[Glorantha] Nurture: hardware or software?

In message <007401c6a0d7$a57244e0$0200000a@malkhome02> "Malk Williams" writes:

>> but cultural attitudes
>> rarely conflict with basic instincts.
>
>Piffle. Utter rhubarb. Sticking with the English upper classes
>of (say) the late C19th. Most of the cultural attitudes they are
>reputed to have had conflict with basic instincts! The whole way
>society was organised could be described as a systematic repression
>of basic instincts.

Best give an example then as I can't think of one. The basic instincts I recognise are individual survival, reproduction (sex in males, babies in females) and survival of offspring. Not necessarily in that order. The cultural attitudes came into existance to best achieve that in the society of that time. That's what the human animal is good at, adapting behaviour patterns to suit changing circumstances.

>Coming back to modern Britain (and I daresay America as well), take
>breastfeeding as an example. Clearly there is a physical compulsion
>to breastfeed, (some women have difficulty with it, a few can't do
>it at all, a lot of them find it hard and painful, but nevertheless)
>but there are a lot of cultural attitudes that have caused this to be
>considerably repressed in our society. I won't list them, but there
>are loads of reasons this has happened.

>From all I've heard breastfeeding has to be learnt which makes
it unlikely as an instinct never mind a physical compulsion.

And I can only think of two reasons for the cultural repression. The heavy promotion of milk products by the medical profession and the food industry during the 1950s and 60s, combined with the social emphasis on the sexual function of the female breast.

>I think you're conflating a few different arguments there. I think
>that there is an instinct to nurture (which is not necessarily as
>strong in all women), but the ability to do it well is learnt.
>Skills and knowledge, though I contend that there are some basic
>instincts in there as well, humans are very good at overriding their
>basic instincts though, and at letting others tell us to suppress
>them.

This is where we're disagreeing, you are claiming as basic instincts things I believe are learnt behaviour. As a result you have to conclude that humans learn to override their instincts whereas I say it is a matter of not learning something which the majority of people in a particular culture do.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/