It will never be the same again |
| Humans
are wise. Humans have foresight. They learn to estimate complex
situations and often come to correct conclusions after a while of
thinking. And most importantly: they are able to learn from each other.
We do not have to start every life from scratch. The more we know and
learn from others, the easier our life will be. |
| Humans
learn and adopt behaviors to varying extent. I guess I forgot 99% of
the material I was confronted with in school. But I will (hopefully)
always remember how to brush my teeth, to lace my shoes, to walk on my
feet, and to throw a stone. Much of our basic repertoir is
unforgettable. Even if we would wish to forget it: we can't. |
| The
same applies to our social conduct. After a few years of development we
know the difference between men and women, we know that people age, and
we understand that some people know each other and some don't. We learn
that humans can get angry, but mostly are friendly and understanding.
The more sensitive of us even manage to predict to some extent the
behavior of our fellow men. |
| Humans build and maintain societies. Most
of us rarely think about all the rules and relationships that keep
these huge aggregations going smoothly. But rules are necessary, and
they are many. Most of the time we do not recall them explicitly. Most
of them come in the category of tooth brushing and shoe lacing. You
simply know them without spelling them out. |
| Societies
are evolving faster than Charles Darwin would have allowed. One or two
generations can already change a lot. While in their outer appearance
all people in the world more or less are the same, the societies are
not. Some societies may be similar, but most of them are totally different from each other. They differ in their rules. |
| Several
societies have developed rules that may appear to other societies quite
strange. In certain societies in India it was an old habit to bring also
to death the wife whose husband had died. I heard recently that in
certain parts of Greenland the very old were expected to leave their
families and to freeze to death in the wilderness, before they became a
burden. |
| As awkward as some
habits might appear to the outsider, they were accepted as the normal
way of living in the respective community. People
get used to rules, even to the harder ones. They do not consider them
as unjust. On the contrary: Well equilibrated rules may contribute to
peace and well-being in a society. People feel better if they can trust
in habits. |
| A major source of human
discomfort is the need to find a spouse. Widespread in the animal
kingdom, this urging want and necessity causes irritation (beside
pleasure) in various ways. We all sometimes suffer irrational spells of
desire directed to others, but we may also become (often not amused)
objects of this feeling. |
| In the late 70ies, I often enjoyed
the entertaining lecture on social science by Gerhard Schwarz at the
Vienna University. As an example for human social behavior he discussed
with us the phenomenon 'male gang': A loosly attached group of friends,
exclusively male, that had mostly innocent fun together. |
| He
proposed that a major source of this fun was the absence of sexual
conflict. I think he was right. It is in fact some relief if no one is
tempted to impress a potential (female) partner. In the complete
absence of (sexual) rivalry, we can for a while relax and forget this urgent need, that all too often clouds our mind. |
| Avoidance of conflict is the major purpose
for subjecting our behavior to rules. The most obvious distinction in
human societies is that between the sexes. The spledid and relaxed
atmosphere in a male gang follows from the prevailing habit to choose a
mate of the other sex. In a society without this habit, such gangs
would not form. |
| Each
society defends its rules. In the middle of the last century, even in
the western part of the world people with homophilic tendencies ran the
risk to be thrown into jail. In more remote parts of the world you
might come by a death penality even in our days. Rules change.
Fortunately, you may add. But sitting in a bistro in the middle of a
group of males only: is it today the same fun as it was, say, in the
late 70ies? |
| 3/19 < MB
(4/19) > 4/19 Gender & society |
