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the_gender_experiment
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daf
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There's a theory, upon which is formed our very basic belief that technology is our race's salvation..and the current path of our evolution. This theory proposes that human beings, freed from the drudgery of basic survival, will tend toward thoughtfulness; fostering a race of philanthropists, philosophers and artists of great mind and even greater heart. That's the theory anyway..more or less. It was medulla deep in this theory that I found myself the other day, while pondering WHAT on EARTH is happening to our people.
The naysayers, (who say "nay!" to the notion that anything is awry with the course of human development), will no doubt claim that people have been complaining of the decline of civilization for centuries. To these I say, perhaps our people's decline isn't like a bathtub draining, but more like a cliff being worn away by the waves at high tide. The complaints came while the waves pounded at night..not while the sand settled in the morning. When you are born with half a sky, you can't tell the sky's been falling at first; particularly between pieces.
But the sky IS falling, and the rate has picked up significantly. Perhaps a question for another time is..where are the pieces landing, and what does that mean for us? For another time.
For now, back to our theory, and into another..a hunch which proposes that our race has been engaged in a grand test of the "freedom from basic survival fosters the human heart" hypothesis. And the theory seems to have proven itself out because the test was extremely successful.
Unfortunately, we seem to have discontinued the experiment; the unfortunate result being that the advances made over hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years, may very well be obliterated in a dozen generations or less.
So how was this experiment carried out? When and where? Why right under our very noses..directly in front our our lives. For the family unit in all of its many forms has provided the container for the grand experiment in the evolution of the human heart.
In this experiment, we find that the family unit has been divided into two sexes:
One sex, the male, has been tasked with providing for the basic suvival needs of himself and the others in his family unit. To bring home the bacon is to succeed as a man. If his family (or tribe, or gang) goes without, he is seen as a failure.
The other sex, female, is charged with providing a nurturing environment for all in the family unit. In particular she is charged with raising BOTH sexes during their younger years, then specifically the females as they grow out of early childhood. Always, however, is the reverence for mother practically sacrosanct. If her people feel emotionally nurtured, loved and have as asthetically agreeable an environment as possible, then a woman is seen as a success. If the people around her are unhappy, or emotionally neglected..if their home environment is depressing, or otherwise unpleasant, she is seen as a failure.
And it is this simple division that set up a process that has been doing its thing, quite likely, for as long as human beings have been around.
And what is it that this division does?
It provides for the evolution of our entire race toward the much touted "philanthropic human."
While the males remained less evolved than the females throughout the process, their early years spent with mother, led to the personality of a slightly "more human" male than his father has been. Over the course of millenia, these advances were significant. If our push button way of doing war has anything hopeful to tell us, it is that we have at least evolved to the point where we can't stand to WATCH as we harm each other.
That is, until the advent of forced schooling, the so-called "sexual revolution" and the rise of greed-controlled mass media.
Suddenly, the advancement mechanism has been removed. There is little isolation from the survival struggle. There are few at home to nurture. There is little to soften our animal edges.
And so our people are becoming hard and beastly again. We are cage match watchers and porno makers. We are insult comedians and competitors for alpha. Our women are proud of their "bitch" status. Our men proud to screw them like dogs and move on to the next yard. The remnant of our somewhat evolved self pokes at our conscience with a stick but we are unmoved. We are cold and we are cynical. We are ugliness and destruction shrink-wrapped in slick packaging meant to convince us that what we are doing is glorious when it is petty.
So is the experiment over? Or is this just an adjustment hiccup as we remove the constraints of gender while figuring out who takes on which roles? Is government the male now? Are we, the people to become the female? (Is that why it feels like we're being grudge fucked?) If so, what about the children? How do they fit in? Wherever we are headed, how our children are raised is most certainly the key to getting there.
I've been asked many times who I think the Beast of Revelation is, and every time I tell them the same thing. The Beast isn't a person. The Beast is a system that urges on our animal nature in order to make beasts of us.
Welcome to the Beast. Guess it's time for a new experiment.
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130428
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dafremen
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see also: do_it_for_the_children
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130428
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epitome of incomprehensibility
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You raise some interesting points. For sure, male and female roles have been shaped by their biological sex - I mean, for example, since women give birth to children it makes sense they have usually spent more time taking care of them.
But as for the government taking on the "male" role... why? While it's true that mothers generally spend more time taking care of children than fathers, it doesn't make sense to extrapolate personality characteristics from the shape of a person's genitals. Which has been done, and here's the logic: since men have things that stick out, and women have things that stick in, "naturally" men are more aggressive and women more passive. Yup, logic! (which ignores the fact that many female mammals are more vicious BECAUSE they have children to protect, or just because they're the ones that hunt, etc.)
Now I'm not saying that's the logic you're pushing. But I'd say if the government is screwing us it's doing so depressingly asexually... like a screw turning a nail. So I'll go with the saying that it takes a village to raise a child, and concur with you on the problems of mass-produced, impersonal culture.
Still, it's hard to put a finger on the pulse of the world (never mind my limited fluency in metaphors) because some things get better just as other things get worse.
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130429
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e_o_i makes mistakes
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(speaking of "limited fluency in metaphors"... a screwdriver turns a screw, not a nail. Oh well, I guess you're not trusting me to build your house. But I should be able to at least build words, dammit!)
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130429
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dafremen
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I think the advance of the welfare state, the massive increase in government employees (ie. da cops and stuff) and the bubble wrapping of society with federal regulations spells government "protecting us" (in much the way a farmer "protects" his livestock)..all of this amounts to government taking on the "protector and provider" role.
As for the size and shapes of our junk, I never said anything about them, and in fact there are many examples in nature where vaginas go out and provide. Lions being the most obvious example and the first that comes to mind. Angler fish a second.
The real point of this piece was to explore the idea that gender roles were providing a "depressure cooker" where small humans could be nurtured in a way that resulted, over time, in more HUMANe humans. The time spent with momma allowed little boys to become gentler men than their fathers and twice gentler than their grandfathers.
Perhaps we're looking at the mechanism that has brought us from animal to our current state and was taking us on to another?
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130430
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e_o_i
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But I'm not sure the shape and size of our families matters that much either, at least not compared to the amount of nurturing and knowledge they give us. And in this respect, I completely agree that governments and corporations are no replacement for a families - they aren't personal, they don't care, etc.
Then is it better to look at politics from a libertarian/authoritarian perspective instead of a typical left/right one? Honestly, I don't know. I think it might help to get rid of some of our binary thinking either way.
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130430
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e_o_i
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(Perhaps libertarian/authoritarian on one axis and left/right on another? I saw a model like that, but it's still only two-dimensional.)
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130430
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e_o_i
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(Though I doubt humanity can be either saved or doomed by graphing political tendencies on a Cartesian model. In any case, I'm not holding my breath for either the "singularity" or the apocalypse... yet.)
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130430
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they called me truth
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The sky is falling.
Perhaps, but I have a feeling that, from a certain vantage point it should. At some point we have to look at the gods we've built and tear them down, investigate them anew.
We've been moving in a certain direction it seems. And the building blocks of our own ruin have been set up a long time ago, from since we stepped out of the now and started planning our futures, started harvesting our pasts.
In the grand larger scheme of things, for which I am not convinced there is one specifically, we are ants building a very big nest. A big foot could come and crush it under its heel.
But here we are, looking at ourselves, seeing what we've become, realizing that our definitions, our goals, our solutions, our dreams aren't adequate anymore. That this is the point where it all comes to nothing or something. Up to us entirely.
You don't get to change without reaching those breaking points. We don't get to redefine ourselves without investigating our definitions.
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130829
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