A question was asked about sociology.

In your class we defined instinct as a behavior that occurred throughout a species with no consideration for cultural boundaries.

+++I agree with that definition with the exception of "varieties". For example, all varieties of roses can inter-breed. All varieties of dogs can interbreed. Cats don't have varieties to speak of because of a low gene pool. (At some point in the past there were only a few cats. Something happened so most cats died. The survivors lived but most variety was lost).

(A sociologist) says that culture and instinct cannot coexist

+++I have received similar reports from other students about sociology. Sociologists' notion is that behavior depends on the peer group. As long as a person is in a group the person will act like that group until leaving that group. In effect there is no "individual"; there is only the group. A psychiatrist named, Harry Stack Sullivan (1900s) said a similar thing. He makes it into the psychology textbooks:

Besides making the first mention of the significant other in psychological literature, Sullivan developed the Self System, a configuration of the personality traits developed in childhood and reinforced by positive affirmation and the security operations developed in childhood to avoid anxiety and threats to self-esteem. Sullivan further defined the Self System as a steering mechanism toward a series of I-You interlocking behaviors; that is, what an individual does is meant to elicit a particular reaction. Sullivan called these behaviors parataxic integrations, and he noted that such action-reaction combinations can become rigid and dominate an adult's thinking pattern, limiting his actions and reactions toward the world as the adult sees it and not as it really is. Sullivan's work on interpersonal relationships became the foundation of interpersonal psychoanalysis, a school of psychoanalytic theory and treatment that stresses the detailed exploration of the nuances of patients' patterns of interacting with others.

<http://www.1-electric.com/articles/Harry_Stack_Sullivan>

+++His notion claims, in effect, that the personality does not exist when the person is alone.

+++The modern term for all this is "social determinism" and is very much alive and well in the schools with their "self-esteem" movement where they propose teachers can create or destroy self-esteem. This is commonly believed by the public as well. I ask: "What does 'self' mean?" They don't answer but know the "self" is, in this case, the student who the teacher is trying to convince. This is persuasion. This is not "self" judgment.

+++It is useful to note that if the social determinists are consistent and the "self" is determined by the "group" then they are consistent in speaking of "self-esteem" being socially (externally) determined. In effect, because in their view self is equal to group self-esteem equals group-status.

+++To convert 'self' into 'what the teacher does' is to say the student has no will, no mind, and the teacher is able to infuse the teacher's will and mind into the student. Once again, individuality disappears. Note also that no one says where the teacher's mind came from. Sociologists would say it comes from teachers' college but at some point they must confront the first person who had an original idea at which point "group" is irrelevant.

+++The philosophy major's word for all this is "social-metaphysicianism". This is the idea that people are our answer to life. Trust the group. They will make it all right. You hear a lot of that concerning Katrina. Experts, the government, family, etc are reported as the answer to life before, in, and after a hurricane. No attention is paid to the decades of sloth, indecision and denial which preceded the hurricane. This accounts for the incessant, "No one would have predicted..." and "Out of the blue. It struck".

+++Let me go out on a limb right now: There will be another hurricane some place and some time. (But the lack of preparation between now and then is, of course, a product of the group's decision to not prepare and anyone who decided to build his house 'out of brick' will be chastised.)

+++So instincts be damned and individuality is a myth, what we really have is other people's thinking to rely on. In sociology, "other people" means the peer group, cohort group, institution, etc.

+++The short answer is that we all have a basic human blue print. (Babies are born making the waaaa sound. They do not meooow or rrrruuufff (or moo, coo, chirp, etc - or hiss) AND there is some variety among people at birth. Not as much as is generally claimed but some: quiet babies, fussy babies, etc. I can't nail down the nature/nurture issue other than to say no one has conducted breeding studies with humans.

+++Another fact is that we learn, learn, learn, choose, choose, choose and become who we are right now (always learning and choosing forever).

+++Lastly, we are influenced by whomever we choose and not influenced by whomever we choose and we make ourselves who we are FOR THE MOMENT. Then we learn some more and so on. (You will buy what I say or not and you will learn or not and you are the one choosing. You exist apart from "the group" and apart from me.

+++Wrap your head around this... There is no THING called a "group". If you point at a "group" the THING you point at is people. Individuals. The individuals lead or follow, join in or withdraw, speak or remain silent.

what we defined as instinct he (the sociology teacher) defines as reflex action or Organic Activity, which impels activity but determines no detail.

+++Consider bird's nests. People who study birds can tell you the species by looking at the nest. The activity has detail. The bird blueprint for nest building is very detailed. Song, on the other hand, has a more sketchy blue print and there are local songs within the same species (while following the inbred basic melody). How to digest food is very well blueprinted and most variation is genetic (although people have a built-in mechanism in their digestion to tell them they are afraid - queasy stomach).

+++He is correct that most human psycho-social-cognitive behavior is only sketched out in the human blueprint. Speech, for example, is universal but English is not.

+++The thing to understand here is that sociologists deal in "SOCIO-logy" and I deal in "PSYCH-ology". To them only the group exists. I say, "Sure, groups are named but they are made of people. Sociologists are reifying". They make a concept into a real thing. The real thing is the individual within the group. The individual can be touched, smelled; the group cannot.

Sociology is happy to strip away genetic and psychological behavior in order to deal with its subject: "Group Behavior". I consider sociology as a much more advanced form of "social psychology" - the last chapter in the intropsych book. The social psychologists need to grow up and admit they are sociologists then learn from them. As it is the social psychologists are a poor second at what they call "interpreting individual behavior in a group setting". This is rather like American Catholics who ought to go ahead and become Episcopalians since they ignore the Pope's rules about birth control and homosexuality.

We are mammals with a thin veneer of civilization loosely glued on top of the animal. The veneer can be easily stripped away - in a hurricane, divorce, death of a child. When we get into groups we always achieve more. Sometimes it's good - Ford Motor Company. Sometimes it's bad - Nazi Germany.

Each individual decides who to be and who to join and whether it is good or bad.

The end.