/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2653063]

Why do we suppress our animal instincts?

Has there really ever been a time or place in history when primal instincts were a bad thing?

[Anonymous No.2653070]

I'll take civilization for 1000, Alex

[Anonymous No.2653075]

>Why do we suppress our animal instincts?
We don't. Almost every action performed and every conversation had is about sex. We may disguise emotions and instincts as arguments and question, but it is just a facade.

[Anonymous No.2653076]

If civilizations beyond hunting and gathering requires law, and law requires suppressing our instincts it is easy to see that all civilization has given us is dependent on our suppressing our instincts.

[Anonymous No.2653087]

>>2653075

[Anonymous No.2653097]

>>2653087
You disagree? Maybe humanity is the noble princess of earth, eh?
"We're so neat"

[Anonymous No.2653109]

>>2653097

[Anonymous No.2653124]

>>2653109
what the fuck is this?
What exactly are you trying to convey?

[Anonymous No.2653125]

>>2653063
I always think, how would an animal act? Why is this significant, on a base instinct level?

I ask questions and I am given answers.

[Anonymous No.2653135]

I wouldn't say they are suppressed, just mediated. And not just by law, either.

[Anonymous No.2653136]

>>2653097
Why did Hobbes write Leviathan?
For the sex, of course.

[Anonymous No.2653156]

>>2653136
>Almost every action performed and every conversation had is about sex
>ALMOST

[Anonymous No.2653157]

>>2653156
I don't think that guy was being ironic.

[Anonymous No.2653159]

>>2653156
>All actions are performed for sex, E-E-EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE, AND TH-TH-THAT ONE, AND A COUPLE OTHERS, BUT I'M SURE MOST ACTIONS ARE DEFINITELY PERFORMED FOR SEX DESPITE HAVING NO EVIDENCE

[Anonymous No.2653165]

>>2653159
90% of humanity's preoccupations are related directly to sex (the other 10% indirectly)

[Anonymous No.2653162]

>>2653156

I'm in agreement here. But I think it's far more complicated than just the act. There's a million factors to sex and I don't think they're entirely understood.

[Anonymous No.2653176]

>>2653162
In this context I would imply in "sex" reproduction, attraction, etc.. Not just the act itself, obviously.

[Anonymous No.2653181]

>>2653159
>all
you don't read, do you?

[Anonymous No.2653187]

>>2653159
The defense of the fool.
Always the same.
Someone says p, making sure to clarify that he is not talking in absolutes.
Opponent ignores that and presents a few exceptions to p, thus denouncing every single p.
pic related. it's you.

[Anonymous No.2653192]

>>2653181
do we exist in a bizarro universe where "all" minus "exceptions" does not equal "most"? Because that's what you seem to be saying. Please grow more intimate with the English language.

[Anonymous No.2653195]

>>2653136
cmon bro u kno hobbes had mad bitches all like "oooh hobbes i want to touch ur sovereign authority" and he was like "yea bb lay down ur right to everythign and lemme get at that"

[Anonymous No.2653199]

>>2653187
>not posting evidence
>having an argument

I'm just trolling. You're the one whose panties are in a knot over this.

[Anonymous No.2653230]

>>2653199
What evidence do you want? What's everybody worried about most of the time? Finding a sexual partner, being desirable to others (even intellectually), their descendants, etc...

Just look at the real world. Do you need MORE evidence?

[Anonymous No.2653234]

>>2653187
Also I was obviously not talking about Hobbes, or Nietzsche, or Aristotle in my original post (besides, who am I to talk about them?), but for every 1 Tesla, not engaging in sexual acts, thinking it's the secret to genius there are 100,000 girls and boys in malls, scanning everything in range thru sexual lens.

[Anonymous No.2653252]

We have a consciousness that gives a choice (or an illusion of choice) with how to deal with our inclinations. Thus, I wouldn't say our instincts are "suppressed" so much as we are instinctively inclined to engage in thought as much as we are to engage in sex.

[Anonymous No.2653249]

>>2653234
Agreed. It's like psychopathy when talking about human need of social interaction, the exception that proves the rule.

[Anonymous No.2653254]

How does me arguing on /jp/ about which Touhou game is the best translate into sex?

[Anonymous No.2653262]

>>2653199
Not every single statement has to be backed up with a survey done by Goldenstein Institutes®.
Sometimes you just share your experiences with the world.
One simple example: Why do women wear make-up and spend hours making themselves attractive?
Does the average male care more about the Wave–particle duality/Plato's Forms or that chick's nice ass/boobs?
By the way I'm not judging or implying I'm superior. Just making an observation.

[Anonymous No.2653268]

>>2653254

It does.

[Anonymous No.2653272]

>>2653262
Why are we talking about "average" here?

[Anonymous No.2653273]

>>2653230
Look, idiot, maybe you should get some perspective.

>What's everybody worried about most of the time?

If you weren't a fucking teenage boy you might be worried about keeping your job, or making sure your children are safe, or watching the next fucking Bengals game.

>Finding a sexual partner, being desirable to others (even intellectually), their descendants, etc...

And after you've found a sexual partner, at, say, 30, like the vast majority of human beings? What happens after that? Thoughts of sex, sex, sex, until you die? Quit being a retard.

>Just look at the real world. Do you need MORE evidence?

You're the one who's not looking at the real world, because you're an insulated adolescent fuckhead posting a an imageboard almost exclusively populated by males who haven't seen a vagina in their entire lives.

[Anonymous No.2653279]

>>2653254
Because you don't have a girlfriend and direct that otherwise boiling unexpressed sexual energy toward japanese bullshit like every other japanese kawaii bullshit lover.

[Anonymous No.2653282]

>>2653268
>How

[Anonymous No.2653285]

>>2653279
>unexpressed sexual energy

Freudian theories are long outdated son

[Anonymous No.2653287]

>>2653279
Ignorant assumptions coming through.

[Anonymous No.2653288]

>>2653272
because average equals 90% if not more

[Anonymous No.2653294]

>>2653288
I'm pretty sure it's agreed upon that "average" and "normal" don't exist and peoples' feelings cannot be generalized like what you're doing.

[Anonymous No.2653312]

>>2653063

Because society forces you and teaches you so.

But the truth is that society has evolved and our nature hasn't. Our brains are the same as they were in cave man and the vast majority is guided by primal insticts while we live in a society which expects it's members to be above their primal instincts and think think rational. And that is the main problem of our existence.

[Anonymous No.2653320]

>>2653273
>Look, idiot...
Starting with an insult.

>If you weren't a fucking teenage boy you...
Continuing with the insults

>might be worried about keeping your job
So you can have money and survive to spread your genes or help your descendants survive
>or making sure your children are safe
They have your genes afterall.
>or watching the next fucking Bengals game.
Yes, baboons clear each others fur, humans watch sports.

>And after you've found a sexual partner, at, say, 30, like the vast majority of human beings? What happens after that? Thoughts of sex, sex, sex, until you die? Quit being a retard.
Yes. How often do you think about sex?


>You're the one who's not looking at the real world, because you're an insulated adolescent fuckhead posting a an imageboard almost exclusively populated by males who haven't seen a vagina in their entire lives.
Closing the same way you opened your wonderful post. Love your consistency.

[Anonymous No.2653335]

>>2653320
I present to you, "Life, According to Anon":

>I just got a raise, Paul!
>That's great, Steve, now you can get more sex!
>I sure do love how more money gets me more sex!
>Me, too! Hey, wanna watch the Bengals game?
>Sure, as long as it makes me more attractive to women!
>Great! I'll head out and get some buffalo wings!
>Absolutely! Gotta get energy if we want to have sex with people tonight!

[Anonymous No.2653354]

>>2653335

For the majority of the males the world revolves around the vagina and the sarcastic green text you think is funny is actually reality.

[Anonymous No.2653359]

>>2653273
>If you weren't a fucking teenage boy
Oh! I love it when they get mad.
>you might be worried about keeping your job
this is indirectly related to reproduction
>or making sure your children are safe
this is directly related to reproduction
>or watching the next fucking Bengals game.
this is related to our instincts of survival, which is indirectly related to reproduction

>And after you've found a sexual partner, at, say, 30, like the vast majority of human beings? What happens after that? Thoughts of sex, sex, sex, until you die? Quit being a retard.
Wow, you're actually stupid. Why does this disprove me? You still think about sex until you're decaying (ask any old man). Also, you still worry about your offspring.

I love the end. Pure madness. Keep it real.

[Anonymous No.2653360]

>>2653294
>"average" and "normal" don't exist and peoples' feelings cannot be generalized
We're not that special. We're not unique snowflakes. We're all crudely similar corn-flakes. Ever wonder why the same arguments for and against god that were being used 3000 years ago are being "thought anew" and used today? Why do our minds produce the same things, I wonder? Why, even our faces look the same? Maybe there are enough archetypes to create an illusion of uniqueness, but maybe if you look close enough........

[Anonymous No.2653364]

You people are confusing sex with pleasure. How do you take into account gay people you fucking idiots?

[Anonymous No.2653371]

>>2653359
>sex
>in any way related to child-rearing except by the original act

It's like you've never even had children before, anon.

[Anonymous No.2653372]

>>2653335
It's ironic that you think what you've written is ironic, since things are not like that, but this text is actually ironic because things are like that.

[Anonymous No.2653374]

>>2653364
gay people don't exist in the world of reductionists. They're just "confused."

[Anonymous No.2653378]

>>2653372
Then I pity your existence.

[Anonymous No.2653377]

>>2653364

/thread

[Anonymous No.2653384]

>>2653371
>in any way related to child-rearing except by the original act
sex in the context we are using it, means reproduction and everything related to it including but not limited to the actual act of fucking.

[Anonymous No.2653389]

>>2653335
You would make a great anthropology student.

[Anonymous No.2653394]

>>2653384
What about gay people? They cannot reproduce and to most of them it is something they don't want to do.

[Anonymous No.2653397]

>>2653364
Yeah, gay people aren't driven by instincts.

[Anonymous No.2653401]

>>2653384
Then no fucking shit it's tied to everything we do, because the way you're simplifying existence means that for every step back you take there's a sexual relation that had to occur.

The problem, of course, is the way in which you so meaninglessly simplify this existence.

I posit that life is about eating, since everything we do requires that we eat. It's a totally useless argument about nothing.

[Anonymous No.2653405]

>>2653384
Leave him alone, he just got mad.

[Anonymous No.2653407]

>>2653364
>gay people
they have sex too, you know :-(_____)
The sole purpose of the term is identifying someone in regard to sexual preference.

[Anonymous No.2653409]

>>2653401
Eating doesn't necessarily perpetuate the specie, breeding does (so far).

[Anonymous No.2653411]

>>2653407
They have sex with people with whom they cannot reproduce. Once again, you are confusing sex with pleasure. Sex in this context is talking about reproduction, and gay people cannot pass on their genes with another man, nor do most of them want to or care to.

[Anonymous No.2653413]

a lot of butthurt children in this thread, op really has a knack for shitposting

[Anonymous No.2653419]

>>2653409
>Eating doesn't necessarily perpetuate the specie

[Anonymous No.2653422]

>>2653411
They have sex for the same reasons we (heterosexuals) do. Reproductive instinct. Instincts are supposed to be adaptive, they fail eventually though.

[Anonymous No.2653429]

>>2653419
I had to go to the basics because the conversation seemed to require it. Arguing with retards is hard sometimes...

[Anonymous No.2653430]

>>2653422
So you don't believe in love or anything like that?

[Anonymous No.2653434]

>>2653422
>They have sex for the same reasons we (heterosexuals) do. Reproductive instinct.

It's like I'm really communicating with someone who's talking out of his ass!

[Anonymous No.2653437]

>>2653430
Believe? Is not a matter of faith, love exists. Humanity would be extinct if it didn't.

[Anonymous No.2653440]

>>2653429
can you provide an example of when eating was not a prerequisite to existence?

[Anonymous No.2653447]

>>2653434
All living beings do. It's a very basic concept but I can search sauce on some high school textbook if you need.

[Anonymous No.2653449]

>>2653411
>They have sex with people with whom they cannot reproduce.
Instinct isn't the contemplation of the result and long-term consequences, but the enjoyment of the process.
When you eat, you don't think: "I should really get some energy to be able to function", but "Feel hunger. Want food."
Thus enjoying the process rather than the result, may be more motivational in the evolutionary process, but can lead to a mutation which retains the process (sex), with the same motive (pleasure), but with a twist (gay people can't reproduce) which leads to a selection against it by nature.

[Anonymous No.2653458]

>>2653437
So maybe that alone accounts for some people having sex, hmm? I guess reproductive instinct would be important so we know HOW to have sex, but that's kind of its extent now. We don't jump on every woman we see like cavemen most likely did. Spreading our genes is obsolete. What we want now is to spread our influence, which is where the theory of memetics comes in.

[Anonymous No.2653463]

>>2653440
>Eating doesn't necessarily perpetuate the specie, breeding does (so far).
>NECESSARILY

Well, I'll start from the beginning...

>>2653401
>I posit that life is about eating, since everything we do requires that we eat. It's a totally useless argument about nothing.

Me:
>Eating doesn't necessarily perpetuate the specie, breeding does (so far).
Eating is vital to YOUR survival. But without sex the future of humanity is not guaranteed, even though you keep yourself fed.

[Anonymous No.2653472]

>>2653458
Yes. Culture is involved in our adaptation now. Sexual reproduction is still fundamental though.

[Anonymous No.2653471]

>>2653449
>When you eat, you don't think: "I should really get some energy to be able to function"
But I do. I rarely get up and get food even when I'm hungry if I'm actually still functioning well. When I get tired, I go eat something or drink some coffee. Enjoying the food is part of the entire act of getting energy just like reproduction is part of the act of sex, but the purpose of that instinct has been completely turned on its head at this point.

[Anonymous No.2653469]

ahahaha, this thread needs to be posted on /sci/.

[Anonymous No.2653484]

>>2653471
see
>>2653187
Also, I should say at this point, you are porbably not arguing to see what is right, but to prove who is. And that who is you, of course. Don't worry... Testosterone does that. Maybe you should have some sex?

[Anonymous No.2653486]

>>2653484
lol

[Anonymous No.2653488]

>>2653484
But I think most people today would agree with me. I'm not an exception to that. Why do people use caffeine if not for that exact reason? If anything at all, obese people are the exceptions. They eat because they get hungry.

[Anonymous No.2653489]

>>2653471
>Enjoying the food is part of the entire act of getting energy just like reproduction is part of the act of sex
You are confusing attributes with properties here.
Enjoying food isn't part of getting energy. It's the motivation of partaking into the process that results into the latter.

[Anonymous No.2653495]

>>2653489
see
>>2653488

[Anonymous No.2653502]

>>2653495
>>2653495
Are you sure you understood the post?
anyway... "I don't do what you said. I'm special" Isn't an argument.
People eat because their hungry. I'm eating some peanuts right now, cause my stomach was growling.

[Anonymous No.2653504]

you're all fucking retarded, of course almost everything (social) is somewhat about sex, and almost nothing (except for say maybe a mild-blanking orgasm) is entirely about sex
everything people do in a social way is to be an admirable person, this is society, and one of the effects of being an admirable person on individuals is that they want to have sex with you. it is but one of the many benefits of proper socialization but of course is always there as would make sense because those that are wired so to be shitty at it would have been less likely to pass on their genes.
there are again anti-social things one can do such as take drugs that may be almost entirely asexual.

[Anonymous No.2653512]

so these two evolutionary psychologists walk into a bar
everyone else leaves
thank you i'll be here all week

[Anonymous No.2653517]

>>2653512
>evolutionary psychology
Don't know why but every time someone says these words the shitstorm starts.

>inb4 "psychology is not a real science"

[Anonymous No.2653530]

>>2653517
It's because we're still very much in the dark about a lot of the connections evol. psychology attempts to make. It dresses itself up as science, when it has nothing to do with it.

[Anonymous No.2653550]

>>2653517
psychology can climb far up the abstraction layers and deviate from the strict structure of other sciences. It's as scientific as the extent to which it uses the scientific method.
Of course it can become very influenced by politics and the spirit of each age.

[Anonymous No.2653674]

I'm reviving this thread 'cause it deserves it.
Somehow that action has something to do with sex.

[Anonymous No.2653691]

I'm reviving this thread 'cause it deserves it.
Somehow that action has something to do with sex.

[Anonymous No.2653692]

>>2653691
well, you reviving a thread about sex is pretty straightforward ain't it?

[Anonymous No.2653718]

HUrring the durr up in 'dis.

Yes, animal [read: homo sapien] instincts govern our every move, since we are animals. It's a tautological question. BUT, the type of animal instincts such as selfishness, empathy (limited) and so on affect various people in various degrees.

Some people rationally (that is disinterestedly) see that applying empathy beyond ones natural tendency to express it towards loved ones, countrymen and so on, is a virtuous act, and do so. Some people also see that not fucking every chick you see (>tfw no gf) is a rational decision, but in these cases it's hard to determine where rational decision, learned behaviour (cultural norms etc.) and evolutionary logic (you gonna get yo' cracka ass whooped if you fuck Shanaynay AND Laquisha Barnes) play their part.

[Anonymous No.2654573]

>>2653718
>disinterestedly
That's not exactly how rationality works.

[Anonymous No.2654579]

>>2654573
Yes. The supposed disinterested rationality is not only an ideological mirage (especially visible in this example, there cannot be such a thing as 'disinterested virtue', what would its values be derived from?) but if it were to really exist, it would be completely nihilistic. However, we may have a problem here in terms of philosophy: From Kant on, the dominant dichotomy has been one between Verstand and Vernunft. The former is logical rationality, the latter encompasses the former but also includes aspects we would refer to as common sense and wisdom (as far as I understand it, this may not be 100% accurate for Kant as I haven't read him but only people who develop beyond him), which are decidedly interested. Does anyone know what the English equivalents to Verstand and Vernunft are?

[Anonymous No.2654607]

>>2653063
>Has there really ever been a time or place in history when primal instincts were a bad thing?
Short answer... since the beginning of civilization.

[Anonymous No.2654609]

>>>/africa/
>>>/haiti/

[Anonymous No.2654614]

>>2654579
>>2653517
Is only afraid of biological determinism because knowing doesn't help. That's English. (old)
So, I can go back to /b/ if you like.

[Anonymous No.2654617]

>>2654579
Vernunft is usually simply translated as reason. I don't know what would be the proper translation of Verstand, but I remember Wittgenstein using it and I think it would be something like understanding or something like this...

[Anonymous No.2654927]

>>2653063
>when primal instincts were a bad thing

>well i could hunt and gather.
>or i could learn to participate in an economy and play its culture games.

you can loincloth and nomoney.
but dont expect any company or compassion.