Fascinating article. What do you think about the men who do not stay with women and provide for their offspring? It seems that scattering one's seed amongst as many partners as possible is another option for reproductive success that requires less sacrifice for the man. Could the high numbers of women who were abandoned by their partners and died from neglect be a factor in women's evolution to be less dependent on men?
That’s a great point. There were so many threads to tease on already. First off, yes, there are men who scatter their seeds, but long-term success isn’t just having kids, but the success of their children and beyond. Many children born to men like that carry an increased risk of other issues that limit the genome's forward progress. I also think it’s the sign of a younger soul, so they’re not doing well on either of those rules.
To your last point, there’s a double problem here. On the one hand, we celebrate women for being resource providers, and that actually limits their ability to raise their children. So they’re independent, but also failing in what they’re optimized for, so the whole system will collapse. Simply put, I don’t think it’ll evolve because it won’t move forward.
On the flip side, we’re also attacking the patriarchy, which is the system intended to constrain the worst inclinations of men. The patriarchy doesn’t look kindly on men who scatter their seeds. It never really has because it still defaults back to the other men (Father, Brother, Cousin, Community) to take care of some other man’s kid. When you attack the patriarchy and seek to dismantle it, you’re actually breaking the system that checks the negative behavior of abandonment.
Also, the increased expectation for women to produce resources also reduces the demand on men and actually creates the problem. This is causing part of that loop back where people, like this, are having fewer kids, and I don’t think behavior will evolve because it won’t move forward.
It certainly is! I don't disagree with your point about the system eventually collapsing. I think that'll happen no matter what, and nature will start again, with the bees perhaps. But to your point about men still being needed to raise another man's offspring: not necessarily. In fact we can look at the bees for one possible setup, where female worker bees gather resources, defend the hive and raise their younger siblings. Not every woman needs to reproduce as long as the "queen bees" are having plenty of babies. I don't necessarily think that's what modern society is moving toward, but it's certainly true today that a lesbian couple can raise a family just as well as a heterosexual one, once the seed is provided.
That's interesting, but also not really apples to apples. We aren't bees. We aren't going to become bees. I don't think we want to become bees. As such, we're stuck with our reproductive rules that evolution has rewarded, where we are the apex on the planet, not bees. If we reset back to the bees, we can see what will emerge. But that doesn't change what 'is' in how we currently work.
As far as the lesbian couple goes, there's a reason why one is 'butch.' She's the one who normally takes the masculine role of resource creation. Even in that situation, you have a masculine woman. And that couple is still protected by the larger society, normally manifested as a police force and an army of mostly men.
Lastly, the literature of lesbian child-rearing is nascent, but the results are actually pretty bad. Part of that is because lesbians have the highest divorce rates, resulting in the child being raised by a single mother, which has the worst outcomes of all children.
All in all, the more I play with it, the could should or ought faceplant into the is.
Well, bringing “butch”ness, divorce and single mothers into it doesn’t disprove my point that a (stable) lesbian couple can raise a child as effectively as a heterosexual couple. But I’m glad I could engage with you briefly on this topic.
You're right. But that's also an outlier, not the norm. Two homosexual men can do the same. (actually, their outcomes for their children are better than those of lesbians) But that's not what nature optimized for, and both still need the other sex to create the child.
There will always be outliers. The outliers do not disprove the mean.
P.S. Not sure if this attribution makes me appear more or less credible, but credit to Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes. screenwriters of WarGames, for the "Nature will start again. With the bees, probably" quote I paraphrased above. Full quote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WarGames
Tax-departments, CEO's, MIC's and similar professional grifters in modern mass-societies will be very upset if their revenues from the sheeple start melting away like butter in a desert ... 🤣🤣🤣
Gullible and greedy Western societies have been irrevocably led to the brink of the abyss.
The planet is vast and other folks will (ARE!!!) already taking the lead and the hopefully brighter future of humanity, most fortunately, will NOT depend on a Western, entirely hijacked prefrontal cortex any more ...
Well, you and your wife are contributing a GREAT deal to this august goal ... 👍👍👍
Wide-spread education on family/community-level with total abolition of basic government tuition (which is Rockefeller's one 🤮🤮🤮) could speed-up the process ...
This is probably one of my favorite articles. You combined rational, cognitive, scientific, spiritual, and animalistic intelligence in a way that delivers a loud and clear message of divinity. That’s what I got from it. This article tickled my curiosity and frontal cortex beautifully. For a youngin’ you sure do write well 😉😘.
Awesome to hear. It was interesting to try to tease morality into the right place and yet contextualize it as subjective even there! My cousin and I ruminated on this while backpacking, and we referred to it as kind of the ‘source code’ for our existence.
I also appreciate being challengd intellectually by my elders! 🤓
It is always amusing to witness the war between concrete and abstraction. There are those who attempt to mold and manipulate reality to fit preconceived beliefs, and there probably always will be. Great piece.
Their blind disregard for the concrete throws me as well, and they’ll always be crushed with disappointment. I remember a woman telling me, regarding sexual attraction, that it just ‘ought’ not to be that way. Then she pivoted and said it ‘could’ be different. OK, but why?
Then I watched over the years as she railed against the concrete instead of appreciating the beauty and incredible complexity that is.
I appreciate the thinking, but it seems a bit sophomoric. Yes, as animals (your "hairless monkeys"), we have a basic biology of sex and reproduce. But as Aristotle explained, humans are unique because we have the ability to Reason.
That's where your "soul" section is weak. Perhaps, if you're truly interested in soul development and not just making a pro-reproduction argument, you might enjoy reading Aristotle, Laozi, and the Confucians on the topic of soul development?
It is sophomoric. The problem is that prefrontal Cortex sits on top of a lizard brain and we don't even get to the sophomore level of understanding. We jump to the could and should without understanding is and have no idea about the soul.
And I am well read on thise writers but the point here wasn't to explain how to mature the soul but explain the need to mature the soul.
Rule 1: understand our operating system
Rule 2 mature.
You can't do number 2 without understanding rule 1. But another way, many people are failing rule 2, they're soul is tangled in agst because they refuse to understand rule 1.
Your response here doesn't really address the criticism. Yes, the prefrontal cortex is an addition atop the lizard brain. Aristotle, a biologist himself, would agree. But I'm with Aristotle when he says that what makes humans unique is their ability to reason (prefrontal cortex), and thus using that unique ability to Reason is how humans become the best a human can be.
I could be wrong, but you seem to argue for humans to embrace their lizard brain (feelings, base biology). I don't understand why an intelligent person would argue this.
Not embrace. Understand. Right now, especially women, willfully ignore that base rule. As I pointed out, that's also causing them to fail the second.
I mean, maybe embrace... We can't change rule #1. Rule #1 is manifesting in front of our eyes as those who have the most issue with it are not reproducing thereby eliminating that cultural behavior in the future.
We've covered a lot of topics in emotion and resin here in the past. The issue is that prefrontal cortex can't divorce from the rest of the brain. The intelligent person understands this. The problem is the very large number of people this idea bothers greatly. If it were obvious, why do so few people embrace it?
Perhaps our difference is one of our differing views of the relative hierarchy between the animal brain and the uniquely human brain?
In my view, and I could be wrong, I consider the animal brain ideally subservient to the prefrontal cortex. Yes, all humans have base instincts, but overcoming and controlling those base instincts is the goal and mark of a wise person.
This doesn't mean eat gruel and don't reproduce. It means understanding a balance--eat healthily but not epicurean, reproduce (or not) based on conscious decision not hormones--with the prefrontal cortex (reason) in control.
Overcoming and controlling are important and fundamental within most philosophies. Its also really really hard. We also don't have to do that effort and we'll survive. However, if we don't name and appreciate that lower brain and don't realize we are mostly preprogrammed meat sacks... Well never be able to master it.
On that last point, of your biological functions, you can only control your breath. Further, ALL stimuli go through your lower brain and your body reacts long before your prefrontal cortex.
Back to the essay, men and women are optimized for different things. Our brains are also optimized slightly differently.
Fun fact, emotions are all low brain. It's like an elephant. All that reason is just the rider. In society, the elephants are stampeding.
I agree with all that, especially that emotions are low brain and hard to overcome thus few ever do gain much control over their animal brain. But the wise man tries.
Honestly, as an old man now I wonder if reason isn't binary have/don't the way Aristotle suggests. I suspect that reason is a continuum in humans--some have more than others. Or maybe it's just that we humans too often aim at low things or choose to embrace lizard brain feelings rather than the hard work of human reason? As Emerson said, "The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, feeds upon itself".
Wow! This piece is a tour de force! Some of your finest work. As for reaction to the piece…first, I applaud you for courageously stepping into these waters. Others in our modern Western society receive critical scorn by the vocal minority for unearthing the obvious objective realities around us. Specifically, I’m thinking of James Damore, author of the 2017 Google Memo.
Next, to your larger point regarding the ease of our times. Jordan Peterson makes the case a considerable amount of gratitude is due to the “ark” in which we reside. Our physical bodies are more resilient to infection and malfunction thanks to a curated, ruthless immune system response evolved over 1000s of years to handle pathogens that wiped out many ancestors. Further, we live in a governmental “ark” that protects us from constant warfare. Last, we have the good fortune of a moral “ark” that instituted certain codes that ensure a just society evolved beyond tribalism and might makes right ethos. Certain modern markers- depression rates among teenagers that eclipse those from Great Depression era- reinforce your point regarding easy times and its consequences. Like you, it’s startling to see the cultural tide surging from every demographic promoting “me time” “self care” over dying to self for more fulfilling roles and responsibilities.
There is a time to sow, a time to reap, a time to laugh, a time to cry. I pray the pendulum swings back toward roles and responsibilities from a rights focus soon. Moderation in all things.
Thanks. And I like your description of the ark. It's very true. The challenge is, with that safety, we aren't experiencing the grit that makes who we are make sense. The systems don't make sense until you realize how rough history has been.
Irony is, like Chestertons Fence, if we rip those structures out, well return to that roughness.
You have quite the essay here Michael, which I read because you chose to reference me within it. As a woman and mother I can certainly confirm for you that you are absolutely right that mothering children is indeed natural and rewarding, however your analysis overlooks some important realities.
Women are natural mothers and for this reason have an internal drive to procure resources equally to men, and have done so for all of time. Women have the same drive and instinct to create shelter, art and significance. This is not a character trait of men only, but a human character trait. You overlook that women need this self-preservation instinct BECAUSE of the disagreeable, violent and self-serving tendencies of some men. Children still need to be fed long after the father moves onto another family or gets himself killed amidst the latest war male-kind have inflicted upon each other in their endless pursuit of dominance. From your essay I can see that you agree that community and family are the most important things for the perpetuity of humankind. Women will weave the cloth, gather the berries, hunt the beast, breastfeed the children, care for the elderly, light the fire and prepare the food because they want their children to survive in comfort. They do it in community. Men frequently disappoint in this regard, often choosing to reinforce dominance and superiority instead of raising the children peacefully. The civility you refer to in referencing my comment (13) is necessary so that people actually behave, especially men.
I don't write this with the desire to man bash, but to point out that in your opening question about why women are resisting the evolutionary truth that they are natural mothers, you are forgetting or not considering, that the focus on raising children, especially with modern medicine, only take up about 20 years of an 80 year lifespan. What is she supposed to do with the rest of that time?
Further to this, the women are telling you, and have done for all of written history, that they have ideas, desires and insights in pursuit of art, science, and community - women have desires to achieve and create outside of the family home.
You know...... I think therefore I am..., and all that.
Why do you discount the lived perspective and desires of living women? This is an arrogance I frequently encounter; this idea that women don't know what's good for them and need to be told by a barely grown male who's never considered another person in his life and has absolutely no idea about the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice it takes to birth and raise another human being.
Michael I'm not sure if you fit this description but this idea is being directed at young men all the time and I've seen them repeating it on social media. It's absolutely ludicrous to believe you can know the truth of another persons reality and quite frankly, shows a lack of critical thinking and emotional intelligence for those that purport to. A man may feel like a woman should only want to raise his kids and serve him endlessly, but he misunderstands that is wishful thinking and emotion only. It is not reality. Because the women don't agree, and you cannot determine another's reality. You see?
And further, we have a continuous civilisation where art and science persists long after we die....if we've been one of the humans that have created something of significance. Having a child is not the only way to leave a legacy. People are not robots that fit into neat boxes.
You mention yourself that women live longer than men. Epidemiological studies over the last century have shown that men frequently develop clogged arteries and heart disease through their fifties without medical intervention, yet grandmothers persist decades longer.
Going with your chosen discipline of evolutionary biology, could it be that Grandmothers are absolutely necessary to continue the survival of the human race? Wheras the evolutionary significance of males is geared towards younger years where they all fight each other until they die out?
I bring this up to point out that perhaps, by your own reasoning, evolutionary biology is telling us the Grandmothers are the true and righteous leaders of the tribe.
You write that the larger skeleton and muscular mass of men is somehow a divine gift that proves that men should be the ones to ‘create’ all of the resources, make all decisions, lead and dominate. I would counter, going with your chosen discipline of evolutionary biology, that men are bigger because they evolved that way due to animalistic aggressive tendencies. The bigger men reproduced because they raped, and fought each other, leading only stronger men surviving to reproduce, leading to bigger male offspring over millennia. Quite frequently, dominant male animal instinct is anti-social - which is counter to raising community. If you don't believe me study the differences between bonobo's and chimpanzees, - our two closest primate relatives. We can also look to other large brained, large mammal species such as orcas's and elephants and observe family units are very much centred on a dominant female (and not necessarily the oldest one - they choose the most proficient leader).
We are also not mentioning, Michael, that the men are very much in control of the resources, have been in control of the resources ,and we are seeing large amounts of corruption and disorder. Our sons have been sent to wars endlessly generation after generation. Women (and men) have been bought and sold and used as slaves. Do you see how, in the context of this history, many women would rather control their own resources thank you very much! The men have had power and it’s been dastardly abused. Children needing care are vulnerable and the mother is in a vulnerable position if she is not in control of resources, and the men cannot be trusted to control the resources.
The decision to persist in fossil fuel industries to protect existing economic interests - the interests of individuals who will die soon enough - at the expense of all the future generations of all beings on the planet is a distinctly selfish one and is reminiscent of rape and pillage.
The current climate of strong man politics is leading to more death and suffering.
Considering your chosen discipline of evolutionary biology, it makes sense to me that perhaps decisions of governance should be mainly left to women (in the best interest of peaceful community) and men can use their wonderful engineering skills to build the lovely world for us they keep referring too, as the grandmothers keep the nations from killing each others children.
A note on spiritual evolution:
It is my experience that good leads to good, positivity leads to more positivity, negativity to negativity etc. I tend to live by this value and am careful to be respectful in order to help evolve humanity. I also call out bullshit when I see it. Truth is another value I live by.
You picked up a comment of mine to reference in your essay - a comment where I was reacting to a rude comment from you. Why are you leaving rude comments under well-intended posts of strangers, if you value spiritual evolution (this is a rhetorical question)? But that aside, your ridicule was misappropriated, as you misread my comment, (about sociology and behaviour) and attributed it to your lens of 'evolutionary biology' - not the same things and again, you are completely missing (read not understanding, or are unaware) that there was truth in my comment. Women are socialised to be endlessly giving especially in my irish catholic background wheras men are not and then women end up getting sucked dry and raged at by entitled men. You can argue against this all you want and insist it's 'evolutionary biology' but it doesn't change lived reality or experience. The truth remains the same, and so does the capacity to evolve human behaviour.
Patriarchy in this regard is a social construct. Patriarchy only exists because of animalistic brutality. That's it. It's not divine order. In each religion there is a wisdom about respecting each other and creating peace. There is no gender war here, Michael, but one sure way to piss a person off is to insist that you know better about what they want than they do. You don't. No one is telling you what 'men' should do, except other emotionally unintelligent and immature men.
I can see you mean well with your essay here but you were very quick to project your frame of reference over my intentions, while failing to introspect on your blind spots. You called my observations of cultural behaviour a 'lack of understanding about evolutionary biology" and seem completely oblivious that we're talking about two very different things. You're dismissing my real observations, citing personal bias as a reason for dismissal, while chuckling to yourself about how clever you are.
Dismissing observations and experiences that are different or don't fit with yours, is no way to get you to the evolved planet you are talking about, and it certainly won't get you a girlfriend. Truth exists in many layers. The whole context of your essay here is that 'women don't know what's good for them but I do" and we see you repeating this arrogance in your reaction to me. (she doesn't know what she's talking about) This is the kind of entitled socialisation I was talking about in the initial comment you referenced. Just something to think about.
I think another good essay topic from you could be " Why I don't believe women" I'd love to see you explore that one. If you do please link me in.
In the main, I agree with much of what you e said. The issues I disagree with are also arguments I didn't make. Their either strawman arguments or your own projections.
Your language is the could, and should which I address. I also address the sacrifice. I also address the drive for resources. I didn't touch on art and other self-actualization because that's a topic that I wasn't exploring here. I was further down the hierarchy of needs. Your point about grandmothers was addressed in an earlier essay on the Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The presence of that trifecta is just another manifestation of evolutionary biology and exists to help the children raise their children. It's a key adaptation to ensure the genetic lineage.
What you've done is really important and shows why this conversation is essential. You're living with a lot of moral angst. I get that. It's the whole reason I wrote this. I don't deny 'lived experience.' in fact this essay isn't about experience but the underlying rules that guide that experience.
None of your points denies that rule. It just feels you'd like to change it. The fundamentals remain that nature really doesn't care and is a harsh grader over time and we are seeing the repurcussions in society today. Simply put, the culture that gives you that moral language is teetering. I don't want it to collapse.
Instead of dismissing, arguing points I didn't make, and projecting identities on me that are wrong, stare at the rule a bit more. That was the goal.
I think that's a false binary. We don't get to chose. Nature is t nice, it's trying to kill you every day. Suffering isn't a choice. The choice is what you do about it. That's where the morality comes in. Understanding and operating in alignment of the rules is where maturity happens and how to reduce the suffering.
I see woman suffering all around me, largely because they reject the suffering and so are destined to always suffer. That's why the sacrifice is so important.
Yes! The topic is weaponized a lot. But we can't fix the weaponization without understanding both rules. I think the weaponization happens when young souls get sideways with biology.
With nature's optimization, we have a lot that tradition and culture has tried to manage right, wrong, or indifferent.
One thing I hate is when men treat women like a resource and not a equal, yet different, and complimenting partner and vice versa. That's just one simple example.
There's a lot here but the first point you make highlights the outliers. Now go back, without Google, and name anyone from 1000 years ago like them, not 100. That's a recency bias.
Also, you may be interested to note that Islam is fundamentally a matriarchy and the mutilation is enforced by women, not men.
The point here is that it's so much more than 'thu patriarchy' and women have a lot more power than they admit today. So much of the traditions you describe exist for when times are hard.
Moreiver, I'm not making a moral claim. I'm making an objective observation. If I were an alien anthropologist, how would I I describe the current situation against evolution?
Because nature doesn't care. Those people you mentioned helped insofar as they created systems that grew our technological capability.
That doesn't mean they failed rule #2 but as far as creating a line of Edison's, he didn't. Also, see footnote 26 for a different angle that's related.
Question for everyone, and don't Google: How many children did Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Watson & Crick, Frank Lloyd Wright, or Picasso have?
Probably no one can answer that without Googling, because no one cares because none of them are remembered for the number of children they had. I resent the notion that accomplishments and resource creation aren't as important. Herman Melville (don't Google!) died unknown but became a Great Writer 70 years after his death. Don't tell *me* resource creation is less important than procreation. Only if you care about your genome, which I don't, and my family line directed down from father's side may well die out, because my cousin and I never had children (me by choice, he's probably on the autism spectrum), leaving my nephew to carry on our line and last name, since my niece is adopted.
Patriarchy and control of women has been around for many thousands of years and it's been used to control women, their reproductive choices, and their sexuality (men too, since men are also victims of arranged or forced marriages). This has worked more for men's benefit than women's, as a woman busy raising children is less likely to mess around on the side. There's a reason why Islamic societies are so obsessively preoccupied with controlling women. The most obsessive patriarchal societies (not all of them Islamic) butcher their genitals as babies or small children.
Society MUST evolve if we are to go back to reproduction. Men have got to evolve. Women have got to evolve. They must figure out ways to raise children so it's enjoyable and fulfilling for both. Men must feel obligated to take care of the children they create, and that means, if they don't want it ending in abortion, be careful whose seed you implant in.
And, some of us just ain't wired for reproduction. It may be a bit of population control, along with homosexuality (not that that's a stopgap anymore for the human genome).
I've never regretted not having children. And I've never taken men seriously who argued in favor of it. Men have less invested in children to day which is why we find so many men with multiple baby mamas. Billionaires paying women they've never met to have babies by test tube rather than actual sex (Elon Musk has produced exactly *one* baby while he was in the same room with the mother). Reproduction has always been 'set it and forget it' for far too many men.
The human species is not going to die out unless we kill ourselves off. That method won't be lack of sex. At some point, the population will hit a critical point and we really will have to fuck or die. We'll step up to the plate.
If we can outlast the Ice Age, we can handle this. Relax. ;)
Guys, you invented patriarchy--now uninvent it. There's a lot of p--sy in it for ya :)
From an evolutionary biology perspective, nothing you said discredits the analysis. What you’ve added is the moral element. What you claim is wrong is a moral interpretation of ‘goodness’ and facts. Nature doesn’t care about goodness unless it helps continue the species.
Also, those folks you mentioned are all a function of recency bias. Go back 1000 years and name five without google. Go back 2000 years and name five more. Go back to prehistory and you know nothing that anybody created that transformed humanity. But you do see the genetics of everyone in your family tree reflected in who you are.
That said, I’m not saying they’re failures per se because they likely helped the civilization along. Same with the sacrifice of unnamed warrios over the millenia. I’m saying their genes won’t continue and that is your eternal legacy.
What’s interesting is your comment that we’ll have to fuck or die… because everything you described in the culture/traditions is designed to ensure we balance the two.
the patriarchy exists to control the worst inclinations of men
the matriarchy exists to control the worst inclinations of women.
Yet it’s not so simple. Because Islam is, fundamentally, a matriarchy enforced through the patriarchy. Here’s a facinating analyss on the topic which transformed how I see it. Because the really twisted part is that genital mutilation is enforced by women. So is the burka. Hell, men would rather women walk around naked. We don’t want women in burkas!
But still, nature doesn’t care about the moral claims. My goal here wasn’t to make any moral claim. I’m not saying good or bad. I’m showing the underlying operating system on which morals exist. I approached this as if I were an alien anthropologist.
Nature is a bitch, humans evolved to survive and adopted systems to help. But without understanding the underlying operating system, the source code if you will, you cannot understand why those moral systems exist and you’ll be unable to change them without major consequences (as we are seeing now) We need to apply Chesteron’s Fence and this was an attempt at starting to do that.
I saw that article you posted about Islamic matriarchy and I think it puts the cart before the horse. Patriarchy was invented by men and their desire to be more certain whose baby she’s carrying. Matriarchy, I suspect, emerged in response to patriarchy, as a way of asserting control and power in subcultures oppressed by another. One of the most notorious examples was the harem at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. It was vicious with internal politics in the struggle to put one’s son on the throne. Show me a matriarchy, I challenge you, that wasn’t first preceded by patriarchy.
Not everyone wants to breed, and I acknowledge that we may be in a very small minority. Part of the reason why I’ve had such a hard time finding a lifetime (whatever that means anymore) partner is because of my staunch refusal to breed. In fact, at 39 I got fixed and that didn’t please many men. I accept that. That’s the price I’ve paid: I’ve been alone for 25 years. But I’ve also channelled that energy into traveling, moving to Canada, exploring new hobbies, and writing. I’ve written novels, I write a Substack newsletter and I’m even contemplating early retirement so I can devote my time to novels, which I’m returning to. I’m also rethinking my entire life, asking myself where I’ve been hard on myself and acknowledging the many mistakes I’ve made, as we all do. But at no time do I feel a drive to explore why I didn’t want kids. Not wanting them—ever—is a very good reason to not have children. I note we spend a lot less time talking about the many parents (I’ve met a few) who say they love their kids, but if they could do it over they wouldn’t have them. My mother made it clear she would have done it over. That’s why I feel so strongly that every child should be a wanted child, by parents willing to put in the effort of raising that child the best possible way they can (even as they’ll still make mistakes).
For those who are worried about fertility, they should be blaming the political and economic policies that prevent it, not the women and men who refuse to make babies. Remove those considerable obstacles, and I believe married couples will be fucking like bunnies.
Single people: That’s a whole ‘nother topic. It won’t be solved by making it more economically affordable to have children. But it doesn’t matter because we’re clearly not going to do what we must. We’ll just have to wait for critical low-mass.
I'm digging deeper into the patriarchy / matriarchy. I don't think 'invented' is right. I think it's a conglomeration of traditions. Which Donald Kingsbury describes as "a set of solutions for problems we don't remember. Get rid of the solutions and the problems come back".
If you've got good information on the topic, please share here, or a DM, because I'm trying to figure it out.
Just general stuff. We talk about it, but the misrepresentations are profound. I don't think anything is 'invented.' I think we need to step back deeper and understand why it exists, since it's not arbitrary, and I feel it all goes back to Rule #1. The patriarchy exists to blunt the worst inclinations of men and focus them on competitive resource production. The matriarchy exists to blunt the worst inclinations of women and focus them on communal nurturing of the next generations.
I'm looking for anything that helps add to the conversations.
One thing that I think helps, although it's not specifically about patriarchy/matriarchy, is David Buss's book Bad Men: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment and Assault. It delves into the root of male control--controlling women's sexuality to ensure paternity of the child--and then details the perpetual cycle of deception and deception defense (both of these on both sides) in an effort to stay one step ahead of the other side.
Fascinating article. What do you think about the men who do not stay with women and provide for their offspring? It seems that scattering one's seed amongst as many partners as possible is another option for reproductive success that requires less sacrifice for the man. Could the high numbers of women who were abandoned by their partners and died from neglect be a factor in women's evolution to be less dependent on men?
That’s a great point. There were so many threads to tease on already. First off, yes, there are men who scatter their seeds, but long-term success isn’t just having kids, but the success of their children and beyond. Many children born to men like that carry an increased risk of other issues that limit the genome's forward progress. I also think it’s the sign of a younger soul, so they’re not doing well on either of those rules.
To your last point, there’s a double problem here. On the one hand, we celebrate women for being resource providers, and that actually limits their ability to raise their children. So they’re independent, but also failing in what they’re optimized for, so the whole system will collapse. Simply put, I don’t think it’ll evolve because it won’t move forward.
On the flip side, we’re also attacking the patriarchy, which is the system intended to constrain the worst inclinations of men. The patriarchy doesn’t look kindly on men who scatter their seeds. It never really has because it still defaults back to the other men (Father, Brother, Cousin, Community) to take care of some other man’s kid. When you attack the patriarchy and seek to dismantle it, you’re actually breaking the system that checks the negative behavior of abandonment.
Also, the increased expectation for women to produce resources also reduces the demand on men and actually creates the problem. This is causing part of that loop back where people, like this, are having fewer kids, and I don’t think behavior will evolve because it won’t move forward.
It’s kind of a sticky topic isn’t it?
It certainly is! I don't disagree with your point about the system eventually collapsing. I think that'll happen no matter what, and nature will start again, with the bees perhaps. But to your point about men still being needed to raise another man's offspring: not necessarily. In fact we can look at the bees for one possible setup, where female worker bees gather resources, defend the hive and raise their younger siblings. Not every woman needs to reproduce as long as the "queen bees" are having plenty of babies. I don't necessarily think that's what modern society is moving toward, but it's certainly true today that a lesbian couple can raise a family just as well as a heterosexual one, once the seed is provided.
That's interesting, but also not really apples to apples. We aren't bees. We aren't going to become bees. I don't think we want to become bees. As such, we're stuck with our reproductive rules that evolution has rewarded, where we are the apex on the planet, not bees. If we reset back to the bees, we can see what will emerge. But that doesn't change what 'is' in how we currently work.
As far as the lesbian couple goes, there's a reason why one is 'butch.' She's the one who normally takes the masculine role of resource creation. Even in that situation, you have a masculine woman. And that couple is still protected by the larger society, normally manifested as a police force and an army of mostly men.
Lastly, the literature of lesbian child-rearing is nascent, but the results are actually pretty bad. Part of that is because lesbians have the highest divorce rates, resulting in the child being raised by a single mother, which has the worst outcomes of all children.
All in all, the more I play with it, the could should or ought faceplant into the is.
Well, bringing “butch”ness, divorce and single mothers into it doesn’t disprove my point that a (stable) lesbian couple can raise a child as effectively as a heterosexual couple. But I’m glad I could engage with you briefly on this topic.
You're right. But that's also an outlier, not the norm. Two homosexual men can do the same. (actually, their outcomes for their children are better than those of lesbians) But that's not what nature optimized for, and both still need the other sex to create the child.
There will always be outliers. The outliers do not disprove the mean.
P.S. Not sure if this attribution makes me appear more or less credible, but credit to Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes. screenwriters of WarGames, for the "Nature will start again. With the bees, probably" quote I paraphrased above. Full quote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WarGames
Back to the "basics" ??? ...
Tax-departments, CEO's, MIC's and similar professional grifters in modern mass-societies will be very upset if their revenues from the sheeple start melting away like butter in a desert ... 🤣🤣🤣
Gullible and greedy Western societies have been irrevocably led to the brink of the abyss.
The planet is vast and other folks will (ARE!!!) already taking the lead and the hopefully brighter future of humanity, most fortunately, will NOT depend on a Western, entirely hijacked prefrontal cortex any more ...
Yee hay E10 !!!
I really which we could rebalance our prefrontal cortex with the rest of our brains!
Well, you and your wife are contributing a GREAT deal to this august goal ... 👍👍👍
Wide-spread education on family/community-level with total abolition of basic government tuition (which is Rockefeller's one 🤮🤮🤮) could speed-up the process ...
This is probably one of my favorite articles. You combined rational, cognitive, scientific, spiritual, and animalistic intelligence in a way that delivers a loud and clear message of divinity. That’s what I got from it. This article tickled my curiosity and frontal cortex beautifully. For a youngin’ you sure do write well 😉😘.
Awesome to hear. It was interesting to try to tease morality into the right place and yet contextualize it as subjective even there! My cousin and I ruminated on this while backpacking, and we referred to it as kind of the ‘source code’ for our existence.
I also appreciate being challengd intellectually by my elders! 🤓
It is always amusing to witness the war between concrete and abstraction. There are those who attempt to mold and manipulate reality to fit preconceived beliefs, and there probably always will be. Great piece.
Their blind disregard for the concrete throws me as well, and they’ll always be crushed with disappointment. I remember a woman telling me, regarding sexual attraction, that it just ‘ought’ not to be that way. Then she pivoted and said it ‘could’ be different. OK, but why?
Then I watched over the years as she railed against the concrete instead of appreciating the beauty and incredible complexity that is.
Excellent.
Thanks!
I appreciate the thinking, but it seems a bit sophomoric. Yes, as animals (your "hairless monkeys"), we have a basic biology of sex and reproduce. But as Aristotle explained, humans are unique because we have the ability to Reason.
That's where your "soul" section is weak. Perhaps, if you're truly interested in soul development and not just making a pro-reproduction argument, you might enjoy reading Aristotle, Laozi, and the Confucians on the topic of soul development?
It is sophomoric. The problem is that prefrontal Cortex sits on top of a lizard brain and we don't even get to the sophomore level of understanding. We jump to the could and should without understanding is and have no idea about the soul.
And I am well read on thise writers but the point here wasn't to explain how to mature the soul but explain the need to mature the soul.
Rule 1: understand our operating system
Rule 2 mature.
You can't do number 2 without understanding rule 1. But another way, many people are failing rule 2, they're soul is tangled in agst because they refuse to understand rule 1.
Your response here doesn't really address the criticism. Yes, the prefrontal cortex is an addition atop the lizard brain. Aristotle, a biologist himself, would agree. But I'm with Aristotle when he says that what makes humans unique is their ability to reason (prefrontal cortex), and thus using that unique ability to Reason is how humans become the best a human can be.
I could be wrong, but you seem to argue for humans to embrace their lizard brain (feelings, base biology). I don't understand why an intelligent person would argue this.
Not embrace. Understand. Right now, especially women, willfully ignore that base rule. As I pointed out, that's also causing them to fail the second.
I mean, maybe embrace... We can't change rule #1. Rule #1 is manifesting in front of our eyes as those who have the most issue with it are not reproducing thereby eliminating that cultural behavior in the future.
We've covered a lot of topics in emotion and resin here in the past. The issue is that prefrontal cortex can't divorce from the rest of the brain. The intelligent person understands this. The problem is the very large number of people this idea bothers greatly. If it were obvious, why do so few people embrace it?
Perhaps our difference is one of our differing views of the relative hierarchy between the animal brain and the uniquely human brain?
In my view, and I could be wrong, I consider the animal brain ideally subservient to the prefrontal cortex. Yes, all humans have base instincts, but overcoming and controlling those base instincts is the goal and mark of a wise person.
This doesn't mean eat gruel and don't reproduce. It means understanding a balance--eat healthily but not epicurean, reproduce (or not) based on conscious decision not hormones--with the prefrontal cortex (reason) in control.
Overcoming and controlling are important and fundamental within most philosophies. Its also really really hard. We also don't have to do that effort and we'll survive. However, if we don't name and appreciate that lower brain and don't realize we are mostly preprogrammed meat sacks... Well never be able to master it.
On that last point, of your biological functions, you can only control your breath. Further, ALL stimuli go through your lower brain and your body reacts long before your prefrontal cortex.
Back to the essay, men and women are optimized for different things. Our brains are also optimized slightly differently.
Fun fact, emotions are all low brain. It's like an elephant. All that reason is just the rider. In society, the elephants are stampeding.
I agree with all that, especially that emotions are low brain and hard to overcome thus few ever do gain much control over their animal brain. But the wise man tries.
Honestly, as an old man now I wonder if reason isn't binary have/don't the way Aristotle suggests. I suspect that reason is a continuum in humans--some have more than others. Or maybe it's just that we humans too often aim at low things or choose to embrace lizard brain feelings rather than the hard work of human reason? As Emerson said, "The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, feeds upon itself".
Wow! This piece is a tour de force! Some of your finest work. As for reaction to the piece…first, I applaud you for courageously stepping into these waters. Others in our modern Western society receive critical scorn by the vocal minority for unearthing the obvious objective realities around us. Specifically, I’m thinking of James Damore, author of the 2017 Google Memo.
Next, to your larger point regarding the ease of our times. Jordan Peterson makes the case a considerable amount of gratitude is due to the “ark” in which we reside. Our physical bodies are more resilient to infection and malfunction thanks to a curated, ruthless immune system response evolved over 1000s of years to handle pathogens that wiped out many ancestors. Further, we live in a governmental “ark” that protects us from constant warfare. Last, we have the good fortune of a moral “ark” that instituted certain codes that ensure a just society evolved beyond tribalism and might makes right ethos. Certain modern markers- depression rates among teenagers that eclipse those from Great Depression era- reinforce your point regarding easy times and its consequences. Like you, it’s startling to see the cultural tide surging from every demographic promoting “me time” “self care” over dying to self for more fulfilling roles and responsibilities.
There is a time to sow, a time to reap, a time to laugh, a time to cry. I pray the pendulum swings back toward roles and responsibilities from a rights focus soon. Moderation in all things.
Thanks. And I like your description of the ark. It's very true. The challenge is, with that safety, we aren't experiencing the grit that makes who we are make sense. The systems don't make sense until you realize how rough history has been.
Irony is, like Chestertons Fence, if we rip those structures out, well return to that roughness.
I struggle with the practice of providing a shield versus a compass as a parent daily. No doubt that adequate stress and recovery yield growth!
I assume the “helicopter” or worse “bulldozer” parenting tendencies have contributed to elongated immaturity we’re witnessing in developed nations
I'm in the same boat but I worry I I er indexed away from shield. I think I e got the balance but I demand they do hard things.
You have quite the essay here Michael, which I read because you chose to reference me within it. As a woman and mother I can certainly confirm for you that you are absolutely right that mothering children is indeed natural and rewarding, however your analysis overlooks some important realities.
Women are natural mothers and for this reason have an internal drive to procure resources equally to men, and have done so for all of time. Women have the same drive and instinct to create shelter, art and significance. This is not a character trait of men only, but a human character trait. You overlook that women need this self-preservation instinct BECAUSE of the disagreeable, violent and self-serving tendencies of some men. Children still need to be fed long after the father moves onto another family or gets himself killed amidst the latest war male-kind have inflicted upon each other in their endless pursuit of dominance. From your essay I can see that you agree that community and family are the most important things for the perpetuity of humankind. Women will weave the cloth, gather the berries, hunt the beast, breastfeed the children, care for the elderly, light the fire and prepare the food because they want their children to survive in comfort. They do it in community. Men frequently disappoint in this regard, often choosing to reinforce dominance and superiority instead of raising the children peacefully. The civility you refer to in referencing my comment (13) is necessary so that people actually behave, especially men.
I don't write this with the desire to man bash, but to point out that in your opening question about why women are resisting the evolutionary truth that they are natural mothers, you are forgetting or not considering, that the focus on raising children, especially with modern medicine, only take up about 20 years of an 80 year lifespan. What is she supposed to do with the rest of that time?
Further to this, the women are telling you, and have done for all of written history, that they have ideas, desires and insights in pursuit of art, science, and community - women have desires to achieve and create outside of the family home.
You know...... I think therefore I am..., and all that.
Why do you discount the lived perspective and desires of living women? This is an arrogance I frequently encounter; this idea that women don't know what's good for them and need to be told by a barely grown male who's never considered another person in his life and has absolutely no idea about the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice it takes to birth and raise another human being.
Michael I'm not sure if you fit this description but this idea is being directed at young men all the time and I've seen them repeating it on social media. It's absolutely ludicrous to believe you can know the truth of another persons reality and quite frankly, shows a lack of critical thinking and emotional intelligence for those that purport to. A man may feel like a woman should only want to raise his kids and serve him endlessly, but he misunderstands that is wishful thinking and emotion only. It is not reality. Because the women don't agree, and you cannot determine another's reality. You see?
And further, we have a continuous civilisation where art and science persists long after we die....if we've been one of the humans that have created something of significance. Having a child is not the only way to leave a legacy. People are not robots that fit into neat boxes.
You mention yourself that women live longer than men. Epidemiological studies over the last century have shown that men frequently develop clogged arteries and heart disease through their fifties without medical intervention, yet grandmothers persist decades longer.
Going with your chosen discipline of evolutionary biology, could it be that Grandmothers are absolutely necessary to continue the survival of the human race? Wheras the evolutionary significance of males is geared towards younger years where they all fight each other until they die out?
I bring this up to point out that perhaps, by your own reasoning, evolutionary biology is telling us the Grandmothers are the true and righteous leaders of the tribe.
You write that the larger skeleton and muscular mass of men is somehow a divine gift that proves that men should be the ones to ‘create’ all of the resources, make all decisions, lead and dominate. I would counter, going with your chosen discipline of evolutionary biology, that men are bigger because they evolved that way due to animalistic aggressive tendencies. The bigger men reproduced because they raped, and fought each other, leading only stronger men surviving to reproduce, leading to bigger male offspring over millennia. Quite frequently, dominant male animal instinct is anti-social - which is counter to raising community. If you don't believe me study the differences between bonobo's and chimpanzees, - our two closest primate relatives. We can also look to other large brained, large mammal species such as orcas's and elephants and observe family units are very much centred on a dominant female (and not necessarily the oldest one - they choose the most proficient leader).
We are also not mentioning, Michael, that the men are very much in control of the resources, have been in control of the resources ,and we are seeing large amounts of corruption and disorder. Our sons have been sent to wars endlessly generation after generation. Women (and men) have been bought and sold and used as slaves. Do you see how, in the context of this history, many women would rather control their own resources thank you very much! The men have had power and it’s been dastardly abused. Children needing care are vulnerable and the mother is in a vulnerable position if she is not in control of resources, and the men cannot be trusted to control the resources.
The decision to persist in fossil fuel industries to protect existing economic interests - the interests of individuals who will die soon enough - at the expense of all the future generations of all beings on the planet is a distinctly selfish one and is reminiscent of rape and pillage.
The current climate of strong man politics is leading to more death and suffering.
Considering your chosen discipline of evolutionary biology, it makes sense to me that perhaps decisions of governance should be mainly left to women (in the best interest of peaceful community) and men can use their wonderful engineering skills to build the lovely world for us they keep referring too, as the grandmothers keep the nations from killing each others children.
A note on spiritual evolution:
It is my experience that good leads to good, positivity leads to more positivity, negativity to negativity etc. I tend to live by this value and am careful to be respectful in order to help evolve humanity. I also call out bullshit when I see it. Truth is another value I live by.
You picked up a comment of mine to reference in your essay - a comment where I was reacting to a rude comment from you. Why are you leaving rude comments under well-intended posts of strangers, if you value spiritual evolution (this is a rhetorical question)? But that aside, your ridicule was misappropriated, as you misread my comment, (about sociology and behaviour) and attributed it to your lens of 'evolutionary biology' - not the same things and again, you are completely missing (read not understanding, or are unaware) that there was truth in my comment. Women are socialised to be endlessly giving especially in my irish catholic background wheras men are not and then women end up getting sucked dry and raged at by entitled men. You can argue against this all you want and insist it's 'evolutionary biology' but it doesn't change lived reality or experience. The truth remains the same, and so does the capacity to evolve human behaviour.
Patriarchy in this regard is a social construct. Patriarchy only exists because of animalistic brutality. That's it. It's not divine order. In each religion there is a wisdom about respecting each other and creating peace. There is no gender war here, Michael, but one sure way to piss a person off is to insist that you know better about what they want than they do. You don't. No one is telling you what 'men' should do, except other emotionally unintelligent and immature men.
I can see you mean well with your essay here but you were very quick to project your frame of reference over my intentions, while failing to introspect on your blind spots. You called my observations of cultural behaviour a 'lack of understanding about evolutionary biology" and seem completely oblivious that we're talking about two very different things. You're dismissing my real observations, citing personal bias as a reason for dismissal, while chuckling to yourself about how clever you are.
Dismissing observations and experiences that are different or don't fit with yours, is no way to get you to the evolved planet you are talking about, and it certainly won't get you a girlfriend. Truth exists in many layers. The whole context of your essay here is that 'women don't know what's good for them but I do" and we see you repeating this arrogance in your reaction to me. (she doesn't know what she's talking about) This is the kind of entitled socialisation I was talking about in the initial comment you referenced. Just something to think about.
I think another good essay topic from you could be " Why I don't believe women" I'd love to see you explore that one. If you do please link me in.
In the main, I agree with much of what you e said. The issues I disagree with are also arguments I didn't make. Their either strawman arguments or your own projections.
Your language is the could, and should which I address. I also address the sacrifice. I also address the drive for resources. I didn't touch on art and other self-actualization because that's a topic that I wasn't exploring here. I was further down the hierarchy of needs. Your point about grandmothers was addressed in an earlier essay on the Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The presence of that trifecta is just another manifestation of evolutionary biology and exists to help the children raise their children. It's a key adaptation to ensure the genetic lineage.
What you've done is really important and shows why this conversation is essential. You're living with a lot of moral angst. I get that. It's the whole reason I wrote this. I don't deny 'lived experience.' in fact this essay isn't about experience but the underlying rules that guide that experience.
None of your points denies that rule. It just feels you'd like to change it. The fundamentals remain that nature really doesn't care and is a harsh grader over time and we are seeing the repurcussions in society today. Simply put, the culture that gives you that moral language is teetering. I don't want it to collapse.
Instead of dismissing, arguing points I didn't make, and projecting identities on me that are wrong, stare at the rule a bit more. That was the goal.
We either choose suffering or we don’t. But those who choose suffering don’t also get to claim moral superiority or wisdom.
I think that's a false binary. We don't get to chose. Nature is t nice, it's trying to kill you every day. Suffering isn't a choice. The choice is what you do about it. That's where the morality comes in. Understanding and operating in alignment of the rules is where maturity happens and how to reduce the suffering.
I see woman suffering all around me, largely because they reject the suffering and so are destined to always suffer. That's why the sacrifice is so important.
I mean in respect to how the actions we choose personally inflict suffering on others. We either choose behaviours that cause suffering, or we don’t
Yes! The topic is weaponized a lot. But we can't fix the weaponization without understanding both rules. I think the weaponization happens when young souls get sideways with biology.
With nature's optimization, we have a lot that tradition and culture has tried to manage right, wrong, or indifferent.
One thing I hate is when men treat women like a resource and not a equal, yet different, and complimenting partner and vice versa. That's just one simple example.
This sounds like a recent conversation I had on a hike 😜… and your footnotes!!! 😂
20 minutes of essay. 10 min of footnotes. All of which distill 10 hours of hike.
Nicely done
This one hits hard in ways I hadn't even considered. Needs to be read slowly and thoroughly.
Love it.
There's a lot here but the first point you make highlights the outliers. Now go back, without Google, and name anyone from 1000 years ago like them, not 100. That's a recency bias.
Also, you may be interested to note that Islam is fundamentally a matriarchy and the mutilation is enforced by women, not men.
More on that here: https://sotiris.substack.com/p/islamic-feminism-and-muslim-matriarchy
The point here is that it's so much more than 'thu patriarchy' and women have a lot more power than they admit today. So much of the traditions you describe exist for when times are hard.
Moreiver, I'm not making a moral claim. I'm making an objective observation. If I were an alien anthropologist, how would I I describe the current situation against evolution?
Because nature doesn't care. Those people you mentioned helped insofar as they created systems that grew our technological capability.
That doesn't mean they failed rule #2 but as far as creating a line of Edison's, he didn't. Also, see footnote 26 for a different angle that's related.
There's an awful lot wrong with this.
Question for everyone, and don't Google: How many children did Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Watson & Crick, Frank Lloyd Wright, or Picasso have?
Probably no one can answer that without Googling, because no one cares because none of them are remembered for the number of children they had. I resent the notion that accomplishments and resource creation aren't as important. Herman Melville (don't Google!) died unknown but became a Great Writer 70 years after his death. Don't tell *me* resource creation is less important than procreation. Only if you care about your genome, which I don't, and my family line directed down from father's side may well die out, because my cousin and I never had children (me by choice, he's probably on the autism spectrum), leaving my nephew to carry on our line and last name, since my niece is adopted.
Patriarchy and control of women has been around for many thousands of years and it's been used to control women, their reproductive choices, and their sexuality (men too, since men are also victims of arranged or forced marriages). This has worked more for men's benefit than women's, as a woman busy raising children is less likely to mess around on the side. There's a reason why Islamic societies are so obsessively preoccupied with controlling women. The most obsessive patriarchal societies (not all of them Islamic) butcher their genitals as babies or small children.
Society MUST evolve if we are to go back to reproduction. Men have got to evolve. Women have got to evolve. They must figure out ways to raise children so it's enjoyable and fulfilling for both. Men must feel obligated to take care of the children they create, and that means, if they don't want it ending in abortion, be careful whose seed you implant in.
And, some of us just ain't wired for reproduction. It may be a bit of population control, along with homosexuality (not that that's a stopgap anymore for the human genome).
I've never regretted not having children. And I've never taken men seriously who argued in favor of it. Men have less invested in children to day which is why we find so many men with multiple baby mamas. Billionaires paying women they've never met to have babies by test tube rather than actual sex (Elon Musk has produced exactly *one* baby while he was in the same room with the mother). Reproduction has always been 'set it and forget it' for far too many men.
The human species is not going to die out unless we kill ourselves off. That method won't be lack of sex. At some point, the population will hit a critical point and we really will have to fuck or die. We'll step up to the plate.
If we can outlast the Ice Age, we can handle this. Relax. ;)
Guys, you invented patriarchy--now uninvent it. There's a lot of p--sy in it for ya :)
From an evolutionary biology perspective, nothing you said discredits the analysis. What you’ve added is the moral element. What you claim is wrong is a moral interpretation of ‘goodness’ and facts. Nature doesn’t care about goodness unless it helps continue the species.
Also, those folks you mentioned are all a function of recency bias. Go back 1000 years and name five without google. Go back 2000 years and name five more. Go back to prehistory and you know nothing that anybody created that transformed humanity. But you do see the genetics of everyone in your family tree reflected in who you are.
That said, I’m not saying they’re failures per se because they likely helped the civilization along. Same with the sacrifice of unnamed warrios over the millenia. I’m saying their genes won’t continue and that is your eternal legacy.
What’s interesting is your comment that we’ll have to fuck or die… because everything you described in the culture/traditions is designed to ensure we balance the two.
the patriarchy exists to control the worst inclinations of men
the matriarchy exists to control the worst inclinations of women.
Yet it’s not so simple. Because Islam is, fundamentally, a matriarchy enforced through the patriarchy. Here’s a facinating analyss on the topic which transformed how I see it. Because the really twisted part is that genital mutilation is enforced by women. So is the burka. Hell, men would rather women walk around naked. We don’t want women in burkas!
https://sotiris.substack.com/p/islamic-feminism-and-muslim-matriarchy
But still, nature doesn’t care about the moral claims. My goal here wasn’t to make any moral claim. I’m not saying good or bad. I’m showing the underlying operating system on which morals exist. I approached this as if I were an alien anthropologist.
Nature is a bitch, humans evolved to survive and adopted systems to help. But without understanding the underlying operating system, the source code if you will, you cannot understand why those moral systems exist and you’ll be unable to change them without major consequences (as we are seeing now) We need to apply Chesteron’s Fence and this was an attempt at starting to do that.
I saw that article you posted about Islamic matriarchy and I think it puts the cart before the horse. Patriarchy was invented by men and their desire to be more certain whose baby she’s carrying. Matriarchy, I suspect, emerged in response to patriarchy, as a way of asserting control and power in subcultures oppressed by another. One of the most notorious examples was the harem at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. It was vicious with internal politics in the struggle to put one’s son on the throne. Show me a matriarchy, I challenge you, that wasn’t first preceded by patriarchy.
Not everyone wants to breed, and I acknowledge that we may be in a very small minority. Part of the reason why I’ve had such a hard time finding a lifetime (whatever that means anymore) partner is because of my staunch refusal to breed. In fact, at 39 I got fixed and that didn’t please many men. I accept that. That’s the price I’ve paid: I’ve been alone for 25 years. But I’ve also channelled that energy into traveling, moving to Canada, exploring new hobbies, and writing. I’ve written novels, I write a Substack newsletter and I’m even contemplating early retirement so I can devote my time to novels, which I’m returning to. I’m also rethinking my entire life, asking myself where I’ve been hard on myself and acknowledging the many mistakes I’ve made, as we all do. But at no time do I feel a drive to explore why I didn’t want kids. Not wanting them—ever—is a very good reason to not have children. I note we spend a lot less time talking about the many parents (I’ve met a few) who say they love their kids, but if they could do it over they wouldn’t have them. My mother made it clear she would have done it over. That’s why I feel so strongly that every child should be a wanted child, by parents willing to put in the effort of raising that child the best possible way they can (even as they’ll still make mistakes).
For those who are worried about fertility, they should be blaming the political and economic policies that prevent it, not the women and men who refuse to make babies. Remove those considerable obstacles, and I believe married couples will be fucking like bunnies.
Single people: That’s a whole ‘nother topic. It won’t be solved by making it more economically affordable to have children. But it doesn’t matter because we’re clearly not going to do what we must. We’ll just have to wait for critical low-mass.
I'm digging deeper into the patriarchy / matriarchy. I don't think 'invented' is right. I think it's a conglomeration of traditions. Which Donald Kingsbury describes as "a set of solutions for problems we don't remember. Get rid of the solutions and the problems come back".
If you've got good information on the topic, please share here, or a DM, because I'm trying to figure it out.
What exactly are you looking for? I might have something or know where to look.
Just general stuff. We talk about it, but the misrepresentations are profound. I don't think anything is 'invented.' I think we need to step back deeper and understand why it exists, since it's not arbitrary, and I feel it all goes back to Rule #1. The patriarchy exists to blunt the worst inclinations of men and focus them on competitive resource production. The matriarchy exists to blunt the worst inclinations of women and focus them on communal nurturing of the next generations.
I'm looking for anything that helps add to the conversations.
One thing that I think helps, although it's not specifically about patriarchy/matriarchy, is David Buss's book Bad Men: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment and Assault. It delves into the root of male control--controlling women's sexuality to ensure paternity of the child--and then details the perpetual cycle of deception and deception defense (both of these on both sides) in an effort to stay one step ahead of the other side.