The basic idea is (and yes, this is patched together from a bunch of stuff I've read, I did *not* originate this cold from nothing) that there are 'lovers' and 'fighters', and that the two 'types' go way back to cave days.
I first started thinking about this when reading Clan of the Cave Bear, which posed some interesting extrapolations based (I believe?) on what we 'know' about prehistory - ideas about CroMagnon and Homo Erectus and so on.
I don't remember the details, but the basic premise of the story is that two separate (but similar, and evolving - on parallel tracks?) evolutionary strains of humans, which had been geographically separated during the whole course of their separate evolutions, suddenly come across each other and try to figure out what the heck - power battles, the usual, ensue.
Ugg (my nickname for the shorter, darker, swarthier, less 'intelligent' but more - earth-connected? variety of human) and Nord (the taller, more upright, lighter-skinned and emotionally at a 'higher' [?] developmental level variety) discover that each has a few tricks to show the other, and they wrangle briefly for the upper hand - while Nord has the superior 'intellect' and supposed ability to connect, Ugg has more brute strength, cunning, and, when it comes down to it, a greater need to dominate as well as a greater - demand for loyalty? - from the rest of his 'pack'.
The two end up 'mating', and the offspring are, well - unpredictable.
The usual Russian roulette wheel of chance that runs the whole genetic lottery comes into play and throws out what *seems* to both Ugg and Nord to be a 'deformity'. The child is nearly abandoned, but someone in one of the clans takes pity on it and raises it, and it turns out, of course, to have special 'gifts' that neither of the two strains had heretofore possessed.
Diversity for the win, once again! (Will we understand that before it's too late? Remains to be seen. The human 'mind' seems, often, to *not* provide an evolutionary 'advantage', in the longer term.) Thanks here to Michael Pollan's - documentary? - film called The Botany of Desire, the segment of which tickled this latest train of though into life was the one on apple trees and the magnificent genetic diversity nature produces when left to her own devices and not interfered with. Bountiful cornucopia, indeed! The land of plenty, if only we'd stop fucking it up with stupidity and greed... sad grasshopper face here.
Credit here to other sources of ideas: Ishmael, a novel by Daniel Quinn; The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler. Will list more as they come to mind.
***
Anyway, the main point: If we *are* all just random genetic conglomerations thrown out into the universe by this gigantic bingo spinner Ma Nature has dreamed up, then the diversity Pollan illustrates with his example on the biologically diverse possibilities posed by unfettered cross-pollination of apple trees would seem applicable to humans, too.
Which means: You might get an ‘Ugg’ mind in a Nord body, or vice versa; you might get a nearly pure Ugg *born* to a Nord parent. The possibilities for confusion and ensuing insanity are – overwhelming, to say the least.
Which is why tribe becomes so insanely important: We MUST have a larger pool of options for each and every human to choose from. This ties back into the ‘it takes a village’ idea of child-rearing: The current ‘nuclear family’ model is not only dysfunctional by design – I’d go so far as to say it’s actually destructive, that it literally destroys the fabric of human society by isolating us from our true peers.
***
The other thought I’ve been having is that, to *cope* with the ‘mixmatch’ (yes, that was intentional :-) created by the cross-breeding of two largely incompatible – species? to comply with Nature’s imperative for (drive toward?) genetic diversity
we end up with the ‘left/right’ brain thing. It’s almost a kind of built-in schizophrenia – if *half* of you is Nord, and half Ugg (or some other percentage) – how does the brain cope with competing and/or conflicting drives, desires, perceptions, motivations, etc.?
I can’t remember where I read this – several places, it seems to me, will reference if I can remember them – but that ‘traits’, meaning, personality traits, are not only genetic (to some degree? variable, depending on trait?) but that they also morph - that is, they learn, our genes actually take on the imprint of our surroundings as a survival mechanism. It’s like we’re part chameleon, only at a genetic, cellular level, not just with surface characteristics, behaviors, etc.
The *coping* mechanisms entailed by this kind of random genetic madness are endless. I would say that denial, spin, lying, ‘manipulation’, Ask vs. Guess - *all* of it – are just variations on a theme: How to cope with a world filled with people who look just like us on the outside, but who, underneath? could be *any* of a huge variety of random possible combinations of traits.
Now, I realize this may all seem obvious, but what *wasn’t* obvious to *me* is that, in *spite* of this massive diversity, randomness, what have you – we still seem to *expect* that other people will be just like us.
How fucked up is *that*????
Maybe there’s a strain that didn’t evolve like this, which is why *some* of us are more adaptable, more flexible when it comes to accepting other types of people?
In other words, ‘tribe’ for *some* of us, includes the whole of the human race, and the ‘selections’ we make are based more on personal preference than on attributes such as height, skin color, or other simple, superficial characteristics.
One thing certain Ugg types seem not to ‘get’ is that a woman is not merely a flowerpot full of dirt into which one inserts seed – she’s an actual human being with the same level of genetic diversity represented by Ugg’s lineage. She’s going to produce offspring possessing any of a wildly random assortment of possible combinations, based on the genetic pools the two of you collectively represent.
One of the things *I* struggle with in resolving my internal ‘predator’ (hawk, is how I think of her – whenever I hear a hawk’s high, thin call, I want to be up there circling with her, surveying the landscape from high above) with my internal – what – rabbit???? Not so crazy about *that* image, but it’ll do for now –
- is that the Nord part of me has compassion for Uggs in a way that may be detrimental to my physical, emotional and mental health. Which could explain a *lot*.
I started thinking about all this when ‘typing’ my family – Dad’s a gentle Nord, with a *little* warrior in him, but he’s mostly a Squishy (I keep thinking of different names and haven’t yet landed on a – typology? is that the word I want? Anyway, work in progress.)
He’s squishy in that he’s *physically* non-aggressive – but as a ‘connector’? He kind of sucked. But – on the other hand, he was actually a better Connector, in the long run, than the mu unit – which is why I think his system (emotional) got overtaxed, and he basically died of cancer.
Now, *I* think that with the proper kind of ‘tribe’ or ‘clan’ to spread things out a bit, without the essential ‘dysfunctionality’ of the nuclear family, people like my father would have had other people to turn to outside the ‘family’, and would have survived.
That must be the driver for all these psychological ‘movements’ – the culture (?) as a whole ‘knows’ that it needs to change in order to survive in the long run, and so these little ‘solutions’ keep popping up – self help, consciousness-raising (do people do that any more? Or was that just in the 60s and 70s?), social networking, etc.
***
After this most recent encounter with g, I was thinking about how so *many* men seem to be – conditioned? or is it, maybe, genetic? – to seek submissive women.
I, as a true Nord (or so I like to think – it mostly makes me happy to finally find my ‘type’, not that I think any type is ‘better’ than the other – each has her strengths and weaknesses, and *together*, when things are *working* well – well, I think combining the various types can be *amazing*, fantastic, unbelievable. *Finding* that ‘right’ combination is a whole *’nother* story, though...)
G seemed to like me to a *point* – the point at which I stood up to him too much.
I was reading yet another one of those ‘how to’ stories for women, this particular article was on ‘girlenergy’ vs. ‘boyenergy’ (!?).
It talked, yet a-fucking-gain (I don’t care if I NEVER EVER see this fucking trope EVER again – did I say, EVER????) about the idea that women are supposed to be passive, submissive, receptive, choose your – what – adjective?
She (the author) even went so far as to spell out how she’d basically given up her fucking power as an autonomous female in exchange for the so-called ‘rewards’ of being the possession of some asshole (Note: These are *my* words, not hers, of course – comprehension of the marriage racket is yet beyond me – I still hear ‘protection racket’ echoing in my mind every time I hear some woman willingly (?) submitting to the ‘bonds’ – yes, please *do* make note of the words used, the terminology, the language - it matters.
This is *not* hyper-analyzing – this is Emperor’s New Clothes stuff, stuff we ignore because it’s so pervasive, so ubiquitous, so un-freaking-believeably all-encompassing that we can’t even see it any more. Water we swim in, and all that...)
This writer basically stated outright that you have to give up up being a ‘take charge’ kind of woman if you want to be in a marriage.
Well, blow *that* for a lark. Though I have to say, I know *some* married women (including my sister-in-law) who *seems* to be in charge. But my *brother*’s made some irritating comments that hint that *he* certainly doesn’t see it that way, though he may give lip service to the idea to ‘keep the peace’ in the relationship... dunno. Not sure I’ll ever have the – patience? fortitude? whatever it is that’s needed? – to find out, either.
Ok, massive off-topic side-rant over (maybe? :-)
***
I feel like *I* am part Warrior Queen and part Squishy – I *love* to ‘take charge’, but at the same time I don’t actually need to dominate (which is an important distinction, one I’m wondering if most men are even able to perceive/make/distinguish?)
I want a partner to walk beside - like lioness and lion padding across the veldt, or lolling in the shade with their cubs; like a hawk, I want to circle the skies with my partner, flying free, yet depending on each other for companionship and comfort. Someone to have my back.
***
Possibly related link:
Are You a Connector?
http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/tp_excerpt2.html
***
Not-exactly-related-but-interesting-in-a-tangential-sort-of-way link:
From MetaFilter, Dear Mr. Darwin: How is babby formed?
http://ask.metafilter.com/183878/Dear-Mr-Darwin-How-is-babby-formed#2647078
Quote from user endless_forms, an evolutionary biologist (bolds mine):
Sex is, as you’ve observed, costly, and requires explanation. A popular explanation is that sex begets variation, and variation is good because it gives selection more to act upon [...]The problem with this is that it requires individuals to sacrifice for the benefit of populations. Biologists have known that this basically doesn’t work since shortly after Van Valen proposed it in the 60’s. Also, frankly, variation is often bad. If you’re well-adapted to your environment, why on earth would you want your offspring to be any different from you?***
Well, one observation is that environments change. Therefore, it might be good to have variable offspring just in case the environment is very different from yours. This is called the “Lottery” model of sexual reproduction. Like a good theory, it makes very specific predictions – particularly that sexual reproduction should be found in temporally heterogenous environments, such as high latitudes and high altitudes. However, those are precisely the regions where asex is observed to predominate. An important researcher in the field, Graham Bell, wrote a book on the subject, (The Masterpiece of Nature) where he gathered all the available comparative ecological data. It’s a lovely coherent sensible theory which has been rejected by the data, and is not considered important by researchers in the field. It also has weakness on a mathematical-theoretical level; the kinds, amounts, and timescales of change required seem implausible in real biological situations.
Maybe the ‘solution’ that selection hit upon over time is that women women were socialized to be nurturers, caregivers, caretakers, and those who didn’t were brutally slaughtered.
So over time, genetic memory has it that women will suffer a horrible fate unless *they* sacrifice *themselves* for the ‘good of society’?
Which would explain the whole ‘flower pot’ meme, and why women put up with it: It’s a form of cultural, universal Stockholm syndrome. “Do it or you’ll die, in other words, is, maybe, hard-wired into our genetic encoding?
***
So how do you explain a rebellious, warrior throwback like me? Who’s basically peace-loving, but fierce when roused, very protective of those she loves? Grasshopper the Great to the rescue.
Beams :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment