Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 19:39:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and right-wing politics
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980801215201.00d78a98@mailbox55.utcc.utoronto.ca>

What is anti-progressive about sociobiology is not only its political
opposition against the world masses but that it desires to root social
relations and culture forms in the nature of the species. In this way
sociobiology is the quintessential retrogressive intellectual project: it
seeks to returns us to the debunked social biological theories of the
previous century. Only a scientific research program that is perceived as
advantageous to ruling elite interests could continue with the paucity of
evidence sociobiology has accumulated and the overwhelming evidence and
logic against it; it can carry on because of the money and the power that
back it. 

I watched a debate on C-SPAN last night (taped for me by a colleague) of a
seminar sponsored by Reed Irvine, featuring Christine Sommers and Bob
Lind. Sommers presented the mountain of sociobiological evidence that
shows the inherent differences between men and women. One of her most
trusted sources was a researcher for Hasbro (or maybe it was Mattel) who,
in designing doll houses and army men, concluded that boys are naturally
drawn to army men, while little girls naturally gravitate towards doll
houses. Sommers complained that the reason why such overwhelming
scientific evidence was not permitted in the universities was because
gender feminists have taken over the universities and their ideology of
biological egalitarianism (i.e., communism) precludes the introduction of
empirical evidence in academia. Lind then proved that these ideological
barriers in the university are the result of cultural Marxism imported
from Germany via the Frankfurt School.

Exactly like my critic this afternoon, Bob Lind also argues that opponents
of theories of inherent difference between groups reduce and label all
views contrary to theirs as anti-progressive because all those who are
opposed to pro-natural hierarchical positions are really communists. The
post addressed to my remarks this morning, I must confess, was well
beneath the rhetorical standards of Bob Lind, however. Lind is a
captivating propagandist (except where during the question and answer
segment he argued that blacks and whites in the segregated South had
agreed to their situation and, judging from the degeneration of the black
community ever since civil rights, blacks were far better off under
segregation). 

Andy