Censorship, etc.cont’d

[FX]

JJ’S original question about censorship evolved into another debate on morality and so forth…please feel free to continue here…

D.G. Valdron
Aspiring SadGeezer
Member # 388
posted 26-11-2001 04:10 PM
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I’d hardly think anyone is an argumentative nutcase. Don’t worry about it. The hidden pleasure of a really good argument is losing it, because that’s actually the only time you’ll walk away with more knowledge and insight than you brought to the table.
On the subject of instinct… I think humans do have instincts. It’s hard to say what they are, because they are innate to our behaviour. We never think about them, we just do them as the most natural things under the situation.

But let me offer some suggestions as to what some human instincts might be…

A tendency to walk upright.

A tendency, when frustrated, to verbalize increasingly louder (such as when you are speaking to someone who doesn’t speak your language, you unconsciously talk louder and louder although there is no rational basis to do so.)

A tendency, under stress, to repeat verbalizations (saying the same things over and over, as in talking to the befuddled foreigner, but in many other situations.)

A tendency to associate socially in family groups and age groups.

There are probably others. I’d basically try to suss out human instincts by looking at overlapping behavioural patterns with other primates and higher mammals. If we’re all doing the same kinds of things, its probably instinctive.

But I don’t believe instincts have a moral component. I also don’t believe that instincts are really geared towards dealing
with the environment. Lets face it, the environment we live in as higher mammals is so complex and so diverse that any kind of elaborate instinctual framework oriented towards it is hopelessly counterproductive. Instincts would only change by evolution. Often, there just isn’t time.

For instance, children may have an instinct to be attracted to small, brightly coloured objects. Well, I suppose that particular instinct is being culled out of the population of Afghanistan. But you’d need a dozen or a hundred more generations to see a real effect.

So, there’s no such thing as an instinct against torturing animals, or an instinct to follow sexual or moral codes.

Rather, I would suggest that moral codes arise and are maintained by practical utility.

Look at it this way, a society is by definition a self perpetuating entity. In order to survive, a society must, inherently have mechanisms which enable it to perpetuate itself, which means, ensuring its citizens survive and are relatively prosperous, ensuring there is a next generation, etc. etc.

There are, of course, societies which do not do that. In the last century, there was a russian religious sect which practiced castration. They died out for some reason.
There are or have been societies marked by
massive social breakdown, violence towards
women and children, and failure to maintain even minimal levels of stability and service resulting in things like war and famine. The Taliban’s Afghanistan is one such. The point of these societies, however, is that they aren’t viable, they don’t last, they’re no more functional than a man bleeding from an arterial wound.

Rather, functioning societies, as part of the feedback systems naturally tend to evolve moral or political codes to regulate behaviour. It may not necessarily matter what the source of those codes are, religious, philosophical or whatever, but they have to be there, and there have to be certain bottom lines. Behaviour or conduct between individuals is formally regulated, violence within the group is tolerated only from specific individuals or within specific circumstances, relations between males and females are also regulated, there will be various mechanisms to promote or inhibit certain forms of social organization, and there will be provisions for the maintenance of children.

Those seem to be the bottom lines. Societies that don’t have codes protecting children, for some reason, don’t seem to make it much past a second or third generation, if that,
as one example.

Moral codes, in my view, therefore are functional, not instinctive.

As for torturing animals. In our society, we react with shock and horror to such things.
But many societies have approved wholeheartedly of torture. The modern Afghani’s liked nothing better than to skin a captured russian soldier alive and then roll him in salt, the videotapes, I understand, were quite popular. Other societies infamous for torture were the highland Scots, the Apache, the old Romans. Torture type behaviour also shows up in packs of young adolescent males when they have a victim, and interestingly, it shows up in wolf packs bringing down large prey (wolves aren’t big or strong enough to inflict a killing stroke on a moose or caribou, instead, what they do is harry it to death, continually biting and chewing at its flesh, they will literally disembowel a living animal slowly), or with Cats playing with mice.

I suspect if one were minded too, you could make at least as good an argument for torture being an instinctive human behaviour as for morality.

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Posts: 3 | From: The Pas, Manitoba | Registered: Nov 2001 | IP: Logged

Headgehog
Committed SadGeezer
Member # 175
posted 26-11-2001 05:25 PM
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quote:
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Originally posted by D.G. Valdron:
For instance, children may have an instinct to be attracted to small, brightly coloured objects. Well, I suppose that particular instinct is being culled out of the population of Afghanistan.
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Ironically every other species knows to stay away from colorful stuff. Like don’t eat or touch bees, poison dart frogs, monarch butterflies etc. Humans repeatidly do stupid **** like try to catch them, and then wonder why we got stung or sick.

As for Bosnia and Afghanistan, we realy should have put bigger universal warnign on some of those bombs. Skull and crossbones usually works. Although I’m a huge fan of Darwanism, I stil belive in helping a fellow human. Too bad only stupid people are breeding.

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You’re not paranoid, everyone really is out to get you.

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Posts: 203 | From: Albuquerque, NM (College) / Philadelphia, PA (Home) USA | Registered: Apr 2001 | IP: Logged

[Anonymous]

Do I owe you a copy of Defcon 4? Hmmm it doesn’t ring a bell. But what with shuffling
back and fourth between four provinces and
six cities, a hard drive crash, a relocation
and a lung infection, it might have slipped
my mind.

Tell you what, email me at [email protected]
and I’ll get on it this weekend or sometime
soon…

Defcon 4, by the way, is probably the most
accessible of Donovan’s movies, it shouldn’t
be hard to find a tape.

[Anonymous]

quote:

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D.G. Valdron
Aspiring SadGeezer
Member # 388
posted 26-11-2001 04:10PM
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I suspect if one were minded too, you could make at least as good an argument for torture being an instinctive human behaviour as for morality.

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Oh, I can think of one good argument for torture, Valdron. Where the [bleep] is my copy of “DefCon Four?” {Five? or Whatever the frell the %^#@$@$#! number it is) My instinct tells me to search and destroy, but I’m just a gov’t grunt; a disgruntled gov’t grunt who was really looking forward to that movie you promised her. But, that’s okay. I’ll just go back to polishing my munitions. *whistling* Pity ’bout them canceling my prozac like that, right outta the blue; makes me soooo edgy, ya know? Bet a good movie could alleviate that. Whatcha think, Val? [oh, heck, who’m I kidding. I can sum my morality up in the Hippocratic oath’s four simple words; “First Do No Harm.” But, I’m willing to make exceptions, Val!]

[Author]

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