Back to the Stone Age III: Natural Men B
Let us begin by refusing to set aside the facts. The human species is, in material terms, mammalian, a fact that stipulates rather different roles Males rule, hunt, and kill; females submit, gather food (though among some predators they also hunt), and nurture children. Homines sapientes are not just mammals but primates whose closest living relatives are chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons. While it would be nice to have closer kinship with gibbons than with the chimpanzees. Gibbons form couples and, while they defend their territory, were considered by Chinese Taoists to be the gentlemen of the woods. Chimps, as we knew, are sexually promiscuous, violent, greedy, and quarrelsome. They are about as charming as baboons. Watching them in the zoo, we become decidedly uncomfortable, especially if we have teenage boys of our own or seen film footage of a Chicago flash mob.
A number of pop anthropologists (Robert Ardrey, Fox and Tiger, followed by George Gilder) pushed a thesis of human natural violence by comparing us with baboons. This is simply not legitimate. Baboons, langurs, macaques are not that closely related to us, and their sometimes tight and violent social structures, dominated by thugs, can be explained as an evolutionary response to environment. Chimpanzees are more varied in behavior, more inclined toward problem-solving, more fluid in their hierarchies. Chimpanzee children require more prolonged care, some of the responsibility for which devolves upon aunts and even on male members of the tribe.
Jane Goodall began her work with rather unrealistic assumptions about the nonviolent nature of chimpanzees, but when she had a baby, she realized that her inquisitive charges looked on the baby less as a specimen to observe than meat on the table. Chimps cannot seem to get enough meat to eat and have to be satisfied, much of the time, with vegetable substitutes. Nonetheless, they have an all-too human craving for meat and will do almost anything to get it, including snatch human babies from their mothers' arms.
A side-note: We big-brained apes have a constant craving for meat and salt, both hard to procure in the wild, and both necessary for neurological development. To hunt game, we need bursts of energy, which can be stimulated by sugary foods--fruits and honey. And since the biggest game we primates play is competitive reproduction, everything is slanted toward having as much sex as we can with females who will raise our offspring. In this sense, the life of urban welfare dependent males today is natural, if atavistic. Cramming their bodies with McDonald's junk washed down by high fructose soft drinks, fighting violent turf wars accompanied by chants more savage than we have heard from any ape (rap), and endlessly fornicating with females. It is the American dream.
To be continued
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With Cheetah as a pet, maybe that's why Tarzan and Jane never had any kids?
I think this is the best piece in the series so far. After I read the last paragraph, I was inspired to cook up some chicken-fried bacon and cordon bleu.
On a more serious note (though I seriously DID have chicken-fried bacon and cordon bleu for dinner last night and WAS so inspired by your last paragraph), I'm interested in your thoughts on Jane Goodall. The facts she lays out seem indisputable, but how far should we go in trusting her academic analyses in spite of her activism?
Louis Leakey wrote in response to her work, "We must now redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human!" Does that mean anything at all?
"Louis Leakey wrote in response to her work, "We must now redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human!" Does that mean anything at all?" (end quote)
No. For what it's worth, not in my book. Though in fact (not fancy) it hasn't yet been defined apparently 'academically'. ... Humans can think consciously and also believe. The rest of the creaturely kingdom is (in some cases) exquisitely aware thinking exclusively unconsciously or 'instinctively'; only mankind is aware (some more, some less) of being aware. I can explain the difference between the two seats on our bicycle built for two, i.e., conscious thought (of course we too think unconsciously / instinct), and belief. But it's so simple, and I've done so, so many times online and now again in my book, it's elusively boring. Usually the simple eludes because it's not distracting enough, and thus understandably painful.
Type thing once it's explained, most (of the less conscious variety) are apt to say, (and worse to themselves as well), oh yeah well I always knew that. Of course since they had the potential, they did, but unconsciously.
Why "us"? Well, we had the 'potential' and thus as Aristotle pointed out the potential, then first means the actuality (whether or not the potential becomes demonstrably actual), i.e. conscious, and then accomplished. Possibly, the gods have something to do with the timing of that latter part of it, which of course then means 'God' in the hierarchy.
Hey, you sound like a cook...like to eat at your house one day. By which I mean a cook among other [apparently] admirable traits.
"Louis Leakey wrote in response to her work, 'We must now redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human!' Does that mean anything at all?" Louis Leakey is hardly a disinterested source. A far more reliable source, namely G. K. Chesterton has pointed out that the essential sign of man is art! The tool theory was a working hypothesis, and when properly understood probably still has some merit. Even many primitive human tools still are objects of beauty. Others such as Eric Gill, an underappreciated early 20th century author, echoing Michael, have have noted that what makes man man is his power of contemplation -- a power which Jane was unable to find in chimpanzees.
Leakey and his undereducated clan were driven by an agenda which, to avoid going into a long discussion, can be described as Marxist anthropology. They were forever "proving" that man and his ancestors and cousins is a non-aggressive species. Whatever value they had (in Richard's case that is very little) lay in their practical efforts in digging up stuff they did not particularly understand. At the other end of the spectrum are people like Chesterton and Gill, men who were essentially right on principles but frequently have no facts whatever to buttress their wholesome prejudices. In any case requiring factual evidence from biology, anthropology, or history, Chesterton is of absolutely no use. He is a great deal like pre-Socratic philosophers who can be brilliantly right but cannot prove anything. The distinction I am making is between what Plato calls correct opinion and something that can be demonstrated. The low road may be less colorful, but it will get us somewhere.
Goodall had all the usual prejudices and was, perhaps worse, a thoroughly second-rate mind. She never had an interesting insight and never turned a phrase that had not been turned ten thousand times before. On the other hand, she was a patient observer and an honest recorder. The work that made her famous was done on what I regard as false premises which she outgrew. Her mature generalizations are, in my view, very reliable.
In Newman's response to what was all the rage in his day, David Hume and all that, he pretty much summed up the positions fairly;
"Before proceeding it is essential that we define our frames of reference. Consider science.
This is defined as “a branch of study concerned with the observation and classification of „facts”.
Science deals with measurable phenomena. Its laws resume past experience and its closest
approximation to truth is by means of statistical averages. Such a methodology can never establish
absolute or objective certainties but only predict that what has happened in the past will probably
occur in the future. When the scientist departs from the measurable, when he reasons or speculates
about the facts he has gathered, he defines the results as a “working hypothesis” or a “theory”. As
more facts become known, theories are modified and even radically changed. The conclusions of
science are never stable, but rather can be described as a constantly changing “consensus”. They
are “objective” only in so far as they can be quantitatively demonstrated, but they are never
„universal‟ in the sense that they are absolute or applicable throughout time and space. Those who
doubt this have but to look at the innumerable and rapidly changing cosmological theories
proposed for our consideration over the last 50 years. Needless to say, those who adhere to the
traditional viewpoint can have no argument with measurable
Our problem is not understanding science
The traditional( ordinary) man, placing science in a hierarchal relationship to the totality of truth, sees no
conflict between what is demonstrable by measurement and what he knows from Revelation. His
attitude towards the “modern scientistic outlook” with its claim to the totality of truth and its
refusal to recognize any moral master is however quite another matter. In no way can he give his
assent to irrational postulates such as progress, utopias and the perfectibility of man qua man —
ideas which have their origin in man‟s collective subconscious rather than in God. If any conflict
exists, it is not between science and faith properly understood, but between modern and traditional
attitudes.
We all live and breath and have our being in the scientism of our age and what we are ignorant of is not the principles of quantity,the measurable, the fossil record, evolutionary theories, progress and all the rest of the modern illness but rather how our faith and right belief fits into this mostly false but always incomplete picture. Tha is to say, "they have taken Our Lord and we know not where to find him." Or put simply, " We have lost our Faith."
I don't mean to hijack this thread, but a lot has come to light about Eric Gill in recent years that makes even the nastiest left-wing intellectual or most decadent Hollywood celebrity seem like a model citizen in comparison. I don't want to sully this site with any details, but it went far beyond the range of normal human sin. His Wikipedia page has a non-explicit account. This apparently came from his own diaries and, as far as I know, there has never been any claim that it is a hoax or a smear campaign.
"that makes even the nastiest left-wing intellectual or most decadent Hollywood celebrity seem like a model citizen in comparison."
Come to think of it, there are a few accused of being on the same Satanic level - Herbert Apetheker among intellectuals, Tony Hendra and John Philips among celebrities. If you know what these men allegedly did, you can guess what Gill did without having to nauseate yourself by looking it up.
Yes, indeed, Mr. Kabala, if one is going to enter into a discussion on the personal behavior of left-wing academics in general, one will find oneself either abandoning all limits of taste and decency or omitting major essential details.
Thank you for the insight, Dr. Fleming. I confess I have a personal rule never to trust vegetarians as a matter of course, so my initial reaction to Jane Goodall was not a positive one, but she seems to have been more than a broken clock.
I think I was misunderstood here; this man was not a left-winger (outwardly) but someone who deceived many good men into thinking he was on the side of good, while in fact being the very dregs of evil. Marcel Maciel would be a similar recent person.
Mr. Kabala,
I guess I don't get your point either. You indicate that "someone who decieved many good men into thinking he was on the side of good , while in fact being the dregs of evil " is what? Uncommon ? Unjust ? A nuisance ? A criminal ? A great scandal to his friends and family ? As old as human history?
A blogger, Lee Kochel, referenced testimony of Eric Gill's asserting a difference between animals and men. Eric Gill was evidently a bad character who in your words committed inhuman acts that a nasty left-wing intellectual or decadent Hollywood celebrity might even think twice about. The late catholic priest, Maciel, founder of the Legionaires of Christ is another one just like Gill.
Ok, so what is the point? There are more pretenders to sanctity than contenders? Fewer nobles than commoners and criminals? Bad men never speak the truth ? The best artists are the most virtuous? Scientists should be moral ? I think you have a point to make, I am just unclear as to what it is?
One final point on the primary location of evil ( hint: it is everywhere ) is an artcile over at Taki MAG entitled :http://takimag.com/article/religion_perversion_and_whiteness_jim_goad#axzz2MaGZHnDc
Some of you who have been wrongly taught that evil is all the fault of sects like Catholics and backward Southerner types, might find some of your own yankee enlightenement in reading the article from beginning to end. Including, and perhaps especially, Mr . Kabala. As they say out in California, " Have A GREAT day."
"I don't mean to highjack this thread..."
Unless we are all to turn neoconservative and lie about "unintended consequences," we must, in the absence of any rational justification for inserting this gossip, assume the intention from the result.
I only vaguely remembered something about the scandal. Gill never much interested me except as a typographer. The landscape of the 20th century was littered with gurus from Tolstoy to Tim Leary. Christians don't need ideology, they have a creed, and they know that all gurus turn out to be something like Simon Magus.
So, then, what, Mr. Kabala, is the point? That people with interesting ideas do bad things, sometimes really bad things? What a limited range of experience--and imagination--if you can be shocked by anything since 1800. Psychologists of the obscene claim that no sexual perversion, possible or not, can be devised that is not found already in Sade. He is, so to speak, to perversion what Bach is to melody.
When people make these sorts of arguments, it is always a sign of hypocrisy--always. Paul Johnson wrote a particularly stupid book showing that leftist intellectuals--Rousseau, Marx, et al--were bad husbands and fathers. I am sure he was shocked to read about the double-dealing and sexual shenanigans of Newt Gingrich, Bill Bennet, and just about any other leading conservative political figure indiscrete enough to let facts slip out. ( I know Senator Hatch will be protected forever by his cult, but where are the SC journalists to do the predictable job on Senator Graham?) I know I was absolutely floored by the revelations made by Paul Johnson's mistress. I suppose the naughty boy knew he needed to be spanked.
As a very wise man once observed, "The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in." Each of us has a dirty enough mind to ravage a fair-sized country, if we ever got the courage and capacity to act on our worst instinct. A man may fail to live up to the lessons he preaches, without that failure invalidating the message. What is intolerable about hypocrisy is that the hypocrite pretends to have a higher standard than the rest of us and then cannot manage the ordinary morality of the barkeeper who keeps his thumb in the glass when he pours a drink and cheats on his taxes. The Catholic Church has an army of such people, most of them in the clergy, and if I wanted to tolerate even holier hellier Joes, I'd turn Calvinist.
It did get rather out of hand, didn't it? I did have a point but I obviously didn't express it well, so instead of trying to explain myself or get in the last word, I will simply apologize.
Psychologists of the obscene claim that no sexual perversion, possible or not, can be devised that is not found already in Sade... Each of us has a dirty enough mind to ravage a fair-sized country, if we ever got the courage and capacity to act on our worst instinct.
When I was about 12 or 13, my long-suffering mother, who like all mothers has turned out to be much smarter than her sons have sometimes given her credit for, reacted to a bizarre and probably salacious hypothetical deed (the details of which are now mercifully lost to me) I had conjured up and wondered whether anyone had tried, "If you can conceive of it, in all probability someone has already tried it."
And to tie this discussion back into the animals, watching a chimp - a creature who as Dr. Fleming has shown shares with us many physical facilities but none of our scruples - at work is highly instructive as to what will be done when one so wills.
C.S. Lewis aptly observed that there are two evils competing for the soul of man: the bestial and the diabolical, and that the latter of these is by far the worse: "That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who regularly attends church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute."
The preeminence of the diabolical in this fight - in precisely the form of the "cold, self-righteous prig who regularly attends church" - is occasionally evident in the beautiful parishes of chic, bourgeois Paris-West. (Speaking of which, the legitimate agnatic senior line of the Sades happens to be alive and well in this country.) There are those who, too taken in by their pedigrees or pretended pedigrees to indulge in the revolting vices of the riffraff, allow themselves to be seduced by a temptation towards worldly self-importance. It is indeed a temptation that is much more difficult to resist than the inclination toward simple bestial vices, and one which can have devastating consequences for the lives and Faith of one's kin. One begins to understand why Our Lord warned that it would be "easier for a camel to go through the needle of an eye than for a rich man to enter Heaven."
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn noted that the Divine Marquis seemed to be paradoxically informed both by a deeply-entrenched class snobbery and a horizontalist ideal. That pretty well sums it up. If his life and works are any indication, Donatien de Sade was a man in whom the bestial and the diabolical just happened to work in tandem: Sade did not indulge in thoughtless vice; he deliberately crafted a world in which the civilized orders of man - which, having grown up in the highest ranks, he understood through-and-through - were leveled and man was returned to the jungle. (Side note to the misanthrope, the primitivist, the nudist and the ecologist: behold your god.)
And as Lewis rejoined, "[b]ut of course, it is better to be neither [whore nor hypocrite]."