RE: The time relevance of Human Values
Great post @alexgr, your observations of the dichotomy between value and behaviour are fascinating, especially in the realm of relationships. Thank you!
I would very much like to hear your thoughts on the relative behaviours manifested by the individual in relation to the broader community. For example, polygamy was accepted many years ago due to the high incidence of pregnancies not reaching full term, mother's death in childbirth (and child's death) and the high incidence of infant mortality (under 5 years). The physical development of mankind has been negligible but the mental capacity is being stretched. It is now mooted that altruism is a Darwinian trait for the survival of the human race, as an aside.
Can or could such an understanding overcome the primal lust of men to see their genes into future generations. In other words, does the intellectual argument outweigh the physical desire in both values and behaviours?
We do have the example of Japan where marriages are slowing down and child-births are hitting all time lows, so, they may well be the answer to that.
In my opinion the more intellectual the human species becomes, the greater the success rate in controlling (not necessarily suppressing) the primal urges. I think the primal urge is not necessarily representative of what humans really want. It's like the "shadow" of a body, but the body remails elusive.
Say I'm really attracted to a female. No, let's start elsewhere. Let's say I see a very beautiful ass... My mind is like "I want to touch this". Let's say I ask the girl and she gives me the go ahead and I touch her ass. Does this give me the joy that I hoped it would? I mean the act is overrated compared to the expectation. The act, when you do it, doesn't even give a fraction of the expected reward. In fact you may even feel like an idiot for what you are doing. As you are touching another body and getting nowhere near what you expected, you start wondering: "What am I doing? Isn't this silly?".
Now let's escalate the scenario. My primal mind tells me that I have to grab her and have sex with her. Let's say I do have sex with her. Does this give me joy? Again, the realized levels of joy are nothing compared to the expected levels that one has in their mind. It's like the physical act is completely overrated based on the primal motive-expectation. The more intellectual someone is, the faster they will understand this. And the more spiritual one is, the faster they will understand that the body-union is unfullfiling because what a man (or woman) really wants, is to merge with the other in a soul-level, which is impossible due to the body-cages that "cover" the souls. The "this-thing-goes-there" in terms of body parts can never fill something as fundamental as love.
The closest manifestation of love in the human domain is hugging because this is precisely what brings the two hearts closer together than anything else. The hearts have a quantum link to the soul, so hugging, while in a state of proper mind-heart tuning, will be the closest one will get to even approach something like the union of souls (under normal / non-psychedelic circumstances). But it will still be insufficient. Our bodies act as "suits" that prevent the souls from "merging". It's like asking two astronauts to touch one another. It's impossible.
Most, if not all, primal urges are based on false expectations and misunderstandings. It's like nature is trying to trick us into doing things that we would not ordinarily do, or avoid things that we would do. It is my expectation that all primal urges will, over time, be properly understood and channeled, first intellectually, then spiritually (or, let's say, with a yet higher and more encompassing intellect - it's similar to saying spiritual). While it might sound far fetched, we have come a very long way. For example, most intense disagreements used to be settled with pure violence. Now we are more "civilized" and only a tiny fraction gets violent. There is a certain level of intellectual mastery involved as people can now do real-time cost/reward calculations on what it'd mean (socially) to escalate into violence, even while primally triggered.
Hi @alexgr, if we take these concepts/arguments about the human condition down through their natural paths we arrive at a very uncomfortable place for the governors of peoples.
Much as they had the 'Forms' of Plato and the surprisingly advanced philosophy of Socrates, there was a lot of unruliness in various parts of the known world. Controls were needed to fetter the people sufficiently to avert overthrows of kingdoms and countries. Religion became the saviour of the ruling classes. Cathedrals were built as demonstrations of power and might. The murmurings against exorbitant and usurious taxes were quelled and law and order held sway.
In spite of the silly numbers bandied about over numbers of Christians, Muslims and Hindus, there is a decreasing amount of religion practiced today. This decline coincided with the Golden Age of the 1890's and early into the twentieth century.
Rulers needed a new control. One such mechanism was war. This had a certain effect but could never be a long-term solution. The clever men of the US really got it right when they understood the value of a country's money supply. JP Morgan, Rockefeller, Rothschild, Bush and co. started the Federal Reserve in the early part of the twentieth century. They earned money on money and orchestrated the economy of what soon became the most powerful nation on earth. Debt is the new religion and few people will risk their primary asset (house) to fight in earnest against the American machine.
Debt systems are now controlling a vast percentage of the western world. Water may soon become its ally.
Greed is not, in my experience, the biggest emotion of mankind but it certainly does bring about the greatest amount of action or reaction. Endless dinner conversations about the value of one's home should provide sufficient info for that.
So, in summing up, I think that the modernisation of society has altered and honed behaviours but it is through externally imposed limitations and threats (The Law) that we succumb to the wishes of the ruling elite.
Indeed. But if most of the people weren't convinced that the existence of the law (and those who enforce it) wasn't beneficial, we would have totally different systems in place. What the Elite do, is take the more abstract concepts of Law and enforcement and ride on their back to implement their own (very specific) agendas. That's where society is manipulated in taking the useless (Elite agenda) along with the more useful part (an ordered society).
This is where all these things get fuzzy ... I very much doubt that the US, as an example, would be able to survive the test. The legal systems and structures do nothing for the average Joe but make the elite very rich. As Rothschild famously said, "give me control of a country's money supply and it can have whatever laws it wants". The Law, and our definition thereof, is much more than laws, rules and regulations, it must include social norms and constructs.
Social values have, as someone else remarked on your post, declined to such levels as to be floored as well as flawed. Our institutions such as Governments, Central Banks, the UN, The Red Cross (e.g. in Haiti), Funds Management, big businesses are all riddled with malpractice, fraud and simple theft.
Conversely, and by the same social standards, our expectation to consume faster than we can produce continues unchecked.
Whether it be the meteoric rise of the credit card since the 60's & 70's which has given millions access to unearned cash or the even bigger rise in the value, pursuit of and adoration of 'fame' which has given society an insatiable appetite for the untenable, unachievable and unaffordable.
My suspicion is that highly developed societies are so clouded in by strong drivers which are completely unnecessary to their prosperity that they have blinded themselves and have bought a new device which makes the people believe they can see. It is this new view of the world, this new set of lenses, couched in various guises of consumerism which keeps people anaesthetised and ignorant of the depths of their emptiness.
This is paying it forward in the most cynical of manners imaginable. Nations everywhere seem to have cottoned on. Institutional exploitation of people is the game. Hugo Chavez's daughter is reputedly worth about $4.2Bn. Billion! Not million, Billion. I see more and more of his citizens here in Ecuador every day. They have paid it forward and the daughter has the cheque. The expectations of the people cannot be met. They paid on Visa and are expecting to receive in cash but the piggy bank does not even rattle! In fact the pig is not only devoid of a rattle, it contains a large IOU.
"So, let's do a selfie, post it on Facebook and go to the Mall. I really need to see the new Samsung Galaxy S21, get my hair and nails done and see my therapist. Oh, and I have to be home by 6pm, the dog groomer gets real mad if I am late."
stipulated.
in other news...water is wet.
how has it EVER been different?
Yes, it has been different, though by degree; one could further argue that semantics are at fault.
Q: Where does milk come from? A: cartons.
Situation: there is water coming through the ceiling.
Response: call the plumber/landlord/your father
Q: What is 4 x 58? A: wait a sec, I'll get my phone.
Situation: Button missing on shirt.
Response: Get another one ... shirt.
It is the old story of sticking a frog in a pot of boiling water versus putting a frog in a pot of cold water and turning the gas on. My suggestion is that the water is indeed wet and it will indeed become unbearable but we may not be able to understand that the problem is with the water.