Name: Anonymous 2009-07-10 4:31
The Sociobiology of Conservatism and Liberalism
http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_sociobiology_of_conservatism_and_liberalism/
by Dr K R Bolton
Sociobiology was the ‘new’ scientific synthesis that emerged to challenge decades of liberal and Marxist control of the social and anthological sciences with the publication of Harvard biologist E O Wilson’s The New Synthesis: Sociobiology in 1975.[1]
Sociobiology did not emerge from a vacuum. While the biological sciences that had spawned eugenics and the genetic basis of IQ for e.g.. had been largely supplanted and driven to the catacombs by the onslaught of a cabal of social anthologists with Left-wing political motivation, headed up in the USA by Franz Boas, with counterparts in the USSR headed by Lysenko, a significant number of geneticists remained to put up a rearguard action in the interests of science rather than dogma.[2]
When Sociobiology mounted its challenge to what is popularly called Political Correctness it had a number of eminent partisans apart from E O Wilson, and one of the primary and most vocal of these has remained Richard Dawkins[3]. Prior to both, Robert Ardrey popularised sociobiological concepts in books such as The Territorial Imperative and The Hunting Hypothesis.[4] The sociobiologists were met not with reasoned argument or a dialectic that engaged all sides in a debate with the desire to reach the truth regardless, but with a barrage of hate, including mobs of Leftist students trying to silence the Sociobiologists by force.[5]
While Political Correctness remains the dominant force in academe, and academics are often still forced from their positions or pilloried because of what amounts to a new heresy; the influence of Sociobiology as a general movement among scholars is such as to manifest across a variety of disciplines.
Sociobiology, as the term succinctly implies, explains human social behaviour from the viewpoint of biological imperatives, more specifically of the imperative of an organism to ensure the best chances for the survival and perpetuation of its own genes.
While Darwin is a starting point, Sociobiology states that genetic survival is one of group or social dynamics rather than hyper-individualism, or at least the imperative of the individual organism to perpetuate its genes or genes most akin to it, manifests in a social manner. Wilson called it “group survival.” Therefore, the individual’s genetic inheritance is best passed on through future generations not by means of the survival of the individual organism, but by the survival of the individual organism’s genes, which might – and often does – amount to the self-sacrifice of that organism. The survival of the individual organism is therefore not paramount, but subjected to a higher instinct. An organism will sacrifice its own life to ensure the survival of other organism’s whose genetic inheritance is most akin to it own.
Such a paradigm runs counter to the doctrines of Marxism and to orthodox sociology and cultural anthropology, which discount the importance of genetics, or even any contribution of genetics, in determining human behaviour. These view humans as purely economic beings that might shape and be shaped by their environment at will.
[...]
http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_sociobiology_of_conservatism_and_liberalism/
by Dr K R Bolton
Sociobiology was the ‘new’ scientific synthesis that emerged to challenge decades of liberal and Marxist control of the social and anthological sciences with the publication of Harvard biologist E O Wilson’s The New Synthesis: Sociobiology in 1975.[1]
Sociobiology did not emerge from a vacuum. While the biological sciences that had spawned eugenics and the genetic basis of IQ for e.g.. had been largely supplanted and driven to the catacombs by the onslaught of a cabal of social anthologists with Left-wing political motivation, headed up in the USA by Franz Boas, with counterparts in the USSR headed by Lysenko, a significant number of geneticists remained to put up a rearguard action in the interests of science rather than dogma.[2]
When Sociobiology mounted its challenge to what is popularly called Political Correctness it had a number of eminent partisans apart from E O Wilson, and one of the primary and most vocal of these has remained Richard Dawkins[3]. Prior to both, Robert Ardrey popularised sociobiological concepts in books such as The Territorial Imperative and The Hunting Hypothesis.[4] The sociobiologists were met not with reasoned argument or a dialectic that engaged all sides in a debate with the desire to reach the truth regardless, but with a barrage of hate, including mobs of Leftist students trying to silence the Sociobiologists by force.[5]
While Political Correctness remains the dominant force in academe, and academics are often still forced from their positions or pilloried because of what amounts to a new heresy; the influence of Sociobiology as a general movement among scholars is such as to manifest across a variety of disciplines.
Sociobiology, as the term succinctly implies, explains human social behaviour from the viewpoint of biological imperatives, more specifically of the imperative of an organism to ensure the best chances for the survival and perpetuation of its own genes.
While Darwin is a starting point, Sociobiology states that genetic survival is one of group or social dynamics rather than hyper-individualism, or at least the imperative of the individual organism to perpetuate its genes or genes most akin to it, manifests in a social manner. Wilson called it “group survival.” Therefore, the individual’s genetic inheritance is best passed on through future generations not by means of the survival of the individual organism, but by the survival of the individual organism’s genes, which might – and often does – amount to the self-sacrifice of that organism. The survival of the individual organism is therefore not paramount, but subjected to a higher instinct. An organism will sacrifice its own life to ensure the survival of other organism’s whose genetic inheritance is most akin to it own.
Such a paradigm runs counter to the doctrines of Marxism and to orthodox sociology and cultural anthropology, which discount the importance of genetics, or even any contribution of genetics, in determining human behaviour. These view humans as purely economic beings that might shape and be shaped by their environment at will.
[...]