Originally Posted by Mad_Michael

I strongly disagree with this, unless you will agree that these "inherited patterns of behavior" are adaptive/adoptive rather than being inalienable.

Originally Posted by Mad_Michael

Innate?

Like God put it there? Like it cannot be adapted or adopted?

Originally Posted by Mad_Michael

Hierachy, like any other strategem or technique, is merely something that was adopted long ago, and maintained/continued because it works better than non-hierarchy. Indeed, our species adoption of hierarchy appears to predate our species itself, but that doens't mean it is categorically 'hard-wired' to humans (I'd call it 'soft-wired'). As evidence of this, I shall point to all our active and on-going collective efforts to maintain/support our hierarchical structures. If hierarchy really was 'innate' to humans, then this wouldn't be necessary, it would be unchallenged.

Originally Posted by SMadsen

WOI, before responding to anything else, I'd like to address this part because I fear it might have resulted in a misunderstanding.

I'm absolutely not saying that neither Bakunin nor Kropotkin hold their ideas to any high regard of egoism. Past the paragraph you quoted, I specifically referred to the dualism created by their mere recognition of egoism.

In "Ethics: Origin and Development", Kropotkin asserts that ethics "aims at the development of social habits and the weakening of the narrowly personal habits". He further claims in the same text, that "there can be no pure altruism without an admixture of personal pleasure - and consequently, without egoism". I'm reading this as a dualism in which there is a mutual reinforcement between the social and personal pleasures. Which in turn, by his arguments of evolution, particularly in "Mutual Aid", reinforces the social habits that contributes to the mutualism in the first place.

Add to this, of course, his observations of "two aspects of animal life" in the very beginning of "Mutual Aid" and I interpret it as Kropotkin is recognizing the situation where lack of social development will inadvertently attribute survival to the egoistic struggle that he found among less social creatures in Siberia, whereas social development will introduce the mutualism he also observed in abundance. Again, a dualism where the 'egoistic beast' and the 'social beast' merge by the principle of Mutual Aid and its necessary ethical foundation.

I admit that it may give the wrong impression to have omitted the part of the social beast in that quote but, 1. it wasn't needed in that particular context, and 2., I reckoned it was "selbstverständlich" - especially when I referred to the 'human dualism' later in the post.

Now, having made my contribution to clear up any potential misunderstanding caused by my bad authoring skills, you can dissect it and blow it to smitherines. At least it now represents my best capability to give the fullest version of what I meant. Which simply was that, unlike Rosseau's rather romantic illustration of the basically 'good human', egoism is at least recognized by Kropotkin.

Originally Posted by SMadsen

Of course inherited patterns of behavior are adaptive. How else would life be where it is today? By divine creation? No way, Mr. MM. I don't recall having used the word 'inalienable' and I can't find the reason for any misunderstanding that would make you attribute my post to that concept. To the best of my knowledge, nothing is inalienable in the dynamic system of life.

Originally Posted by SMadsen

Are you saying that sexual reproduction doesn't come with a range of inherited patterns of behavior. In other words, are you saying that sexual desire is based on acquired behavior? And if so, is the acquistion only applicable to humans or does, say, a bee queen and a bee drone each have to learn and acquire sexual desire and behavior before they can reproduce?

Originally Posted by SMadsen

I missed this reply. Meriam-Webster (yeah, English is not my native language so I tend to double-check my rather old and worn-out paperbased dictionary with the web) says that 'innate' means 'inborn'. In the meaning of inherited, not created. Since inheritage is based on plain and simple genetics, how do you come to the conclusion that I would be talking about any divine intervention??

Originally Posted by SMadsen

Adopted long ago? What does that mean? You can't blurt out that something is passed on without suggesting the vehicle of transfer. Does it mean that tendency of hierarchy is passed on in meme-like style or that the creatures that display hierarchical behavior are predisposed for this tendency by inherited patterns of behavior?

Originally Posted by SMadsen

This question is not at all answered by any active and on-going collective effort to maintain/support hierarchical structures. The reason for such an effort could both be based on cultural tradition (i.e. meme-like inheritance) AND based on inherited patterns of behavior (i.e. genetics).

Originally Posted by Mad_Michael

The source of any human inheritance is either a) adaptive/adoptive evolution, or b) god-designed, or c) a genetic mutation.

Originally Posted by SMadsen

I'm not in agreement with your use of concepts here. Neither evolution nor genetic mutation is a mean of transfer. They are both a measure (and possible cause) of change between transfers, not a source of transfer.

The source of transfer between humans, i.e. human inheritance, is either genes or culture (or divine intervention for those inclined to hold to such a notion). Not evolution and not mutation.

Originally Posted by Mad_Michael

I agree that inheritance is the vehicle of the transfer in genetics, but either God-derived, evolution or mutation MUST be the source of what is transfered.

Originally Posted by Mad_Michael

And I draw a strong distinction between a genetic inheritence and a cultural one. One has NO CHOICE in one's genetic inheritence, one HAS CHOICE in one's cultural inheritence. Ergo, they are fundamentally different processes. One does not inherit American culture the same way one inherits blue eyes.