Natural vs Unnatural
There are some topics like sexuality that lead to people making the natural-unnatural distinction.
Many people find this dichotomy problematic with some saying that "unnatural" makes no sense at all. After all if it's happening in this universe then it must be natural. What else could it be?
I'd like to offer a very simple analysis of the issue for your valuable comments.
1. If you look at the dichotomy from a statistical (quantitative/mathematical) lens then the natural-unnatural distinction is valid. A measurable parameter follows the normal distribution and the majority of a given population will lie within 2 standard deviations of the mean. What lies outside is the minority which can be described as "unnatural". Consider the case of homosexuality. They're a minority group and if we look at the stats we can say that they're unnatural. Note: I'm not a homophobic and would like readers to simply concentrate on the natural-unnatural distinction.
2. If you now avoid math and do only a qualitative analysis you'll see that nature manifests in different ways. Variety is an essential feature of nature and quite aptly the LGBT community's symbol is the rainbow. There are many colors in the rainbow but no single color is more natural or unnatural than the other.
Comments
Many people find this dichotomy problematic with some saying that "unnatural" makes no sense at all. After all if it's happening in this universe then it must be natural. What else could it be?
I'd like to offer a very simple analysis of the issue for your valuable comments.
1. If you look at the dichotomy from a statistical (quantitative/mathematical) lens then the natural-unnatural distinction is valid. A measurable parameter follows the normal distribution and the majority of a given population will lie within 2 standard deviations of the mean. What lies outside is the minority which can be described as "unnatural". Consider the case of homosexuality. They're a minority group and if we look at the stats we can say that they're unnatural. Note: I'm not a homophobic and would like readers to simply concentrate on the natural-unnatural distinction.
2. If you now avoid math and do only a qualitative analysis you'll see that nature manifests in different ways. Variety is an essential feature of nature and quite aptly the LGBT community's symbol is the rainbow. There are many colors in the rainbow but no single color is more natural or unnatural than the other.
Comments
Comments (40)
You're confusing natural with normal.
I'll just make one salient point and you can run with it. The Christian Bible has misinterpreted and mistranslated or otherwise is in error on its conclusion to essentially judge & discriminate against LGBT.
Example: at the time the Bible was written phenomena such as ambiguous genitalia babies were either not historically recorded or ignored. Again we need new paradigms... .
My comment is why should what's statistically common be treated as a normative in the sense of what anyone should be doing? X is statistically common. Y is statistically very uncommon. What gives x and y any comparative value, especially so that x is preferred? What would be the justification for that?
You've presented a homophobic argument, so the personal disclaimer appears inconsistent. The term "unnatural" carries a negative connotation, so your definition, which only references objective statistical claims, cannot attach to that word. It's like saying "fucked up" means those behaviors that fall outside the statistical norm, so therefore gays are fucked up (as are Jews, pianists, and philosophers, to name just a few).
I agree wholeheartedly. Unnatural and normal are two different things to parse. Some behavior is not normal. That does not make it bad.
Exactly. And vice versa, people usually equate good or morally acceptable with normal and natural, e.g., it's "normal and natural" to eat meat, therefore it's ethically justified.
Natural selection would promote any behavior that led to more offspring in the next generation. Some members of early human tribes probably abstained from heterosexual competition and formed their own homosexual bonds for their sexual needs. They still participated in the tribe and helped care for the children or hunting. It could have developed as a way of establishing a hierarchy within the male group. There could be a number of reasons why homosexuality could have naturally developed and not be filtered out completely by natural selection.
The problem is more about free speech. It is about rejecting the idea that I have to live in your bubble and use your meaning of words, and that feelings are more important than logic and facts.
Can you elaborate further?
I think even normal-abnormal is a quantitative statistical interpretation. However, a qualitative approach would only see variety. There would be no such thing as deviance if you don't quantify.
Quoting Hanover
I'm sorry. I didn't mean that but there really is no neutral choice in natural-unnatural or normal-abnormal distinction. I needed the LGBT rainbow to emphasize the qualitative aspect of the issue. Sorry to all homosexuals.
Harmony? Cooperation is the essence of social creatures. I remember posting about left-handed people and how they find it difficult to live in a right-handed world.
Don't you think the biggest problems humanity has faced, is facing and will face is predicated on distinction or difference? Wars, racism, slavery, sexism all arise from some version of the natural-unnatural dichotomy.
Yes but which kind of analysis have you applied here? Qualitative or quantitative?
Sure, but the problem is the folks who can't accept difference, not the folks who are different.
The former consider the latter unnatural/abnormal.
That's their problem though. There's no normative weight to anything just because it's more common.
The minority want to belong to the majority. It's not the other way around.
Believe it or not, a lot of people don't have a normative attraction to what's statistically common.
When you talk about deviation from a standard, in mathematics or elsewhere, you're talking about normal and abnormal. You're right though, that the normalcy concept is often used in much the same manner as the natural one to (falsely!) justify something being good or bad.
The naturalistic fallacy you set out referring to is the fallacy of assuming that because something comes from nature, our ancestors did it, or it's an inborn/genetic trait that it therefore must be (usually) good or (less common) bad.
They are related in some ways--that which is considered normal often overlaps with what is considered natural--but they are distinct concepts.
The neutral words would be "less common." It's less common to be gay, black, a philosopher, or an Indian chief. Because most people aren't black doesn't make being black abnormal or unnatural in the way those terms are typically used. To say there were 2 normal people in the room along with a couple of blacks would be racist even should you offer the same heartfelt apology to them as you did to the homosexuals in this thread.
If all you mean to say is that homosexuality is a statistically less likely sexual preference than heterosexuality, then just say that and avoid the judgment laden terms. Of course, just stating the obvious wouldn't give you much to talk about.
Except that this thread is all about exactly those terms and how they're used to falsely justify anti-LGBTQ sentiment, etc.
Furthermore, Queer-theorists (self-named) often embrace such terminology because they see the LGBTQ lens as a way to push people beyond their comforts zones of the normal/natural and learn from the "abnormal" and "unnatural".
I wonder what you mean by using the word "unnatural," and I'm trying to avoid jumping to conclusions about what you mean. When I responded to your initial post, I was thinking of completely different issues. Primarily, I was thinking about global warming, which I consider "unnatural" in that it's occurring because of human irresponsibility and unconcern. I definitely consider global warming "unnatural."
But as for deviations from the "norm" with regard to human sexuality, the word "unnatural" seems arbitrary and judgement-laden to me. I don't really get the point of attempting to apply a mathmatical theory to human sexuality. You can see that I'm not into the quantitative analysis of this issue.
On what basis?
Unnatural compared to what and in what way?
Unnatural compared to environmental conditions prior to the Industrial Revolution.
I am not sure how to answer the part of your question, "in what way"? Do you mean what are the unnatural impacts on the planet and the atmosphere?
The rainbow, that overworked spectrum, is only the latest symbol for gay people, and anybody that wants to associate themselves with the gay community for whatever reason. It has been debased.
There have been several other symbols for the gay community:
The Nazis coded prisoners using colored triangles; homosexual prisoners were identified with pink triangles. This was picked up from a play in the early 1970s, Bent. "Bent" was/is a European term for homosexuals.
It's natural for a guy to give himself a blow job, (natural if one is sufficiently well hung and flexible). it is very unnatural for anyone to actually do what is often speculated upon, to have one's head up his or her ass. The adult head is too big, for starters, and the neck is neither long enough nor sufficiently flexible.
The woman who thought she was now a man and had announced this to the world, discovered she was inconveniently pregnant. It is impossible for men to become pregnant, so it is unnatural. It is possible for women to think they are men, and visa versa, so that's natural. It's unnatural for women to become men, and visa versa, because what was decreed at conception can't be undone 30 years later. Every cell in the body is marked with its male or female heritage. Men stay men and women stay women, regardless of what pills or plastic surgery are employed. So, actual "trans sexuals" are unnatural - and impossible.
Can we talk about perverse? Polymorphic perversity? Is being "perverse" the same as, better than, or worse than being unnatural? I suppose it depends on whether it's done well, or not. Wouldn't most of us take consummate perversity over mediocre normality?
It's dialogically liberating to listen to and understand the same word one uses being used by others in different contexts which generate different meanings. When someone takes a monologic stance on the meaning of some of these terms, they refuse to acknowledge differences in word use and intentionality, or they attempt to impose a single meaning as "correct." I think on forums it's very easy to forget that we all have many different associations and meanings for words and concepts.
I don't find it "dialogically" (do you mean "rhetorical"? liberating to listen to people slinging around the latest cant. it's just annoying.
As I recollect, "queer" didn't develop into the meaning you cite, Queer was ripped off. It was 'appropriated'. [I]"'Queer' now refers to all sorts of different performances or stances inhabited by both hetero- and homosexuals."[/I].
I'm an old fag; I got done discussing all this stuff ages ago. It reminds me of my long-since-past youth.
Reminds me of a joke: "How do serpents move when they're piss-ass drunk? Straight, of course."
So .... um. Does that make all non-drunk snakes naturally queer?
What? It's a philosophy forum!
On a more sober side:
Quoting a quote by Petter Bøckman found on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals
Seems natural enough to me.
I'm using Bakhtin's concept of dialogic as my model. It's the opposite of an antagonistic exchange, a one-upmanship, a win or lose debate stance. It's meant to increase understanding between individuals.
And I do appreciate your invention of the term polymorphic: it's just not Freud's term.
Quoting uncanni
Read the above. It's an ethical perspective but roughly approximates what I want to say: We are natural are we not? How is it then that our behavior, even if it cause global warming, unnatural? Are you saying that the majority, who don't really give a damn about the environment, is behaving unnaturally?
As you can see this can't be a statistical argument since the majority defines what is natural. This may not be completely accurate because to make your case that global warming is caused by unnatural behavior of humans you'd actually need to study the entire biosphere and then, as will be evident, humans stand out like a sore thumb with major environmental impact.
Good question!!! That leaves me wondering, Is self-destruction natural or unnatural? Is destruction of the environment natural or unnatural? I'd use the word pathological rather than unnatural.
I wasn't referring to human behavior, which I still resist characterizing in "natural/unnatural" terms. Perhaps all activity performed by human beings is natural to them, so that nothing would be unnatural if it's done by someone. So natural human behavior includes a tremendous amount of destructive activity... Violence and all-consuming greed certainly appear to be natural to humans.
That still leaves me thinking that climate change is an unnatural process brought on by poisoning the environment, which would be included in natural, destructive human activity.
The planet has undergone numerous changes which includes cooling and heating without any help from humans. If humans contribute to environmental change then humans are just one of those modern causes of changes in temperature. Other organisms have shaped their environments and caused the extinction of other species. Talk of human activity being artificial or unnatural is trying to separate humans from nature which is what religions have been trying to do for millennia. It is a use of language that stems from one's view that humans are special creations or separate for nature.
It can also stem from the notion that Earth was made specifically for humans and that any changes that we make from the way it was created is unnatural. The fact is the Earth what's not specially made for humans or even organisms it just happens to be that way temporarily. Things change.
No, no, I didn't 'invent' it. It's a real word, I misapplied it, and you are correct -- polymorphous is the word I was reaching for. Mrs. Crabapple ordered me to stay after school and write on the blackboard 100 times, "I will not mistake polymorphous perversity for polymorphic perversity ever again."
Quoting uncanni
Homo sapiens and our various poly-morph-ous per-ver-si-ties in all categories are natural, but we are a special case. Invention of complex technology which never existed before is natural for us, just as using tools is natural for New Caledonia crows. The crow's reach, however, does not exceed his grasp. Ours does. We consider it a virtue for a man's reach to exceed his grasp.
It is also natural for us to not think ahead 10, 20, 30 or 300 years to assess what the effects of our de novo technology might be. Let me emphasize that point: We aren't merely being stupid: we did not evolve the behavior of 10, 20, 30, or 300 year foresight. We evolved into modern human beings between 100,00 and 300,000 years ago, and during that long stretch of time, we hunted, we gathered, we chipped stone tools, and we had minimal impact on the planet. When we get something new and nifty like an automobile or a cigarette, we don't think about 50,000 - 100,000 deaths a year as the consequence. (It's taken us 60 years of concerted effort to reduce the rate of smoking significantly; cars have been made safer. But it's an uphill effort, requiring states to pass legislation making it illegal to hold and use a cellphone while driving. One would think that the paragon of animals could figure out that texting while driving was stupid, but... no.
James Watt might have foreseen that his steam engine would lead to a vast exploitation of coal, but he could not have foreseen what the long term effects of fossil fuel combustion on the climate. Because Watt lived within a capitalist economy, his invention was exploited immediately to maximize production and profit. [The first working steam engine had been patented in 1698 and by the time of Watt's birth, Newcomen engines were pumping water from mines all over the country. In around 1764, Watt was given a model Newcomen engine to repair.]
Did the developers of the cell phone and the smart phone (c. 1992 -- the Simon by IBM combined digital computing with a cell phone) think about the consequences? They did not. Did they intend for the smart phone to be used as a texting device while someone was driving a car? I would hope not; did they expect diners at one table to all be staring at or talking on their phones?
Need I mention what happened after the Manhattan Project produced an atomic bomb?
All that is part of our natural endowment: the capacity to invent and exploit without a balancing capacity to be guided by long-term estimations of consequences (if they are even produced).
We are thus doomed (fated, as it were) to be burnt by our ingenious abilities.
Climate change is natural; if 1000 volcanoes blow about the same time, the released gases will change the climate--naturally. What is tragic (fated, again) is that we have known about imminent climate change for at least 30 years and have so far been unable to achieve any of the targets for CO2 and methane emissions reduction. Yes, there is some progress being made, but business as usual is pretty much not changing and time is running out on our chance to avoid dangerous climate warming.
It isn't that we are just too stupid, too wicked, too... too whatever. We are just not able to change behavior even though we know the threat. Our brains do not work in such a way that 7 billion people can coordinate their behavior to radically change their economic and personal arrangements.
Uncanni: It's a lovely day here in the upper-midwest. The temperature is appropriate to the season, it's breezy, clear, and very pleasant. Global warming? What? Let's buy a big new SUV and take a long road trip.
Here's my take on that statement: Not all of us consider that a virtue. It's also recognized historically, psychologically and sociologically as extraordinarily destructive. Here's one example of what I'm thinking: While our species is technologically saavy as all get-out, we have not evolved emotionally/psychologically in, what?, the last five-ten thousand years? Freud, speaking of old polymorphous perversity himself, wrote some things in Civilization and Its Discontents that became, some decades ago, an essential part of my Weltanschaaung: the world is teeming with ambitious, power-hungry, greedy, agressive, violent beings who seem to be better at scrambling to the top of the heap and wreaking havoc on all those below.
Quoting Bitter Crank
And that's another thing: My pops, who was an anthropologist, used to say, We ground apes never finish growing up, maturing. We're not like any other species except maybe gorillas. It takes humans a lifetime to mature, and I am not sure that the vast majority ever do. My definition of maturity: the ability to control the agressive impulses, to strive to truly know oneself by examining one's own darker motives or shadow side or evil impulses (cruelty to others) , and to practice kindness to all species and Mother Earth. And the ozone.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I had no idea that it was invented that early! And yet you read Engels' Conditions of the Working Class written in 1845 and it's evident that some people did clearly perceive what was happening...Which ultimately led to that failed experiment called the Boshevick Revolution...
Quoting Bitter Crank
I hope I'm not manipulating that quote by truncating it, but it serves my purposes: Perhaps not everyone is capable of changing thinking, feeling and behavior. Perhaps all the greedy agressive sociopaths cannot, although for example in Relational Psychotherapy, they are beginning to approach working with sociopaths and psychopaths with a new approach which believes in and seeks out the possibility that even psychopaths can think, feel and behave differently.
Well, Bitter Crank, it's been a beautiful day down here in the dirty South: I have the entire week off from teaching because of the hurricane threat to the coastal communities from which many of my students come. I'm down for the road trip: do they make electric SUVs? :naughty:
Yes, but the extension cord has to be really long.