ABSTRACT
What is really shocking about modern biology is its reductiveness: it decentres the human subject in a much more thoroughgoing way than any version of Freudian theory can. For post-structuralists, mind is an effect of discourse; changes in discourse can produce a different ‘human nature’. For behavioral geneticists, mind and cultural discourses alike are side effects of a competition between genes or spermatozoa. We are cognitively programmed and physically adapted to speak languages, build societies, have complex thoughts, exhibit gender differences, marry, commit adultery, masturbate (while denying we do so) and rape, because over geological ages these have been effective reproductive strategies. Social control of this behaviour thus seems more difficult than we thought, and discourse a weak instrument to use.
