Rules |
| Consummatory behavior - ethologists use this terminus technicus to designate the activity of an animal satisfying some vital need. It is exhibited by rather simple organisms like Aplysia and insects, but also by more complex ones like mammals, including human beings. Eating when you're hungry is expression of consummatory behavior, like any other activity you feel urged to perform. |
| The first motivations of a newborn are related to consummatory behavior. If you were to describe the essence of the urgent need experienced if you feel pressed to any specific action, you probably would think about the elimination of distress. Most of our meals rid us from distressing hunger without providing any additional reward. The common aim of these activities is satisfaction. |
| In German language, the verb "stillen" is used for suckling an infant (with "still" meaning quiet), bringing to the point that the infant was noisy before and quiet after it. She / he was satisfied by nursing, and the feeling of hunger disappeared. After nursing, the infant is quiet, indicating that there is no longer the need to communicate distress to the environment. Is this happiness - the absence of distress? |
| We all feel distressed from time to time, for various reasons. When we were little ones, our way to escape from distress was by crying, crying for help from others more capable to manipulate the world around us. When we grew older, we found out how to help ourselves. But we soon had to discover, that our own attempts to escape from distress did not always meet the approval of our environment. We had to learn to show consideration for our fellow men. |
| Very often we feel urged to do something, but we do not do it. When we feel the urge to pee while walking on a crowded street, we (hopefully) look for a public toilet to get rid of the discomforting need. Likewise, it is not an example of good manners to try in a restaurant from the appealing menu of a stranger (without his explicit invitation to do so). And it may lead to serious troubles to touch the sexy looking breasts of a woman sitting vis-a-vis in the underground. |
| If you look careful at your daily living, you might even discover that most of your days are an endless chain of renunciations, denials, and prohibited temptations. How, then, can we have a chance to lead a happy life? Shouldn't we always be in a state of frustration and disappointment? Do we constantly suffer from unsatisfied needs? |
| Well, some of us probably do. But to my (superficial?) impression, most human beings cope surprisingly well with that - on first glance so desperate - social dilemma. Each society appears to develop certain habits and agreements, like the rules in a game, that allow the participants to follow their urges, sometimes on the basis of substitute activities. The particular comportments accepted as appropriate substitutes for the frank satisfaction of particular needs are the result of social conventions and differ from society to society. |
| Socially agreed behaviors provide at least partial satisfaction, without harming other participants in the game. They are the result of a permanently conducted public debate, and the actual state of that incessant discussion is conveniently called "culture". In technically advanced societies, this debate is largely conducted in the media (newspapers, TV, radio). |
| Cultures are permanently subjected to (slow) changes. Most human beings have the desire to adhere to rules they have learned and accepted for themselves, and they expect that others do repect these rules as well. During a lifetime, some rules cannot be changed at all. E.g., it will be very difficult (if not impossible) to convince me that, from now on, I'm no longer expected to pee into the toilet but out of the window. |
| Other customs may be changed more easily, but most people stick to their habits, even in invisible private details. We soon begin to associate particular ceremonies with particular satisfactions, even if these ceremonies do not bring about true satisfaction, but are only aimed at the right direction. An educated male utters an educated compliment towards an educated female, and even if this female were the object of his (secret) sexual desire, both of them will benefit from the exchange of compliments and smiles, without going into further activities. |
| Culture and the execution of cultural customs and habits, if practiced by experienced and skilful actors, can be a source of lasting satisfaction, almost reaching at the satisfaction resulting from frank consummatory behavior. It remains to be seen if "cultural globalization" will allow the maintenance of all the delicate social equilibria at work in the plethora of different cultures in the world. To me, it appears as a task too complex to be achieved without major dissonance. |