Baseball and Worldview Blog

I'd say Ilyenkov’s rediscovers Marx’s principles in his “Theses of Feuerbach ” when Ilyenkov says human thought is historical human practice:<

AI:

“Evald Ilyenkov’s Dialectical Logic (1974) is a seminal materialist reconstruction of Hegelian dialectics. It synthesizes Spinoza, Hegel, and Marx to argue that logic is not an abstract set of formal rules, but the theoretical reflection of active, historical human practice.”

In "The Theses on Feuerbach, Marx criticizes Feuerbach as treating thought as only contemplation, not practical-critical, revolutionary, activity . It’s a Hegelian critique of Feuerbach as Hegel treats thought as practice. The Second Theses is that the test of theory is practice ( proof of the pudding is in the eating ).

Annotation of Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach

by Charles Brown

CB: Theses 11 can also be number 1, as the theme through all others.

11 Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.

CB : Feuerbach and Hegel interpreted , proposed theoretical understandings of , the human world without proposing adequate methods of change . Hegel seems to think that the Idea is self-changing . Hegel’s practice is behavior, activity _ in accord_ with the Idea ( Customs-Culture/ Words-Language) . Marx’s practice is to change the Idea/Customs/ Society /the Human World. Marx seeks to do this by having his philosophy grip masses and become a material force .

1 The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism — that of Feuerbach included — is that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of the object [Objekts], or of contemplation [Anschauung], but not as human sensuous activity, practice [Praxis], not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in opposition to materialism, was developed by idealism — but only abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects [Objekte], differentiated from thought-objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective [gegenständliche] activity. In The Essence of Christianity [Das Wesen des Christenthums], he therefore regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice [Praxis] is conceived and defined only in its dirty-Jewish form of appearance [Erscheinungsform][1]. Hence he does not grasp the significance of ‘revolutionary’, of ‘practical-critical’, activity.

CB: This is Marx’s materialist , Hegelian dialectic . This is Marx turning Hegel off of his head onto his feet ( since Hegel is a hominin , a habitually bipedal primate -smiles) Hegel’s practice is solely subjective-theoretical; Marx takes it out of the solely subjective making it combined objective-subjective. Note this is _philosophers’_ practice ; philosophers’ practice is writing ! Mental/ Manual labor -activity , aimed at changing social consciousness. Philosophers’ main practice is in relation to the whole of society , all other people. Theoreticians of biology-physics-chemistry-astronomy are philosophers who aim at changing humans’ relationship to non-human , objective reality - mastering objective necessity. Science is discovering necessary connections in a phenomenon. Marxist Theoreticians of human history-society aim at changing human society.

2 The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness [Diesseitigkeit] of his thinking, in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.

CB: Practice tests theory by determining whether humans can change the world in accord with their interpretation-theory of the world ; does the theory allow humans to master necessity ? Allow us to Change the human or non-human world ?

3 The materialist doctrine that men (sic) are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.<

CB: UPBRINGING, first and directly , in circumstances that impact upbringing -brain training . To change women and men , must change upbringing primarily. Self-changing/liberated women are necessary to change upbringing and women and men The educator is brought up especially by her or his mother . Fundamental Consciousness (walking ,CB: UPBRINGING, first and directly , in circumstances that impact upbringing -brain training . To change women and men , must change upbringing primarily. Self-changing/liberated women are necessary to change upbringing and women and men The educator is brought up especially by her or his mother . Fundamental Consciousness (walking , eating, sleeping, language) is primarily made by mothers , family , teachers and peers . Yes , human society has Secular Mother _Superiors_ . Feuerbach’s philosophy of love likely has rational kernels of species-being philosophy that Marx and Engels missed . <

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/07/for-womens-liberation-comradely.html <

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/for-women-s-liberation-a-comradely-critique-of-the-manifesto/<

4 Feuerbach starts off from the fact of religious self-estrangement [Selbstentfremdung], of the duplication of the world into a religious, imaginary world, and a secular [weltliche] one. <

CB: The secular world (objective reality ) is also conceived by humans in Words /Symbolic Signs/ Imagination . This is Marshall Sahlins’s point in _Culture and Practical Reason _ . Religion’s cultural function ( guide to behavior-activity-practice) is described by Marx as follows: “ Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. <

CB: Actually, the human essence ( unique human characteristics, Differentia specifica of genus homo ) has acquired true reality for 2.5 million years starting with homo habilis, the Old Stone Age , Stone tools designed based on symbolic communication and thinking - with Homo habilis having a bigger brain than Australopithecus. <

Marx : The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

CB: Gods / imaginary immortal individual beings are symbolic representations of Dead Generations. Religion is the symbolic legacy of dead generations to living generations. It is Ancestor Veneration personified as Ancestor Worship in the transition from classless Stone Age Society to class divided Citified Society.

Marx : His work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis. He overlooks the fact that after completing this work, the chief thing still remains to be done. For the fact that the secular basis lifts off from itself and establishes itself in the clouds as an independent realm can only be explained by the inner strife and intrinsic contradictoriness of this secular basis. The latter must itself be understood in its contradiction and then, by the removal of the contradiction, revolutionised. Thus, for instance, once the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must itself be annihilated [vernichtet] theoretically and practically.

CB: Yes , it is Marx’s “own” class struggle that gives rise to religion / Gods as the first ruling class’s grand deception of slaves at the origin of the male supremacist family , private property and the state . Rulers being identified with Gods. The earthly family must be sublated - overcoming male supremacy and preserving Mother Wit and much Caring Labor.

5 Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thinking, wants sensuous contemplation [Anschauung]; but he does not conceive sensuousness as practical, human-sensuous activity.

CB : yes contemplation of what the individual’s senses comprehend , experiential -empirical thinking or brain function ; simultaneously contemplating and practicing. However , critically , for humans abstract thinking ( memories of the individual’s past experience,_and_ words which share past generations’ and other living individuals’ experiences with the individual human’s brain ) merges with and guides practical-concrete individual sensuous activity. Only humans have this abstract thinking , word -thinking , word brain function.

6 Feuerbach resolves the essence of religion into the essence of man [menschliche Wesen = ‘human nature’]. But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations. Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence is hence obliged: 1. To abstract from the historical process and to define the religious sentiment regarded by itself, and to presuppose an abstract — isolated - human individual. 2. The essence therefore can by him only be regarded as ‘species’, as an inner ‘dumb’ generality which unites many individuals only in a natural way.

CB: Actually , the human essence, human unique nature _is_ culture-custom , of which religion is a major part ( the other being all language and secular custom-culture). And culture and language _are_ abstractions _taught_ ( not inborn) to each individual. And culture-custom-language _are_ the ensemble of social relations , including social relations with both living and dead through language and culture; most of language and culture being passed on from dead generations. Humans individuals are theoretically ( but not practically ) isolated under capitalism ( many sided alienation from others) Language / culture / symbolic communication is the human natural-species unity of many individuals . It is hardly a dumb generality , but the essence of intelligence. Social intelligence is the highest Darwinian species intelligence- most fit intelligence. It gives humans a LaMarkian-like adaptive mechanism, which is non - random , unlike random genetic mutation adaptations. Cultural adaptations are caused by the adaptive problem that they solve .

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2021/05/culturally-inherited-adaptations-give.html<

7 Feuerbach consequently does not see that the ‘religious sentiment’ is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual that he analyses belongs in reality to a particular social form.

CB: Agree 8 All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.

CB : However , not all religion is mysticism . There are objective-scientific truths , rational kernels in the Bible , for example . These are practical- rational theories inherited from dead generations through Words ; words can outlast people and things they represent , BECAUSE SYMBOLIC SIGNS ARE _NOT_ WHAT THEY REPRESENT . They prove their rationality in practice.

9 The highest point reached by contemplative [anschauende] materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is the contemplation of single individuals and of civil society [bürgerlichen Gesellschaft].

CB: To the extent contemplative materialism thinkers stand on the shoulders of dead generations ( like Isaac Newton stood on the shoulders of giants of past scientists) , they are not contemplating as single individuals.

10 The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society or social humanity.

CB : no comment

11 Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. ( Back to the top ) 1. “Dirty-Jewish” — according to Marhsall Berman, this is an allusion to the Jewish God of the Old Testament, who had to ‘get his hands dirty’ making the world, tied up with a symbolic contrast between the Christian God of the Word, and the God of the Deed, symbolising practical life. See The Significance of the Creation in Judaism, Essence of Christianity 1841 <

The Transition in Labor in the Transition from Apes to Humans Differentia specifica of human species is symbolic communication and behavior - language and culture .

Labor Power

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Differentia specifica of human species is symbolic communication and behavior - language and culture .

Differentia specifica of human species is symbolic communication and behavior - language and culture .

BY CHARLES BROWN

I write here a dialectical critique of Engels’ essay “The Role of Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man” in part based on Marx’s claim that human labor is differentiated from all other species “ labor by the role of imagination “! ( (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm ) Otherwise , in his anthropological _The Origin of the Family , Private Property and the State _ , Engels is profoundly correct on the difference between the Stone Age and Civilization and other issues.

My critique of Engels on this point is informed by the current biological ( human evolution) and cultural anthropological facts on origin of tool use , stone tool use ; and the nature of language and culture as SYMBOLIC communication and behavior . Origin of tool use and origin of language and culture is the issue Engels speculates concerning in “The Role of Labour in the transition from Ape to Man“. My basic difference with him is that language and culture allowed the invention of labor with Stone tools created by imagination; not labor created language and culture ( symbolic communication and behavior ; see definition of symbolic signs below ) ; I plead not guilty to the charge of philosophical idealism -smiles .

The origin of humans is the origin of language and culture , NOT the origin of bipedalism and hands freed from walking on all fours . ( see pre-human , habitually bipedal primates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecine)

“Engels never finished Dialectics of Nature. Haldane, in his preface to the 1939 publication of Dialectics of Nature, regrets that it remained unpublished for a long time, and writes, “Had his remarks on Darwinism been generally known, I for one would have been saved a certain amount of muddled thinking.” One of its unfinished fragments is on the role of labor in human evolution, more specifically the evolution of the hand. It is the evolution of the hand through the process of labor—creating tools—that distinguishes humans from apes. Engels writes, “Thus the hand is not only the organ of labour, it is also the product of labour.” It is not the evolution of the hand that led to our evolution as a species but the coevolution of the hand and labor as a historical process.”

The bottomline of my critique in the blog below is : Language and culture , symbolic communication and symbolically guided behavior, originate 2.5 million years ago and enable homo habilis

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis) to make the first Stone tools . ( THE ORIGIN OF HUMANS IS IN THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE , SYMBOLIC COMMUNICATION AND BEHAVIOR) It is NOT that the ancestral bipedal species

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecine)

to homo habilis started using its hands ( freed by bipedalism ; standing on two feet instead of four freeing the hands ) and that caused them to start symbolic communication and behavior as Engels speculates . ( this is not idealist philosophical error on my part ; I will explain why not below)

Here is Engels’ essay

______________________________________________________________________ More Leisure is Homo sapiens species essence ; May Day demand

More Leisure is our species essence ( See "The Original Affluent Society" by Marshall Sahlins). Foraging is a mode of direct appropriation from nature , not a mode of production; making a living by gigging smart not working hard. It was not that bi-pedalism and the origin of hands originated a new labor that caused the invention of tradition , names and words . THE INVENTION OF CULTURE AND LANGUAGE IN CHILDCARE BY MOTHERS (! ! ) , NAMING CHILDREN FOR MORE EFFECTIVE CHILDCARE , expanded to making a living transitioned labor by making it smarter, wiser, because of accumulation of knowledge over many generations . More leisure gives more time to think and thereby work even smarter. <

Engels is wrong on this in "The Role of Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man" when he says "First labour, after it and then with it speech ..." First long childcare then names and speech , then a transition to LESS labour, smarter labour and more leisure as compared with primate ancestor species .

That's Societas ( Anthropopogist Lewis Henry Morgan's term for Stone Age Society) , 2.5 million years ago to 6,000 years ago when the beginning of Civitas, private property, greed , slavery and heavy labor. Hard work , work ethic, then comes to dominate cultural ideals. So, hard labour is not species-being , but civilization-being, a small fraction of the full time of our species history. <

Nonetheless , Marx and Engels do propose transition from the Kingdom of Necessity to the Kingdom of Freedom . Freedom is Leisure and smart work through technology . Jobs lost to technological invention should be translated into more leisure time for the masses, a May Day demand.

[Marxism-Thaxis] The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man c b Thu, 27 May 2010 05:54:49 -0700

What about the transition in labor in the transition from ape to man ?

This essay uses "labor" in the sense that it is something that apes do. So, it is not the "labor" ( or is it work ?) that produces capitalist surplus value in _Capital_I, but the more general labor that Marx describes in Chapter so and so of Capital where he says the difference between the labor of spiders and bees and that of man is imagining the project as a plan first ( this implies that spiders and bees labor). So, the implication is that in the transition from ape to man, labor transitioned in part by taking on more mental labor, imagination and planning , as a component. <

CB The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm

[Marxism-Thaxis] The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man c b Thu, 27 May 2010 13:32:42 -0700 Engels: But the decisive step had been taken, the hand had become free and could henceforth attain ever greater dexterity; the greater flexibility thus acquired was inherited and increased from generation to generation.

^^^^^ CB: Ahhh but how ? How did the experience of repetition of use of _a_ hand by one individual get transferred to the brains of the next generation and the next , become the experience of _The_ hand ? If Patriarch uses his hands thousands of times his increasing dexterity is based on accumulated experience in that one individual's brain. The next generation's brains goes back to "square one" at birth and childhood . The only way to accumulate the knowledge across generations is by mediating the learning experience with language, imagination. The only way to "stand on the shoulders of giants" is to receive messages from them through a system of symbols. ( as in those days there wasn't the technology to take enough pictures) "The" hand is not the hand of an individual, but The Hand, as a concept, an organi of the species.

someone says : "Charles Brown We marxists regards Frederic Angels' essay "The part played by Labour in the transition of ape to Man. I think, here Angels accepted the evelusiony theory of Lamark. Now we know that acquired characterstics can not be transmiled genetically.... l Know that "The origin of species" was highly considered by Angels when it was published. So the former book of him should be considered in this light. I like to here your opinion.

CB: Velayudhan Pantheerankave I literally thought yesterday to write that Engels was probably putting forth a LaMarckian theory in “ The Role of Labor in the Translation from Ape to Man.” My first post here was a critique of that essay, but I did not include the thought that he was LaMarkian. The Dogma against Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics was established later <

https://www.google.com/search?q=when+was+the+dogma+against+inheritance+of+acquired+characteristics+established&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#lfId=ChxjMe<

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2022/01/shortening-of-work-day-is-realm-of.html

The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man<

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm

The following is my blog item critiquing Engels‘ essay.

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2017/02/more-leisure-is-homo-sapiens-species.html

More Leisure is Homo sapiens species essence ; May Day demand

More Leisure ( than our ancestral primate species had) is our species essence ( See "The Original Affluent Society" by my anthropological mentor and senior anthro major advisor ,Marshall Sahlins , in _Stone Age Economics_ ) . Foraging is a mode of direct appropriation from nature , not a mode of production; making a living by gigging smart not working hard. It was not that bi-pedalism and the origin of hands originated a new labor that caused the invention of tradition , names and words . The invention of culture and language in childcare by mothers ( I’m saying mothers invented names , words , symbolic communication to improve childcare, reproductive labor ) was extended to making a living ( the Darwinian struggle for existence) ; language and culture revolutionized the human struggle for existence by making it smarter, wiser, because of accumulation of knowledge over many generations . Language gives humans the capacity for dead generations to leave communications about their experiences to future living generations) . Also More leisure gives more time to think and thereby work even smarter.

Symbolic communication allows :

Ancestor veneration

The difference between humans and all other species is that through symbolic communication , words and culture, dead generations have a certain immortality and are part of the society of living generations . Living generations share the experiences of dead generations . Thereby knowledge accumulates. All humans stand on the shoulders of giants , as the scientist Isaac Newton put it concerning his scientific ancestors .

Engels is wrong in "The Role of Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man" when he says "First labour, after it and then with it speech ..." CB : First long childcare , then names and speech invented by mothers to do better childcare , and then a transition to LESS toil in the struggle for existence , to smarter struggle for existence informed by ancestral experience , and more leisure as compared with primate species ancestral to homo habilis and the origin of the Stone Age . Stone tools were invented to allow making a living less toilsome and more efficient . <

Perhaps the topic would be better named the transition in the struggle for existence in the transition from ape to man : the origin of imagination.

Stone Age society is Societas ( anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan’s term in _Ancient Society_ ) beginning 2.5 million years ago ; to circa 6,000 years ago with the beginning of Civitas ( Morgan ) private property, greed , slavery and heavy labor ( as Engels teaches in _The Origin of the Family , Private Property and the State _ ) . Slavery is the origin of Hard work , work ethic. With so-called civilization,

hard work ethic comes to dominate cultural ideas . So, hard labour is not our Stone Age, species-being , but civilization-being, which is a small fraction of the full time of our species history.

I think Engels anachronistically projects the determining role of labor on ideas ( the historical materialist principle ) back onto the Stone Age origins of language and culture . In fact the invention of language and culture revolutionized the bipedal primates’ struggle for existence by making it less of a struggle . Toilsome struggle was introduced with _slave_ labor in so-called civilization where historical materialist determination originates.

Nonetheless , Marx and Engels do propose transition from the Kingdom of Necessity to the Kingdom of Freedom . Freedom is Leisure and smart work through technology . Jobs lost to technological invention should be translated into more leisure time for the masses, a May Day demand.

[Marxism-Thaxis] The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man c b Thu, 27 May 2010 05:54:49 -0700

What about the transition in labor in the transition from ape to man ? This essay uses "labor" in the sense that it is something that apes do; it is their struggle for existence , for survival in the Darwinian sense . So, it is not the same "labor" ( or is it work ?) that produces capitalist surplus value in _Capital_I, but the “labor “ more general to all animals that Marx describes in Chapter so and so , where he says the difference between the labor of spiders and bees and that of man is IMAGINING the project as a plan first ( this implies that spiders and bees labor). “en social conditions. Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labour-power to market for sale as a commodity, from that state in which human labour was still in its first instinctive stage. We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the IMAGINATION of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman’s will be steadily in consonance with his purpose. This means close attention. The less he is attracted by the nature of the work, and the mode in which it is carried on, and the less, therefore, he enjoys it as something which gives play to his bodily and mental powers, the more close his attention is forced to be.”<

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm

So, Marx’s implication ( contra Engels in “The Role of Labor “ ) is that in the transition from ape to man ( australopithecine to Homo habilis) labor transitioned in part by taking on more mental labor, imagination and planning , as a component. Imagination is a form of symbolic thinking . Symbolic thinking defines humans , differentiates humans from all other species despite the false and exaggerated claims for chimps and gorillas by some primatologists <

[Marxism-Thaxis] The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man c b Thu, 27 May 2010 13:32:42 -0700 Engels: “But the decisive step had been taken, the hand had become free and could henceforth attain ever greater dexterity; the greater flexibility thus acquired was inherited and increased from generation to generation.”

^^^^^ CB: Ahhh but how ? How did the experience of repetition of use of _a_ hand by one individual get transferred to the brains of the next generation and the next , become the experience of _The_ hand ? If Patriarch uses his hands thousands of times his increasing dexterity is based on accumulated experience in that one individual's brain. The next generation's brains go back to "square one" at birth and childhood . The only way to accumulate the knowledge across generations is by mediating the learning experience with language, imagination, symbolic communication The only way to "stand on the shoulders of giants" is to receive messages from them through a system of symbols, words . ( as in those days there wasn't the technology to take enough pictures) "The" hand is not the hand of an individual, but The Hand, as a concept, an organ of the species.

( Symbolic signs - words being the best example - have an _arbitrary_ relation between the sign and the thing signified . They are using something to represent something that they are not.)<

In my class , I write my name on the board -Charles Brown . Then I point out that the marks on the board are not me; but they are used to represent me. So a name is using something to represent something it is not . There is an arbitrary relation between a name and the person named .<

See Leslie A. White :<

https://www.google.com/search?q=anthropologist+leslie+a+white+what+is+a+symbol+book+chapter&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#lfId=ChxjMe

Anthropologist Leslie A. White introduced his seminal definition of a symbol in his 1940 article, "The Symbol: The Origin and Basis of Human Behavior," which was later widely anthologized as a chapter in his 1949 book, The Science of Culture: A Study of Man and Civilization.In this work, White defines a symbol as a thing whose meaning or value is bestowed upon it by those who use it. Rather than being determined by its physical properties (as with a natural sign), the meaning of a symbol is arbitrarily assigned and freely applied by humans.

CHARLES BROWN A SYMBOLIC SIGN IS USING SOMETHING TO REPRESENT SOMETHING IT IS NOT <

The opposite of a symbolic sign is an _indexical_ sign . There is a necessary ( not arbitrary ) relationship between the sign and the thing signified . A favorite example is smoke and fire . Smoke is an indexical sign of fire ; dark and night ; colorful leaves and fall; a fingerprint and a finger touching a certain spot . Only humans have symbolic signs . Humans and all other animals _communicate_ or read indexical signs ; humans have both -despite the exaggerated claims for chimps and gorillas by some animals rights primatologists. ; humans can show and tell; other animals can only show ; other animals can communicate , but not with symbolic signs. <

Symbolic and indexical signs are basic ideas of semiotics .( http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/)

The arbitrary relation between symbolic signs and thing signified gives humans a DISPLACEMENT capacity . Humans can communicate with each other about events that are not in their immediate sensory field , like things that happened a week ago , or things that are on the other side of town

See https://owlcation.com/stem/The-difference-between-animal-and-human-communication

I CLAIM TO HAVE DISCOVERED BY LOGICAL IMPLICATION THAT THE UNIQUE DISPLACEMENT CAPACITY OF HUMANS ALLOWS ACCUMULATION OF KNOWLEDGE OVER GENERATIONS BECAUSE A LIVING GENERATION CAN SHARE THE EXPERIENCE OF DEAD GENERATIONS , SHARE _DISPLACED_ EXPERIENCES . <

Therefore , it was the ability to experience the displaced experiences of dead generations, symbolic thinking , that allowed the first humans to make Stone tools ( reverse of Engels’ idea)<

Again , Symbolic communication allows :

Ancestor veneration

The difference between humans and all other species is that through symbolic communication , words and culture, dead generations have a certain immortality and are part of the society of living generations . Living generations share the experiences of dead generations . Thereby knowledge accumulates. All humans stand on the shoulders of giants , as the scientist Isaac Newton put it concerning his scientific ancestors .<

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2021/12/materialism-necessity-and-freedom.html

Anthropology 153 /154 STONE AGE WAS MORE CIVILIZED THAN SO-CALLED CIVILIZATION My thesis that the Stone Age was more civilized than so-called Civilization is based the theses of Eminent Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins in his essays “The Origin of Society”, “The Original Affluent Society”, the critique of Darwin’s ideas on Human Evolution by Antoinette Blackwell that cooperation and balance were key in human progress , not competition and savage rivalry ( In Preface to _The Sexes Throughout Nature_; and my thesis ,the same as Blackwell’s, that human’s original ecological location determined that human original nature is social , not selfish ( my essays “ Is Human Nature Social or Selfish ?”; and “Survival of the Nice and Fertile”) I Usually the term “Civilization” or Civilized is used to refer to human society that is superior morally and technologically to the Stone Age human societies. The popular image of “cavemen” and Neanderthals is of brutes, savages who drag women around by the hair and presumably force themselves on them. Cannibals who are in regular and frequent conflict with each other . This is a slanderous portrayal of Stone Age Peoples. Civilization is superior technologically in that it has an increasingly more productive social organization and technology. With Civilization population size begins to grow more and is more concentrated than in the Stone Age. So , in that regard , Civilization is superior to the Stone Age on the Darwinian Fitness/Adaptation test, moving further from potential extinction/zero population. On the other hand, the total population of the Stone Age was growing and perpetuated for approximately 2.5 million years; and it was able to adapt to the full range of environmental types , from arctic to rain forest. Civilization has only existed for about 6,000 years, a tiny fraction of the 2.5 million years of the Stone Age . And , importantly, tragically, “civilized’ technology has gone so far as to invent NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Nuclear war at this stage would probably create a “nuclear winter’, similar to the “winter” created by the comet that hit the Earth and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. So, by So-called Civilization originating War between members of the same species, and super-destructive war technology, weapons, it has created a potentially UNFIT /EXTINCTION/POPULATION LOSS , in the Darwinian sense, dynamic for the human species. Civilization has 100,000s of years to go before it equals the Stone Age longevity of the human species. Not only that: War with even less than nuclear destructive potential , with swords, knives, clubs, guns and other weapons USED ON MEMBERS OF OUR OWN SPECIES is morally inferior – real savagery/barbarism- to Stone Age largely peaceful society, in my opinion. Furthermore, “Civilization’s” slaves work harder at food production than foragers or hunters and gatherers . This claim is based in part on Marshall Sahlins’s thesis in “ The Original Affluent Society” essay with the inference that societies through the 2.5 million years of the Stone Age were basically the same in terms of work time and intensity as Stone Age/Hunter-gatherer societies in the last 500 years; societies that Europeans _observed_ as they conquered the globe in the era of Capitalist Civilization . Civilization has more toil than Stone Age Society ( See “Original Affluent Society “). A society with more leisure is superior , in my opinion. “Civilized” society with masters exploiting production surpluses from slaves, greed; and oppressing and capturing slaves with armed force is inferior to Stone Age society where all adults are of equal status Also, Stone Age society with equal status between women and men is morally superior to So-called Civilization’s Male Supremacist culture. Along with the inference concerning the nature of Ancient Stone Age society from the thesis of “The Original Affluent Society”, I make the following inference concerning the superior morality of Stone Age Society ( from the Overview Lecture number 1): Since the advent about 6,000 years ago of so-called civilization, as you have no doubt heard it referred to sometimes, it's not so clear how wise our culture makes us. Therein lies the central drama of the history of the human species. Nonetheless, clearly in the Stone Age, our having culture was a highly adaptive advantage over species that did not have culture , stone tools or controlling fire made through culture or symbolic or imaginary thinking and communication, etc, raising our species fitness, the growth of our population . This is evidenced by _Homo sapiens_ expanding in population and therefore migrating to an expanded area of living space across the earth , out of what is now named Africa to the other continents. Stone Age foraging and kinship organized societies were the mode of life for the vast majority of time of human species ' existence, 95% or more. The first human societies had an extraordinarily high survival need to be able to rely on each other at levels of solidarity that we cannot even imagine. The intensity of the network of social connections of a band of 25 to 100 people living in the ecological food chain location close to the one described in our textbook , Chapter 4, would almost constitute a new level of organic organization and integrity above individual bodies or selves. Ancient kinship /family/culture /symbolic communication systems from around 2.5 million years ago ( the beginning of the Truly Civilized Stone Age) were almost super-organic bodies; the human social group was a harmonious , multi-individual Body, quasi-organism. The Individual human bodies, Selves, were very frail and weak in contrast with the bodies of the field of predators they were prey for . The dominance of the food chain that humans, ultimately reached even in the Stone Age with relatively _frail_ individual bodies. could only be reached by super-social , super internally-cooperative, super-intra-species harmony . This was only possible with symbolic communication both within a living generation and across generations, It is clear to me that natural selection , in the classical Darwinian sense, elected hominin groups with policies and practices of of "love thy neighbor as thyself " and "charity" over those that might have derived principles of "selfishness and greed", if there were any in the Stone Age before Civilization. Treating each other better was critical to survival and thriving for the ancient Stone Age I I Stone Age was more civilized than so-called Civilization because it did not have War, Greed/Slavery nor Male Supremacy. A) See Antoinette Blackwell’s claim that human evolutionary survival and thriving was due to cooperation and balance, not competition and savage rivalry. ( see essay below) B) See my “ Is Human Nature Social or Selfish ?” where I argue that sociality and solidarity were selected for in the Stone Age (2.5 million years) C) See Marshall Sahlins’s “ The Origin of Society” where he hypothesizes that " The decisive battle between early culture and human nature must have been waged on the field of primate sexuality…. Among subhuman primates sex had organized society; the customs of hunters and gatherers testify eloquently that now society was to organize sex…. In selective adaptation to the perils of the Stone Age, human society overcame or subordinated such primate propensities as selfishness, indiscriminate sexuality, dominance and brute competition. It substituted kinship and co-operation for conflict, placed solidarity over sex, morality over might. In its earliest days it accomplished the greatest reform in history, the overthrow of human primate nature, and thereby secured the evolutionary future of the species." — Sahlins, M. D. 1960 The origin of society. Scientific American 203(3): 76–87. III Life in the Stone Age has an original affluence; it was not nasty, miserable ,starving, brutish and short; therefore it was civilized in quality of life as well. See Sahlins Original Affluent Society The "original affluent society" is the proposition that argues that the lives of hunter-gatherers can be seen as embedding a sufficient degree of material comfort and security to be considered affluent. The theory was first put forward in a paper presented by Marshall Sahlins at a famous symposium in 1966 entitled 'Man the Hunter'. Sahlins observes that affluence is the satisfaction of wants, "which may be 'easily satisfied' either by producing much or desiring little."[1] Given a culture characterized by limited wants, Sahlins argued that hunter-gatherers were able to live 'affluently' through the relatively easy satisfaction of their material needs. At the time of the symposium new research by anthropologists, such as Richard B. Lee's work on the !Kung of southern Africa, challenged popular notions that hunter-gatherer societies were always near the brink of starvation and continuously engaged in a struggle for survival.[2] Sahlins gathered the data from these studies and used it to support a comprehensive argument that states that hunter-gatherers did not suffer from deprivation, but instead lived in a society in which "all the people's wants are easily satisfied."[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN8GYsCvyyA https://www.uvm.edu/~jdericks/EE/Sahlins-Original_Affluent_Society.pdf (((( Our Mother Nature: Antoinette Blackwell Blackwell chose to highlight balance and cooperation rather than struggle and savage rivalry By Charlie Brown Antoinette Blackwell was both an Evolutionist and a Creationist ! Shewas the first woman ordained as a Christian minister in the US , and she wrote a General Science textbook agreeing with Charles Darwin's theory of the evolution of species by natural selection. What an interesting historical character in light of today's debates between Creationists and Evolutionists ! Mother Blackwell was also a suffragette. In 1920, at age 95, she was the only participant of the 1850 Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts who lived long enough to vote when at last women had the vote, dammit. Reverend Blackwell was also an abolitionist against slavery. She was one of the few white feminists to support the 15th Amendment giving the vote to Black men, even as no women had the vote. She supported the famous African American leader, Frederick Douglass, in this debate within American feminism in the mid-1900's. A regular Force of Nature was she. I came across Blackwell in reading about Charles Darwin's book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Antoinette Blackwell wrote The Sexes Throughout Nature. I haven't actually read those books yet, but I have them on order. Future blogs will explore the issues in those books more. Meanwhile, Wikipedia's items explains how Blackwell argued that there was natural selection for "cooperation and balance" among humans, al lof us members of the same species. Survival of the fittest does not mean survival of competition between humans, survival of the toughest individual "men". The fittest are those who successfully reproduce !Reproduction requires , in the first place, cooperation (smiles).On the primacy of cooperation in natural origins , See Labor Power's Is Human Nature Social or Selfish ? blog http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/05/is-human-nature-social-or-selfish-i.html Antoinette Blackwell's book, The Sexes Throughout Nature, critiques Charles Darwin four years after he published The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex in 1871,[1] and Herbert Spencer, whom the author thought were the most influential men of her day.[2] Darwin had written a letter to her in 1869, thanking her for a copy of her book,Studies in General Science.[3] She also answers Dr. E. H. Clarke and his book Sex and Education which she deplored.[4] Blackwell's book was republished by Hyperion Press in 1976, 1985 and 1992.[5] Parts of the book were first published in Woman's Journal and Popular Science Monthly.[6]Blackwell chose to highlight balance and cooperation rather than struggle and savage rivalry. She criticized Darwin for basing his theory of evolution on "time-honored assumption that the male is the normal type of his species".[7] She wrote that Spencer scientificallysubtracts from the female and Darwin as scientifically adds to the male.[6] Darwin's theories of evolution by natural selection were used to show women's place in society was the result of nature.[14] One of the first women to critique Darwin, Antoinette Brown Blackwell published The Sexes Throughout Nature in 1875.[15] She was aware she would be considered presumptuous for criticising evolutionary theory but wrote that "disadvantages under which we [women] are placed...will never be lessened by waiting".[16] Blackwell's book answered Darwin and Herbert Spencer, who she thought were the two most influential living men.[17]She wrote of "defrauded womanhood" and her fears that "the human race, forever retarding its own advancement...could not recognize and promote a genuine, broad, and healthful equilibrium of the sexes".[18] It was not until one century later[8] that feminists were workin g from inside the natural sciences, and could address Darwin's androcentricity.[ See definition of androcentricity below )Sarah Blaffer Hrdy wrote in her book Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection (quoting from an excerpt of pages 12–25 in AnthroNotes for educators published by the National Museum of Natural History), "For a handful of nineteenth-century women intellectuals, however ,evolutionary theory was just too important to ignore. Instead of turning away, they stepped forward to tap Darwin and Spencer on the shoulder to express their support for this revolutionary view of human nature, and also to politely remind them that they had left out hal f the species."[9] Hrdy added, "Evolutionary biology did eventually respond to these criticisms, yet in their lifetimes, the effect that these earl y Darwinian feminists—Eliot, Blackwell, Royer, and a few others—had on main stream evolutionary theory can be summed up with one phrase: the road not taken."[10] In the Descent of Man, Darwin wrote that by choosing tools and weapons over the years, "man has ultimately become superior to woman"[19] but Blackwell's argument for women's equality went largely ignored until the 1970s when feminist scientists and historians began to explore Darwin.[20] As recently as 2004, Griet Vandermassen, aligned with other Darwinian feminists of the 1990s and early 2000s (decade), wrote that a unifying theory of human nature should include sexual selection.[15] But then the "opposite ongoing integration" was promoted by another faction as an alternative in 2007.[21]Nonetheless, Darwin's explanation of sexual selection continues to receive support from both social and biological scientists as "the best explanation to date".[22]v http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sexes_Throughout_Nature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descent_of_Man,_and_Selection_in_Relation_to_Sex#Part_II_and_III:_Sexual_selection ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The Sexes Throughout Nature is a book written by Antoinette Brown Blackwell, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1875. Overview and print history The book critiques Charles Darwin four years after he published The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex in 1871,[1] and Herbert Spencer, whom the author thought were the most influential men of her day.[2] Darwin had written a letter to her in 1869, thanking her for a copy of her book, Studies in General Science.[3] She also answers Dr. E. H. Clarke and his book Sex and Education which she deplored.[4] Blackwell's book was republished by Hyperion Press in 1976, 1985 and 1992.[5] Parts of the book were first published in Woman's Journal and Popular Science Monthly.[6] Blackwell chose to highlight balance and cooperation rather than struggle and savage rivalry. She criticized Darwin for basing his theory of evolution on "time-honored assumption that the male is the normal type of his species".[7] She wrote that Spencer scientifically subtracts from the female and Darwin as scientifically adds to the male.[6] It was not until one century later[8] that feminists were working from inside the natural sciences, and could address Darwin's androcentricity.[1] Sarah Blaffer Hrdy wrote in her book Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection (quoting from an excerpt of pages 12–25 in AnthroNotes for educators published by the National Museum of Natural History), "For a handful of nineteenth-century women intellectuals, however, evolutionary theory was just too important to ignore. Instead of turning away, they stepped forward to tap Darwin and Spencer on the shoulder to express their support for this revolutionary view of human nature, and also to politely remind them that they had left out half the species."[9] Hrdy added, "Evolutionary biology did eventually respond to these criticisms, yet in their lifetimes, the effect that these early Darwinian feminists—Eliot, Blackwell, Royer, and a few others—had on mainstream evolutionary theory can be summed up with one phrase: the road not taken."[10] Contemporary reviews Antoinette Blackwell Popular Science said it is a "monograph, written to establish, on scientific grounds, the equality of the sexes throughout Nature". "Mrs. Blackwell seems to us quite oblivious of the difficulties of the task here undertaken". And, regarding maternity, "Denying, as we do, the equality of the sexes, and holding to the superiority of the female sex, we protest against the degradation of woman implied...".[11] Publishers Weekly thought it was an "important contribution to the famous 'sex and education' controversy...".[12] The Unitarian Review said the "modesty of its preface, at the outset, ought to disarm of his prejudices any reader who can see only superficiality and pretense in the efforts of women after the higher sciences".[13] The editor Percy M. Wallace made fun of the book in the notes of the 1897 edition of Tennyson's The Princess: "When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up,/And topples down the scales". Explained in a note by "when the man neglects the proper functions of his supremacy, the woman assumes them, and the result is a subversion of the order of nature" followed by a quote of pages 96 and 97 in which Blackwell notes that whenever brilliant-colored male birds acquire maternal instincts, the females acquire male characteristics.[14] Contents Sex and Evolution The Statement The Argument The Alleged Antagonism Between Growth and Reproduction Sex and Work The Building of a Brain The Trial by Science Notes Rose, Hilary and Rose, Steven (Summer 2009). "The changing face of human nature". Daedalus. 138 (3): 11. doi:10.1162/daed.2009.138.3.7. S2CID 57558382. Blackwell, Antoinette (1875). The Sexes Throughout Nature. G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 234. Darwin, Charles (November 8, 1869). "Letter 6976". Darwin Correspondence Project. Retrieved 2009-11-26. Blackwell, Antoinette Brown (1875). "Sex and Work". The Sexes Throughout Nature. G. P. Putnam's Sons via Internet Archive. p. 149. Retrieved 2009-11-23. Blackwell, Antoinette (1992) [1875]. The Sexes Throughout Nature. Hyperion Press [ G. P. Putnam's Sons ]. ISBN 978-0-88355-349-7. Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey; Harvey, Joy Dorothy (November 23, 2000). The biographical dictionary of women in science: pioneering lives from ancient times to the mid-20th century. Taylor & Francis. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-415-92038-4. Retrieved 2009-11-23. Leach, William (1981). True love and perfect union: the feminist reform of sex and society. ISBN 978-0-7100-0766-7. Retrieved 2009-11-20. Vandermassen, Griet (2004). "Sexual Selection: A Tale of Male Bias and Feminist Denial". European Journal of Women's Studies. 11 (9): 9–26. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.550.3672. doi:10.1177/1350506804039812. S2CID 145221350. Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer (Fall 2008). "Darwinism, Social Darwinism, and the "Supreme Function" of Mothers" (PDF). AnthroNotes. 29 (2): 10–13. doi:10.5479/10088/22434. Schwartz, Douglas W. (Fall 2008). An Evolving Genius: The Extraordinary Early Life of Charles Darwin (PDF). Vol. 29. Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 2009-11-23. ""The Sexes Throughout Nature" in Literary Notices". The Popular Science Monthly. D. Appleton. 7: 370. 1875. Retrieved 2009-11-23. "Notes in Season". The Publishers Weekly. 7: 409. April 17, 1875. Retrieved 2009-11-23. Allen, Joseph Henry (1875). "Review of Current Literature". The Unitarian Review. 4: 543. Retrieved 2009-11-23. Percy M. Wallace (ed.), in Baron Alfred Tennyson (1897). The princess: a medley. Retrieved 2009-11-23. Bibliography Blackwell, Antoinette (1992) [1875]. The Sexes Throughout Nature. Hyperion Press. ISBN 978-0-88355-349-7. External links Blackwell, Antoinette (1875). The sexes throughout nature. G. P. Putnam via Internet Archive. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Wikipedia The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of biological adaptation distinct from, yet interconnected with, natural selection. The book discusses many related issues, including evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary musicology, differences between human races, differences between sexes, the dominant role of women in mate choice, and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society. Part II and III: Sexual selection See also: Sexual selection in human evolution and Sexual selection Darwin argued that the female peahen chose to mate with the male peacock who she believed had the most beautiful plumage. Part II of the book begins with a chapter outlining the basic principles of sexual selection, followed by a detailed review of many different taxa of the kingdom Animalia which surveys various classes such as molluscs and crustaceans. The tenth and eleventh chapters are both devoted to insects, the latter specifically focusing on the order Lepidoptera, the butterflies and moths. The remainder of the book shifts to the vertebrates, beginning with cold blooded vertebrates (fishes, amphibians and reptiles) followed by four chapters on birds. Two chapters on mammals precede those on humans. Darwin explained sexual selection as a combination of "female choosiness" and "direct competition between males".[32] Antoinette Blackwell, one of the first women to write a critique of Darwin Darwin's theories of evolution by natural selection were used to try to show women's place in society was the result of nature.[33] One of the first women to critique Darwin, Antoinette Brown Blackwell published The Sexes Throughout Nature in 1875.[34] She was aware she would be considered presumptuous for criticising evolutionary theory but wrote that "disadvantages under which we [women] are placed...will never be lessened by waiting".[35] Blackwell's book answered Darwin and Herbert Spencer, who she thought were the two most influential living men.[36] She wrote of "defrauded womanhood" and her fears that "the human race, forever retarding its own advancement...could not recognize and promote a genuine, broad, and healthful equilibrium of the sexes".[37] In the Descent of Man, Darwin wrote that by choosing tools and weapons over the years, "man has ultimately become superior to woman",[38] but Blackwell's argument for women's equality went largely ignored until the 1970s when feminist scientists and historians began to explore Darwin.[39] As recently as 2004, Griet Vandermassen, aligned with other Darwinian feminists of the 1990s and early 2000s (decade), wrote that a unifying theory of human nature should include sexual selection.[34] But then the "opposite ongoing integration" was promoted by another faction as an alternative in 2007.[40] Nonetheless, Darwin's explanation of sexual selection continues to receive support from both social and biological scientists as "the best explanation to date".[41] Apparently non-adaptive features In Darwin's view, anything that could be expected to have some adaptive feature could be explained easily with his theory of natural selection. In On the Origin of Species, Darwin wrote that to use natural selection to explain something as complicated as a human eye, "with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration" might at first appear "absurd in the highest possible degree," but nevertheless, if "numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist", then it seemed quite possible to account for within his theory. "The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!" More difficult for Darwin were highly evolved and complicated features that conveyed apparently no adaptive advantage to the organism. Writing to colleague Asa Gray in 1860, Darwin commented that he remembered well a "time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of the complaint, & now small trifling particulars of structure often make me very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!"[42] Why should a bird like the peacock develop such an elaborate tail, which seemed at best to be a hindrance in its "struggle for existence"? To answer the question, Darwin had introduced in the Origin the theory of sexual selection, which outlined how different characteristics could be selected for if they conveyed a reproductive advantage to the individual. In this theory, male animals in particular showed heritable features acquired by sexual selection, such as "weapons" with which to fight over females with other males, or beautiful plumage with which to woo the female animals. Much of Descent is devoted to providing evidence for sexual selection in nature, which he also ties into the development of aesthetic instincts in human beings, as well as the differences in coloration between the human races.[43] Darwin had developed his ideas about sexual selection for this reason since at least the 1850s, and had originally intended to include a long section on the theory in his large, unpublished book on species. When it came to writing Origin (his "abstract" of the larger book), though, he did not feel he had sufficient space to engage in sexual selection to any strong degree, and included only three paragraphs devoted to the subject. Darwin considered sexual selection to be as much of a theoretical contribution of his as was his natural selection, and a substantial amount of Descent is devoted exclusively to this topic. ^^^^^^^^^************************************************************^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Androcentrism (Ancient Greek, ????, "man, male"[1]) is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing a masculine point of view at the center of one's world view, culture, and history, thereby culturally marginalizing femininity, including use of “Man” to refer to the whole human species. The related adjective is androcentric, while the practice of placing the feminine point of view at the center is gynocentric. Androcentrism has been described as a pervasive form of sexism.[2][3] However, it has also been described as a movement centered on, emphasizing, or dominated by males or masculine interests.[4] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Darwin’s claim of superiority of men over women is refuted by his own theory that fitness is measured by population growth of a type ; women play a superior role in perpetuation of the human species by CHARLES BROWN Darwin’s claim of superiority of men over women is refuted by his own theory that fitness is measured by population growth of a type ; women play a superior role in perpetuation of the human species . - @@@@ Here’s the direct refutation of Darwin’s claim * that human males are superior to human females . @@@@ Superior in what sense ? For Darwin the most important superiority would be playing a superior role in raising our species’s fitness , playing a superior role in our being selected for , no ? @@@"@ Secondly , for Darwin , the ultimate measure of fitness is size and trend of the _population_ **. If it’s increasing , the species is fit; if decreasing toward extinction, unfit or selected against . Women play a superior role to men in reproducing our species population , pregnancy , birth , childcare . Therefore , women are superior to men in Darwin’s own theory of natural selection as applied to the human race; women are more important than men in increasing population; the logic of Darwin’s theory refutes his statement that men are somehow superior to women. @@@@@@ Over 100,000’s of years , our species population has been increasing as compared with other primates and mammals . That’s our claim to Darwinian fame . Women can claim more than half of the credit. @@@@ * “ In The Descent of Man, Darwin argued that evolution made man “superior” to woman. For Darwin, that superiority largely played out in the intellectual and artistic realm. He wrote: “If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music—comprising composition and performance, history science and philosophy … the two lists would not bear comparison.” Spencer echoed Darwin’s sentiments and went further, postulating that in order for the human race to flourish, women must devote their lives to reproduction.“ @@@ Ironically, Spencer states the fact that makes women superior to men in raising the Darwinian fitness of Homo sapiens. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/woman-who-tried-take-down-darwin-180967146/ @@@ Blackwell made a successful critique of Darwin and Spencer. She asserted that balance and cooperation within the human species played a more important role than competition and savage rivalry in humans successful perpetuation and growth of the human population. @@@@@@@@"" “ Blackwell chose to highlight balance and cooperation rather than struggle and savage rivalry. She criticized Darwin for basing his theory of evolution on "time-honored assumption that the male is the normal type of his species".[7] She wrote that Spencer scientifically subtracts from the femaleand Darwin as scientifically adds to the male.[6] It was not until one century later[8] that feminists were working from inside the natural sciences, and could address Darwin's androcentricity.[1]” @@@ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sexes_Throughout_Nature “ Darwin concludes in his book, The Descent of Man, saying that men attain "a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can women—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands."[2]“ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin _and_women CB : However, women attain a higher imminence in _reproduction_ , the key practice for perpetuating and increasing the population size of our species - the Darwinian test of fitness. @@@ ** Some discussions of Darwinian fitness focus on individuals passing on genes . However , Darwin’s theory concerns the increase or decrease in the population of a _type_ or species , a phenotype, not an individual's success . Darwin did not know about the modern concept of genes , but extending his theory to genes , it concerns perpetuation or extinction of geno-TYPES . That's not idealistic . It's MATERial , real , fact; Females pregnate, birth and childcare the males and the females, both . Those are the key projects for perpetuation of the species. Perpetuation of the species is the Darwinian test of fitness , being selected for. Male supremacy, greed and war are not in our genes The male supremacist family, private property (classes; greed), and the state ( special repressive apparatus ) arises as a complex together circa 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. They are still together in a complex that dominates the human species in 2018. Before that for the about 2.5 million years of the Stone Age ( true Civilization) there was gender equivalence, sharing and peace in the species; that's when we were substantially "hardwired " genetically . So, Male supremacy and class divided society and war are not in our genes. /// Ancestor veneration The difference between humans and all other species is that through symbolic communication , words and culture, dead generations have a certain immortality and are part of the society of living generations . Living generations share the experiences of dead generations . Thereby knowledge accumulates. All humans stand on the shoulders of giants , as the scientist Isaac Newton put it .

Baseball and Worldview Blog

Tuesday, July 14, 2026

_WHY_ IS HISTORY A HISTORY OF CLASS STRUGGLES ?

Whoever heard of a one generation species?

Monday, July 13, 2026

War is a Racket : American Regime will continue to purchase expensive weapons that failed in war on Iran ; America builds fake Boogie men around the world ever since the Soviet Union as in excuse to pay the Military Industrial Complex

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

Monday, July 6, 2026

Saturday, July 4, 2026