Is Sociobiology inherently reactionary?

[heiss93]

In 1994, 2 Chinese authors published a work which attempted to reconcile Historical Materialism and Sociobiology. Excerpts are available on google books

http://books.google.com/books?id=SzuI8mNayIkC

And I wonder the degree to which Sociobiology is inherently conservative. The idea that the unit of evolution is the gene and not the individual, in some ways lends itself more easily to social altruism. If it can lend itself to racism, individualist Darwinism can lend itself to egoism and the "human nature" argument. Sociobiology could actually be an argument for socialism, as a survival mechanism for the collective genes of humanity. Dawkins in the Selfish Gene, did not denounce the welfare state, but simply argue for the equivalent of Engels' freedom is the recognition of necessity.

Do you think that sociobiology is compatible with historical materialism, or is it simply a revived form of social Darwinism.

[Cumannach]

Sociobiology is not inherently reactionary in my opinion. Much of it is good science. One of the centerpieces of the whole thing is Trivers' famous formulation of the Theory of Reciprocal Altruism, which is about as resounding a validation of socialism as you could ask for out of a theory of human nature.

[Raúl Duke]

Socialbiology has been mostly used, historically, as a "revived form of Social Darwinism."

Whether you can make "un-reactionary social biology" or not I don't know.

However, Historical Materialism is, to my knowledge, a theory mostly on history (and a guideline on how to analyze past events, current events, and predict future events, etc) while Social Biology is a theory on...well...biological/genetic foundations of human behaviors. I don't see much of a connection, unless you are talking about how Social Biology focuses on the gene/biological processes as a major player in one's "consciousness." In that case, Historical Materialism is usually based more on "Being (i.e. Social Factors) forms consciousness" and thus is not exactly that compatible with social biology.

[MarxSchmarx]

I skimmed through that book you linked to and found nothing pertinent to "sociobiology" in the sense that the word is use in the west. The shaner person talks about it in the intro but nowhere else is this referenced.

It was a long string of quotes from Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao and a discussion of the socialist experience in China.

Maybe they talk about it later on, but if so this is a horribly misleading title.

As for the original question, yes sociobiology as applied to man is inherently reactionary. It assumes there is much of human behavior that is fixed, which is really another way of saying the present social order is the natural way things are, and that one can no more rally against it than one can rally against the sun setting in the west. It is also a static and equilibrial world-view.

[Cumannach]

It assumes there is much of human behavior that is fixed, which is really another way of saying the present social order is the natural way things are, and that one can no more rally against it than one can rally against the sun setting in the west. It is also a static and equilibrial world-view.

Care to elaborate? Because human behaviour is fixed, the current social order is natural? How was the previous social order natural then, if human behaviour is always fixed? Obviously even assuming human behaviour is fixed does not presuppose only one natural social order, or else it allows for unnatural social orders. So how is this reactionary in and of itself? If Industrial Bourgerois Democratic Capitalist social orders are natural, then either most social orders throughout history have been unnatural or different social orders can be equally natural, including feudalism, capitalism, socialism, etc. I fail to see the inherent reactionary content.