Ha Ha That's a beauty! Does the same principle apply to masturbation?Originally Posted by The Atheist
Ha Ha That's a beauty! Does the same principle apply to masturbation?
Before sunlight can shine through a window, the blinds must be raised - American Proverb
Do you know an example of an unconditional love? Because I sure don't.
Culture is by definition "everything that human beings do". And why do we human beings do what we do? To survive and to prosper - and to pass on our genes, as Dawkins keeps telling us.
Therefore, the idea that love is a product of culture and that this realization makes it's functionality somehow different from that of a "hard-wired" instinct, is a flawed one. The fact that different cultures have different customs for expressing love doesn't affect the core purpose behind those customs - to create security, stability and generally a better chance for survival.
De omnibus dubitandum.
It's the thing that exists in unrealistic books.
Domestic dogs when they get new owners.
When you say, love is human, I hear "love is animal"; when you say its a cultural construct, I say animals have cultural constructs. I understand the ambition not to transform the thing we call love in something that's purely instinct, this in not the goal of my argument; my choice to make love animal is not to make animals incapable of love, because that would be false and reductionist. I've read enough arguments about things that are reserved to humans to soberly disagree with most of them. The reason we feel love is a animal reason, it cannot be reduced to argumentative and communicative factors, it has to include the body.
This all comes down to the fact that love exists without humans. So answering love exists must forcibly pass through all nature and not just cultural references. Now if you define love as something exclusively human -and you're not unlike the many authors I've come to dislike for such racial obsession with their own body (or the lack of it)-, then we are simply coming from different definitions of love. And you cannot engage a competent discussion if we're all nitpicking definitions.
My blog about literature (in spanish): http://otrasbentilaciones.wordpress.com/
Culture is not "everything humans do." In anthropology, one standard definition would be: "The system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning." Notice the mode of transmission.
In addition, I never said that there is no biological "core purpose" to love -- instead, I said that theories of love based on the "core purpose" lack explanatory value, predictive value, depth and subtlety. The "core purpose" of love explains some things - but can (for example) the great love poetry be "reduced" to this core purpose? Of course not.
In addition, the notion that we can explain "why humans do what we do" by theorizing about how it helps "pass on our genes" is ridiculous. Dawkins' theories in this regard are naive and simplistic (although, of course, he is right that the gene, not the individual, is the significant unit to look at in evolution).
Humans have complex motives for many behaviors, very few of which involve thinking, "Will this help me pass on my genes?" Anna Karennina can hardly have felt that suicide would help pass on her genes more effectively, nor did it.
Finally, Dawkins (and a great many othe naive evolutionary theorists) practice circular reasoning. If a trait (genetic or cultural) exists (they theorize) it must have developed by helping people improve their descendent-leaving success. But this is ridiculous. Plenty of traits exist that are neutral, or that actually inhibit descendent-leaving success. Species (and individual bloodlines) go extinct. Do our Western notions of romantic love improve our genetic "success"? Not as well as notions of love in the Third World, if we can believe population growth statistics.
Finally, love (or at least marriage) has been studied by anthropologists ad nauseum. Marriage rules differ dramatically from culture to culture: some societies practice monogamy, some polygamy, some serial monogamy (like ours). Why all these differences, if love can be "explained" by the same biological model for all humans? Why does one man fall in love with a particular woman, and another with a different woman? Why is love like a red, red rose? When simplistic genetic explanations can answer these questions, they may begin to have explanatory value. Until then, I prefer a less reductionist approach.
I'll grant that animals love. So what? That doesn't negate (as I wrote in the last post) that a sophisitcated understanding of human love must look at how it has been influenced by art, literature, religion, cultural customs, etc., etc. If we want to understand human motivations in general, we must understand culture -- and understanding love (despite its association with sex) is no different. Man makes himself -- not merely genetically, but culturally. If we had no languages, we would not even think like we do now. We would be very different creatures.
It isn't always true, and I do speak from personal experience!
But more times than not, it is.
I think that's the other way round.
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
We're not in disagreement. I mentioned the animals because it answers the first question of the thread: Love exists. A savage man surely feels affection without needing our complex languages and abstractions.
The question in this thread may as well be: Can we love? But we often work with many humanist assumptions which center each question in a certain culture, time etc. etc. I did all this clarifying to imply that we're obviously, capable of love. As much love as any beast is capable of feeling. Whether love is affected and distilled by the many features you have -correctly- listed, it's an interesting subject of discussion.
I'd argue that it isn't about language and culture as much as about traumas and insensibility, the main things hindering our ability to love.
My blog about literature (in spanish): http://otrasbentilaciones.wordpress.com/
Traumas also give us greater capacity for love.
Love is a battlefield, friends.
Love is when you want to be with the person even when you aren't going to get laid.
Last edited by Drkshadow03; 08-06-2011 at 12:42 AM.
"You understand well enough what slavery is, but freedom you have never experienced, so you do not know if it tastes sweet or bitter. If you ever did come to experience it, you would advise us to fight for it not with spears only, but with axes too." - Herodotus
https://consolationofreading.wordpress.com/ - my book blog!
Feed the Hungry!
who knew you had such a sense of humor?
"What is Culture?
The word culture has many different meanings. For some it refers to an appreciation of good literature, music, art, and food. For a biologist, it is likely to be a colony of bacteria or other microorganisms growing in a nutrient medium in a laboratory Petri dish. However, for anthropologists and other behavioral scientists, culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns. [In other words, "what people do".] The term was first used in this way by the pioneer English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871. "
”In the twentieth century, "culture" emerged as a concept central to anthropology, encompassing all human phenomena that are not purely results of human genetics. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively.”
The term culture has literally hundreds of definitions and no one can say which one is the best or the most accurate one. However there's one common element to all the definitions of culture: every single on of them stresses that culture is something that human beings produce through their actions. Another thing to keep in mind is that we all are in a way products and slaves of our own culture(s) and language, and most of the time we act according to the way our culture(s) has taught us to act through socialization.
I don't necessarily agree with your most respective definition because, although culture can be something that is transmitted between people and through generations, culture cannot be reduced to just something as simple as what your definition suggested. People cannot ”think” without culture (Lacan). People cannot speak without culture (Saussure, Locke, or if you prefer, Lacan). Culture(s) and language define our actions in a way nothing else does. So, in heideggerian sense (dasein), we ourselves ARE culture; our entire being IS culture. Therefore to say, that culture is limited to our actions that transmit behavior patterns to the next generation, is not adequate. I will have to stick with my earlier definition; there is no being without culture and everything that we do is culture.
When we inspect any cultural phenomena, we cannot really see all the cultural evolution that have lead to a particular phenomenon. Many of them might appear neutral or even harmful to the concept of gene transference. For instance, totemism can be seen as a rather harmful social system in tribal societies because it often contained a code of restrictions for hunting a totem animal, which could have otherwise been used as a food source. On the other hand, these restrictions helped the society to achieve a more coherent tribal identity. The same can be said about human sacrifices. So in many cases there seems to be a conflict between needs in a cultural structure. Why then species go extinct? Because other species adapt better than they do.
It seems only logical that people always act to satisfy a certain need, or a variety of needs - I don't see any reason why for instance love poetry would be an exception. According to psychologists like Abraham Maslow, human beings always act to deal with their most pressing and urgent needs; some argue against the structure Marlow's hierarchy of needs but almost all scholars approve that such hierarchy does exist. The need to construct a certain kind of poem might not be on the very top of Marlow's hierarchy but most likely there is a need or a set of needs that leads a person to write one. What might these needs be, I wonder?
Again, the complex mosaic of cultures does not hint in any way that love should be a phenomenon that would be something other than a primal instinct. In different areas people have adapted different methods to deal with their needs. Mythologies and primitive societies concepts of magic are prime examples of this. For instance, most every mythological system in history has had some kind of a story about both the beginning and the end of existence (or a time period, as in primitive societies time was not a linear but a circular concept). People have need to make sense of the world that surrounds them; mythological figures like gods, spirits, demons and such exist as tools for this sense-making. The concept of magic, on the other hand, was probably constructed to meet with people's egoistic urges and to prevent the feeling of helplessness in times of famine and disease (at least according to early anthropologists like James Frazer as well as mythology scholars such as Nothrop Frye and Joseph Campbell). Whether a society adapted monogamy, polygamy and which kind of taboo systems were used to enforce these social agendas can purely vary depending on geological and other environmental factors.
Why does a male swan fall in love with a particular female and another with a different one? You don't need cultural variation to explain that.
I apologize that I didn't post this reply earlier – I had other matters that kept me busy.
De omnibus dubitandum.
As you (and I) point out, culture refers to LEARNED behavior patterns (which, based on standard definitions, differ from "instintual" behavior. I disagree with almost everything else you've written, too, Mr. Monkey. Here are some examples:
Why does this "seem logical"? It is only logical if we define "needs" as "anything that drives people to do what they do." In that case, however, the entire theory is circular and lacks all explanatory value. In fact, people routinely give up things they would appear to "need" (scarce resources for example). Not only people, but all mammals give up things they "need" (at least all female mammals who reproduce).It seems only logical that people always act to satisfy a certain need, or a variety of needs
People can "think" without culture -- but their thinking (lacking language) would probably be very different.
I'll grant your point about Totemism having some functional value -- but so what? That doesn't invalidate the notion that not all cultural traits are beneficial in evolutionary terms. Why would it? Again, the notion that cultural traits (or genetic traits, for that matter) must be beneficial or they would not exist is fallacious, ex post facto reasoning. Although it is true that evolutionary theory suggests that a (genetic) trait that improves descendant leaving success will tend to spread, we cannot properly infer the reverse -- that a trait that has spread must have improved descendant leaving success. That would be a logical error. If A, then B does NOT imply if B, then A. Humans, for example, have tail bones. This trait has spread, as human population has increased. Can we infer that tail bones are beneficial?
As for your explanations of magic and myth, they are simplistic. Diverse and complex systems of magic are "constructed to meet with people's egoistic urges and to prevent the feeling of helplessness in times of famine and disease"? Huh? How do you know that? You're must making it up. I could equally say, "science is constructed to meet people's egoistic urges and to prevent feelings of helplessness."
Again, even if this is true, it lacks any explanatory value. Many different mythologies can "make sense" of the world -- why do some persist, and others vanish away? There are no easy answers to this question -- the environmental and ecological answers you propose are, like many reductionist explanations, unsatisfying and lacking in explanatory or predictive value. I'll grant that scholars like Frazer were brilliant men and seminal thinkers -- but anthropological thinking has moved on since its infancy, and simplistic explanations for magic and mythology are no longer standard."People have need to make sense of the world that surrounds them; mythological figures like gods, spirits, demons and such exist as tools for this sense-making"?
As for the male swan, we don't know why he mates for life, or whether he "falls in love" (in the human sense). It's one of the mysteries of nature (although, perhaps, we can guess at "reasons"). We do know, however, that when Leda was raped by Zeus in swan's form, that particular swan had no intention of mating for life. Instead, he planned to engender Helen, and set off a chain of events that "burnt the topless towers of Ilium."
it exists. we just aren't capable of giving it.
love is unconditional and eternal. humans will always have conditions when giving love. since it has conditions, that is not love.
Culture is a very intricate topic and all of you are arguing futilely about culture as to what it is and what it is not. It is all what you said and it is more than something your words can contain. Culture is a way of living, and though it is mostly learned it runs through our veins and artilleries. It is saturated with our blood and is the sap of life.
No matter what philosophical inferences you make to it it goes beyond that. Culture is very complex and culture is as complex human evolution. Only thru culture you can study evolution
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
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