Why Modern Man is such a Hopeless Fucking Dope.

I'm probably not alone in observing that modern man doesn't really hold up much of a candle when compared to the likes of the old heroes - Beowulf strips down to his tattoos and single handedly boots Grendel's arse back into his mother's crevice, Achilles hacks off arms without breaking a sweat; hell, even James Bond still manages to kick some butt despite having being made to put a lid on the sexist remarks and grow a fledgling social conscience.

Even if we take off the rosey-tinted sunglasses with respect to the past of man, and admit that for every Beowulf in a society there were a couple of hundred thousand wannabes who didn't know which end of a sword was which, couldn't hold their mead and lost fights with their wives, that still leaves an unexplained gap in modern society where some hyper-testosteroned epitomy of broad-shoulded masculinity should be. I mean, name a modern true-blue, unequivocal HERO, without stain or tarnish..?

So what happened..? Did the collective male population of the West just get up one morning and just say to themselves: "Fuck it, I'm gonna wear the pink one." ..? Did the feminists slyly Bobbit the whole lot of us while we were sleeping..? Something in the water..? Other..?

I think it's a double whammy - a combo of Human nature on the one hand - the simple consequences of being a social animal projected through time, added to the recursive effects of techno/socio-economic evolution.

The trouble is, our archetypes make themselves redundant: The classic warrior, the conqueror phenotype, if he follows his nature successfully - and creates a safer world in which his children may prosper - becomes inevitably the 'inventor/creator' of a society in which a lesser example of the extreme he himself represents can succeed. And in doing so, becomes obselete, becomes more than enough, surplus to requirement. Imagine a knight in full armour, toting a 5-foot broadsword, getting on the bus to go to work. Okay, I suppose he'd be guarrenteed a seat, but then chivalry would demand he relinquish it to the nearest damsel.

Is he then, not to fight..? Not to struggle to tame his enviroment..? Despite this knowledge that after the act of taming, of stabillization, he will remain a dangerous relic - the one sword yet to become a ploughshare..?

Not really a choice is it, if he doesn't, someone else will.

Stable societies arising from a long enough 'peace' are self-fulfilling prophecies, for, after the dust has settled, only they persist.

So - Man will always spiral gently into less extreme forms, and women safer, less at threat in this brave but less muscle-requiring new world, will free themselves from the cloister and expand, unfurl their wings. The socio-sexual delineations will blur.

Just as a shell is the bio-technological extention of the snail, and the dam and the lake it creates is the phenotypic extension of the beaver - the car or the gun is equally the extention of the human. In short, for the human species, technological evolution is just as natural, if a little speedier, as genetic evolution.

We are the tool-making apes, take away our hammers, and you take away our humanity.

The archetype of the human inventor, just as the conquerer, is also an almost unwitting intermediary in the progression of technological evolution, and if he does his job well, also sows the seeds of his own era's redundancy, as strength of arm gives way to projectile, fleetness of foot gives way to speed of hoof, and later turn of tyre.

ie: The [technological] levelling of the sexes, with regard to physicality, is a natural outcome of being human. A side-effect almost, of man's natural instinct to augument his - and her - physical capabilities. It was always going to happen, it was just a matter of time.

Technology has tamed the lands where we could not live, or tamed/exterminated those who would not allow us to live there, at the price, if you wish to put it that way, of taming us in turn.

Domestication. Domesticate. Domicile. Domus. House.

We made the world as comfortable as our lounge, not too many sharp-edges, an air-conditioner in every room... Is it any wonder we grew fat and slothful, and let the kids get out of hand..?

But how true is it to say that modern man is a bit of a wimpy big girl’s blouse, and that women are now wearing the pants, having supplanted the male..? Is modern man any less of a man that he used to be..?

It's [far too] easy here, to try to define what attributes and behaviours are 'male' and which are 'female' to give us some footing from which to pass judgement on the degrees of masculinity and femininity that are displayed in the populace of our post-Beowulf society.

So easy in fact it's almost irresistable. And as such serves only to cloud the issue and polarize it's exponents.

A man in a dress is either Scottish, or a drag queen. He is still a man. A man on oestrogen therapy, with breasts and fat depositry patterns in imitation of the female, is still a man. A man who goes further still, and voluntarily has himself castrated, and has reconstructive surgery again to closer imitate the female, is still not a woman.

• All attributes are genderless.
  

My first doubts occurred when I observed children, prior to the differentiating tide of adolescent hormones: They are, apart from the budding genatalia, much the same, in physique and physical capability, as eachother. The games they play are different, but this is a consequence of nurture perhaps, re-inforcing what genetic tendency there may be, of social programming and segregation. However, the behaviors are the same. Little girls jump, little boys jump. Little girls run, little boys run. Little girls play with dolls, little boys play with dolls (abeit ones with scars and guns). Little girls fight, little boys fight, sometimes they fight together.

Most if not all young childrens' games involve co-operative play. They are learning to use their bodies, improving coordination, and learning to act as a group, to achieve a collective goal. Individualistic games, tennis and the like, come later. Come, later and un-naturally if I may go so far.

For children, a little boy on his own, is a sad boy. A little girl on her own, is a sad girl.

ie: Group action and co-operation, is the natural norm for both sexes of the species, not a consequence of some techno-driven social behemoth.

Now, what social strategies do male and female children learn and employ with regard to getting what they want from the adults around them..? Direct confrontation..? No. Rugged individualism..? No. Wheedling, sneaking, coniving, manipulative-play-one-off-against-the-other tactics..? Oh yes. Yes, yes,yes,yes,yes.

ie: Social skills are naturally learned first, by both sexes.

Then comes the change. You know the drill. Bottom line, little boys become stronger and more aggressive than little girls. So, at this stage, the lines of development that for so long ran fairly parallel, separate. Girls continue to learn, develop and polish their childish social (and now also sexual) skills: to influence and gain influence/dominance within a social group into the more mature forms of adulthood.

The boys however, swing away from the development of these skills, to learn how to use, and more importantly control, the new found tools of strength and aggression: to influence and gain influence/dominance within a social group into the more mature forms of adulthood.

ie: the methods may differ, but the goals are the same.

Please note: this diversion of skill-development has this natural result: when an adolescent stops physically changing, and reaches the stable plateau of adulthood, a man is deffeicient in the arena of social/sexual skills when compared with the average woman, and a woman is defficient in the skills of physicality when compared with the average man.

However, whilst strength is an attribute associated with the male. The attribute itself, is genderless. Whilst socio/sexual-manipulation is an attribute associated with the female, The attribute itself, is genderless.

ie: Any woman, if she chooses, may lift heavy things until she can beat the living shit out of Joe Average. Any man, if he chooses, may learn to orate rings around Jane Average. The fact that the upward limit on strength is slightly higher for the male, is inconsequential, unless that male actually persues that limit to its utmost.

ie: strength as a quality, has no intrinsic gender:

- I lift the wife up, say 50 kilos.
- I build a robot, it lifts the wife up, and the baby up too, say 75 kilos.

The machine is stronger than I.

And yet the machine is not a woman, nor a man.

All behavioural strategies are genderless.

In my car, speeding along, I was wondering why the terms 'masculine' gambit/strategy/tactic and 'feminine' gambit/strategy/tactic seemed wrong somehow. This dichotomy bothered me.

Was it a false dichotomy, I wondered. Are there some exclusively male strategies, some exclusively female strategies and whole bunch of in-betweenies..? Genderless..? Available and usable by both sexes, without the baggage of implicit 'femininization' or 'masculinization'.

So I tried to think of a strategy that was completely usable only by a man, or only by a woman.

I failed. They are all, in essence, interchangable.

That surprised me. Then I realaized why.

The flaw lies in the operation of putting the adjective 'Feminine' or the adjective 'Masculine' next to the noun 'Strategy'. They look good together, I'll admit, and that's the problem, they look so fitting, that they decieve.

What is a strategy..?

It is a set of behaviors and actions, undertaken in a fairly strict order, to produce a result, be it at the expense of another or not, always beneficial to the undertaker of the strategy, accordant with their personal criteria.

ie: Action towards desire.

ie: Genderless in essence.

* Though any particular strategy can be instigated and followed through by a male or a female - the successful outcome of this strategy is linked to their individual abillities in the areas relevant.

* A strategy, the success of which is reliant mainly on strength/aggression, will become associated with masculinity, as it is the averagely stronger males who will tend to adopt it through repeated experience. The strategy itself however, as a program of behavior, remains genderless.

* A strategy, the success of which is reliant mainly on social/sexual manipulation, will become associated with femininity, as it is the averagely more socially adept females who will tend to adopt it through repeated experience. The strategy itself however, as a program of behavior, remains genderless.

* Therefore, a male, adopting a strategy/behavioral pattern, the success of which has been previously associated, however exclusively, with the female, does not in reality, become in any way feminized.

* Therefore, a female, adopting a strategy/behavioral pattern, the success of which has been previously associated, however exclusively, with the male, does not in reality, become in any way more masculine.

* The idea that the current social/technological conditions favour the adoption of strategies dependent for their success on skills of traditionally associated with, but not exclusive to, femininity, somehow 'feminizes' the male, is simply a deception of shoddy phrasing.

Let us have an example. Let's make it reasonably modern.

Aim. Get some food (from the supermarket).

Options:

Strategy: Walk to the supermarket.

A man can walk. A woman can walk. Walking is a genderless strategy. Both sexes walk at a pace governed by their physical fitness, and the sensibleness of their foot and leg-wear. Spike-heels will slow you down. As will enormous great biker-boots. But walking is physical. So should we call walking a 'Masculine' strategy perhaps..? Perhaps not.

Strategy: Persuade someone else to get it for you.

Here, let's differentiate wildly.

Sub-strategy: Sexual wiles. Bat your eyes at the nearest person, and say "Look - if you go get me some food, I may consider sleeping with you..."

Sub-strategy: Threat. Bunch your fists at the nearest person and say "Look - if you don't go and get me some food, I'll find you, and beat you to a pulp."

There are variables external to the individual (the size and strength of the other, the attractiveness and sexual orientation of the other), but still, obviously, these are two sub-strategies that have clear associations with the sexes. And the outcome on average is likely to be biased according to the sex of the individual.

But, and it's a big but, both can be attempted by either sex. The actual strategy is not limited to a specific sex. The actual strategy is genderless.

If it's a female wreastler with a bad temper doing the threatening, the strategy has a fair likelyhood of succeeding.

If it's a member of the latest rave boy-band doing the batting, the strategy has a fair likelyhood of succeeding.

So, in summation, given a set of strategies, wether these strategies are social and group-orientated, or individualistic and agressive in nature, undertakable toward a subjectively desired goal, an individual choosing to adopt such, or indeed 'forced' by the current social climate into adopting such, does not diminish or exaggerate their gender.

Men remain men. Women remain women.

Men and women, to succeed, adapt.

Humans adapt.

So, where are we..? At least in my mind, I am sufficiently convinced that our modern-man is not in reality literally feminized (except possibly by all the waste oestrogen floating around in the water-table) by the Western social morés we have today.

This however does leave me with a quandry... If the {forced} adoption of social strategies more usually associated with the female of the species is not to blame... Why is modern man such a confused gibbering heap..?

Allow me to present:

Why Modern Man is such a Hopeless Fucking Dope.

Please allow me a little room for inane generalizations. If it's any help, I am a man, and therefore do have some clue about it.

Man. Man in general is a simple creature. He likes things to be ordered. he likes his catagories, heirarchies and pecking orders, to be relatively inflexible, or at least, predictively flexible. He likes answers, more than questions. He likes the things he has fixed, to stay fixed. He likes procedure, lists of things to be done, and ticks next to each of these stages, signifying that these things have been completed. He likes to have concrete truths, to build on. Things to take for granted. Loose ends niggle and jiggle in his brain and drive him crazy.

Well, at least, they do me.

The trouble with being a man in these modern times, is that no-one tells you when it happens:

"Hey you..! - Yes you boy, you're a man now. Congratulations, here's a badge and can you sign here please...?"

Doesn't happen. At least not in the West. The West has systematically disposed of, derrided, called into question, erroded or otherwise rendered indefinitive every ritual, every rite of passage, every way for a 'man' to become, without an jot of self-doubt or question in his heart, a MAN.

Let's look at how it used to be done.

Biological. - The hairs on your balls. I can't remember exactly, but I think I got my growth-spurt around 13-14, and a set of hairy jiggly bits a little later. My voice went up and down, and finally settled into a distinctly male bass. (Smoking helps with this one kids. )

ie: mid-teens, with the process drawing to its close round about the greatly heralded 18 years of age. All fine and dandy. "I'm 18, I can vote, I've got hairy balls - I'm a man..."

However these days, with the advent of nutritional awareness concerning childrens' diets, a myriad of supplements, children are going through adolescence to become fully sexually mature at increasingly earlier ages. I think the record for child-pregnancy is 9 in the UK. At a guess, I'd say that puts male adolescence around what..? 10..? 11..? 12..?

"Hmm - I've got hairy balls, but I still like cartoons and only just stopped believing in Santa-Claus. Am I... Am I a man..?"

Virginity. - The whole sex thing. To cut a long and hopefully obvious story short, virginity in the west used to be a thing that was assumed to be the normal condition for the majority the young - and, as such, being a virgin carried less stigma than it does today. In the UK, though something not exactly bandied about casually, retaining your virginity into your mid-to-late teens was nothing particularly shaming. The average 'deflowerment' age for the male was again, roughly in line with the age of consent, and the institutional age of adulcy.

ie: back in the day:

" 'Ere, Phil-mate, I ONLY FUCKIN' DID IT LAST NIGHT DIDN'T I..!!!" Slap back, shake hand - Welcome to the world of men.

But these days, well shit, if you didn't lose it at 12, preferably to your 22 year old baby-sitter and her friend at the same time... You're nothing.

Hence you hide it. You brazen it out. "Yeah, course I dun it 'aven't I - d'yer fink amma a puff or summin'..?" says one 13 year old boy to another.

But then, having lied for so long, whenever he finally does 'lose it' he finds there is no-one to tell. He can't tell the girl he's with, because well, being a slapper*, she might get off with his best friend next week, and tell him. He can't tell his mates, because they'll look puzzled, and say "But Terry, I thought you said you lost it to that Russian chick on holiday when you were 12..?" So he finds he has to hide it again. What should be celebrated as a rite of passage, becomes a guilty little secret. Something to be ashamed of. 'Jeeze - I didn't shag a bird until I was 17 for fuck's sake - what kind of man am I..?'

*because nice girls still don't put out, at least in the teenie mindset - ergo, she must be.

[Note: In Turkey it is uncommon, but not unknown, for a father to hire a prostitute for his son when that son reaches the age of consent. Also, an even less common, but again, not completely discontinued, tradition was the hire a "practice bride" for a month before the real wedding... To get the groom 'used' to married life. Not sex particularly, but how to treat a wife, what to expect her to do, and not do etc. ]

Circumcision, and other trails of the knife: In many cultures, wether dubbed by the West as primitive or not, there still exist rituals and rites of manhood. All manner of scarrings, tattooings, tooth-chippings, piercings, hangings, impalings etc. In Turkey it is circumcision. "No big deal" you say, admiring your tanned bell-end, and that is exactly the problem, in the West, it is no big deal.

But in Turkey, it is a very big deal indeed. Second only to marriage. The kid, between the ages of 7 to 10, gets decked out like a walking Christmas tree, and paraded round the town village or city in an open-topped car, or on a horse, or in the East, a camel. Finally outside the house, in the street, the men (and the boy) dance the Harmandela, the dance of men, which the child has been practicing for weeks, and money is pinned onto his robes. Sometimes quite a lot of money.

Then, in a specially-decorated room in the house, on a bed covered in white silk, all the women are ushered out, and the men of the family, the local Imam, and the Sünnetci (qualified for the chopping) gets down to business. A local anaesthetic may or may not be applied, and then... snip. The boy struggles not to cry. The boy's father lifts him up and proclaims to heaven his son is a man. The Imam sanctifies events and seals the ritual.

Boy becomes man. Or at least puts one foot firmly and irrevocably on the road to manhood.

In the West - Little boys compare cocks in the urinals... "Hey, where's your hoody thing..?" "Hoody thing..? Fuck knows - I've never had one."

Clothes: "Clothes maketh the man" they used to say before it became both socially and fashionably unfashionable. Remember little boys and short trousers..? Probably not. I felt pretty damn grown up when I first wore my long-trousers to school somewhere around 12. And my first suit..? Oh-yeah. I'm a man now. Okay - I'm kidding a little. But the fact remains that these days there is no real distinction in dress between young and old, boy and man. Jeans and a Tee-Shirt, de-riguer. Everybody dresses young, everyone, for some reason, dresses poor.

Work: Man goes to work. Your first job used to be a swinging away from your childhood, and a sudden immersion into the hard and sweaty world of manhood. Grim-faced, ham-fisted men lifting heavy shit around, patrician figures scratching marks on ledgers and weighing out other men's fortunes in their gnarled hands. Nowadays, well, you're usually sitting next to Vera, who's not only better than you at the computer-bashing business, but has probably been set to train you up to standard.

From: "Arrr - We'll be 'avin no slackers 'round 'ere boy, lift till yer break yer spine..!"

To: "Hello deary, you couldn't make us a cuppa could you poppet..?"

Nuff said.

Trial by Combat: My Dad had WWII, my Grandad had WWI. War - a sure-fire, never-miss, "become a man or die like a dog" scenario.

Being in a situation of heart stopping terror for a 'just' cause, with a weapon in your hands, someone else's blood on your jacket, and compatriots' lives depending on you will go a long way toward burying the child and exhaulting the man. Wether we like it or not, killing an enemy of the tribe in reasonably fair or at least universally sanctioned combat has always been a signifier of passage into manhood.

Call me black and white, but WWII was the last completely 'morally' justifiable war, with a clear, overpowering, and thoroughly 'evil' opponent.

Vietnam. Yah. The Falklands. Hmm. The Gulf. Kinda. The Gulf II. Oil.

Yes-yes, not as simple as that I know. But essentially still not exactly conflicts in which you can put your hands on your hearts and say were completely snow-white in motive. A WWII veteran's conscience sleeps more easily than that of a Desert Stormer.

Anyway, you could say I suppose that a dangerous occupation goes some way toward providing a substitute for trial by combat - for example: Policeman. Dangerous yes, but no-one likes policemen. Fireman. Manhood at the price of getting burned to death is not all boys' (or their mothers') cup of tea. Lots of jobs have elements of danger yes, but no universal and compulsary trail-by-combat avenue is existant in modern society. Beyond a fight or two at school.

To recap before moving toward a conclusion: -

The current level of social/technological (I don't think you can really separate the two) development has rendered largely useless the traditionally masculine, purely physical/aggression-based strategies of social behavior, closing the male/female divide. And putting the male at a slight, but not irrecoverable disadvantage, as he has to firstly 'unlearn' or repress the redundant tactics of refined aggression aquired in adolescence, and secondly, catch up to the female in the tactics of socio/sexual manipulation.

Now, add to this handicap the observation that the traditional social markers of manhood have been dissolved, and that the biological change into adulcy now comes so early that it is out of sync. with the psychological change from boy into adolescent/adult and you get a horrible mess.

"Am I a man..? Or a boy in a business-suit..?" Something echoed in modern fiction - not constantly perhaps, but certainly often enough.

(I have not presumed to understand the processes of womanhood. I will only say that I believe girls suffer a simular nebulousness regarding their psychological status as woman).

ie: The errosion of traditional gender roles is an ongoing subtext in the societies of the US, the UK, and Western Europe - And if I was going to blame anyone or anything, I'd blame economics, and its henchman - the mass media.

In times of conflict and uncertainty, (capitalist) economic forces emphasize the production of materiél for consumption external to the host society, rather than within. ie. Weapons/supplies. To promote this end it uses the available media to encourage society to 'tighten its belts' - to ignore current (group) hardships for the long-term goal of social re-stabillization, and peace.

However, after a prolonged period of peace, this equation reverses. The Capitalist system, to preserve 'growth' begins to emphasize production for internal consumption by the host society. And again, to promote this, it uses available media to encourage society to 'loosen its belts', to focus on current percieved (individual) hardships, to ignore long-term goals, for short-term satisfactions.

Note: I'm not anthromorphosizing the capitalist system. This process is not a minded thing. It's just a whole bunch of separte people and organizations refining and tweaking the parts of a whole that they cannot see, or at least it does not profit them to see.

This process of manipulating society into a mind-set favourable to consumption is far-reaching and pervasive. A few extrapolations:

- Communal activities are unfavourable to consumption. From a capitalist POV, it is better for everyone to have one of everything, than to share one big one. Think cinema/home cinema. To achieve this state, it becomes necessary to discourage people from going out. Think about the general climate of fear in the USA, and to an extent in the UK too. Is it real..? Or exaggerated..? (However it is just as important for its perpetuity that this fear is not one that can be faced, and overcome. Hence these media-promoted fear objects are at once pervasive but not tangible - 'terror' what does that actually mean..? Where is it..?)

- Selfishness is to be promoted. Do it yourself, don't do it free-gratis for others. Let them buy the things they need to help themselves, themselves.

- Separation of communities into individuals. The conversion of houses into castles, to keep the (imaginary) enemies outside the gates. Locks, alarms, guns, CCTV, security agencies, insurance... All lucrative trades.

- Epicurianism, the easiest way to control a person is to control the availability of his or her vices. And civil control is always a factor in the governance of a peacetime society, without an definitive enemy outside, the herd may begin to see the horns of those in power... To this end, more pastimes for play must be created, more gadgets, more addictions. "Work hard. Play hard my children." A stoic is hard to control because he or she affords the would be controller little leverage in terms of material possessions.

I could go on, but you're smart people, you can see other ramifications for yourselves. Basically - Conflict economy requires unity of society, Peacetime economy, separation.

But - perhaps to the question of gender roles in society the most important is...

- Unisexuality. From a captalist POV it is better to be able sell all products, perhaps in different packaging, to both sexes, for the widest possible market. And since the greatest difference between the sexes is physical, this is the difference that needs to be adressed. Hence the current bodytype trends for the male, well groomed, hairless, thoroughly moisturized, young-looking.

To cut a long story short, and because my wife wants to use the computer (damn this equal society!!!), the thrust of media, to promote consumption is to manipulate psychologically both men and women into a prolonged juvenile state.

Being old is bad. Looking old is worse.

Don't listen to the old. They know nothing of value .

Enough is okay. More than enough is better.

Don't plan ahead. You have credit. You deserve it now.

Your own needs are prime. Screw the common good.

Don't share. Be selfish. You worked hard for it. Why should you..?

Mine. Mine. Mine. Me. Me. Me.

All fine childish traits.

Anyone opening a fashion magazine will note the hairless 'juvenile' male phenotype is favoured now. Perhaps they will also note that the current female phenotype favoured is also juvenile: tall (ie. of a height roughly equal to average male - reminiscent of pre-adolescence), willowy - without the pronounced voluptuousness of a mature female - a tom-boy.

In conclusion - It is my main assertion that Western man, and Western Woman, rather than being feminized, or indeed masculinized by the current social climate, are simply suspended in a state of psychological neoteny.

Their bodies change just as they have always done, if at an accelerated rate, into the adult form, their minds however, do not. They cannot.

They remain juvenile.

Neither sex has an external reference point with which to objectively judge their maturity. No rites of passage. A fall-back to juvenile behavior is without stigma in society, because no-one can tell the difference anymore.

Social/technical level renders the male and female equal again, just as they were in childhood.

Media, driven by capitalist market forces, actively promotes a juvenile, selfish/consumptive mind-set, and indirectly lobbies against stoic maturity.

As Nietzche opined - "That which does not kill you makes you stronger." ie: development through hardship. This is nothing new - The tarot card 'Death' is not actually a bad card (the 9, or 10 of swords, is much worse).

To the tarot - death equates with change. With growth. The death of the child and of childish things and the emergence of the adult form.

Where, in peacetime, in a welfare society, is death..? Where in the time of medical technology and insurance, is true pain..? Where in the time of psychotherapy and faked talk-show chest-beating, is anguish..?

Humans have succeeded too well. In removing pain and death and loss and anguish from everyday life, we have also removed the footholds we used to use to pull ourselves up from childhood into maturity.

The consequences of our actions or inactions are no longer, at least in the overwhelming majority, lethal/life-threatening.

Look at interactions on internet forums if you wish an extreme example. In this medium, no injury can result from an individual's actions: The result, juvenile squabbling, name-calling, pettiness, and a degree of insult that in the real world, would carry the danger of grevious bodily harm being inflicted.

Juvenilia.

The nanny-state intercedes to save us from sloth with welfare. It pre-empts and forbids acts that carry high failure rates - except in the format of 'extreme sports' which are marketable - and generally attempts to suck life free of all risk/danger. It pre-masticates our available experiences into baby-food.

Stoicism is at an all time low. We are all happy little epicurean children playing with our toys within the enfolding arms/walls of society. Unable to leave, unwilling to grow.

Boy looks like man, but is not.

Girl looks like woman, but is not.

Modern Man is not feminized, but juvenile.

Modern Woman is not masculinized, but juvenile.

Now... Who's for milk and cookies..?

...Continued...

As Below, So above.

Back in the eighties, when I was young, and dumb, and dressed in black, not to mention still a virgin, I studied the occult - mainly with the extremely optimistic aim of majicking some poor cow's undies down.

Needless to say, though I learned the tetragrammaton, and all the sephiroth, and all the meanings of the Aleister Crowley tarot deck, it didn't work. Then I discovered that five pints of lager and a good song and dance in a night club worked much better. And I forgot all the esoteric knowledge of the Golden dawn. Save for one thing:

As above, so below.

The ultimate alchemical soundbyte.

This has haunted me all through my life, not so much as it stands, but in its reversal:

As below, so above.

And it is this that is the theme of what I write now. This idea that however far something goes, it retains something of what has gone before, something of what underlies it. And so we turn to evolution.

However, before I try to extend the ideas of this essay, or simply give them a more detailed foundation, I'd like to recap very quickly the core assumptions, and give some definitions of the context in which I use certain phrases.

* The sex-drive is the foremost of human drives, effecting almost all forms of behaviour.
* This drive cannot be ignored, it must be expressed, but the way in which it is expressed has a social component, and to a lesser extent, a conscious component.
* There is no innate (DNA encoded) knowledge on the part of the conscious individual that sex leads to offspring. The two are essentially separate concepts.
* Sexual behaviour, being a 'given', necessarily lacks an intrinsic moral component, however, it automatically aquires one in humans contextualized by an equal 'given' - Concurrent social conditions.
* From a social evolutionary POV. the selective force for human behaviour is one of social cohesion.
* From a social evolutionary POV. the unit of inheritance is a particular behaviour, or a 'suite' of complementary behaviours.
* Not all of the factors affecting behaviour are products of conscious choice, some are the effects of an assimilted, 'true' genetic, or epigenetic nature.

Definitions:

* Cohesion: I use cohesion in the sense of the social bonds between members of a group of individuals. An increase in group cohesion raises the likelyhood of harmonious cooperation between any two or more individuals of that group. It also increases the maximum group size. A decrease in cohesion raises the likelyhood of exploitative, selfish, encounters between individuals or outright agressive conflict. It also decreases the maximum group size, and increases factionism and schism.
* Social evolution: The changes over time, of a given society
* Behaviour: An action, or chosen inaction, of an individual, or group.
* Selective force: Something which acts to remove, or cause to proliferate a given unit of evolution. In the case of this discussion - behaviour.
* Unit of [social] inheritance: behaviour which is passed down generations via passive imitation, spoken, demonstrative or written means.
* A 'given': Something unavoidable, a constant factor, a consequence of being. For example, that a cube has six faces is a given.


Everyone knows about Darwin and DNA, and gradual tiny changes over time turning fish into frogs and monkeys into men - but there is more to it than that.

Epigenetics. Methods of transmitting chemical and structural information both down the generations and crosswise across them, methods that do not involve DNA. There are (so far discovered) four types:

*Self-sustaining loops - basically auto-catalyic networks of selective genomic expression.
*Structural templating - creating and stabilizing different cell types, and prionic lineages.
*RNA mediated interferrence - the reactive siliencing of selected genes.
*Chromatin marks - a highlighter pen for genetic code.

Going into the nitty-gritty of each would take a book. I suggest you read "Evolution in Four Dimensions" if you're interested, and simply believe me, however temporarily, if you aren't.

The important point to remember is that epigenetic inheritance systems are an evolutionary halfway house. If or when enviromental conditions change, and stress a lifeform living under them, it is the more flexible (and reversable) epigenetic inheritance systems which react to modify the lifeform's molecular biology to compensate first.

If the changes in the enviroment beocome the new norm, these epigenetic variations gradually are assimilated into true genetic inheritance systems - and become permanent features of the creatures genome. If the enviromental conditions change again, or change back to the way they were, the epigenetic systems shift again to compensate or revert back to 'normal', without the long and drawn out process of classic Darwinist genetics.

Simply put, epigenetic systems 'interpret' the genome of a given species to better suit the world in which any particular generation or generations of that species lives.

Think of an orchestra. Say they have no conducter, but have become very good at playing the same bit of music, in exactly the same way every time. One day they become famous, and are asked to tour the world. It is a disaster. It is a disaster exactly because they play the same bit of music the same way every time. Because what sounded sublime with the acoustics of the auditorium in which they used to play, sounds only so-so, and sometimes downright horrendous, with the acoustics of another auditorium.

And so they hire a conducter, who among other things fine-tunes their arrangements to suit each new venue, and sometimes teaches them to let go, and extemporize on the musical themes they always play.

The conducter is of course, the epigenetic inheritance systems.

Enough of the DNA already.

Now let's talk about behaviour. We all (hopefully) know about 'enviromental niches' - small sets of enviromental conditions and resource availability - that different creatures occupy and exploit. Over time the creatures evolve genetically to perfect a phenotype to fit the niche they find themselves in better. But sometimes life gets hectic, and things move fast, too fast for even epigenetic adaptaion to cope, let alone clunky old DNA.

The easiest example is given by a common creature - a rabbit, or protorabbit if you like. Let's call him, for tradition's sake, Bugs.

Now Bugs used to live in the forest up a tree, until he got booted out for being a fucking smartarse. He left his nice comfortable niche, and headed for the open grassland. Unfortunately a lot of his mates who came with him got scoffed by the eagles who patroled the skies above. But Bugs was smart, and whenever he felt afraid, squatted in any nearby hollow in the ground, until the eagles passed. His kids and some of his comrades saw him, and started to do the same. As he aged, Bugs even started to improvise when hollows were in short supply, and began to scrape one out new ones if none could be found. Then he began to dig holes to store his carrots and hide his Misses when she was preggers, and the kids grew up feeling very at home in holes, and learnt quickly how to dig them.

And so, Bugs found he could survive where no protorabbits had ever survived before. He carved a new niche through behaviour, where none had existed.

Then of course, genetics kicked in, and he grew thick claws for digging, and big stupid teeth for gnawing. The rest is history.

When times are hard, behaviour can bridge the gap until traditional evolutionary mechanisms catch up.

I want you to imagine a hand. Your hand perhaps. I want you to imagine you are climbing. You reach up to find a hold, and your fingers brush the lip of a protrusion above. You feel around a little, settling your fingers more firmly, then finally lock on and pull up with your full strength.

You have done three things - the reaching up, and the finding of a hold - that is behavioural adaptation. The settling of your fingers into that hold - that is epigenetic adaptation. The full strength final lock on - that is classic genetic adaptation.

Of course, your hold may slip, at which point you first feel for another. You first alter your behaviour. You don't sit there, dangling above an abyss by one finger, waiting for your hand to evolve into a piton.

Well, you could, but you'd die.

But we are forgetting something. How did you ever learn to climb in the first place..?

That's right, you remember now, your Dad taught you, and when he'd taught you everything he knew, you went to the library and bought a book on the subject of knots and rope and climb-routes for the most difficult of mountains.

And this is the final method of transmitting information across generations - one available pretty much only to Humans, because Bugs can't speak much, and never learned to read or write. Symbolic inheritance. NOT MEMES btw. MEMES ARE BULLSHIT. DID I SAY "NOT MEMES"..? I did..? Good. Symbolic inheritance is not memetic, because memes do not exist.

I'll tell you the difference if you like, but you'll have to ask me.

Moving on.

So what has all this got to do with "As below, so above" ..?

Aha.

I want to draw a few parallels between the essentially separate systems of internal Genetic and epigenetic adaptation, and the external adaptive systems of behaviour and symbols.

Very roughly, the DNA in the genome of a species is a compilation of everything that has been proven to have worked for a species living in a certain place, under certain conditions for a long, long time. This information is rigorously conserved and gets copied faithfully down through each successive generation, changing very, very little. This genome produces bodies, vehicles of specific types - phenotypes - which differ from the physiologies of other competing species.

The epigenetic systems constantly fluctuate, leaning first one way then the other, following the fashions set by the conditions of the day. If a particular day turns out to be very long indeed, then the alterations made to the expression of the DNA genome by the epigenetic systems tend, over time, to become effectively embedded into the genetic dogma of DNA.

Hold that passage in your mind. I will write another now, similar to it.

Very roughly, the bedrock culture of any particular race of men is a compilation of everything that has been proven to have worked for a group of people living in a certain place, under certain conditions for a long, long time. This cultural heritage is rigorously conserved and gets passed down faithfully through each successive generation, changing very, very little. This culture produces a people who believe in a set of values which alters their behaviour in contrast with the peoples of other competing cultures.

The symbolic systems of contemporary media constantly fluctuate, creating beliefs and behaviours that lean first one way then the other, following the fashions set by the conditions of the day. If a particular day turns out to be very long indeed, then the temporary alterations made to the beliefs and values of the central cultural dogma of that society, over time, become a permanent part of it.
As below, so above.

...Continued...

Units of Inheritance.

The classic selfish gene of Dawkin's fame I think, is defunct. As a focus for inheritance it is too small, too narrow. The are of course examples of phenotypic expression that rely on single genes but they are by far in the minority. Genetisists were most puzzled when they conducted experiments that 'knocked out' certain genes, preventing them from expressing, to scrutinize the effects and so ascertain their function. They found out that a lot of the time, nothing happened at all. The body kept on trucking without any major lapses in biochemical function.

Something compensated for these artificially imposed abscences.

If you've ever studied models of internet pathways you get a monstrously bushy, hyper-connected network, something like this, but on a much more massive scale:



The American military pioneered reseach into the robustness of distributed networks - knocking out specific nodes - to see how much loss a network can sustain of physical hardware, before such a network ceases to be of use as a vehicle for communication. The answers they got is that networks are amazingly robust - there of course remain specific nodes that always carry more traffic, are more vital for overall function - but on the whole, a network can sustain massive damage without major impairment of function. There is a critical threshold, which once crossed causes a sudden massive failure, but prior to that functionality remains almost negligibly effected.


The above is an illustration of a "Waddington epigenetic landscape" the nodes below the upper sheet are single genes. The upper sheet itself corresponds to the phenotypic expression - the bodytype - associated with the genes in the network below. You've been to the circus - remember the big-top..? Imagine such a tent but with millions of different interwoven guy-ropes beneath, giving the big-top its distinctive shape, not through singular efforts on the part of any particular gene or rope-stay - but through the whole network of interactions, each new rope, each new connection altering the tension in all the others.

I would offer a new unit of inheritance, a less physical one, a more emergent consequence of evolution improving the robustness of its genotype-phenotype linkages - the network.

...Continued...

The Extended Phenotype.

Notes on Dawkin's "Extended Phenotype"

Prior to chapter eleven the book is mainly concerned with butressing the theories expoused in "The Selfish Gene".

Pg.197/8: A genetisist need not care about the exact pathway between gene and phenotypic effect, simply on the difference between alleles and their effects on end products/outcomes - because 'natural' selection is applied in exactly the same way - taking the existence of a pathway, one even routing through several bodies, for granted.

Say a fish builds a little 'house' out of stones on the river bed. The colour of the stones chosen is dependent on a single allele. Change that, chage the hue of the house. How exactly is that mechanism any different from a gene that governs the colour of skin or hair..? save in extention..?

Same with spider webs. A larger mouth at less energetic cost. Beaver dams, and the lake they form, and the ecology that lake promotes, should be thought of as extentions of the beaver phenotype, as surely as if that lake were enclosed inside their skins.

Note: Convergent evolution // behavioral mimicry of optimal physiology.

A three-jointed human arm has only seven degrees of freedom, which are defined as the types of movements each joint can perform. Your shoulder and wrist each have three degrees of freedoms—each can tilt up and down, turn left and right, and can roll in a circular motion. Your elbow, however, only has one degree of freedom, which is tilting up and down.

Scientists consider each of an octopus' eight arms to possess a virtually infinite number of degrees of freedom, allowing them to bend and twist freely. But when it's time to eat, octopuses use their flexible muscles to form temporary, quasi-articulated joints that work similar to how human joints function.

Researchers recorded muscle activity in octopus limbs, and found that an arm generates two waves of muscle contractions that propagate toward each other. When the waves collide, they form a part-time joint.

This process occurs three times, forming a shoulder where the arm meets the body, a wrist where the suckers have grasped their food, and an "elbow" somewhere in between. The elbow typically exhibits the most movement during food retrieval.

The researchers say this is a remarkably simple and apparently optimal mechanism for adjusting the length of arm segments according to where the food item is grasped along the arm.

The similarity of structural features and control strategies between jointed vertebrate arms and flexible octopus limbs suggests that these configurations evolved separately in octopuses and vertebrates, a result scientists call an example of convergent evolution.

...Continued...