| Theory |
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People Are Not Property -- Part 1 May 29, 2003 by RedStar2000 |
This is a group of posts that were originally made to discuss specific topics--sexuality, abortion, etc.--but that I realized have a common underlying theme. Throughout the history of class society (private property), the assumption that human beings are also some kind of "property" has gone unquestioned.
Communists should question that assumption...and oppose it.
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What is interesting is why this should still be a "question". Women have attempted to control their fertility for at least the last 4 or 5 thousand years...now it can be done safely and easily. The "morning after" pill is even easier and more private than an abortion. That battle is clearly won.
It seems to me that those who would deny, in some fashion, the right of women to control their own fertility are offering some pretty reprehensible alternatives: e.g., "God" should decide or "His" earthly representatives; the government should decide; the male partner should decide; the parents of the pregnant woman should decide, etc.
Why? What is the source of this urge to control the fertility of others? I think it goes back to the idea of women and their children as property, back, in fact, to the transition from hunter-gatherer societies (primitive communism) to nomadism (private property in animals...and women).
In this view, your property (animal or human) does not possess the right of self-determination; the chicken does not get to decide whether or not it wishes to be killed and eaten...the pregnant girl does not get to decide whether or not she wishes to carry a pregnancy to term.
That's a tough position to defend publicly...thus recourse is made to nebulous concepts like "the will of God", "moral law", "father's rights", "parental rights", "the needs of society" etc. But underneath all that smoke and mirrors is a very rock-solid assertion: "My property does not make decisions...I make the decisions about my property."
The civilized consensus--weak though it still is in many places--is that women and children are not property. That consensus is under sharp attack from all those who defend the institution of private property itself...and the short-term outlook is very uncertain.
In the long term, no one will concern themselves with someone else's fertility any more than they'd concern themselves with someone else's root canal.
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First posted at Politics Online on January 25, 2003
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...a difference of opinion about whether the foetus is a living person...
I understand that it appears to be that...but is it really? If the anti-abortion people really believe that "abortion is murder", then why do they not follow the "logic" of that position? Any woman getting an abortion should go to prison for life without parole or be executed...those are the customary penalties for first degree murder.
The reason for that waffling is, I think, simple. They don't want to kill or imprison millions of women; they want to regain control of "their" property. There was a long period of history when women's fertility was property...in Western Europe and North America, that property has been lost. They want it back!
This morning, as I write this post, a poor teen-age girl is in jail charged with first degree murder of her new-born child in a state where abortion is extraordinarily difficult to obtain...and the consequences are likewise extraordinarily horrible. The cost of private property in female fertility is higher than any civilized person should want to pay.
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First posted at Politics Online on January 26, 2003
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Women as property? Good grief, must I write a history textbook? English, French, and Spanish colonial settlers all had laws drastically limiting the rights of women...they were hardly better than chattels passed from fathers to husbands. This is or ought to be common knowledge.
Over the last two centuries, dramatic changes have taken place. The right to abortion was first enacted in New York State back in the early 1960s. It was extended nation-wide in Roe vs. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court in, I think, 1975.
Ever since then, there has been an ongoing effort to "chip away" at Roe vs. Wade...the goal is plainly to make abortion entirely illegal--some even want that inserted into the U.S. Constitution. The United States is so reactionary today that I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it could happen.
As for traveling to another state...of course, many do that. But imagine: you're a scared teen-age girl...you've never been more than 10 miles from where you live...you have no money...you have no internet...you don't know where to go, who to see, how much it costs, how long it takes, how safe or how dangerous it is...you're poor with all the limitations that implies.
It's easy for men to offer advice to women...how well would we perform under such stresses? Think about it!
And, yes, we have that pathetic whining about child-support...what's the current percentage of American mothers who actually see even a portion of court-ordered support payments? 10 years ago it was really tiny...to be fair, maybe 50% of mothers actually get some money. But as others have already noted, once the baby is born, the anti-abortionists lose interest quickly. If "abortion is murder", death from malnutrition is just "God's Will".
Is that too harsh? Maybe the kid survives at that marginal level which insures stunted growth, loss of intellectual capacities, other on-going health problems. We have a lot of that in America! And with the end of the Aid-to-Dependent-Children law (welfare), we will surely have a lot more. But the anti-abortionists did not so much as whisper a protest when Republicans and Democrats united to attack the survival of poor children.
It is almost as if they had actually said: "if women and children are no longer our property, then fuck 'em, let 'em die."
Sweet.
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First posted at Politics Online on January 28, 2003
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Consult the Mussolini speech wherein childbirth for women is compared to military service for men.
Abortion for women would logically be the female equivalent of desertion under fire for men...and we all know the penalty for that.
Consequently, the admirable consistency of your position has landed you in the shit...unless fascism appeals to you.
If it does, by the way, you have much to look forward to in the next several decades in America...since we are clearly "on our way" if we haven't already arrived at the 4th Reich. A law providing for the death penalty for any woman who has an abortion would fit right in.
If fascism doesn't appeal to you, then it's time to re-think your position.
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First posted at Politics Online on February 2, 2003
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No, I am not accusing our "friend" of "inconsistency"...in fact, he's the only anti-abortion spokesman that I've ever run across who actually is consistent in his views...at least the only one this side of Mussolini.
The death penalty or life imprisonment for any woman who has an abortion is consistent with the death penalty for soldiers who desert under enemy fire...and both are fascist positions. Women have a "duty" to bear children (future soldiers and future mothers of soldiers) as men have a "duty" to fight for their country.
In fact, traveling a little further down that rather odious road...why should women be allowed to use contraception at all? Male draftees are not given a "choice" about whether or not they wish to fight for their country...they are compelled to do it, regardless of the risk to their lives or health. I wonder if he wants to go further down that road? Shouldn't women not only be compelled to carry any pregnancy to term but also not be allowed to decide whether or not to conceive at all? Isn't it a woman's "duty" to conceive? Shouldn't the man, as a woman's "natural superior" be the one to decide?
Whew! The road to fascism not only provides poor footing but doesn't smell very good either. Not a road I would want to take...how about you?
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First posted at Politics Online on February 3, 2003
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What I'm trying to do is point out the implications of the positions that you have taken...and find out just how far you want to go in the direction you're pointed towards.
Your answer, in summary, is...not "too" far.
You support contraception...presumably only if both partners agree?? You even support abortion if the woman's life is threatened...but again, only if both partners agree??
And if a woman goes ahead and has an abortion (illegal), you support the death penalty or life imprisonment for her act of "first degree murder."
That's hard to justify, by any civilized measure...but it could be worse.
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First posted at Politics Online on February 3, 2003
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In the case of the "morning after pill", the IUD, or norplant, you don't know whether or not there actually was a fertilized egg present. You're assuming that every act of intercourse between a fertile male and a fertile female results in a pregnancy unless interfered with. I believe the odds are actually one chance in 80! 79 out of 80 times, there is no fertilized egg to interfere with.
Secondly, you assume that every pregnancy results in a live birth. Again, I believe the actual odds are one chance in two: half of all pregnancies end in natural miscarriage...and most of them within the first few weeks of pregnancy; the woman may notice a delay in her period and a somewhat heavier flow...that's it. As one person put it: "God is the great abortionist."
What most puzzles me, however, is the "logic of immorality" that you seem to be operating with. Where does it come from? What is it based on? How is it that a condom is "moral" and a "morning after pill" is "immoral"? If she took a "morning after pill" 5 minutes prior to intercourse, would that make it "moral"?
Don't you see what happens when you mess with people's personal business? It lands you in the shit...over and over again, you find yourself trying to make distinctions that are arbitrary and indefensible. Eventually, you end up putting people in prison or executing them...for bad timing!
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First posted at Politics Online on February 7, 2003
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One way to respond to your question would be to point out the difference between "life" and "human life". Unless you are a member of one of the more obscure varieties on Hinduism, you casually destroy "life" every day and think nothing of it.
So, to rephrase your question, when does a foetus become "human"? This is not a subject that I'm any kind of expert on...but a reasonable assumption would be in the last three months of pregnancy. But even if you would make a different distinction, you surely cannot refer to a fertilized egg as "human"...which turns your argument against the "morning after pill", the IUD, and the "patch" as being "immoral" into...nonsense. If a fertilized egg finds the uterine environment unsuitable, we do not hold a funeral.
Perhaps the way they do things in Brazil would have more appeal to you. As I recall, it works something like this: poor women in Brazil cannot use contraceptive measures, partly because of the cost and partly because they really believe the Catholic teaching on the immorality of contraception. So, in the course of time, they have many babies...babies they cannot afford to raise. Consequently, they have evolved a "folk custom" to "solve" the problem: only the most active and vigorous babies receive the breast...a "quiet" baby is allowed to slowly starve to death. The mother and her female friends refer to such a baby as "sickly"...which, in the absence of food, it quickly becomes. And the local Catholic Church connives in this odious fiction...they have a room full of "shoe-box coffins" and a little funeral ritual for the baby that has died a horrible death.
Tell me about that "immorality" thing again.
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First posted at Politics Online on February 9, 2003
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I don't consider this is a question of when a foetus becomes a human life but when it becomes a life at all.
Then, I take it, your home is over-run with insects, which are certainly alive and therefore exempt from being killed by you. (Or do you get someone else to do your dirty work?)
Likewise, I wonder what you eat...even the most strict vegetarian kills and eats once living organisms (or gets someone to do the killing for him).
In fact, every time you rub the sleep from your eyes and your fingertips brush against your eyebrows...you have killed some number of the tiny mites that live in human eyebrows. They may be too small to see without a microscope...but, they are alive.
And what of the bacteria and viruses that invade your body, just looking for a place to live and something to eat...and your body immediately produces a bunch of specialized "killer cells" that ruthlessly hunt down and exterminate the poor immigrants.
If you say you make no distinction between "life" and "human life"...you are guilty of the most brazen hypocrisy...or perhaps you just were not aware of these facts.
Why should a "developed life" have precedence over an "undeveloped life"? Why should it be the other way around? Unless you can come up with some special "reason" why an "undeveloped life" takes precedence over a "developed life", I think this version of the argument is a dead end.
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First posted at Politics Online on February 11, 2003
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Well, you can "believe" if you wish that an undeveloped "human" life is "equal in value" to a developed human life...but that's not how things seem to work in the real world.
Consider our distant cousins...mice. A pregnant female mouse, upon smelling the odor of the urine of a strange male mouse, will spontaneously abort. Pregnant female rabbits will, under stress, likewise spontaneously abort. Malnourished or stressed female cats will abandon their kittens or even kill and eat them.
In other words, nature itself seems, in a sense, to regard reproduction as secondary to survival. The developed organism can always reproduce at a later time when conditions are more favorable.
Intelligent organisms, like humans, seek to alter their environment in directions that they consider favorable. One thing human females have sought for throughout recorded history is control over their individual fertility...there are "recipes" for concoctions that claim to induce abortion which date back to the earliest Egyptian dynasties. There are also "fertility" recipes that are just as old.
There have been those who claim that it is "unnatural" for human females to do this...but women do it and have done it in enormous numbers. That ought to give you a clue!
The developed organism comes first because it is developed...it has already, from evolution's standpoint, "proved" its "fitness to survive". That it seeks control of its own fertility is only further proof of its "fitness"...offspring born in the most favorable conditions, as perceived by the developed organism, have the best chance to also survive and reproduce.
Perhaps the general line of this argument doesn't appeal to you...maybe you're really looking for some kind of moral or theological "argument".
If so, you'll have to look elsewhere...as I've found that moral/theological arguments on any question are worse than useless.
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First posted at Politics Online on February 13, 2003
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If you think abortion is a "moral issue", then you've passed beyond the bounds of rational discussion and into the sphere of "revelation"...what is "moral" and "immoral" depends on your personal desires, prejudices, etc. Other people have no way of determining the objective validity of your standards...you can always say "God told me!" and there's no rejoinder possible.
Murder can be condemned on objective grounds; if we were not to oppose murder, there would be a dramatic decrease in our own personal safety. It's in the direct interests of everyone except the murderer to stop him from having the chance to kill again. "Morality" has nothing to do with it.
But I am not and, in fact, you are not threatened in any way by the fact that women have control of their own fertility...any more than they will be threatened whenever some researcher comes up with a pill that blocks male fertility while not diminishing potency, giving us guys control over our fertility.
It's really only when both sexes have control over their own fertility that one could legitimately say that a pregnancy was intentional and abortion would be a tragedy or even a crime. At the moment that is not the case.
Ask yourself this: would you like it if women had "veto power" over whether or not you could obtain a vasectomy? Suppose there were female clergy that denounced vasectomy as "murder of the unconceived"? Suppose you knew there was no way you could ever have enough money in today's economic conditions to support kids...but the law made vasectomy a "criminal offense"?
Traditional morality gives women two choices: abstinence or pregnancy. Neither option is especially appealing. Would you, as a guy, like being forced into this bi-polar dilemma?
You have to think about this stuff and not just look up the "answer" in a badly-written book written for semi-literate barbarians over 2,500 years ago.
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First posted at Politics Online on February 14, 2003
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Surely you understand that all decisions we make are based on the knowledge we have at the moment we decide, not what knowledge we'll have at some point in the future.
Sometime in the last 30 years, some unknown woman may have indeed aborted the "next Beethoveen" or the "next Hitler"--we have no way of knowing one way or the other.
I think this kind of argument is not only completely meaningless but could be used to justify anything.
After the end of World War I, the Allied Armies entered Germany and proceeded to systematically hunt down and murder every man who served in the German Armed Forces.
"Congratulations, you have just prevented the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the holocaust."
Dumb argument!
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First posted at Politics Online on February 23, 2003
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I never did reply to that nutball post about the 40-year-old guys and the 9-year-old girls; what 9-year-old girl lusts after a 40-year-old male body? She's much more likely to be "hot" for the 14-year-old guy that lives next door!
I believe Sweden has a very low "age of consent"--12--with the provision that no one who has authority over that 12-year-old is permitted to have sex with her/him.
I knew a college professor once who was quite "notorious" for his sexual affairs with students at the university where he taught...except that he thought it was unethical to have sex with any student currently taking any of his classes. He would actually tell girls...if you enroll in one of my classes, the affair is over. And when girls who were in his classes would "hit" on him, he'd tell them they were wasting their time until the semester was over.
Yes, I think "authority-tainted" sex is bad for people of any age...because it is subject to abuse and calculation rather than mutual attraction. It would be difficult to "outlaw" it...but it ought to receive the focus of wide-spread social disapproval--especially directed against the person with authority.
As far as sexual affairs between siblings...that's difficult to fathom. The possibly unfavorable genetic consequences are actually not all that common; the offspring of a brother-sister pairing will probably be healthy. (Drastically unhealthy babies rather seldom are born...nature eliminates a lot of mistakes along the way. And we can test for genetic abnormalities rather easily now.)
What worries me is older brother & younger sister relationships. Young girls are often quite awed by their older brothers and could be manipulated rather easily, I think, into a sexual relationship that they didn't really want. That's not good. We could have a special "age of consent law for sibling sexual relationships"--I would suggest 18 or even 21 for that. Prior to that age, the only "punishment" would be separation of the people involved (no jail terms or any of that crap).
On the other hand, I would permit "sex play" between unrelated children who have not reached puberty; they may not be able to "do it", but they are intensely curious and some of them "try". I see no harm in this at all.
After writing all this civilized exposition, I have to remind you folks that I live in America...where the neo-puritanical crusade is very much on the march. Far from sharing my opinions, a great many 100-per-cent-red-blooded-Americans would rather bring back burning for witchcraft and stoning for adulterers.
So things will take a while...
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First posted at Politics Online on February 24, 2003
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The reason that there is so much "sexual content" in the media is because that's where the money is. When there's no money to be made from it, I would expect it to drop off pretty sharply...though not disappear, of course.
I don't think that will have much effect on the "virginity" rate, though. Short of reviving the institution of chaperonage, constant close supervision of the young, etc., when the hormones start pumping, kids will have sex at every possible opportunity. So what?
I recall a science fiction story set in a semi-communist society. It was expected that the young would have many sex partners...only when one reached the age of 20 to 30 was it expected that one would "settle down" to a single partner. Monogomy was considered a sign of maturity.
The custom of multiple sex partners of the young even had a name; it was called "butterflying".
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First posted at Che-Lives on January 22, 2003
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It is not of major importance whether and how much kids have sex. On the "cosmic" scale of things, it is...trivial.
It matters a lot to the individual young person, of course. The events in our personal lives always matter a lot. But from the standpoint of a communist society, it is not terribly significant one way or another.
Those who want to, do; those who don't want to, don't; nobody else is interested. They have their own lives to be concerned with...not yours or mine.
And setting arbitrary age restrictions on anything nearly always causes more problems than it solves. For example, suppose we were to say that anyone who has reached the age of X can legally have sex with anyone they choose. Then we catch two people who are X-1 day having sex with each other. What do we do?
Kids under the age of puberty (and it's different, of course, for each person) may not be able to "do it" but they can try and, no surprise, some do.
Shall we draw ourselves up into righteous indignation, saying "Bad little boy! Bad little girl!"? Shall we threaten them with "hellfire"? Shall we make them feel like shit for being curious?
I suggest two rules and only two rules for consensual sex in a communist society: (1) No one who has reached puberty may have sex with anyone who has not yet reached puberty; and (2) You may not have sex with anyone that you have any kind of authority over.
I think that should cover it.
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First posted at Che-Lives on January 23, 2003
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Under capitalism, the "sex industry" is a subset of the over-all entertainment industry...music, movies, sport, even to some extent, religion.
Common to the entertainment industry is the opportunity for young (relatively) unskilled female workers to "earn a living wage"...something not otherwise available.
Class struggle does take place...as you might expect. There are prostitutes' unions, though they are still quite small and weak.
After the revolution, with a living wage guaranteed for all, I would expect the "sex industry" to shrink dramatically...down to the numbers of women who actually enjoy that kind of work.
Such women would either be self-employed or work in a worker-managed brothel (as was the case in Barcelona, 1936-39).
With the gradual but inevitable opening of borders and free travel between revolutionary countries, the financial incentive for "traffic in women" (and migrants generally) would "dry up" and disappear.
I think it should work out ok...as long as we don't fall prey to a bunch of neo-puritan "communists" who want to "save women from sin."
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 5, 2003
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How did we get from a woman's right to control her own fertility to "people who don't think there should be a limit on the age of consent" and then, on down to "the type who don't see a problem with child porn"?
Wow!
You say that this is not a religious issue and then turn right around and say that it's a "moral decision". Well, which is it?
Or do you wish to argue for a morality that is completely independent of religion? That's ok...but then you have to specify the source(s) or at least tell us why your position is more "moral" than ours.
Freedom of the young to enjoy their sexuality is a different issue. The child pornography industry is likewise a different issue. People have differences of opinion on those issues...or even how to define them accurately.
They are not relevant to this discussion...and I think it's arguing in bad faith for you to bring them up as a kind of smoke-screen.
Shall women have control of their own fertility...or shall control be vested in others? Which others? On what grounds?
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 16, 2003
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Funny how all you abortion supporters are alive.
No funnier than the fact that those who initially decided that abortion should be illegal are now dead.
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Militant pro-choicers...have no morality or feeling other than hate.
That is such a bizarre statement that I am nearly at a loss how to respond to it. I'd ask you to produce evidence for this astounding assertion, but it would be a waste of time...there isn't any.
What motivates you to pour such venom on women who simply want to decide for themselves whether or not this is the time for them to have a child?
Or do you suggest that women should just "take a cold shower" or "curl up with a good book" until such time as they are willing and eager to have children? Ready to follow that advice yourself? Be honest, you're not and I don't think there is a normal man in the world who would accept that constraint except under severe duress.
Humans evolved to enjoy sex...and will do so at pretty much any reasonable opportunity. Are we therefore "immoral"? Yes, I know what that senile turd in the Vatican "thinks"...what do you think?
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My position is more moral than yours because I agree with preserving life whenever possible and you agree with terminating it based on inconvenience.
Actually, I'm not so sure that you've thought through the implications of that statement. Would you really keep an individual who was brain-dead "alive" in a hospital on a heart-lung machine indefinitely? How about someone with a fatal and terribly painful illness (bone cancer is a good candidate) so that in order to keep them from screaming and disturbing the other patients, it's necessary to drug them into permanent unconsciousness?
And then there's that word "inconvenence"...how does an outsider see into a woman's mind and discover whether she wants to terminate a pregnancy because (1) it's a psychological disaster or (2) it's going to interfere with her vacation trip to the Canary Islands next fall?
Since it's not possible to read minds, the only rational choice is to let the pregnant woman decide. You're certainly free to "disapprove" of her choice. If you were friends with her before, you can refuse to have anything more to do with her. If she's a co-worker, you can ask for a transfer so you don't have to speak to her on the job. I, myself, wouldn't react in such a churlish and immature way, but you are always free to do so if you insist.
But where do you think you get the right to call in the cops to stop her?
That is what the anti-choice position boils down to...if you cannot argue a pregnant woman out of having an abortion, threaten her with imprisonment, make her pay a huge amount of money for an illegal abortion under medically unsafe conditions, and then carry out the threat by putting her on trial and sending her to prison.
Tell me again about who is motivated by "hate", I forgot.
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 17, 2003
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They are usually very poor people or very oppressed. They hate their government, they hate their country, they hate religion and religious people, they hate others who don't agree with them, they hate rich people, and they hate anyone who remotely fits into normal society.
Guilty, Your Honour! *shows total lack of remorse*
So now what? Want to put us all in one of your prisons or just burn us all at the stake? I thought I was supposed to be the "Stalinist" and you were supposed to be the absolute civil libertarian.
You continually refer to women with unwanted pregnancies as being "guilty" of "irresponsible behavior" by having "unprotected sex". I hate to "break" this to you, but contraception (all methods) is not 100% effective. What happens to the woman who is "careful" and "responsible" and yet becomes pregnant? Your attitude appears to be: tough shit!
And, in fact, it's worse...because you go on to say that "men can get away with it" and women can't...and that's just biology. As if I said, "I was born rich and you were born poor, so fuck you!"
Adoption would be a viable alternative, provided it was possible to transplant the foetus into the womb of the woman who wanted a child. Perhaps that will some day be medically possible...now, it is not.
I won't ask if you know what women go through in pregnancy; no man knows first hand what it is really like. But, from what I've heard...it's not exactly fun. For some (many?) unfortunate women, it's six or seven months of pure hell! Do you think these women "deserve" to be punished? For being "irresponsible" "sluts", perhaps, that go around "fucking everything on two legs"?
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What about the child's voice? Does he not get a say in life or death?
It's not a child, it's a foetus...a potential child, that's all. It has the brain-power of a goldfish at most. It has no voice on matters of life and death or anything else...because it has no voice and nothing to say.
(By the way, just to confirm your worst suspicions, I am against arbitrary age laws of all kinds, including the so-called "age of consent". The restrictions I would impose are only two: no one who has reached puberty may have sex with someone who has not reached puberty; and no one may have sex with anyone that they have any kind of authority over. That's it!)
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 17, 2003
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I think if you look a little more closely at "Gaia"...you'll find the lady relies on death as much as she does on life.
It's only us inquisitive hairless primates (grandly titled "homo sapiens" ) who constantly meddle with "Gaia's" will...and we do it all the time.
"Gaia" says that this woman is infertile and shall not have a child...and then we step in and say: oh, yes, she will, and she does. "Gaia" says that woman shall have a child whether she wants one or not...and then we step in and say: oh, no, she won't, and she doesn't.
Many times "Gaia" still wins the argument...but her winning percentage is falling and our's is rising. Does that bother you?
Why?
"What if [the aborted foetus] could have played a significant role in life?" Yes, and what if he would have been the next Adolph Hitler? For every thing that happens, there are enormous numbers of things that cannot happen. We can only ever decide anything on the basis of the knowledge we have now...not on the basis of what we'll know decades from now, or even ten minutes from now!
"We that live have to be thankful to our parents for not killing us." That's a very strange statement and I'm not at all sure just what it is supposed to mean.
If my mother had aborted me, then I wouldn't have noticed and I wouldn't be here now to discuss why I thought she was a "murderous bitch." Some other guy or girl might be here...but I wouldn't.
But "grateful"? I can't say I understand your use of that word...it's not like anyone had a choice in the matter in those days.
It seems to me that "gratitude" is something that you owe someone for a desirable gift, freely offered and freely accepted. "Life" doesn't fit those constraints...normally.
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 18, 2003
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I do however think that in normal circumstances a man also has a claim to the life of the baby...It may be part of the woman's body, but that part that she is thinking of destroying is shared.
What is the nature of the "claim" if not that of someone threatened with the loss of property? If we both bought a car as co-owners, and then I drove off with it and never returned...you'd have a "claim" against me. Is a foetus "co-owned"?
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 20, 2003
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The secular argument for neo-puritanism is that if we have many sex partners, we will contract all sorts of horrible diseases and die. Yes, that's possible. There are, of course, cures for many STDs and more cures will be found in the future. Even AIDS will eventually be a thing of the past. But there will also be new diseases...evolution is relentless.
So maybe it really boils down to people who are "risk-takers" and people who are "risk-avoiders". Some of us are willing to enjoy this life as it's the only one we get; others live in fear of almost every human experience but can always look forward to "Heaven".
I have a personal bias on this, but I'm not sure it's possible to generalize about the inherent worth of either alternative. What do you feel comfortable with?
But I "blow the whistle" when the "risk-avoiders" try to "protect" the rest of us from ourselves, particularly when they use scare tactics to frighten us into conforming to their narrow life-choices. Smoking, drinking, drug-using, and sex are all risky behaviors; none of them are 100% fatal or anything even close to that.
"Do what you enjoy" is a view that the "risk-avoiders" can never comprehend...since "safety" is their priority. Indeed, what they appear to relish are activities that are really kind of unpleasant...because they're "good for you."
I'm perfectly willing to let them "mortify their flesh" to their heart's content; I look forward to the time when we can enjoy our chosen pleasures without their relentless nagging and their police repression.
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If your wife becomes pregnant by another man, it is a disaster genetically and emotionally.
Oh, my!
The emotional consequences of "infidelity" are often quite unpleasant...but hardly disasterous. There are many potential partners in this world for nearly all of us, and if we feel that "infidelity" is unacceptable, we need merely to abandon the unfaithful partner and seek a new one. It ain't the end of the fucking world!
The "genetic" argument is drawn, of course, from Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. The line of argument is, roughly, that we only wish to "invest resources" in raising children that are "ours"...that contain our genes and who will perpetuate those genes into the future.
Every person who has ever adopted and raised a child is a standing refutation of that stupid argument...and there are millions of such people. According to Dawkins, they shouldn't exist.
But they do.
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 12, 2003
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As far as I am concerned, "evolutionary psychology" is junk science pure and simple.
Trying to explain the complexities of human behavior by inclusive reproductive fitness alone is as stupid as trying to explain weather by the position of the earth in relation to the sun alone.
If "evolutionary psychology" were the panacea of explanations that it pretends to be, the existence of humans that do not want to reproduce--after 250,000 years of natural selection--would be impossible.
We'd be doing almost nothing except making babies, as many as we could, as quickly as possible.
Frankly, I find that so stupid that it practically drools.
But of course, we know why it's fashionable, don't we? "Evolutionary psychology" can be and is used to "scientifically" justify hierarchy, "superiority", and, ultimately, class society and capitalism.
In fact, it's nothing more than re-packaged and re-branded "socio-biology", which was re-packaged and re-branded "social darwinism" and "racial science." It was crap in 1903...and, a century later, it's still crap!
As to your personal neo-puritanism, you no longer need to quote the "Bible"...it would be superfluous. We know where you stand.
In fact, "evolutionary psychology" supports the "Bible": natural selection "insures" that high-status males--"good genes"--shall have access to many women and have many children; low status males--"bad genes"--shall have only one woman or none.
What about females with "good genes"? Well, um, er, um..."more research is needed on that one". Yeah, right.
Why wouldn't a neo-puritan quote "a Jew"? What the fuck do you think "Jesus" was? A Buddhist???
"The Science and Ethics of Reproduction", eh? Sounds like a pretty good scam to me. Maybe I'll become a "world-renowned expert in the Science and Ethics of Neo-Puritanical Nonsense" and the Queen will give me a title, too. Redstar, First Earl of Soho, perhaps?
How much does it pay, being a Lord and all that?
As long as we're on this foolishness, it did occur to me that the "evolutionary psychologists" are overlooking a market: Testicular Enhancement! If "big balls" are a reproductive plus...like big breasts, then why not a little help from the surgeon? Imagine her reaction when you "show your grapefruits"!
Thanks for the fun.
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First posted at Che-Lives on March 18, 2003
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