Biochemical Basics
by Hersius

I recently had a conversation (with a feminist) in which I asserted that there is no materialist philosophy that shows why people should either treat everyone as being the same or why people should serve one another rather than dominate one another, saying that you have to turn to the supernaturalist philosophies to get that, and adding that within materialism, equality doctrines are situationally derived, not fundamentally derived, saying that people everywhere organize themselves along hierarchial lines even within an avowedly egalitarian framework. This got me to thinking that maybe I should present that argument here, not because the readership needs to hear it, but rather in the hope that maybe the ideas might be of use when conversing with others who are not of like mind. Accordingly, here is a simplified outline of some of the very basic ideas underlying a biochemistry-based philosophy.

One’s philosophy can be based either on materialism or supernaturalism. The philosophy shown in the Gor series is based on materialism. This article will comment on some fundamental ideas based on materialism.

The first fundamental idea is that human life is dependent on the physical environment. People need to remain within specific environmental temperature, pressure, and gravitational ranges and need to be shielded from certain radiations. People are also dependent on an atmospheric composition of limited range. The social corollary to this thesis is that people need to care for their environment and not destroy it. Norman therefore devotes a portion of his writing in the Gor series to environmental concerns, and with holes in the Earth’s ozone and fears about pollution promoting global warming and causing respiratory illness, time has shown him to be right.

The second fundamental idea is that humans are a part of nature, not apart from nature. The supernaturalist idea that people are distinct from the natural world and are “made a little lower than the angels” has alienated some philosophers from their biological identity. In a simmilar arrogance, from a materialist perspective, “culture” has been seen as an evolution of evolution itself in which chemistry transcends physics and biochemistry transcends chemistry and finally (at least so far) culture transcends biochemistry, thereby having culture, as an evolutionary transcendence, make humanity into a unique organism that in some ways leaves its biology behind. The opposite stance can be taken here, in which chemistry is seen not as an open-funnel “progression and transformation” of physics but rather as a narrow-funnel specification and subset of physics, with biochemistry then seen as a subset of chemistry and culture seen as a subset of biology, in which case “evolution” is simply specification and culture is deeply embedded in biology. Norman accepts the proposition that humans are part of nature, and that culture should develop along lines that are not antagonistic to human biology, and he devotes a portion of his writing in the Gor series to identifying social norms that are “anti-biological” and therefore dangerous at both the indivdual and species levels.

The third fundamental idea is that within the environmental constraints, as biological organisms, humans individually need to (1) respirate, (2) transpirate, (3) feed, (4) excrete, and (5) sleep, and as as a group, humans need to (6) reproduce. Not every individual needs to reproduce - the reproduction of some is sufficient for the survival of the species - but all have a drive to reproduce. Mere existence does not require that every individual communicate or do anything social beyond the functions listed above, as idividuals can live in isolation from other humans. People perform these functions in socially prescribed ways, and therefore how we eat and go to the bathroom will vary from one group to the next, but the fact remains that individuals cannot maintain life without breathing, self-regulating body temperature, gaining energy, eliminating body wastes, and sleeping, and the human body, like that of other life forms, is designed to reproduce. The social corrallary to this thesis is that everything else that people do is a cultural option, and Norman devotes a portion of his writing in the Gor series to illustrating the arbitrary character of false consciousnesses by showing how social structures, practices, and ideal types that are in sync with human “biotruths” can be operationalized within a planet’s diversity of societies.

One basic idea dervied from the above is that “cultural relativism” is situationally limited, and we should not be afraid to say that some ways in which people live are good and that some ways people have chosen to live are bad. Scholars curtailed the use of “good” and “bad” as labels for cutural expressions beginning with the work of Franz Boas in the early 1900s. Boas proposed that people everywhere solve problems, and that practical problem-solving is the test of cultural norms, so, for example, an igloo would be most accurately compared to a brick house not in evolutionary terms but in terms of how they each solve different practical problems. The value of situational usefulness masks itself as a value-free criterion, and being non-judgmental conceals moral evaluations that would otherwise be expressed in policy, and so acceptance to the detriment of a “labelling” comparison becomes a positive social value. X becomes “neither good nor bad but only different” from Y. Modern anti-environmentalists and Samers use this philosophical base to justify their agendas and in so doing ignore the idea that solving one problem may make another problem even worse. This approach to culture also fails to point out that what works under certain conditons is dysfunctional in others. Norman accepts the idea that certain cultural expressions that solve certain problems are fine - the world should have diversity, and Cabot never disparages the igloo as appropriate for an environment characterized by snow - but Norman does not extend a limited concept into the major blunder that everything that people can do culturally has a neutral impact on the species. In other words, just because society does it, that does not make it right, and Norman devotes a portion of his writing in the Gor series to discussing the positive and negative impacts of certain cultural expressions on both the indivdual and the species.

A field of study called Sociobiology endeavors to study humanity socially within the context of biology and environment. A number of specials on public television and Discovery-type channels have, in recent years, presented sociobiological propositions in highly scientific formats and, in doing so, have shown that sociobiology can be reputable in its presentation even when “politically incorrect” in its message. Sociobiology has been decried as being “reductionist”, and the term, “reductionist” is one generally given a negative characterization. I would give the term, “reductionist” a positive characterization, however, since to me it means “without baggage”. Philosophies other than sociobiologies are based on assumptions that are not verifiable and that therefore have their own sets of credos. Norman starts with a very simple, verifiable proposition: humans are mammals. He then devotes a portion of his writing in the Gor series to discussing people as genetic beings that have genetically-programmed behaviors in common with other mammals.

In summation, Gorean thought is based on the proposition that people are biological organisms - specifically mammals - whose social norms need to reflect what humanity is biologically. Any attempted refutation of that contains intellectual baggage that cannot be verified.

The February 2006 issue of National Geographic contains - undoubtedly as a Valentine’s Day treat - an article on the chemistry of love. The author of that article poses the thought: “It all seems too good to be true, that we could be so hardwired and yet unconscious of the wiring,” to which one who appreciates the Gor series might well reply, “Welcome to the first step in awareness.”

I wish you well,

Hersius