Sunday School

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

If I were to take the position that “There is no such thing as patriarchy in a democracy” as long as women are free to participate in the process, what could you offer as proof I’m wrong?

I could offer the argument that patriarchy isn’t voted in or out.  It’s a cultural phenomenon.  It has to be defeated by cultural means, not democratic.

Maybe societies simply naturally settle into patriarchy, if matriarchy worked on a large scale, there would be working examples, wouldn’t there?

There are two potential alternatives to patriarchy: 1) matriarchy; 2) egalitarianism.  The number of matriarchal societies we know about is vanishingly small.  Egalitarianism is widespread among modern hunter-gatherers living in small groups, and one or two don’t have patriarchy at all – or matriarchy.  They just don’t have leaders or power structures at all.

Have you ever considered that there’s nothing even vaguely unnatural about societies becoming patriarchic?

Of course – it’s completely “natural”.  This doesn’t make it OK, acceptable, or good.  To think that would be to commit the naturalistic fallacy.

Patriarchy is morally good according to itself, but wrong according to other moral domains.

I like Camille Paglia.

 

[_Robert_Participant]

You can’t have it both ways. Equal pay for equal work, but women are still expecting a man to earn more. You can’t exclusively have males getting slaughtered in foxholes and declare we have egalitarianism. Why are men still expected men to carry the burden of courtship? To be the rejected ones. Are women really attracted to their equals or do they want improvement in their lives and for their children? Do women want guys who are as emotional as they are, or do they want their man to be strong and protective? Ah yes, the fantasy world of “Woman’s Studies”, LOL.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

You can’t have it both ways.

I can see your point – “double standards” works both ways.

However, there’s no getting away from biology.  All organisms experience a pressure to reproduce.  Bateman’s Principle states that while females’ reproductive success depends on resources, males’ reproductive success depends on access to females.  Presumably that’s why male primates compete to gather and control as many females as possible.  In humans, this individual male-male competition becomes cooperation, in that all of society cooperates to dominate and subdue females.  Now, that just isn’t fair, especially as there is the alternative mate acquisition and retention strategy, for males, of attractiveness.

That’s the basic biological equation.  We just have to live with it, and it’s going to influence how people think, even in a completely egalitarian society.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I like Camille Paglia.

I would have some respect for her academic work. However when Sinead O’Connor tore up the picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live in the early 1990’s she commented that the abuse O’Connor suffered was justified.  Very weird for a feminist and professed atheist to side with the Catholic Church.

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Simon

I think, as a general rule in nature, animals that work cooperatively in groups are either matriarchies or patriarchies, are they not?

Wolves, chimpanzees, hyenas…even bees and termites.

Why should humans be any different?

Seems like these are patterns species fall into naturally. What is unnatural is trying to reason it away.

[jakelafortParticipant]

That line was in Chaucer.

Great article Reg.

I know or knew part of Paglia’s family. When my family moved into the ‘new street’in an affluent town in MA the Paglia’s were the first to knock on the door and make us feel welcome. I hung out with one of the boys and later went out once and should have been more with one of the girls. Nice family. But the thing that sticks with me in the days i hung out with the Paglia’s is how the priest would show up unannounced and the mother would do her utmost to cater to his every need. “Oh father, what can i get you? Roast beef sandwich? Turkey sandwich?” And on and on. The intonation of her voice betrayed her deep and emotional sense of obligation to the priest. After he stuffed himself and left i would hear Mrs. Paglia complaining. But she was never going to show him how conflicted she was. I assume Camille had same upbringing.

I am sure Paglia saw herself as a freethinker too. And all the other assholes who jumped on the truth teller same thing. Freethinker is a misnomer if you accept that free will is impossible. That would make freethinking impossible. On the other hand if you use the word to denote the actual departure from ideological thinking or patterns of thought that analyze all ideas with greater or lesser objectivity then i am cool with it. Those with patterns of thought that are closer to objectivity in evaluating even beloved ideas or beliefs are freethinkers.

The experience of the woman who told the truth makes me think again about this word, islamophobia. It is never (barring extenuating circumstances) okay to censor speech directed to power. How banal to say power corrupts. Yet it is a universal among us hairy apes and it is true of individuals and institutions. We must criticize Islam and never fall for the trap sprung by religious zealots. That in no way excuses bigotry against individual Muslims.

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Jake

The “free” in “free will” is different from the “free” in “free thinker.” A free thinker is someone who thinks outside the majority echo chamber, not someone who thinks free of the workings of his/her nervous system.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Here is what i wrote.

On the other hand if you use the word to denote the actual departure from ideological thinking or patterns of thought that analyze all ideas with greater or lesser objectivity then i am cool with it. Those with patterns of thought that are closer to objectivity in evaluating even beloved ideas or beliefs are freethinkers.

[_Robert_Participant]

Unseen wrote:

@ Simon I think, as a general rule in nature, animals that work cooperatively in groups are either matriarchies or patriarchies, are they not? Wolves, chimpanzees, hyenas…even bees and termites. Why should humans be any different? Seems like these are patterns species fall into naturally. What is unnatural is trying to reason it away.

Yes, nature is such a powerful force. Mental gymnastics to extricate ourselves from millions of years of evolution is going to fail. People are animals.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@jakelafort – That line was in Chaucer.

🙂 from me before 8 AM……...choice or reason 🙂

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

I think, as a general rule in nature, animals that work cooperatively in groups are either matriarchies or patriarchies, are they not?

Social animals nearly always live in some kind of dominance hierarchy, it’s true.  Ants and bees I’m not so sure.  They’re a special case of everything, socially.

Why should humans be any different?

Seems like these are patterns species fall into naturally. What is unnatural is trying to reason it away.

Before human ancestors “came down from the trees”, the chances are they were living similar lives to today’s chimpanzees or bonobos, based on the fossil record of body size and other characteristics.

Then in the past 5 million years, the climate began to undergo pulses of fluctuation, every few hundred thousand years,. and at every pulse, a new human ancestor species evolved or radiated to many new species.

So, from the lush forest environment they were used to, the environment began to grow more harsh.

There is a presumed measurement for the level of male-male competition in primate species: the relative canine sizes of males and females shows the difference between male-male and female-female competition.  When we lived in forests, it was in the moderate range like chimps and bonobos.  After that, when the environment began to get more harsh, it went through the roof, with the most extreme in our history, in the pithecine species, 4-5 million years ago.  The possible reason for this is that females became more dominatable because there were fewer per unit area, so they were more worth competing for, so males competed intensely for females.

Then, at about 4 million years ago, in Ardipithecus ramidus, a human ancestor, the relative sizes of male and female canines suddenly became about equal.

There is a plausible hypothesis to explain this.  Females depend on resources to reproduce; they have sexual choice in which males to mate with; they began to choose males who could share.

Their ancestors were intelligent, sociable, and using tools.  They were thrust into a harsher environment than before.  How could they survive?  By sharing, as modern hunter-gatherers do.  Sharing mitigates individual risk; individuals who can play nicely in a sharing network get to reproduce more than those who didn’t.  The change looks quite abrupt in the fossil record:

You can see that the abrupt equalisation in male-male competition happens with Ar. ramidus about 4 million years ago.

So – that’s why we’re egalitarian.  Also, this could have been the introduction of sexual monogamy (pair-bonding), arising out of polygyny (multi-pair-bonding), arising in turn out of multi-male multi-female mating (no pair-bonding).

Complete egalitarianism gives women freedom from patriarchy too, for the same reasons (mobility, independence from individuals, lack of power structures, etc.), and since men aren’t competing, there’s no need for patriarchy anyway.  These days, since patriarchy has returned with the dawn of “civilisation”, inequality, etc., the individual competition to dominate females has been handed over to societal cooperation.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Simon,

“Nacholapithicus”? Were they the predecessors adept at using the “Quest for Fire” to make tortilla chips topped with spicy meat, refried beans, jalapeño peppers, green onions, salsa, and melted cheese?
😉😁

I’ll salute them with a burrito next time I “Make A Run for the Border!”™. 😋😁

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Nacholapithicus

Yes, he was very fierce.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Gigantopithecus was a much more recent one, that presumably was not part of the lineage that self-domesticated and became egalitarian: not “one of us”.

[DavisModerator]

So the gist of the, what should be an utterly non-controversial statement in a non crazy universe is:

Women being raped is a problem, it is not a small problem, this shouldn’t happen, we can all do our part to stop it.

But I am Yet to read a person agreeing rape is a problem, not a small problem, that we should do what we can to stop it (except Simon, thank you Simon for being a human being).

Other reactions have been (from bad to worst)

• I’m on the fence about this
• You can’t have it both ways
• Statistic (about women claiming rape) is bullshit
• Men are raped too
• You should pick your partner’s better
• Men are expected to make more than women
• Females hypersexualise themselves online
• (Plus more incel nonsense I’d care to remember reading).

______

 

Pointing out that rape is a problem is not a blanket attack on men. It is pointing out there is a problem. You can help fight that problem or be part of the problem. The statements above reflect being part of the problem (getting in the way of doing something about it). Reading posts on this site just makes me really sad these days.

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by  Davis.

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