21st century western mores promote sexual freedom. Lust is no longer a sin, chastity no virtue. Prudentius pointed out the contrary nature of chastity and lust over 1500 years ago in his epic poem Psychomachia.
Paternal certainty was an important motivation in the development of western civilisation and pre-marital chastity was one of women's primary contributions to this. Dr Amneus sets this out cogently at: www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Library/Amneus/garbage/
Chastity's virtue was and is widely recognised across cultures, e.g. "In the 1930s [a cross-generational mating study found that] men valued chastity as close to indispensable" (Buss 1994, p67). Going deeper into the anthropological reasons for this, and paraphrasing Buss: "Concealed ovulation gave ancestral men a unique paternal certainty problem... Marriage provided one solution... Fidelity was enforced by family members... A man who did not obtain a chaste mate risked becoming involved with a woman who would cuckold him... Men who were indifferent to the potential sexual contact of their partners would not have been successful at passing on their genes."
In other words there are good reasons to suppose that men instinctively value chastity because those that didn't simply didn't get to pass on their indifferent gene so reliably.
The bottom line, though, is what works. If chastity is an essential component of motivating men's commitment to developing a society - and if a society developed in this way is more successful at maintaining and growing itself than another that doesn't value chastity - then chastity is an objective virtue, whatever 20th century feminists would prefer to believe.
I happen to suspect this might be the case - despite the awkward implications to the satisfaction of my own lust.
Not a popular view, I know. But then I'm not convinced popularity is an objective virtue!
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Are modern men disgusting?
Societies succeed if they continue. This means successful societies are ones that prioritise the protection and nurture of the scarce resources involved in producing and raising the next generation; eggs, wombs and breasts.
Women choose the men they reproduce with and, through what Jonathan Haidt calls The Social Intuitionist process, determine social mores and mould the next generation's attitudes and behaviours pretty effectively.
For these reasons successful societies tend to reflect women's priorities - and always have. When the environment requires a fierce fight for survival they choose tough, resourceful, resilient men because their priority is protection. When life is easier they choose more compliant, subservient men. This latter environment suits women better because it provides them with more control over their lives, so the tendency is to choose it whether or not it is appropriate. The only thing that will change this is a reversion to a tough environment. This will happen, nature's variety ensures that, but no-one knows when. Then the issue will be whether there is enough resilience left in the men for the society to survive.
One way out of this cycle is the development of cloning and ex-vitro gestation. This would free men from women's control over their (and everyone's) primary objective; reproduction. However it is unlikely that any existing society would allow this to happen as women would try to prevent such a loss of control.
Real reproductive freedom for men is still a very long way off but understanding the dynamics - understanding that it is women collectively who determine these issues and that men are largely pawns in the process - might help us men feel a little less disgusted with ourselves, even if it does nothing for our feelings of self-worth!
Women choose the men they reproduce with and, through what Jonathan Haidt calls The Social Intuitionist process, determine social mores and mould the next generation's attitudes and behaviours pretty effectively.
For these reasons successful societies tend to reflect women's priorities - and always have. When the environment requires a fierce fight for survival they choose tough, resourceful, resilient men because their priority is protection. When life is easier they choose more compliant, subservient men. This latter environment suits women better because it provides them with more control over their lives, so the tendency is to choose it whether or not it is appropriate. The only thing that will change this is a reversion to a tough environment. This will happen, nature's variety ensures that, but no-one knows when. Then the issue will be whether there is enough resilience left in the men for the society to survive.
One way out of this cycle is the development of cloning and ex-vitro gestation. This would free men from women's control over their (and everyone's) primary objective; reproduction. However it is unlikely that any existing society would allow this to happen as women would try to prevent such a loss of control.
Real reproductive freedom for men is still a very long way off but understanding the dynamics - understanding that it is women collectively who determine these issues and that men are largely pawns in the process - might help us men feel a little less disgusted with ourselves, even if it does nothing for our feelings of self-worth!
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