Then what is your solution to "chimp-like" behavior? A Skinner box?
 
Then what is your solution to "chimp-like" behavior? A Skinner box?

Well, you are putting me on the spot about having a solution. I don't profess to have one as per the issue of chimp-like social violence by humans. I don't think there can be much more done aside from taking pre-emptory wise measures based on studies* - so I guess you could say this is my position on the subject. If by solution you mean something like eradicate the impetus for the behaviour, than I would say this is impossible. Moreover, I would not be in favour of this, as violence has it's benefits as per survival.

To answer your question, anyhow. No. The Skinner box is mostly useless for this. It isolates the animal (hence the box) to study behaviour such as operant conditioning without outside influence.

Violence of the sort we have been talking about is group social behaviour. If we want to understand this better, studying other species with group social behaviour is the way to go.

Just to give an example:

http://scitechconnect.elsevier.com/animals-live-groups/

"Many of our encounters with animals in the wild involve groups. Familiar examples of groups include schools of herring in the ocean, murders of crows in the city and herds of wildebeests in the African savannah. Why animals live in groups has been a hotly debated topic for animal behaviour students for many years. Indeed, living in groups must have provided advantages to individuals during evolution to compensate for obvious disadvantages such as having to share resources with others. The devil is in understanding how a balance is struck for each species between the costs and the benefits of living in groups."


* example: Many sociological studies (not to mention just basic observation) have shown that too many people crowded into one space can be a tinder box. This has ramifications in many areas, such as large events, urban planning, etc. Controlling large demonstrations of any sort would be a smart place to begin. By it's very nature a demonstration invites mob mentality.
 
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Well, you are putting me on the spot about having a solution. I don't profess to have one as per the issue of chimp-like social violence by humans. I don't think there can be much more done aside from taking pre-emptory wise measures based on studies* - so I guess you could say this is my position on the subject. If by solution you mean something like eradicate the impetus for the behaviour, than I would say this is impossible. Moreover, I would not be in favour of this, as violence has it's benefits as per survival.

To answer your question, anyhow. No. The Skinner box is mostly useless for this. It isolates the animal (hence the box) to study behaviour such as operant conditioning without outside influence.

Violence of the sort we have been talking about is group social behaviour. If we want to understand this better, studying other species with group social behaviour is the way to go.

Just to give an example:

http://scitechconnect.elsevier.com/animals-live-groups/

"Many of our encounters with animals in the wild involve groups. Familiar examples of groups include schools of herring in the ocean, murders of crows in the city and herds of wildebeests in the African savannah. Why animals live in groups has been a hotly debated topic for animal behaviour students for many years. Indeed, living in groups must have provided advantages to individuals during evolution to compensate for obvious disadvantages such as having to share resources with others. The devil is in understanding how a balance is struck for each species between the costs and the benefits of living in groups."


* example: Many sociological studies (not to mention just basic observation) have shown that too many people crowded into one space can be a tinder box. This has ramifications in many areas, such as large events, urban planning, etc. Controlling large demonstrations of any sort would be a smart place to begin. By it's very nature a demonstration invites mob mentality.

Except we're not simply animals. Yes, the "inner chimp", if you will, or Id, has never gone away, but is, for us, largely, but not completely, restrained and constrained within a psychological/sociological overlay, what might be called the "outer human". The Id/Ego/Super-Ego model is a perfectly valid one (for Nietzsche vs. Freud, just substitute "Will to Power" for "Libido" as the motive power), as long as one remembers that the map is not the territory and that "categories" are not things. To me, it is as much a sociological as a psychological model. Where simple prohibitions (repressions) are futile, sublimations, redirecting natural impulses toward socially beneficial ends, are general: church, sport, art, music, et al. Laws, codes of behavior, rules of decorum, honor systems, etc., less "fence us in" than try to keep us in the right lane, on the high road, and off the grass (and, hopefully, out of each other's business).
 
Except we're not simply animals. Yes, the "inner chimp", if you will, or Id, has never gone away, but is, for us, largely, but not completely, restrained and constrained within a psychological/sociological overlay, what might be called the "outer human". The Id/Ego/Super-Ego model is a perfectly valid one (for Nietzsche vs. Freud, just substitute "Will to Power" for "Libido" as the motive power), as long as one remembers that the map is not the territory and that "categories" are not things. To me, it is as much a sociological as a psychological model. Where simple prohibitions (repressions) are futile, sublimations, redirecting natural impulses toward socially beneficial ends, are general: church, sport, art, music, et al. Laws, codes of behavior, rules of decorum, honor systems, etc., less "fence us in" than try to keep us in the right lane, on the high road, and off the grass (and, hopefully, out of each other's business).

That's very much my view. I see no evidence, as I said, of any actual "change" in these matters, no "evolution" away from it as Teilhard de Chardin posited.

So, only repression and redirection work.

The function of law in our society is to promote the general good but at the same time to protect the rights of the weak and innocent as well as the minority.

Of course, culture and ideology shape law. When only the elites made laws, they conflated "their" good with the "general" good, so killing a hare on an aristocrat's land could result in long prison stays or even deportation.

In Nazi Germany laws were changed so as to permit the euthanasia of anyone considered "defective". Young girls of suitable "ancestry" where put at the disposal of the SS and other high ranking elites to create a "master race" (the Lebensborn program). I could go on and on.

Today, China has and continues to craft whole reams of law prohibiting watching tv, and on and on. It's whole history since the Communist takeover has been about "re-education" camps.

The "chimp within" profanes and corrupts even the law in order to assert dominance and control. Of course, that's coming from someone raised and trained within the framework of Christian humanism, where every life is precious. Looking at what's coming out of our universities, that may someday be outlawed even here.
 
That's very much my view. I see no evidence, as I said, of any actual "change" in these matters, no "evolution" away from it as Teilhard de Chardin posited.

So, only repression and redirection work.

The function of law in our society is to promote the general good but at the same time to protect the rights of the weak and innocent as well as the minority.

Of course, culture and ideology shape law. When only the elites made laws, they conflated "their" good with the "general" good, so killing a hare on an aristocrat's land could result in long prison stays or even deportation.

In Nazi Germany laws were changed so as to permit the euthanasia of anyone considered "defective". Young girls of suitable "ancestry" where put at the disposal of the SS and other high ranking elites to create a "master race" (the Lebensborn program). I could go on and on.

Today, China has and continues to craft whole reams of law prohibiting watching tv, and on and on. It's whole history since the Communist takeover has been about "re-education" camps.

The "chimp within" profanes and corrupts even the law in order to assert dominance and control. Of course, that's coming from someone raised and trained within the framework of Christian humanism, where every life is precious. Looking at what's coming out of our universities, that may someday be outlawed even here.

PCarthago delenda est
 
It is a bit convenient to simply blame it all on the inner chimp. After all, all he wants is an endless supply of bananas...
 
I see no evidence, as I said, of any actual "change" in these matters, no "evolution" away from it as Teilhard de Chardin posited.

My view is that there will be no change in such matters as long as men are mortal. The original sin, the Id, whatever you call it, is rooted in the consciousness we have of our own frailty. Philosophy will give you everything and its opposite, from complete determinism (Mektub / Fatum) to total freedom of choice (existentialism). The only one absolute certainty every man, educated or not, carries inside him is this : he will die.

And Life (capital L), whether you see it as god-given or a mere biochemical random event, simply refuses to accept the notion of its own end. It is the safeguard Life has ingrained in all living creatures to ascertain it will go on. Any living thing will strive to survive, at any cost. Fish will develop legs and lungs and get out of the water. An animal cornered will flee, or fight. Even plants, circumstances helping, will adapt to drought or frost. Life (the instinct of survival) is rooted in the very core of our psyche.

So we adapt. The cold kills us, we invent fire. Hunger ? Agriculture. Disease ? Medicine. Man, originally a prey to everything, turns into a predator. We make weapons and kill the bear.

Then we realize that we'd rather kill (other men) than die, and that our fellow humans think alike. So the struggle for Power begins - for land, for money, for women, for influence, for knowledge, you name it. Hierarchies emerge. The higher we rise in the human hierarchy, the safer we feel. The man we have vanquished or submitted is no longer a threat. Money buys comfort and health, ie survival. Conversely, men can't bear feeling inferior, subjected. It implies vulnerability, just like disease or hunger. Power protects. Power is Life.

Problem is : in that endless competition, an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. Inner strife weakens the group, in its struggle against other groups. So Moses comes down from the mountain with the ten commandments. In our quest for survival, we invent moral rules, laws, etc... We capture the "fire" (to plagiarize from Gaston Bachelard) and hold it under check in the stove.

But moral rules suffer two limitations : Joseph Conrad, in his novels, described them as a layer of thin varnish over unfathomable depths of millenia-old brutish violence. They are artificial constructs, somehow. Imposed from outside, most of the time. People don't spontaneously adhere to such notions. The rational mind is younger than instincts. Even such basic rules as the highway code have to be enforced by a police force. The fire can be checked, but nurtures dreams of escape. Besides, rules are based on a contract : I play by the rules to ensure you'll play by the rules. What if someone stops playing fair? Should we go on complying, or feel freed from duty? One guy tried to hold on and stick to his own humanistic ideals despite violent opposition : he ended up nailed to a cross.

A solution? I can see only one : education, always more education. We need to explain the genesis of rules, the chaos they are meant to pull us out of. And incite students to launch into some soul-searching, so they become aware of the beast within. But we should do so without brainwashing youngsters into blind submission. Sometimes violence is the only dignified option, when the alternatives are submission, flight, or death. "Let a man never stir on his road a step without his weapons of war; for unsure is the knowing when need shall arise of a spear on the way without." (Havamal, 38)
 
My view is that there will be no change in such matters as long as men are mortal. The original sin, the Id, whatever you call it, is rooted in the consciousness we have of our own frailty. Philosophy will give you everything and its opposite, from complete determinism (Mektub / Fatum) to total freedom of choice (existentialism). The only one absolute certainty every man, educated or not, carries inside him is this : he will die.

And Life (capital L), whether you see it as god-given or a mere biochemical random event, simply refuses to accept the notion of its own end. It is the safeguard Life has ingrained in all living creatures to ascertain it will go on. Any living thing will strive to survive, at any cost. Fish will develop legs and lungs and get out of the water. An animal cornered will flee, or fight. Even plants, circumstances helping, will adapt to drought or frost. Life (the instinct of survival) is rooted in the very core of our psyche.

So we adapt. The cold kills us, we invent fire. Hunger ? Agriculture. Disease ? Medicine. Man, originally a prey to everything, turns into a predator. We make weapons and kill the bear.

Then we realize that we'd rather kill (other men) than die, and that our fellow humans think alike. So the struggle for Power begins - for land, for money, for women, for influence, for knowledge, you name it. Hierarchies emerge. The higher we rise in the human hierarchy, the safer we feel. The man we have vanquished or submitted is no longer a threat. Money buys comfort and health, ie survival. Conversely, men can't bear feeling inferior, subjected. It implies vulnerability, just like disease or hunger. Power protects. Power is Life.

Problem is : in that endless competition, an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. Inner strife weakens the group, in its struggle against other groups. So Moses comes down from the mountain with the ten commandments. In our quest for survival, we invent moral rules, laws, etc... We capture the "fire" (to plagiarize from Gaston Bachelard) and hold it under check in the stove.

But moral rules suffer two limitations : Joseph Conrad, in his novels, described them as a layer of thin varnish over unfathomable depths of millenia-old brutish violence. They are artificial constructs, somehow. Imposed from outside, most of the time. People don't spontaneously adhere to such notions. The rational mind is younger than instincts. Even such basic rules as the highway code have to be enforced by a police force. The fire can be checked, but nurtures dreams of escape. Besides, rules are based on a contract : I play by the rules to ensure you'll play by the rules. What if someone stops playing fair? Should we go on complying, or feel freed from duty? One guy tried to hold on and stick to his own humanistic ideals despite violent opposition : he ended up nailed to a cross.

A solution? I can see only one : education, always more education. We need to explain the genesis of rules, the chaos they are meant to pull us out of. And incite students to launch into some soul-searching, so they become aware of the beast within. But we should do so without brainwashing youngsters into blind submission. Sometimes violence is the only dignified option, when the alternatives are submission, flight, or death. "Let a man never stir on his road a step without his weapons of war; for unsure is the knowing when need shall arise of a spear on the way without." (Havamal, 38)

Logically and beautifully explained.
 
For Nietzsche, the basic problem is not a freedom-seeking Id, but errors and misinterpretations (the "human, all too human") which would defame life, nature, and history (or existence, as such), denying them of all meaning and value (or nihilism):

Nietzsche sketches both the history of Platonism and the steps of overcoming it through its reversal and reinscription in a section titled “How the ‘True World’ Finally Became a Fable”15. This note begins with a narrative of the evolution of the metaphysical notion of the “true world” which passes through a series of stages in which it is firstly attainable by the philosopher and by the virtuous in the case of Plato, secondly promised to the pious in the case of Christianity, wherein the idea gains a religious character, and thirdly it is considered to be unattainable, whereas the contemplation of it becomes a consolation, as in the case of Kant’s thought, as discussed by Nietzsche. The realization of the unattainable and unknowable character of the true world can be seen as a break in the development of the idea, and Nietzsche pushes it further to its conclusion with the suggestion that what is unattainable and unknowable cannot oblige in any sense, and this constitutes the first step of the process in which the true world is deprived of its authority. When it is no longer seen as above life, it loses its power and starts to dissolve, hence becoming a superfluous and obsolete idea. The greatest consequence of this dissolution, as Nietzsche states, is that not only the “true world” but also the “world of appearances” is lost through this process, that is, there is no longer a line dividing existence into two separate worlds, and what we are left with is existence itself. In other words, there is no longer an authority above life, and thus thinking is enabled to see life as the originary and self-happening process. For Nietzsche, this is the beginning of the gradual dissolution of the longest error, i.e., the two-world theory.

Yet the beginning of the gradual dissolution of the two-world theory does not imply that all the problematic aspects of Platonism, built into the very fabric of the occidental world for more than two millennia, will simply disappear16. Nietzsche is not content with showing that the ‘beyond’ has lost its absolute value; rather, he sees it as the beginning of a tremendous task, which he calls die Umwertung aller Werte: the transvaluation or revaluation of all values.

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12616835/index.pdf
 
Whatever might be considered blameworthy: violence, war, crime, lawlessness, civil disorder, greed, gluttony, hoarding, power-grabbing, libertinage, immoralism, etc. The laundry list.
 

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