King Sahura c.2487-2475 B.C.E.
This morning lightning struck. I got a great ideal for a book. Even so, it is a book I’ll never write. Still, I have a provocative working title, Why Man Is King, or perhaps, Why Man is King, is God. I’m not even keen on writing a post addressing this, or at least addressing all of ‘this’. As it turns out, the end of the book would dovetail right into a recent post Ant Are Us, so I just have to say something, otherwise this will haunt me for the rest of the day.
Up until now, civilization has done everything possible to put Man at the top, and Woman at the bottom of culture’s hierarchical structure. I always attributed this to simple social zoology where the ‘alpha male’ heads the group. That may still be a major reason for the main origins of human cultural biases. However, I realized another source as I was pondering the dynamics of male-female relationships… what keeps them either working or leads to their demise. Continue reading ‘Why Man is King’
It’s about time we changed our species’ name from “Homo sapiens” to something like “Homo sociālis, my best Linnaeus guess. We are not the great “wise” or “knowing” animal that we claim to be. We are instead among the greatest of social animals, (for our size anyway). I became increasingly convinced of this over the years as I’ve observed how we are not as wise or knowing as we think we are, yet we are more profoundly social than we realize. Recent research reported in the Science News article, In-laws transformed early human society supports this. Naturally, I could quibble with some of the hypotheses… that’s what hypotheses are for, but why bother. The basic premise is sound, and besides the research backs up my suspicions! Continue reading ‘It’s Time We Changed Our Name’
I’ve been amused for years by attempts to blame culture for things obviously biological. This comes down to that old nature vs nurture debate. Naturally I never could substantiate my pro-nature views via reason alone, although it was always fun trying. I suspect that those who blame nurture and culture, do so because that path offers a possible way to ‘fix the problem’—simply educate the misguided to ‘fix’ the culture and we can all live happily ever after. On the other hand, if nature is mostly to ‘blame’, then we would seem to be left helpless(1), (except for the path Buddha’s Noble Truths offer). Continue reading ‘Playing With Dolls’
Our money is family money… really. It is one big pot from which each takes as needed. This is radically different from the independent model upon which my parents raised me. I did chores for which I got a salary. I suppose the idea here is to prepare the me (their child) for the employer – employee relationship that would lie ahead.
That was not to be my model for raising my kids. Here, everyone in the family did / does ‘chores’, but not as some ‘job’, but rather as part of what needs doing as part of practical daily living. A shared life involves shared responsibility (which makes life feel more shared). Here, each takes on what they are most naturally capable of doing. ‘It happened to us naturally.’ Continue reading ‘The Family Purse’
Mother and sons
One curious result of using a ‘taoist’ model of ‘virtue’ to raise my kids is seeing how naturally ethical – even to a ‘fault’ – they have turned out. Given the laissez-faire upbringing they had, it is a little odd to see how rigidly law abiding they can be at times. For example, we headed down the street to order a sandwich at the corner deli. I grabbed a beer to drink (rare for me) as we walked there. They protested, saying it was against the law to walk in public and drink beer. I thought that nonsense. Drink and drive no way, but drink and walk? All my life I have only obeyed laws I agreed with, so they didn’t pick up their highly law abiding ways from me (obviously). And, given the circumstances of how they were raised, I doubt they learned it from anyone in particular. This may be a testament to the deep underlying pull of the ethical paradigm that surrounds everyone. Most conform, some rebel, but everyone feels it. Continue reading ‘Innately Ethical’
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