Politics
Following a typical HBD Bibliography twitter intervention (paraphrased: “educate yourself”), a professor of Global Liberal Studies turned up to engage in activity that can be technically described as “hooting”. The pattern of symbolic behavior that then manifested cannot, of course, be reduced to the expectations of primatology. If it seems like an entirely predictable assertion of dominance, as found among all the great apes, something is surely being missed. That at least is the claim now being made (decorated by a little immediate status signaling):
@Outsideness @HBDBibliography Author thinks you don't understand article. Doesn't deny variation (I teach 19th c. history of science btw).
— Michael Rectenwald (@drrectenwald) September 24, 2014
@Outsideness @HBDBibliography Most likely you're reducing the political to the biological, a typical kind of reductionism but also mistaken.
— Michael Rectenwald (@drrectenwald) September 24, 2014
The error of mistaking this expert hooting for the first step in an argument was too tempting to resist. After all, if a professor of Global Liberal Studies deigns to teach you about the limits of possible biological understanding, it is only polite to listen attentively. Unfortunately, certain monkey juices were triggered by the chest-thumping of GLS-prof., and I descended quickly into obstreperousness:
