StuartN wrote:
menintights wrote:
the supposed moral decline in society
I am in my 40s and I recall these "moral decline" complaints from my youth, my parents recall it from theirs (the swinging sixties) and my grandfather had hilarious stories about his experiences of moral decline (Prohibition). St Paul has some choice lines on the issue (1 Thessalonians 4:3 - "For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality"), and the Old Testament has plenty of anger for people "uncovering nakedness" (Leviticus 18:6-19).
"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint" (Hesiod, 8th century BC).
It is hilarious hearing the same complaint from a 21st Century 19-year-old!
Excellent post! I think the problem is that as people get older, they actually forget what it was like to be young and frisky.
The other problem is that our species is simply not wired to be monogamous. Some species are, but we're not. Yet some (many? most? I'm really not sure) human cultures insist on trying to force us to practice lifelong monogamy, which is against our nature.
This was much easier hundreds or thousands of years ago, when life expectancy was only about 30 years, and people lived in small tribes or villages where everyone knew each other (so any infidelity would be hard to hide), women were considered the property of their fathers and then husbands, punishments for infidelity were harsh, etc.
45/55, 40/60 - this discrepancy doesn't seem huge to me - apparently men and women "cheat" at roughly equal rates these days, but I still believe it's more natural for men to do so.
Well, the "double standard" can be understood in biological terms: men don't want to spend time/energy/resources/money raising some other dude's kid. They barely want to help raise their own kids, which carry their own genes.
Women don't care, because no matter who the father is, the kid is equally hers. Women will happily have an affair with an alpha male, mainly for the excitement, but also because subconsciously women are programed to desire the most socially dominant, strong, healthy men, and because his genes are likely to be "better". But she hopes the beta male will stick around and protect and support her and her children.
Also, women typically only want one guy at a time, and are thus much more likely to leave the guy they're with if they find a "better" guy. Men are less likely to do so - their "screwing around" is generally not an indication that they're unhappy with their current relationship - it's just their nature to want to impregnate as many women as possible. Men produce billions of sperm, whereas women typically produce only one egg per month.
Historically, and across all human cultures, polygamy was the norm - i.e., the strongest, most socially dominant men typically had more than one wife, while the "omega males" had none. The opposite situation, where a woman has more than one husband, is vary rare.
In short, the "double standard" arose because men and women are
different. We're not the same, and we typically don't want the same things. As for today's morality, I don't think there should be a double standard, and I certainly don't think anyone should punished in any way merely for having sex, but I do think kids have a right to know who their real father is, and men should never be compelled by law to raise another guy's kid. Maybe better contraceptive technology is the answer.
Most of all, there needs to be some way to stop the rampant spread of STDs - it's already epidemic and totally disgusting and I don't know why nobody talks about this.
Anyone who really likes the "old morality" can become a Mormon, or Amish, or go live in the Middle East, where it is still enforced with great cruelty.
05 Oct 2010, 10:49 pm
