Polyamory—a radical idea. The idea of loving more than one person at a time goes back to the early Christians and Greeks—they call it agape. With polyamory the new ingredient is sex and all the romantic feelings that go with sex (or sometimes without it). A few of the preceding topics in this blog made the point that a cultural system, just like a biological system is a highly interconnected system of parts, and that a change in only one part is not likely to be successful in any kind of evolutionary scheme. Either many parts have to change simultaneously, or the environment needs to change in such a way that a sequence of single changes is neutral and not selected against until the new subsystem of parts becomes functional and advantageous (and this second scenario seems to require some teleology, but I won’t talk about that here). I claim that polyamory cannot work in the present system on a large scale unless many things change besides multiple partner relating. Poly within the system will be more about accumulation than relation, status and shallow sex rather than deep love, quantity rather than quality. At least the following memes need to change for poly to thrive.
1. Economics and politics of scarcity— the system wants us to believe that romantic love is scarce. If resources are scarce, people can be controlled with fear of not having enough resources and kept busy chasing after those resources. The yearning for ego transcendence, and the extreme pleasure that comes with sex combined with romantic love is one of the biggest levers that the system has to control people. The dating industry, the romance book industry, the pornography industry all benefit from the image of scarcity and the drying up of monogamous relationships. The first required change for polyamory to work is a belief in the abundance of romantic love (and possibly other resources when they are shared). The second change would be a gift economy and a politics of sharing power.
2. Economics of consumerism—the smaller the economic unit the more consumption. Extended families have dwindled for this same reason. Polyamorous relationships where there is more than occasional sex between partners, where there is the kind of deep love that makes people want to share a large portion of their lives by living together or in close proximity makes for a larger and less consumptive economic unit where commodities are shared. On the other hand, the system has no problem with fuck-buddies and swinging, because these do not lead to significant economic sharing. The third change for polyamory to be selected is an economics of production for use, not for making money. The fourth change is a psychology of service and pleasure from non-material pursuits.
3. Economics of proprietary production—lack of transparency in production translates into lack of transparency in general. Larger, transparent production unit can be more self-sufficient. But in the present system the material means and information of production are owned by a few individuals and carefully guarded in order to compete in the marketplace. A transparent poly family which produces much of its needs doesn’t fit the present system. The fifth change necessary is transparency in production and sharing of the means of production to create more economic abundance. Also a psychology of pleasure in production (instead of making money off the exploitation of ant-like producers who are alienated from their labor) and sharing information leading to self-sufficient village-scale production.
4. Inheritance laws.—In a patriarchy, these work when paternity can be clearly established.
5. Decision making in patriarchy is hierarchical. Patriarchal polygamy works with patriarchy and hierarchical decision making, but polyamory requires consensus decision making. Consensual decision making goes with transparency, honesty, deep listening, deep caring for others
Friday, September 4, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
report from the trenches
We are like soldiers camping out on the eve of battle. It’s been raining since last night and I am tempted by visions of labs, science colleagues and the Dionysian comforts and shared ecstasies of women in my arms. Also by the lack of ticks, chiggers and poison ivy. Scratching myself does feel ecstatic at times, but makes it hard to focus on anything else and is wearisome after a while.
During our meals, Chris talks about the liberals and how they need the government to take care of them. He rants about the evils of land ownership and capitalism. He bemoans civilization and how it does not meet the needs of men (freedom, adventure, variety, creativity), only of women (comfort and security). I understand where he’s coming from, though I don’t agree completely with him about his generalizations. I also disagree with those who claim that no generalizations can be made at all, that men and women are the same in their needs, that masculine and feminine have only historical meaning. Anyway, capitalism is not our enemy, nor are the liberals, the conservative, women, or any group of people, the bugs, the poison ivy or even the deer who eat our crops. Yet we are at war, in the rainy, bug infested trenches.
Chris tills the beds that Shelby dug long ago, when Shelby was a young man full of hope, with a family to support. They were overrun with grass and weeds when we got here. Shelby put some logs on the edges to rot. We removed the rotten logs from the edges, but then we found more in the middle of each bed, buried. There must be about 1000 logs, in various states of decay. We use a pickaxe to lever them out of the ground, then we pile them in the pickup bed, and from there we load them on the woodpile. I was worried that Shelby might get mad or melancholic about us undoing his work (though the nutrients probably have all left the logs and gone into the soil by now), so we do the piling right after each digging out. “Put them back”, Chris jokes, trying to imitate what Shelby might say. We know that what we plant we might not harvest, and all our work here might not be for us to benefit from.
I am really close to having a self-feeding rocket stove. It is smaller, cheaper and easier to build than the one in the book. I think it is also more efficient. My design keeps changing, and hopefully converging.
The deer are eating our crops because we have no fence. Shelby doesn’t like fences or going through gates. A fence would be yet another investment of money and time that we may not get a return for—who knows when we would have to leave (Shelby could kick the bucket any day and Sara said we can’t have more than just 4 people here—not the thriving community we have in mind, with hundreds of people). A Kelvin Generator fence would be cheaper and less work to put up, so I am looking for metal tubs with spouts—I offered Shawn some money for his, which he uses for washing vegetables from his garden. And then there is the issue that the KG fence is still experimental technology, with some bugs yet to be worked out, and Chris has no patience for that, being a Yankee farmer.
People keep telling us of possibilities for a few acres to buy, or a place to live on someone else’s land. Just yesterday I was helping install a big rocket stove (not my design) for Laura and she and Kent are trying to be so encouraging, but they don’t get it. They think we’re just trying to survive, to find easy opportunities for us to live, to be comfortable. We are not here to be comfortable, though sometimes we indulge in some comforts (like the hot tub made from a horse trough and kept warm with insulation and 5 gallons of propane-heated water every few days).
Though Chris doesn’t know it, my heart is heavy every time we watch a video. Not that the videos are not good, moving, entertaining, informative. It’s the vision in my head and the yearning in my heart for celebration that is much more active and vibrant, a sharing of souls, active vs passive, work mingled seamlessly with play. Like folk dancing after working in the fields together. Like sermons, rituals and workshops that uplift, music that is played collectively, outdoor games full of glee. The video, despite the best intentions of its producers, is a symptom of a society of consumption, extreme individualism, and specialization. It works well in this kind of society. The kind of folk dancing I have in mind does not work well in this society, it doesn’t fit the rest of the attitudes and ways of being and doing. It might be enjoyed by a few people, but without the other ingredients (group communion, shared work, less specialization, agrarian lifestyle), it comes up stale. I try to enjoy the sharing of this passive activity, because at least it is sharing something, though sometimes it feels like a mockery of my yearning, a form of soma in a Brave New World.
We aren’t here to survive, or because we want to be self-sufficient, or free or even happy. We aren’t here for our children, though we miss them as a tree misses its roots and are sad that the Culture has taken them. We are not here to be martyrs—we aren’t trying to get an ego boost from any discomfort or material lacks or suffering.
We are here because we care deeply about this world, because we know that there is something good, beautiful and true that transcends our existence or that of our children, something worth sacrificing our comfort and security for. Our enemies are laziness, ignorance, selfishness, stupidity, both within us and without. Chris thinks our enemy is private ownership of land, but I think that is not a root enemy. Our friends are everywhere, in the midst of our enemies.
During our meals, Chris talks about the liberals and how they need the government to take care of them. He rants about the evils of land ownership and capitalism. He bemoans civilization and how it does not meet the needs of men (freedom, adventure, variety, creativity), only of women (comfort and security). I understand where he’s coming from, though I don’t agree completely with him about his generalizations. I also disagree with those who claim that no generalizations can be made at all, that men and women are the same in their needs, that masculine and feminine have only historical meaning. Anyway, capitalism is not our enemy, nor are the liberals, the conservative, women, or any group of people, the bugs, the poison ivy or even the deer who eat our crops. Yet we are at war, in the rainy, bug infested trenches.
Chris tills the beds that Shelby dug long ago, when Shelby was a young man full of hope, with a family to support. They were overrun with grass and weeds when we got here. Shelby put some logs on the edges to rot. We removed the rotten logs from the edges, but then we found more in the middle of each bed, buried. There must be about 1000 logs, in various states of decay. We use a pickaxe to lever them out of the ground, then we pile them in the pickup bed, and from there we load them on the woodpile. I was worried that Shelby might get mad or melancholic about us undoing his work (though the nutrients probably have all left the logs and gone into the soil by now), so we do the piling right after each digging out. “Put them back”, Chris jokes, trying to imitate what Shelby might say. We know that what we plant we might not harvest, and all our work here might not be for us to benefit from.
I am really close to having a self-feeding rocket stove. It is smaller, cheaper and easier to build than the one in the book. I think it is also more efficient. My design keeps changing, and hopefully converging.
The deer are eating our crops because we have no fence. Shelby doesn’t like fences or going through gates. A fence would be yet another investment of money and time that we may not get a return for—who knows when we would have to leave (Shelby could kick the bucket any day and Sara said we can’t have more than just 4 people here—not the thriving community we have in mind, with hundreds of people). A Kelvin Generator fence would be cheaper and less work to put up, so I am looking for metal tubs with spouts—I offered Shawn some money for his, which he uses for washing vegetables from his garden. And then there is the issue that the KG fence is still experimental technology, with some bugs yet to be worked out, and Chris has no patience for that, being a Yankee farmer.
People keep telling us of possibilities for a few acres to buy, or a place to live on someone else’s land. Just yesterday I was helping install a big rocket stove (not my design) for Laura and she and Kent are trying to be so encouraging, but they don’t get it. They think we’re just trying to survive, to find easy opportunities for us to live, to be comfortable. We are not here to be comfortable, though sometimes we indulge in some comforts (like the hot tub made from a horse trough and kept warm with insulation and 5 gallons of propane-heated water every few days).
Though Chris doesn’t know it, my heart is heavy every time we watch a video. Not that the videos are not good, moving, entertaining, informative. It’s the vision in my head and the yearning in my heart for celebration that is much more active and vibrant, a sharing of souls, active vs passive, work mingled seamlessly with play. Like folk dancing after working in the fields together. Like sermons, rituals and workshops that uplift, music that is played collectively, outdoor games full of glee. The video, despite the best intentions of its producers, is a symptom of a society of consumption, extreme individualism, and specialization. It works well in this kind of society. The kind of folk dancing I have in mind does not work well in this society, it doesn’t fit the rest of the attitudes and ways of being and doing. It might be enjoyed by a few people, but without the other ingredients (group communion, shared work, less specialization, agrarian lifestyle), it comes up stale. I try to enjoy the sharing of this passive activity, because at least it is sharing something, though sometimes it feels like a mockery of my yearning, a form of soma in a Brave New World.
We aren’t here to survive, or because we want to be self-sufficient, or free or even happy. We aren’t here for our children, though we miss them as a tree misses its roots and are sad that the Culture has taken them. We are not here to be martyrs—we aren’t trying to get an ego boost from any discomfort or material lacks or suffering.
We are here because we care deeply about this world, because we know that there is something good, beautiful and true that transcends our existence or that of our children, something worth sacrificing our comfort and security for. Our enemies are laziness, ignorance, selfishness, stupidity, both within us and without. Chris thinks our enemy is private ownership of land, but I think that is not a root enemy. Our friends are everywhere, in the midst of our enemies.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
speciation
A puzzle in evolutionary theory: how can single mutations be responsible for the kinds of morphological differences among species? To add an extra toe, for example, requires many (10s or 100s) of different genes to be expressed at different times during development. To go from gills to lungs requires even more changes in gene expression and a few new genes. Mutating these genes sequentially, one at a time, is highly disadvantageous, since the original function will be disrupted. This is akin to going from a carburated car to a carburated car with a fuel injector between the carburetor and the intake manifold in the evolution of cars--the mutant won't run. In fact there is no path of single component changes in a car going between carburation and fuel injection, which won't kill the car. These changes have to be done all at once, in a single generation, to produce a viable car.
What if the new fuel injector is not connected between the carburetor and the intake manifold? There is some energy expended in building it, which presents a slight disadvantage to the manufacturer of the car. But if the manufacturer has some resources to do R&D, eventually a fuel injection system can be evolved. Of course the analogy breaks down here as there is no manufacturer in biology. But I think that the part about large changes occuring without a phenotype might happen in nature too, as in lungs being built without being used. Also, the analogy with the manufacturer is a regulatory gene, which controls the expression of many other genes. In technology, the manufacturer is not part of the car, but in biology the regulatory gene is part of the organism.
Several things have to happen in order to produce the multitude of beneficial changes leading to a new species, even after reproductive isolation. First, mutations occur in one or a few regulatory genes, as opposed to hundreds of genes. This enables many genes to change their expression with the mutation of only one or a few of the genes that regulate them, making the probability of change within a (consistent with paleontological record) short time reasonable.
Second, at least one copy of the unmutated regulatory gene has to continue to express normally and be dominant, in order that normal function not be disrupted. Since most genes are recessive, this requires gene duplication, an occasional occurence, followed by mutation in one of the copies, followed by homozygosity of the mutated gene.
Third, either the environment has to change or new phenotypically invisible mutations (either in the originally mutated gene or in cooperating genes) have to occur in order to provide a differential selective advantage for the new gene relative to the original gene. It is possible that the original mutation is good enough to provide an advantage (once the environment changes) relative to the original unmutated gene, with no new mutations, but to me this seems unlikely, even for a mutation in a regulatory gene. Such an event would seem to lead to a new variety or strain rather than a new species. Species are separated by barriers in multidimensional fitness space and most changes, even multi-gene ones, are unlikely to lead to a lower valley on the first try.
Fourth, a new mutation occurs such that the original gene is inactivated, or the new gene becomes dominant.
The fourth event happens many times, most of which are not preceded by the third step, in which case no new species arises. The changes involved in speciation are numerous and interdependent and must remain invisible to selctive pressure until the time is right.
Now I would like to argue that similar considerations apply to cultural evolution, as do to biological and technological evolution. Culture is a hereditable system composed of interacting memes, subject to selective pressure and variation. Gradual, non-regulatory mutations lead to different strains. Reproductive isolation is a necessary (see the entry on gradual vs quick speciation) but not sufficient condition for new species to arise. The four steps above might complete the ingredients necessary for cultural speciation to occur, although I may have missed some. In the pictures below I draw a simplified draft of an outline of the mainstream culture and a culture I would like to speciate into. I try to represent some regulatory memes in the center. These mutations have already occured but they are either conferring a disadvantage or phenotypically invisible. We need a community to work them out, largely isolated from mainstream culture, in an environment where the new culture would have an advantage.
What if the new fuel injector is not connected between the carburetor and the intake manifold? There is some energy expended in building it, which presents a slight disadvantage to the manufacturer of the car. But if the manufacturer has some resources to do R&D, eventually a fuel injection system can be evolved. Of course the analogy breaks down here as there is no manufacturer in biology. But I think that the part about large changes occuring without a phenotype might happen in nature too, as in lungs being built without being used. Also, the analogy with the manufacturer is a regulatory gene, which controls the expression of many other genes. In technology, the manufacturer is not part of the car, but in biology the regulatory gene is part of the organism.
Several things have to happen in order to produce the multitude of beneficial changes leading to a new species, even after reproductive isolation. First, mutations occur in one or a few regulatory genes, as opposed to hundreds of genes. This enables many genes to change their expression with the mutation of only one or a few of the genes that regulate them, making the probability of change within a (consistent with paleontological record) short time reasonable.
Second, at least one copy of the unmutated regulatory gene has to continue to express normally and be dominant, in order that normal function not be disrupted. Since most genes are recessive, this requires gene duplication, an occasional occurence, followed by mutation in one of the copies, followed by homozygosity of the mutated gene.
Third, either the environment has to change or new phenotypically invisible mutations (either in the originally mutated gene or in cooperating genes) have to occur in order to provide a differential selective advantage for the new gene relative to the original gene. It is possible that the original mutation is good enough to provide an advantage (once the environment changes) relative to the original unmutated gene, with no new mutations, but to me this seems unlikely, even for a mutation in a regulatory gene. Such an event would seem to lead to a new variety or strain rather than a new species. Species are separated by barriers in multidimensional fitness space and most changes, even multi-gene ones, are unlikely to lead to a lower valley on the first try.
Fourth, a new mutation occurs such that the original gene is inactivated, or the new gene becomes dominant.
The fourth event happens many times, most of which are not preceded by the third step, in which case no new species arises. The changes involved in speciation are numerous and interdependent and must remain invisible to selctive pressure until the time is right.
Now I would like to argue that similar considerations apply to cultural evolution, as do to biological and technological evolution. Culture is a hereditable system composed of interacting memes, subject to selective pressure and variation. Gradual, non-regulatory mutations lead to different strains. Reproductive isolation is a necessary (see the entry on gradual vs quick speciation) but not sufficient condition for new species to arise. The four steps above might complete the ingredients necessary for cultural speciation to occur, although I may have missed some. In the pictures below I draw a simplified draft of an outline of the mainstream culture and a culture I would like to speciate into. I try to represent some regulatory memes in the center. These mutations have already occured but they are either conferring a disadvantage or phenotypically invisible. We need a community to work them out, largely isolated from mainstream culture, in an environment where the new culture would have an advantage.
A corollary to the above considerations is that small changes are not going to radically change the culture, even given an infinite amount of time. Herbert Marcuse already saw this many years ago with regards to capitalism, but it is a property of all stable evolutionary systems. In the next entry I will elaborate on why the following changes will not create a new culture.
mono->poly without changing capitalism
greener consumption habits without changing capitalism and empire
changing capitalism without localization
localization of food without participation in agriculture
localization of food without localization of industry
green building without changing attitudes about housing
shared housing without a common vision and common livelihhod
no electricity without common recreation
folk dancing without an attitude of group communion
communalism without consensus
Monday, June 8, 2009
the myth of follow your bliss economics
There are seven reasons why I think that a collectively shared agriculture is a good idea. First, if we accept that a local economy is something to strive for (see Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, E.F Schumacher and myself among many for arguments pro a local economy) then there are still a few possibilities as to how to do it. There are those who believe that we should all follow our own bliss and everything will work out. That is, if everyone just does what they like and what they are good at, everyone's needs will be met. This is based on a myth that has taken over the imagination of most in this culture. It is a beautiful myth and it makes people feel good, but it is only partially true. It works for a few privileged people in the heart of the empire (but not most), and not for most of the world. The more cheap energy and resources are available to the west, the more "bliss work", i.e. luxury service work can be supported. But most people have to do non-bliss work, both in the west and the third world in the present global economy (the few people whose bliss is to farm and build are exceptions to the general rule that most people's bliss work is not hard physical labor, though hard physical labor can be fun for all in moderation and/or when shared). If energy and resources dwindle in supply, this will be even more true. And similarly, in a local economy that is not subsidized by exploitation of other parts of the world or theft from the future (in terms of non-renewable resources and debt that needs to be repaid in real energy), there is a significant amount of energy that needs to be spent on basic needs. Dividing that work roughly equally amongst all able-bodied people makes it more equitable. In this basic needs economy, there is room for some specialization, so not everyone has to make clothes, build make/maintain tools and do healthcare, but since the majority of labor will be agriculture, most people will have to do some agriculture to achieve an equitable number of hours worked.
Second, a gift economy for basic needs is unstable. It assumes that people who are toiling hard to provide basic needs are going to provide them for everyone out of love all the time. Those who are providing luxuries and not necessities are in a precarious position, dependent on the constant good will of the others to eat and to have shelter. Much better to have a less utopian vision of human nature and have everyone responsible for their basic needs collectively. That way, a gift economy for the "spice of life" can be on a firm foundation. People can follow their bliss knowing that with a bit of work on the foundation, they will be fed, sheltered, clothed, educated, and cared for when sick, old or very young. This is where specialization, trade and diversity of avocations and wants can flourish.
Third, working together on something that everyone needs and most can do, is more fun than working alone, and brings people together providing a basis for local culture.
Fourth, if one can produce one's basic needs oneself, one is harder to control. In the present culture, it is not the farmers who control people, but the market/corporations/media and a few wealthy folks who own the means of production. In a local economy where the farmers produce food for everyone and the builders and handypersons build and maintain shelter for everyone, it is they who accumulate power and can ultimately control everyone else. This is already starting to happen at Earthaven, where the farmers are getting private leases, except that the global food market is still competing with them so their power is still limited. To ensure freedom for individuals, they must be co-owners of the means of production, and not leave it to proxies, whether they are corporations, governments, wealthy landowners and industrialists, or farmers.
Fifth, the "follow your own bliss" myth is ultimately too egotistical. There is spiritual value in doing something that may not be your favorite thing, but that is helping others and needs to be done.
Sixth, shared agricultural work levels class distinctions that arise when some people do the hard manual labor and others do only intellectual work and easy manual labor.
Seventh, a shared agriculture, just like shared shelter and kitchen does with heating, storage, washing and materials, creates an efficiency of shared tools and if there are enough people, a labor pool able to respond to peak labor times (such as digging and harvest of field crops).
Note that only the third, fifth and seventh reasons argue for collectivization, whereas the other ones leave open the possibility of individual/family homesteads. There are some disadvantages to collectivization such as difficulty to coordinate people that might be traded off for these reasons (3 5 and 7).
Second, a gift economy for basic needs is unstable. It assumes that people who are toiling hard to provide basic needs are going to provide them for everyone out of love all the time. Those who are providing luxuries and not necessities are in a precarious position, dependent on the constant good will of the others to eat and to have shelter. Much better to have a less utopian vision of human nature and have everyone responsible for their basic needs collectively. That way, a gift economy for the "spice of life" can be on a firm foundation. People can follow their bliss knowing that with a bit of work on the foundation, they will be fed, sheltered, clothed, educated, and cared for when sick, old or very young. This is where specialization, trade and diversity of avocations and wants can flourish.
Third, working together on something that everyone needs and most can do, is more fun than working alone, and brings people together providing a basis for local culture.
Fourth, if one can produce one's basic needs oneself, one is harder to control. In the present culture, it is not the farmers who control people, but the market/corporations/media and a few wealthy folks who own the means of production. In a local economy where the farmers produce food for everyone and the builders and handypersons build and maintain shelter for everyone, it is they who accumulate power and can ultimately control everyone else. This is already starting to happen at Earthaven, where the farmers are getting private leases, except that the global food market is still competing with them so their power is still limited. To ensure freedom for individuals, they must be co-owners of the means of production, and not leave it to proxies, whether they are corporations, governments, wealthy landowners and industrialists, or farmers.
Fifth, the "follow your own bliss" myth is ultimately too egotistical. There is spiritual value in doing something that may not be your favorite thing, but that is helping others and needs to be done.
Sixth, shared agricultural work levels class distinctions that arise when some people do the hard manual labor and others do only intellectual work and easy manual labor.
Seventh, a shared agriculture, just like shared shelter and kitchen does with heating, storage, washing and materials, creates an efficiency of shared tools and if there are enough people, a labor pool able to respond to peak labor times (such as digging and harvest of field crops).
Note that only the third, fifth and seventh reasons argue for collectivization, whereas the other ones leave open the possibility of individual/family homesteads. There are some disadvantages to collectivization such as difficulty to coordinate people that might be traded off for these reasons (3 5 and 7).
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Male privilege checklist
Based on Peggy McIntosh's original checklist about white privilege, Ampersand created this male privilege checklist:
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist
There are privileges which I would like everyone to have (positive privilege--which might be referred to as a right), and privileges which I would like no one to have (negative privilege). The privilege (which I have had) of having a good education and not being ruled by need, but having choices in how to spend my time is one I would like everyone to have. I don't see that as possible with the present economy and the present technology, and I don't see that changing even if we fight for any of the positive privileges in that list and against any of the negative privileges. There are also privileges that I would like some but not all to have (we can call these positive privileges too). The privilege to lead or manage for example, which should be based on talent and propensity. With that privilege comes responsibility.
How do we use our positive privileges? Do we just write about it and flagelate ourselves, or try to do something to make things better? Can we work for a world where everyone has a good chance to flourish? Can we be an example to the third world that affluence does not equal consumerism and exploitation? Or do we use our privilege to perpetuate the system that oppresses other people and rapes the planet? This reminds me of the (sometimes) christian tactic of continuing bad behavior by going to confession or admitting that one is a sinner. It's not enough to confess to being privileged. Let's do something positive with our (positive) privileges! I am trying to set up a system where everyone owns the means of production. That will not be enough--every individual will have to overcome selfishness and laziness--no system will be able to accomplish that.
I can empathize with women's experience of many of the positive privileges they don't have, but I don't feel like how I live perpetuates these privileges only for men; As far as the negative privileges, I don't have them and don't encourage anyone who does; on the contrary, I feel like there are more basic issues that perpetuate these things and other injustice and that I am trying to tackle. This list would have been revolutionary more than 40 years ago, but western society has moved on and there are more pressing issues.
It is hard for me to identify with many of these items, for example #1 (how do you know that sometimes job-competency is not higher in males on the average--e.g. auto-mechanic, especially jobs that were traditionally done by males? It might be hard to disentangle sexism in applicant selection from competency due to sex (by mostly cultural mechanisms). This does suck for women when they really are equal to or better than men at a job. I know one woman who really is better than most men at handyperson jobs. She faces some discrimination, but when she does get hired, her work speaks for itself and people then hire her because of her work. In any case I don't feel guilty if there are sexist male employers out there because I am a man. Should I feel guilty if there are racist brown-haired people because I am brown-haired?), #6 (I usually have reverse sexism about this one), #14 (I don't have any elected representatives) #20 (I don't watch TV or read newspapers) #26 (I don't buy much clothes), #27 (I don't expect anyone to groom themselves) #37 (I don't care about most religions), # 38 (That has not been my experience, except that I don't like vacuum cleaners or washing machines, would rather sweep and do laundry in a tub, and don't expect my partner to do it for me), #39 (not my experience), #40 (I have followed my 2nd wife to another state, giving up my career as an engineer), #43 (I was subject to violence from my first wife).
root causes vs symptoms
If you could wave a magic wand and get rid of male privilege, the system will still be there with all its nastiness. Not that you could do that, because male privilege is not a root cause, and so new weeds of enslavement will crop up from the roots of selfishness, laziness, empire, patriarchy, centralization of power, inability to produce basic needs locally, ownership of the means of production by a few people, and other roots.
some issues more important than male privilege--
empire privilege
We in the west have the negative privilege to consume slave labor goods and rob the third world of its raw materials.
privilege to not work at manual or dangerous or menial jobs by western women in empire
My first long-term relationship was with a woman who worked in an all-women's carpentry crew. I met her again, 25 years later. She is now a hypnotherapist. There are very few middle class (and in the US, though to a lesser degree, working class) women who take on manual labor or dangerous jobs and even fewer who stick with them. Some of that is because they are discouraged from it (and the psychological dimension of privilege is an important one), but another part is because they have the privilege not to. I think this has far greater reaching consequences for consumerism (as previously discussed in this blog), for social justice, and for environmental stewardship than male privilege. I would say something not too different about middle class men, although the privilege is not as glaring as for women--this is an example of what I call the feminization of capitalist society. One might argue that capitalism is now mostly a feminine-energy enterprise, with the abilities to sit back and rake in the profits while other people do the work, with its encouragement to have no limits on resource use. This brings up another issue: why pick on the (mostly effeminate) men in the west, when patriarchy is much stronger (and the balance of masculine/feminine energies is more towards the masculine) in the middle east or south america? This is a reactionary, middle-class feminism.
land privilege
After 3 years of being unable to find land to create a community where people share agricultural work and produce their basic food, shelter, education and healthcare needs, I feel like land ownership is a far more important privilege than male privilege. Most of the land that I saw that could have been shared with other people is under private ownership of women who are mostly interested in making money just from ownership of that land without doing much work.
privilege to have custody of children, be a lousy parent, and make a profit from it
I did not even try to gain custody of my son when I got divorced. It was clear that the courts were heavily biased towards mothers. I will have paid $232K in "child support" (this also includes the period before the divorce), whereas I think I could have raised my son under much better conditions, without the abuse that my ex-wife put him through, with giving him good attention and role models, for much, much less than that. Money energy that could have gone towards land, tools and buildings. Money that my ex-wife did not need, except to spend on her wardrobe, appliances, electronic gizmos that only last a year, vacations, and a private school that teaches my son about wealth privilege.
A general imbalance towards feminine energies in present day western culture
The pendulum has swung too far towards the feminine. This is partially responsible for consumerism, rising costs of healthcare, government debt, war. I will elaborate in another blog entry, or see the 4 ingredients entry.
Talking about male privilege takes energy away from doing something about these other issues--a distraction, a red herring.
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist
There are privileges which I would like everyone to have (positive privilege--which might be referred to as a right), and privileges which I would like no one to have (negative privilege). The privilege (which I have had) of having a good education and not being ruled by need, but having choices in how to spend my time is one I would like everyone to have. I don't see that as possible with the present economy and the present technology, and I don't see that changing even if we fight for any of the positive privileges in that list and against any of the negative privileges. There are also privileges that I would like some but not all to have (we can call these positive privileges too). The privilege to lead or manage for example, which should be based on talent and propensity. With that privilege comes responsibility.
How do we use our positive privileges? Do we just write about it and flagelate ourselves, or try to do something to make things better? Can we work for a world where everyone has a good chance to flourish? Can we be an example to the third world that affluence does not equal consumerism and exploitation? Or do we use our privilege to perpetuate the system that oppresses other people and rapes the planet? This reminds me of the (sometimes) christian tactic of continuing bad behavior by going to confession or admitting that one is a sinner. It's not enough to confess to being privileged. Let's do something positive with our (positive) privileges! I am trying to set up a system where everyone owns the means of production. That will not be enough--every individual will have to overcome selfishness and laziness--no system will be able to accomplish that.
I can empathize with women's experience of many of the positive privileges they don't have, but I don't feel like how I live perpetuates these privileges only for men; As far as the negative privileges, I don't have them and don't encourage anyone who does; on the contrary, I feel like there are more basic issues that perpetuate these things and other injustice and that I am trying to tackle. This list would have been revolutionary more than 40 years ago, but western society has moved on and there are more pressing issues.
It is hard for me to identify with many of these items, for example #1 (how do you know that sometimes job-competency is not higher in males on the average--e.g. auto-mechanic, especially jobs that were traditionally done by males? It might be hard to disentangle sexism in applicant selection from competency due to sex (by mostly cultural mechanisms). This does suck for women when they really are equal to or better than men at a job. I know one woman who really is better than most men at handyperson jobs. She faces some discrimination, but when she does get hired, her work speaks for itself and people then hire her because of her work. In any case I don't feel guilty if there are sexist male employers out there because I am a man. Should I feel guilty if there are racist brown-haired people because I am brown-haired?), #6 (I usually have reverse sexism about this one), #14 (I don't have any elected representatives) #20 (I don't watch TV or read newspapers) #26 (I don't buy much clothes), #27 (I don't expect anyone to groom themselves) #37 (I don't care about most religions), # 38 (That has not been my experience, except that I don't like vacuum cleaners or washing machines, would rather sweep and do laundry in a tub, and don't expect my partner to do it for me), #39 (not my experience), #40 (I have followed my 2nd wife to another state, giving up my career as an engineer), #43 (I was subject to violence from my first wife).
root causes vs symptoms
If you could wave a magic wand and get rid of male privilege, the system will still be there with all its nastiness. Not that you could do that, because male privilege is not a root cause, and so new weeds of enslavement will crop up from the roots of selfishness, laziness, empire, patriarchy, centralization of power, inability to produce basic needs locally, ownership of the means of production by a few people, and other roots.
some issues more important than male privilege--
empire privilege
We in the west have the negative privilege to consume slave labor goods and rob the third world of its raw materials.
privilege to not work at manual or dangerous or menial jobs by western women in empire
My first long-term relationship was with a woman who worked in an all-women's carpentry crew. I met her again, 25 years later. She is now a hypnotherapist. There are very few middle class (and in the US, though to a lesser degree, working class) women who take on manual labor or dangerous jobs and even fewer who stick with them. Some of that is because they are discouraged from it (and the psychological dimension of privilege is an important one), but another part is because they have the privilege not to. I think this has far greater reaching consequences for consumerism (as previously discussed in this blog), for social justice, and for environmental stewardship than male privilege. I would say something not too different about middle class men, although the privilege is not as glaring as for women--this is an example of what I call the feminization of capitalist society. One might argue that capitalism is now mostly a feminine-energy enterprise, with the abilities to sit back and rake in the profits while other people do the work, with its encouragement to have no limits on resource use. This brings up another issue: why pick on the (mostly effeminate) men in the west, when patriarchy is much stronger (and the balance of masculine/feminine energies is more towards the masculine) in the middle east or south america? This is a reactionary, middle-class feminism.
land privilege
After 3 years of being unable to find land to create a community where people share agricultural work and produce their basic food, shelter, education and healthcare needs, I feel like land ownership is a far more important privilege than male privilege. Most of the land that I saw that could have been shared with other people is under private ownership of women who are mostly interested in making money just from ownership of that land without doing much work.
privilege to have custody of children, be a lousy parent, and make a profit from it
I did not even try to gain custody of my son when I got divorced. It was clear that the courts were heavily biased towards mothers. I will have paid $232K in "child support" (this also includes the period before the divorce), whereas I think I could have raised my son under much better conditions, without the abuse that my ex-wife put him through, with giving him good attention and role models, for much, much less than that. Money energy that could have gone towards land, tools and buildings. Money that my ex-wife did not need, except to spend on her wardrobe, appliances, electronic gizmos that only last a year, vacations, and a private school that teaches my son about wealth privilege.
A general imbalance towards feminine energies in present day western culture
The pendulum has swung too far towards the feminine. This is partially responsible for consumerism, rising costs of healthcare, government debt, war. I will elaborate in another blog entry, or see the 4 ingredients entry.
Talking about male privilege takes energy away from doing something about these other issues--a distraction, a red herring.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
selective pressures in the ecology of technology
If technology and the economy of which it is a part are ecosystems subject to Darwinian evolution, then what are the selective pressures driving them? Also, does random variation occur, or are there some other mechanisms for achieving variation?
Variation
I can think of several engines of variation, and several selective pressures. Although looked at from a historical perspective the sprouting of new technologies may appear random (though building on previous technologies and thus becoming more complex), there are human motivation at work which do not seem random to me.
The first familiar engine of variation (since Adam Smith pointed it out) is selfish greed. This is not the same as profitability. Selfish greed is an engine of variation--it motivates trying a new technology. Profitability is a selection mechanism--someone may be greedy but his new mousetrap may not be profitable. That mousetrap will be selected against. Similarly, the mousetrap designer (and/or manufacturer) may be motivated by some of the other engines of variation below, not by greed, and the mousetrap may still be profitable and be selected for.
The second engine of variation is curiosity. We scientists and engineers need to know what would happen if...Curiosity is a harsh mistress, but she motivates many inventions.
The third is love. Love of the planet, love of humanity, love of friends and family, love of one's country, love of freedom, love of science and technology and maybe other kinds of love.
It is important to realize that in the present economy, most inventors of new technology are not primarily motivated by greed, but by love or curiosity. In contrast, the manufacturers of their invention (who in the present system also make most of the resulting money, or lose investment money) usually are motivated by greed. I know this personally--I have a patent for a process to make better transistors (these are the building blocks of computers) from when I was working at Motorola. Neither I nor the rest of the engineers who developed the idea were motivated by greed (we each got ~$500 for it). But the CEO of Motorola and the members of the board probably are motivated by greed (I don't know if Moto actually made money from that paten, but they certainly intended to). Yes, all the engineers were partially motivated by wanting a paycheck so they and their families can survive comfortably, so a little self-interest is present, but I wouldn't call it greed. But self-interest isn't a primary motivator for the typical inventor.
Selective Pressures
The first selective pressure is profitability. I don't have anything new to say about this one. It is the primary selective mechanism in the present economy.
The second is usefulness, which in capitalism correlates with profitability, but in another economy (ecosystem) we will see that a technology could be useful without being profitable.
The third is how human happiness, which also may correlate with profitability, and as with usefulness, in another kind of economy a technology could make people happy without being profitable.
The fourth is ecological sustainability. Societies which do not pay attention to this, well...are not sustainable en masse, not just their technologies. All it takes is one technology which is not sustainable (and for that technology to be selected for by one of the other 3 selective mechanisms) for the whole society to be selected against. In the present global technology this selection for ecologically destructive technologies is quite common, but in an economy where basic technology is local and where profitability is not the primary selection mechanism, that would be less likely (NIMBY).
What kind of ecosystem/economy do I have in mind where profitability is not the primary selective mechanism? One where individuals and small communities (~200 people) make all their basic needs. In that kind of ecosystem, a gadget will be manufactured if it is useful and makes people happy. There is no need for it to be profitable because people are making their OWN gadget and the compensation is for them, unlike in the current system where people make stuff for other people and so they need some other compensation, like profit. The variation/creation is still partially driven by a selfish desire to make life better for oneself and one's community, but the compensation is direct, measured mostly in happiness. It is still possible for someone in my village to not want for their home to make the improved stove that my friend invented and I made and to offer me something in return for making them a stove. In this example, one can think of the return I make for building the stove (whether money or some goods and services) as a profit, and wanting that profit (greed) will certainly be part of my motivation for wanting to build stoves for other members of my village, or other villages. But it is not the primary motivation for invention/creation of new technology (as we've seen it isn't even in the present economy) and it no longer is the primary motivation even for manufacturing of already invented technology. More significantly, unlike in the present economy, whether the stove gets built much will not be primarily determined by whether I make a profit on it. Anyone in my village and neighboring villages (which have access to similar materials) can now build this stove, they are not dependent on me. The usefulness of the stove and how happy it makes people are far more important selective mechanisms to determine how many stoves get built.
So far we have imposed the constraint of locality in production and consumption and argued that it makes profitability non-primary as a selective pressure. We have not tackled the problem of what natural mechanisms would induce a system based on globality, where profitability is the primary selective mechanism in technology, to evolve towards one where locality is a constraint.
The most talked-about selective pressure for locality is the dwindling supply of petroleum which raises the price of petroleum and makes transportation of goods less profitable. My concern with that is that if we don't prepare for locality and are forced into it by peak oil, then things could get pretty harsh and barbaric.
A local technology might evolve from the present global one because the interdependence that now exists among people does not encourage freedom for most on this planet (except for a few individuals, and even then for a price that they usually pay in their youth to acquire that freedom), whereas the more people can produce locally (under non-drudgery conditions), the freer they are. The author Neil Stephenson came up with the contrasting evocative words "seed" vs "feed" technologies. A seed technology is one that enables self-reliance of individuals and small communities, dependence on their neighbors and the local ecosystem, and decentralization of political and economic power. We have very few of these left, and even seeds are becoming feed-like (GMO seeds). A feed technology is one that encourages centralization of political and economic power, and disempowers local communities and individuals, at least as far as being able to be self-reliant. There will be a spectrum between seed and feed technologies, and one must consider the technological system as a whole to assess how seed-like or how feed-like it is. For example, solar panels are seed-like once they are manufactured, but their manufactuing is currently feed-like. Solar panels depend on batteries which are feed-like in their manufacturing, and since they don't last as long as solar panels, their feed-likeness is more serious. Also, some of them depend on being able to obtain distilled water, which could be feedlike or seedlike dependent on how it's done. A nuclear reactor is extremely feedlike in its manufacture, and even in its daily use -it requires centralization, and this probably won't change if it is a fusion reactor. Technology is not economically or politically neutral--there are feedbacks between these ecosystems.
In many people's minds there is a confusion of globalization with specialization, but specialization can be done on a local scale too (but not as much as on a global scale). If the social environment encourages transparency, and the technological environment is based on locality, anyone could learn all the specialties that make life possible and enjoyable, and benefit from not having to do everything because of specialization.
The freedom that comes from seed technologies is also a political one, making people harder to control by governments, corporations or advertizers. It might mean that people who now have no decent choice but to work in sweatshops, choose not to because they don't have to anymore. Many things that are currently cheap because of cheap labor may become more expensive.
Locality and self-reliance in basic needs does not mean that in a local technology/economy people do not form interdependent relationships, on the contrary they form those relationships based on love and affinity, not based on impersonal need and greed. So a selective mechanism for locality is human happiness, whether in the form of greater freedom, or improved personal relationships. However, as discussed in a previous entry in this blog, there is a barrier to overcome to get to a place in the ecological landscape from where we are now, to where locality is advantageous. Small changes will be inconvenient, possibly require more labor, and elicit ignorant punitive actions from govt agencies and local rednecks than just using the current global technologies. We might help locate the mountain pass in the evolutionary fitness landscape by investing our energy in creating, manufacturing and using local technology.
I don't think that most luxury technology (such as computers) can be manufactured locally any time soon, if ever. I have no problem with having a global technology/economy for luxuries. It seems to me that if people are no longer primarily motivated by greed in manufacturing of basic goods, that greed may dwindle in other aspects of life too. Love may become a stronger engine of variability/creation once basic needs are met and thus facilitate the evolution of a gift economy for luxuries.
Variation
I can think of several engines of variation, and several selective pressures. Although looked at from a historical perspective the sprouting of new technologies may appear random (though building on previous technologies and thus becoming more complex), there are human motivation at work which do not seem random to me.
The first familiar engine of variation (since Adam Smith pointed it out) is selfish greed. This is not the same as profitability. Selfish greed is an engine of variation--it motivates trying a new technology. Profitability is a selection mechanism--someone may be greedy but his new mousetrap may not be profitable. That mousetrap will be selected against. Similarly, the mousetrap designer (and/or manufacturer) may be motivated by some of the other engines of variation below, not by greed, and the mousetrap may still be profitable and be selected for.
The second engine of variation is curiosity. We scientists and engineers need to know what would happen if...Curiosity is a harsh mistress, but she motivates many inventions.
The third is love. Love of the planet, love of humanity, love of friends and family, love of one's country, love of freedom, love of science and technology and maybe other kinds of love.
It is important to realize that in the present economy, most inventors of new technology are not primarily motivated by greed, but by love or curiosity. In contrast, the manufacturers of their invention (who in the present system also make most of the resulting money, or lose investment money) usually are motivated by greed. I know this personally--I have a patent for a process to make better transistors (these are the building blocks of computers) from when I was working at Motorola. Neither I nor the rest of the engineers who developed the idea were motivated by greed (we each got ~$500 for it). But the CEO of Motorola and the members of the board probably are motivated by greed (I don't know if Moto actually made money from that paten, but they certainly intended to). Yes, all the engineers were partially motivated by wanting a paycheck so they and their families can survive comfortably, so a little self-interest is present, but I wouldn't call it greed. But self-interest isn't a primary motivator for the typical inventor.
Selective Pressures
The first selective pressure is profitability. I don't have anything new to say about this one. It is the primary selective mechanism in the present economy.
The second is usefulness, which in capitalism correlates with profitability, but in another economy (ecosystem) we will see that a technology could be useful without being profitable.
The third is how human happiness, which also may correlate with profitability, and as with usefulness, in another kind of economy a technology could make people happy without being profitable.
The fourth is ecological sustainability. Societies which do not pay attention to this, well...are not sustainable en masse, not just their technologies. All it takes is one technology which is not sustainable (and for that technology to be selected for by one of the other 3 selective mechanisms) for the whole society to be selected against. In the present global technology this selection for ecologically destructive technologies is quite common, but in an economy where basic technology is local and where profitability is not the primary selection mechanism, that would be less likely (NIMBY).
What kind of ecosystem/economy do I have in mind where profitability is not the primary selective mechanism? One where individuals and small communities (~200 people) make all their basic needs. In that kind of ecosystem, a gadget will be manufactured if it is useful and makes people happy. There is no need for it to be profitable because people are making their OWN gadget and the compensation is for them, unlike in the current system where people make stuff for other people and so they need some other compensation, like profit. The variation/creation is still partially driven by a selfish desire to make life better for oneself and one's community, but the compensation is direct, measured mostly in happiness. It is still possible for someone in my village to not want for their home to make the improved stove that my friend invented and I made and to offer me something in return for making them a stove. In this example, one can think of the return I make for building the stove (whether money or some goods and services) as a profit, and wanting that profit (greed) will certainly be part of my motivation for wanting to build stoves for other members of my village, or other villages. But it is not the primary motivation for invention/creation of new technology (as we've seen it isn't even in the present economy) and it no longer is the primary motivation even for manufacturing of already invented technology. More significantly, unlike in the present economy, whether the stove gets built much will not be primarily determined by whether I make a profit on it. Anyone in my village and neighboring villages (which have access to similar materials) can now build this stove, they are not dependent on me. The usefulness of the stove and how happy it makes people are far more important selective mechanisms to determine how many stoves get built.
So far we have imposed the constraint of locality in production and consumption and argued that it makes profitability non-primary as a selective pressure. We have not tackled the problem of what natural mechanisms would induce a system based on globality, where profitability is the primary selective mechanism in technology, to evolve towards one where locality is a constraint.
The most talked-about selective pressure for locality is the dwindling supply of petroleum which raises the price of petroleum and makes transportation of goods less profitable. My concern with that is that if we don't prepare for locality and are forced into it by peak oil, then things could get pretty harsh and barbaric.
A local technology might evolve from the present global one because the interdependence that now exists among people does not encourage freedom for most on this planet (except for a few individuals, and even then for a price that they usually pay in their youth to acquire that freedom), whereas the more people can produce locally (under non-drudgery conditions), the freer they are. The author Neil Stephenson came up with the contrasting evocative words "seed" vs "feed" technologies. A seed technology is one that enables self-reliance of individuals and small communities, dependence on their neighbors and the local ecosystem, and decentralization of political and economic power. We have very few of these left, and even seeds are becoming feed-like (GMO seeds). A feed technology is one that encourages centralization of political and economic power, and disempowers local communities and individuals, at least as far as being able to be self-reliant. There will be a spectrum between seed and feed technologies, and one must consider the technological system as a whole to assess how seed-like or how feed-like it is. For example, solar panels are seed-like once they are manufactured, but their manufactuing is currently feed-like. Solar panels depend on batteries which are feed-like in their manufacturing, and since they don't last as long as solar panels, their feed-likeness is more serious. Also, some of them depend on being able to obtain distilled water, which could be feedlike or seedlike dependent on how it's done. A nuclear reactor is extremely feedlike in its manufacture, and even in its daily use -it requires centralization, and this probably won't change if it is a fusion reactor. Technology is not economically or politically neutral--there are feedbacks between these ecosystems.
In many people's minds there is a confusion of globalization with specialization, but specialization can be done on a local scale too (but not as much as on a global scale). If the social environment encourages transparency, and the technological environment is based on locality, anyone could learn all the specialties that make life possible and enjoyable, and benefit from not having to do everything because of specialization.
The freedom that comes from seed technologies is also a political one, making people harder to control by governments, corporations or advertizers. It might mean that people who now have no decent choice but to work in sweatshops, choose not to because they don't have to anymore. Many things that are currently cheap because of cheap labor may become more expensive.
Locality and self-reliance in basic needs does not mean that in a local technology/economy people do not form interdependent relationships, on the contrary they form those relationships based on love and affinity, not based on impersonal need and greed. So a selective mechanism for locality is human happiness, whether in the form of greater freedom, or improved personal relationships. However, as discussed in a previous entry in this blog, there is a barrier to overcome to get to a place in the ecological landscape from where we are now, to where locality is advantageous. Small changes will be inconvenient, possibly require more labor, and elicit ignorant punitive actions from govt agencies and local rednecks than just using the current global technologies. We might help locate the mountain pass in the evolutionary fitness landscape by investing our energy in creating, manufacturing and using local technology.
I don't think that most luxury technology (such as computers) can be manufactured locally any time soon, if ever. I have no problem with having a global technology/economy for luxuries. It seems to me that if people are no longer primarily motivated by greed in manufacturing of basic goods, that greed may dwindle in other aspects of life too. Love may become a stronger engine of variability/creation once basic needs are met and thus facilitate the evolution of a gift economy for luxuries.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Gender and consumerism
Most feminist responses to what I have written about the connections between consumerism and gender have been angry or dismissive. Attempts have been made to silence, humiliate, ridicule or throw food at me. On the one hand, this makes me think that I may be onto something, because the same responses were given to early feminists like Margaret Fuller (with the exception of the food throwing) and other thinkers who have exposed what I call Naked Emperors—that is things about a culture that everyone in that culture knows at some level of consciousness, but ignores or represses on another. On the other hand, perhaps I am simply wrong. But then why the anger? People can say things that are wrong without eliciting anger—for example, if someone said the earth is flat. Maybe the anger is a reaction to all the oppression of women by patriarchy (and it’s mythical/religious manifestations), and a perception that I am only going to perpetuate that oppression with my theories. In other words, people may be thinking that I am a patriarchal reactionary. I think this is a misunderstanding, and I want to explain in detail why I think that.
Like most feminists, I share the following values. I would like it if:
1. People are free to express themselves in any joyful way without being constrained by their gender. In other words, I believe that gender fluidity is desirable, and I am not a biological or cultural determinist.
2. People could find an inner balance between masculine and feminine energies, so that they don’t project what Jung called “the Shadow” onto the other gender, but instead have a good understanding of both masculine and feminine energies, through their own experiences and introspection.
3. People are free to experiment with these energies not only within themselves, but within larger groups and relationships, such as dyads, triads, etc. In other words, much joy could be created if for example, one member of a dyad has more feminine energy, and another more masculine energy, then if both are more feminine or more masculine. Both these people could be male or female or trans, although it might be easier if the person with the predominant masculine energy is physically male, and the one with the predominant feminine energy is physically female, as there is more endocrine support for these energies that way.
Things that I am NOT saying (followed by clarification of what I am actually saying):
1. That biology has nothing to do with masculine or feminine energies. Like most sexually reproducing animals, humans are sexually dimorphic. It seems improbable that hormonal, morphological and gene expression differences would not be translated into some psychological differences. But this biological propensity is not deterministic, only correlative and historically originated the meaning of the words masculine and feminine. E. O Wilson had ice water poured over his head for stating the more general observation (which I agree with) that biology has consequences at the level of psychology and sociology.
2. That culture has nothing to do with gender differences. Many feminists and leftist thinkers think, at the other extreme, that differences are due mostly to culture. I disagree and take a more moderate position, but this is not critical to my analysis.
3. That women are responsible for consumerism, or that men are responsible for patriarchy. Both consumerism and patriarchy are systems with many interacting parts. I think the feminine energies of nest-building and the need for comfort and security, when out of balance with male energies, are major (but not only) factors in consumerism.
4. That men need to keep women under control with their testicular masculine energy. The best form of restraint is internal, so both men and women would be less consumptive if they exhibited more testicular masculine energy.
5. That advertising has nothing to do with consumerism. It does, but the advertisers are only successful because they understand basic psychology and appeal to primal things like the needs for comfort and security (in both men and women).
6. That comfort and security are bad. They are necessary for creativity and a good life. But there is more to life than comfort and security. Adventure, joy, curiosity and the comfort and security of others (including future generations) are also important. When comfort and security are everything, they murder the soul, as Khalil Gibran said.
7. That nest-building is bad. Nest-building is natural and beautiful. Only when it is not balanced by a bigger vision and an understanding does it become problematic.
8. That men do not need comfort and security. Of course they do, but less than women who are starting to think about getting pregnant, are pregnant or have children.
9. That men are not factors in consumerism. Of course they are, but I think the main reason is that they do not express enough testicular masculine energy in this present moment in this culture, and moreover are not expressing enough feminine energy within themselves, thus needing it from external sources, consuming mainly to obtain the comfort of female companionship.
The survey, the main experimental tool of sociologists would be useful in testing some of these hypotheses. The experimental procedure is fraught with obstacles though. In the first approximation, one could look for differences between men and women. It would be harder to test differences between masculine and feminine energies, or between the presence and lack of testicular masculine energy. Many controls would be needed, for example, men and women from middle eastern cultures (where men still have a lot of testicular masculine) who have immigrated to the West, could be compared to each other, and also to men and women from our culture. Motivations would need to be examined, not just money spent. For example, if a man buys a house, is he buying it for himself, or for his wife and children? Would he be content with a smaller house? Would his wife? How much money is spent on housing and related industries, vs other things and who cares more about housing, men or women?
Like most feminists, I share the following values. I would like it if:
1. People are free to express themselves in any joyful way without being constrained by their gender. In other words, I believe that gender fluidity is desirable, and I am not a biological or cultural determinist.
2. People could find an inner balance between masculine and feminine energies, so that they don’t project what Jung called “the Shadow” onto the other gender, but instead have a good understanding of both masculine and feminine energies, through their own experiences and introspection.
3. People are free to experiment with these energies not only within themselves, but within larger groups and relationships, such as dyads, triads, etc. In other words, much joy could be created if for example, one member of a dyad has more feminine energy, and another more masculine energy, then if both are more feminine or more masculine. Both these people could be male or female or trans, although it might be easier if the person with the predominant masculine energy is physically male, and the one with the predominant feminine energy is physically female, as there is more endocrine support for these energies that way.
Things that I am NOT saying (followed by clarification of what I am actually saying):
1. That biology has nothing to do with masculine or feminine energies. Like most sexually reproducing animals, humans are sexually dimorphic. It seems improbable that hormonal, morphological and gene expression differences would not be translated into some psychological differences. But this biological propensity is not deterministic, only correlative and historically originated the meaning of the words masculine and feminine. E. O Wilson had ice water poured over his head for stating the more general observation (which I agree with) that biology has consequences at the level of psychology and sociology.
2. That culture has nothing to do with gender differences. Many feminists and leftist thinkers think, at the other extreme, that differences are due mostly to culture. I disagree and take a more moderate position, but this is not critical to my analysis.
3. That women are responsible for consumerism, or that men are responsible for patriarchy. Both consumerism and patriarchy are systems with many interacting parts. I think the feminine energies of nest-building and the need for comfort and security, when out of balance with male energies, are major (but not only) factors in consumerism.
4. That men need to keep women under control with their testicular masculine energy. The best form of restraint is internal, so both men and women would be less consumptive if they exhibited more testicular masculine energy.
5. That advertising has nothing to do with consumerism. It does, but the advertisers are only successful because they understand basic psychology and appeal to primal things like the needs for comfort and security (in both men and women).
6. That comfort and security are bad. They are necessary for creativity and a good life. But there is more to life than comfort and security. Adventure, joy, curiosity and the comfort and security of others (including future generations) are also important. When comfort and security are everything, they murder the soul, as Khalil Gibran said.
7. That nest-building is bad. Nest-building is natural and beautiful. Only when it is not balanced by a bigger vision and an understanding does it become problematic.
8. That men do not need comfort and security. Of course they do, but less than women who are starting to think about getting pregnant, are pregnant or have children.
9. That men are not factors in consumerism. Of course they are, but I think the main reason is that they do not express enough testicular masculine energy in this present moment in this culture, and moreover are not expressing enough feminine energy within themselves, thus needing it from external sources, consuming mainly to obtain the comfort of female companionship.
The survey, the main experimental tool of sociologists would be useful in testing some of these hypotheses. The experimental procedure is fraught with obstacles though. In the first approximation, one could look for differences between men and women. It would be harder to test differences between masculine and feminine energies, or between the presence and lack of testicular masculine energy. Many controls would be needed, for example, men and women from middle eastern cultures (where men still have a lot of testicular masculine) who have immigrated to the West, could be compared to each other, and also to men and women from our culture. Motivations would need to be examined, not just money spent. For example, if a man buys a house, is he buying it for himself, or for his wife and children? Would he be content with a smaller house? Would his wife? How much money is spent on housing and related industries, vs other things and who cares more about housing, men or women?
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