Solri's lamentable tendency toward physical violence

[robinturner]

Whenever I read Internet posts by wannabe Nietzscheans, neo-Nazis, Ayn Rand fetishists, the two people who voted for George Bush and so on about how the weak are a drain on the strong, free competition is the only way forward, aid to developing countries is immoral, and in general "I'm good and deserve to survive because I have good genes and a high credit rating", I just want to say -

"OK, if you're so fit to survive, let's test it. I bet your kneecaps break as easily as any of those welfare bums'."

Comments

[blorky.livejournal.com]

Well, by "hard-wired", I really meant was that the impetus for that behavior is inherent in human beings. It's not critical for the ongoing survivial of any one individual (like, say, breathing), and so an individual or large groups of individuals can repress or rechannel that impetus. The drive to reproduce is inate, but surpressable, and, IMO like compassion, if surpressed in large numbers of people, doesn't make for good long term species survival.

I'll have to dig through my neurophsych bookmarks, but if memory serves me, high environmental lead levels have been correlated with learning impairments at a very early age. It makes sense to me that one of the developmental processes that could be damaged is self/other differentation, and therefore a neurochemical surpresson of empathy/compassion. I could well be swinging at the bats there, though.

Thank you both for the ongoing discussion.