An Etymological Defense of 'Paleo'

'Paleo' has become a word. That much everyone can agree on.

It all went awry when it became a brand-philosophy. Suddenly, you had 'Ancestral'(?) thought leaders drawing arbitrary lines in the sands of progress. The movement that I had come to recognize as a loosely cohesive, diverse, and burgeoning discipline that was going to shed light on the true nature of our species and do the hard work of interpreting possible or even optimal manifestations of that truth, suddenly became a colleague-bashing, factional display of ego. There were all these people who wanted to interpret evolution in healthy debate about health -- yes, this is important -- but not wanting to participate in a cult brand or pseudo-philosophy.

So some of them disparage the word, avoid the word altogether, or even smite the logic of the word, all without offering a linguistic alternative. I'm not really here to judge the way that unfolded. I'm here to defend the simple use of the term 'paleo'. Not the brand, just the useful manipulation of an element of language.

Whether paleo-ancestral-primal-archevore-evolutionary-etc., the word 'paleo' has become a part of my vocabulary, and it will stay that way for one reason: it's useful.

When I look at my girlfriend and ask, "Is this paleo?" She knows exactly what I mean. I don't need to go into the intricacies of ratios and toxins and cooking methods and packaging. She knows exactly what I mean, and it has little to do with Cordain's Paleo Diet.

When I ask, "Is this paleo?" what I mean is, "Is this food natural to the human diet in evolutionary terms and healthful according to the general standards of ancestral health experts?"

There really is no other word that can accomplish that. It is a word rife with meaning and subtlety and complexity -- dare I say beauty -- and cannot be replaced. It has become the cutting edge of health language. The words before it, words like "organic" and "whole" and "natural" have been rendered obsolete in my eyes, because they have been captured in a word's simple evolutionary perspective. Phrases like 'all-natural feedlot beef' and 'organic whole wheat pasta' are an ancient useless language.

'Paleo' is a word that emerged from the ashes of ideological fragmentation, stronger and more comprehensive than before, and should be regarded as such.

Overcoming Nature Part II: Attraction and Marriage

Let's think primitively about the initial stages of love (and some of the mechanisms of attraction):

Step 1: Woman makes herself attractive (tight clothes, short skirts, make up, cleavage).

Step 2: Man is attracted, chases woman, makes himself attractive (dates, confidence, humor, pheromones(?)).

If attraction is developed by both parties in the initial stages of a relationship, much deeper and significant things happen. They discover common interests and passions. They develop trust and companionship. They find intimacy and love. You know, it gets all Disney and shit. (Well, not for long, some will argue.)

My beef with modern culture -- and one of the ways in which modern culture does not differ from the natural model -- is that we still play this simple game. I'm not saying that this 'game' is necessarily bad -- I'm just saying that this game can be played better.

Some degree of minimal attraction is necessary in order to tumble down the rabbit hole of love, but not much. We can be more strategic about the things we value in others from those initial points of attraction. Shouldn't men be chasing women with traits that are 'good' but outside the realm of biological attraction? Shouldn't women? Maybe it already is.

Also, the model itself can be -- and is -- manipulated at its most basic (e.g. man makes himself attractive, woman chases man). At some point, there must be attraction and an agent, someone who makes moves.

'Playing' this game all depends on individual goals. Men wanting sex will play a different strategy than men wanting marriage, for instance. And women wanting sex will...get it no matter the strategy it seems.

What has been called the 'cult of monogamy' is certainly at odds with human nature. We seem to be good at attracting and reproducing, bad at sticking it out 'til death (marriage). To some degree, there is a sense of duty and obligation to lover, family, community, and/or society that may transcend the natural compulsions of others or even some in the 'cult of monogamy' beyond religious indoctrination; that is, 'I owe it to society to stick this boring marriage out and raise this family in a stable household'. So then, why not? Why not choose the path to societal stability?

Boredom, for one. If the meaning of life is a healthy society, I might yawn while sort of agreeing. But can't that just be one goal among many? Is it even possible to balance the natural compulsions of the human animal with the communal obligation of the human being? Maybe we have already.

The modern 'cult of serial monogamy plus paramour' seems to match the ancient 'evolutionary model' to a surprising degree. Can it be that, for many, our natural compulsions are simply too strong to withstand? Has society evolved its norms and conventions in the direction of nature, all thanks to feminism?

I'll let you answer that.

Overcoming Nature Part 1: the Alpha Male

Sometimes I wonder how individuals draw the line in their evolutionary lifestyle, and I realize that within the philosophy there are all kinds of different conclusions about how to live wild in the modern world. Some climb trees, some still hit the gym. Some eat potatoes, some don't eat tomatoes. Some run marathons, and some do marathon wine drinking. It's a rich and varied world out there, folks.

Others have emphasized the silliness of historical re-enactment, but it's worth reiterating, because I wanna take the idea one step further, to culture. Much of the talk about what's good or bad about the paleolithic model tends to center around diet and exercise, but there are some profound ways that we are, well, being douchebags to each other. And yes, it's bad to be a douchebag. In smart people terms, there are identifiable natural mechanisms at work that detract from human potential and general human goodness. I think it's worth calling them out and playing them down.

Status Seeking

We are hard-wired for thinking about nearly everything hierarchically. Paleoanthropology touts the 'alpha male' model, where male hierarchy is formed by "a mixture of strength, hunting skills, and force of personality" (Bond 203), which leads to the alpha male designation.

In short, we want on a biological level to feel smart, strong, influential, and successful. But since everything is relative, this really just means that we want to be better than others around us. We want a better house, a more beautiful wife, a nicer car; in all, better status relative to others and especially to our own social network. These natural compulsions translate into careerism, wealth accumulation, selfishness, and so on -- all of which are 'totally natural' in evolutionary bro-wisdom.

So why's that bad? It may not be. There may be people out there being true to themselves by stepping on toes and that's all good. But there's a lot of unhappy people out there chasing goals they barely understand without ever questioning why they want those things to begin with, or whether the world and they themselves would be better off without those goals.

Introducing: The Douchebag Alpha

Ever meet a guy with an alpha male complex? I'm sure you have. He's the guy that gives orders like he's the boss, interrupts you while talking, rarely smiles, has to beat you at everything, doesn't share with others. You know the type. If you're a woman, you might 'naturally' be attracted to his confidence and social standing (more on this to come in the next blog post). If you're a man, you might respect him in that I'm-not-sure-I-like-or-fear-this-guy kind of way. But if you're astute to the ridiculous game he is playing, then you know the truth -- that objectively, this person is a douchebag.

I know where this discussion is headed. "But hey, it's only natural for a group of people to need to follow someone who can unify the group and take decisive action." Yes, but that's called leadership. Perhaps there may be a fine line between a leader and an alpha-douche. I mean to point out the difference between the two.

5 Things I Hate About Alpha Males

That fratitude. After coming of age, it shouldn't take long to figure out what is cool, and what is uncool. Or what life is about. So stop giving me your I-Am-Hunter face and be real for a second.

False leadership. A circle of friends is no place for a one-man cheerocracy. Take the thoughts, feelings, and ideas of others into account before acting like you run the show.

The motives. The respect? The status? All the girls? Grow the f*ck up.

It's obvious. I bet some men think they are sooo clever playing 'cocky-funny' to girls and sticking their chest out.

It's annoying. In fact, being alpha is bad for everyone, including the alpha. And check this out too.

Thoughts?

Revisiting Human Evolution: Part 2

In Part 1 I went over how reproduction is at the heart of evolution in order to clear up any misconceptions about what evolution means for the modern lifestyle. Now I'd like to turn to an equally important and foundational topic that will further what evolution means for our bodies.

The Human Timeline

A lot of dates get thrown around about our hunter-gatherer past. I want to tackle this topic strategically, so I'll start with the most conservative interpretation first. This is from Geoff Bond's Deadly Harvest:

We have our humanlike beginnings with East African Homo erectus over 1,000,000 years ago. Out of that population, Homo sapiens arose and existed for 190,000 years before leaving Africa about 60,000 years ago. This period, from over 1,000,000 years ago to 60,000 years ago is critical—it is our formative era. It is the time when the African environment forged the bodies that we possess today...

Geologists have a convenient, often-used epoch for this approximate time period—the Pleistocene, which runs from 1,600,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago. However, I want to conclude the formative era earlier, at about 60,000 years ago. Since our ancestors spent this time entirely in Africa, I will call this critical formative era the “African Pleistocene.”

Now, you might be thinking that this time period ignores a huge chunk of significant history, but I want to highlight the importance of this message. This was a long time that a relatively small number of humans -- all of them -- evolved in a relatively small corner of the world. Many conditions were relatively stable throughout this million-year period compared to what happened to our species after the African Pleistocene, 60,000 years ago, when we left Africa and spread slowly throughout the rest of the world. The takeaway: our species is a tropical one whose homeland was a small pocket of Africa in what is now Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. Bond's "formative era" is the most indisputable core of human history that cannot be nit-picked or challenged. This is why it's worth noting before moving on to a more moderate, but still significant, timeline.

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution dates humans according to the genus Homo, starting with Homo habilis. This is the 2.4 million year number that you've probably heard. Homo habilis had a slightly different physique more adapted to tree climbing, due to its tree-dwelling ancestor, Australopithecines. The takeaway: habilis used stone tools, foraged plants, and scavenged animal foods. That's right, we ate paleo two and a half million years ago.

Now lets talk about the time period after the African Pleistocene, 60,000 to 10,000 years ago. This was the time when our species left Africa and spread over the world, entered new geographies and climates, and saw some degree of differentiation, what we now call 'race'. While there was a great deal of differentiation in terms of adaptation to climate/environment, many important things stayed the same, but I'd like to highlight two: our hunter-gatherer diets and the physical movements necessary for survival. Thus, throughout all of human history in the Paleolithic we ate specific types of foods and performed specific types of natural movements all the way up to the agricultural revolution (the Neolithic).

So hopefully now you can recognize a million-year core of indisputably formative human history, but also the preceding million and a half years and how that's relevant, and finally the tumultuous 50,000 years before the agricultural revolution and how that doesn't contradict diet or exercise either.

Revisiting Human Evolution: Part 1

I've noticed some arbitrary dates and misconceptions about evolution being thrown around, and I admit that I've done so myself during heated discussions with Paleolithic nay-sayers. Make no mistake: evolution and ancient human history are the linchpins of the modern paleo lifestyle philosophy. The foundational science must be indisputable; more importantly, it must be clearly understood by its adherents, who are the ambassadors for the cause. The paleo lifestyle is only as legitimate as the rationale that flows from its foundational science.

This may seem like a trifling distinction from what is already known, but people in both the paleo and vegan camps hold false notions. There is the ridiculous notion held by some people that one day we humans can evolve into pure vegetarians if we would just eat veggies for an eon or two. I've also heard paleo leaders state that we haven't yet evolved to eat grains, because it's too new to our diets. This line of thought displays a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution. Allow me to demonstrate why we will never evolve into vegetarians, and why we will never develop the ability to fully tolerate Neolithic foods.

Reproduction and the Phenomenon of Random Variation

Consider siblings. They come from the same genetic heritage, but have vastly different genetic expressions. My own brother is taller and heavier and has much lighter skin than I do. This is pretty easy to understand. Genes vary slightly in the offspring of all species, and that variation is random. This is true for all life on earth, even bacteria.

The reason that a species changes over time (evolves) is because certain small variations give certain genes an advantage at reproducing. To be clear, the 'success' or 'strength' of a gene depends entirely on it's ability to reproduce, and to reproduce at a higher frequency.

So unless meat-eating genes cause certain death before sexual maturity (reproduction), natural human vegetarians will never exist. And since grain consumption does not affect rates of human reproduction, those celiac genes won't disappear either.