Feminism. Uncomfortable word for some, I know. And I thought so too, until I took Feminist Theory and Literature (honors-level) at university. I'll say this: Once you read the foundational scholarship yourself and get to know the actual philosophy behind it's early leaders, you'll realize pretty easily that true feminism is unlike the popular notion of man-hating bra burners. It's an intellectual movement at it's core, and is what eventually evolved into Gender Studies, which intersects with race, class, queer, and other
minority studies to be the foundational scholarship for social justice today. 'Gender equality' is the more common, acceptable word used today, but it's just a different brand for the same product.
It's relevant to the ancestral paradigm because feminism is about personal freedom and inherent rights. It's a sociocultural dissection and critique that looks at women AND men. Most notably, it took the idea of gender and defined it against sex (man vs. male). The distinction: I was born a male, but acculturated a man. So gender covers the cultural impact on learned behaviors, not instinctual ones.
And that's why it's important. Today still, we are taught cultural values, norms, and ideals that vie with our nature and limit our freedoms. Acknowledging how culture forms gender might shed light on how your own life can be improved. I think immediately of the He-men out there that don't dance or hug because it's girly, or the anemic standard of female beauty, and the list goes on. Looking at gender from a paleo perspective can make things much more clear.
Urbanization. A good friend of mine introduced me to the concept of 'urban sprawl' and the 'rise of surburbia'. In Europe, urbanization worked out: walkable towns and cities, tight communities. In America, during the age of oil, we constructed our communities around extensive suburbs. Nice to live out by the countryside right? Yeah, 'cept it's not actually the countryside and the 'burbs are anti-social and isolationist by design. Most urban public space serves only to fragment communities.
What can evolution tell us about urban design? We are social creatures that require positive social interaction. Big concrete cities induce psychoses on the cultural level and pollution on the environmental level, which is certainly not the ideal. But small or moderately-sized, tightly-knit, well-designed communities might be a step in the right direction for social well-being.
Gay rights. Whether or not homosexuality occurs in nature is an non-issue from the scientific perspective. Ask any naturalist and the answer is clear. A nearly unanimous: gay happens. (I'm reminded of Stephen Colbert's gay bearorist, ha!) Moreover, this is an issue about freedom. And what is more natural than freedom?
Veganism. Ultimately, everyone wants social justice and environmental restoration. But getting there is gonna take a long look at the facts and the acknowledgement of some admittedly dark truths about reality. We already agree about factory farming and corn subsidies. The detriments of agribusiness are not a far cry. Vegans can totally get on board with respecting nature's harmony and striving to keep balance in the world's ecosystems.
Politics. I'm not gonna take a position here, but this is fascinating. When you think about politics in terms of a vast political spectrum, you get anarchy on one end and socialism on the other. Zero government all the way to pure government. Libertarians would be right next to anarchy (minimal government). This is interesting to me because some paleo leaders are outwardly libertarian, but that seems at first to vie with an evolutionary perspective. If tribes share resources and America is just one big tribe, then socialism would be the paleo model for the modern world.
So why the difference? Perhaps because America is not one big tribe, but millions of little ones. Contemporary culture defines the tribe as the nuclear family (rather than the extended family in the Paleolithic). So in a political sense, we only share resources with our own 'nuclear tribe'. And perhaps libertarianism is a way to make sure government doesn't interrupt that model.
What do you think?
Good stuff, Kevin.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking a lot about the feminist, veg*an, and political angles lately. The urbanization angle is nice twist. I'm still working on my masterpiece synthesizing the Situationist International and evolutionary psychology (that will take decades and be interesting to approximately 8 people on the entire planet). So... I found your inclusion of urbanization to be quite interesting.
I'd be interested to see you break each of these categories out into their own posts.
Ah! I didn't intend to leave out my homosexual homies. The fact that homosexuality is so difficult to explain from an evolutionary standpoint makes it doubly interesting. And I should also point out that it doesn't "have to" have an adaptive evolutionary explanation. The hypothesis about in-vitro effects of the mother's hormones on the fetus are compelling, but I look forward to a more robust theory.
ReplyDeleteWith the agrarian revolution, we had a social surplus, and with it class relations, and social hierarchy - man's "self alienation" would then go on to reach its highest point today, under the rule of capital ('capitalism').
ReplyDeleteNo surprises that I hold to the Marxist view, that the so-called "primitive communist" (hunter gatherer) societies that preceded the agrarian revolution and which reflected man's true, social, nature, will return (or we self destruct), but in a higher form - as in, with full blown communism.
Hmmm...anonymous, there have been social hierarchies since time immemorial--gendered division of labor was the first. The idea that hunter gatherer societies are somehow less hierarchical is a fallacy, but the scale of hierarchy differs. The effects, however, of the simpler division of labor can be far more brutal. Think things like female genital mutilation, women as property, etc., in these types of cultures. It is not some ideal, never was. Yes, agriculture brought increased division of labor, but the idea that it is somehow worse than the latter...hmmm...as a woman, I would tend to disagree. But, only if we are talking in terms of countries which have developed economies and do not consist of labor that is abused for capitalist gains. (hell, it is getting to be like that everywhere, but the alternatives do not seem all that wonderful)
ReplyDeleteSocialization of right handed vs left handed fits into this too.
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