Page 6 - C.A.L.L. #34 - Winter 2011/2012

From the International Communes Desk (ICD) Study Group

ABOUT “HUMAN NATURE”

During the past year the ICD decided that a portion of our
bi-monthly meetings would focus on studying core questions
facing intentional community as it interfaces with the
normative culture of Western society. We have done so
utilizing both general sources as well as the perspective of
the Jewish heritage.
A core thesis relating to community is raised by skeptics –
life in community, they say, is not in accordance with human
nature. But what is “human nature”? What are the

limitations imposed upon us by our innate nature? Is our
species, Homo Sapiens, individualistic and competitive by
nature? Are we inevitably fated to struggle in a “survival
of the fittest”? The question is posed against the
backdrop of neo-Liberalism and social Darwinism current in
much of contemporary Western society.

For this issue of CALL, we have selected an excerpt from the social anthropologist,
Alexander Alland. In his book, THE HUMAN IMPERATIVE, (Columbia University

Press, 1972) Alland responded to a series of books that viewed the human animal as
subject to the behavioral limitations of other animals. In particular, Alland related
to books by Konrad Lorenz, ON AGGRESSION; Robert Ardrey, THE TERRITORIAL
IMPERATIVE; and Desmond Morris, THE NAKED APE.

THE HUMAN IMPERATIVE - Chapter 1 –Introduction

'THIS BOOK IS A DEFENSE of man against strict biological determinism. A defense
against those who like Konrad Lorenz, Robert Ardrey, and Desmond Morris would
oversimplify man's place in nature and reduce human behavior to the level of
instincts. The book is also a
defense of anthropology against
the claim· that it is anti-

Darwinian and unscientific.
Lorenz and Ardrey have created
a pseudo-conflict: science vs.
romantic metaphysics. They
suggest that biologists see man as subject to laws of behavior, while social scientists
see man as the subject of special creation and therefore immune to biological rules.
This is not and has never been the case. The question is put too simplistically and the
battle lines have been falsely drawn.