Good observation, Spiff. This is being studied scientifically as Evolutionary Mismatch theory.
Thanks to technological progress over the last few centuries, we changed our environments in such a way that previously healthy instincts now lead to dysfunctional behavior:
- taste for good food + abundance -> obesity instead of sustenance
- sexual urges + free infinity porn -> porn addiction instead of procreation
- information-seeking + attention hacking TV, apps, smartphones -> garbage instead of useful information
- the urge to satisfy needs + overabundance -> unbounded hedonism
- too much freedom & goodies -> loss of meaning
- the needs we could only satisfy collectively now can be satisfied individually -> loneliness
- my favorite: altruism + view of third-world suffering -> import infinity Bomalians -> collapse civilization
We can to a degree moderate these effects by recognizing them and rectifying them. The individual ones are doable, e.g. no unhealthy food at home, app/website/porn blocker, no TV at home etc. The collective ones are hard because most people don't think about this.
If we don't adapt, evolution will take care of it and regress civilization to a point where the instincts are adaptive again.
Yes I agree. Especially the Bomalian situation. Misplaced altruism indeed.
We have a lot of cool things that are not being managed well by our stone age brains. Porn and computer games give young men enough of the real thing it dulls their blade, so to speak. Catastrophic if it becomes widespread.
Agreed, and I would add to the list that women's instinct to enforce social norms (think henpecking, it's real) through gossip is magnified by social media into the rabid, destructive cancel culture we're seeing now. In other words, online porn is for men what online gossip is for women, addictive and destructive.
More than gossip; character assassination is a good example. Amplified by online social tools as is herd thinking, the degeneratedversion of the instinct in women to seek consensus. All exploited of course.
Fascinating trend. If I can convert the graph into something easier to take in for the female mind:
Women's voting patterns are like a fashion trend. What might seem outrageous will eventually be worn by every Tammy, Doreen and Harriet once enough other women parade around in it.
I don't recall the exact words of the book but doesn't O'Brien explain to Winston, whie torturing him, how Freedom is Slavery?
That's what Freedom equalling no constraints become, slavery.
Don't know if there's any other Oldhammer types reading the comments-section here, but it put me in mind of 'Slaves to Darkness' and 'The Lost and the Damned' books, esp. the parts about the Lord of Excess, She-Who-Thirsts, Slaanesh.
Its champions strive for the ultimate expression of pervection of their specific fixation, only to fall into spawnhood or be elevated as a Champion. All at the cost of their soul - everything they are, and ultimately ending up as lost and damned slaves to Darkness whatever they do.
And realising that, revelling in damnation becomes the only option.
Total freedom, seeking zero constraints or rules, is itself degenerate. True freedom seems to be mastery over impulse which is transferrable to the rest of life. It somehow liberates us as it triggers mental changes that we use to better navigate life.
It is an odd paradox. Less overt freedom frees us. All of it lost on the hedonists and their fellow travellers like the feminists and climate people.
I feel the kenning of it is the riddle of steel in a very real sense.
A lump of ore is useless but has potential; it can be anything, do anything.
A thing made is only so by way of discipline, will and skill - but it is fixed in form, the potential now being in what it can be made us for.
---
Another aspect-angle is the word itself. I think native English speakers would benefit in wisdom from learning not just the words for freedom in other languages but also the different ways the concept is understood. The ubiquitousness and ever-present go-to status of English creates a lock-in effect I think, for the native speakers, wheras non-natives such as I must learn not just the literal translation but the idiomatic one as well, to be able to properly communicate.
But there is a select group of people who contribute immensely to society when they go beyond the bounds of current restraints. They are people who are endowed with positive human traits. Here is at least a partial list: Integrity, intelligence, inquisitiveness, intuitiveness, industriousness, insight, inspiration, imagination, inventiveness, and intentness.
When constraints become too stringent, society becomes Luddite.
I think the key element here is overcoming restraints, using them to rise higher and accomplish more. Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine chapel are an extreme example that required most of the qualities you listed. They would have been absent with an easier task. He had to dig deep to achieve his aims. He accepted the constraints and overcame them.
It is the rejection of constraint as useless, old fashioned or unnecessary that damns us. Wishing away obstacles because they are inconvenient. The body positivity movement attempted this with obesity and failed. But it shows where it ends up. No one wins.
"I think the key element here is overcoming restraints, using them to rise higher and accomplish more. Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine chapel are an extreme example that required most of the qualities you listed."
I was thinking along the lines of: Galileo, Newton, and Einstein.
Painfully true. I can sum this up with five words - when anything goes everything does. I am reminded of two analogies in fiction. One - the story of Pinocchio. And the 1940's American film - It's A Wonderful Life - both depict what society devolves to when selfishness, anything goes mentality prevails. Interesting how art can represent life but life very often imitates art.
Reminds me of Doc Holiday's quote concerning outlaw Johnny Ringo in the movie, "Tombstone": "A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of himself. And he can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it. What does he want? Revenge. For what? Bein' born."
This was a fantastic article. Ultimately, human beings were made to worship the living, everlasting, God. There is nothing else in the Universe that will fill that deep, dark, chasm, within their soul. After being rather hedonistic myself and the definition of a 'prodigal son', I found peace, joy, and love through Jesus Christ.
I think people find their salvation in different ways. Some via religion and spiritual belief. I am convinced most of it is restraint and discipline. It feels right if you can harness it.
Outstanding as always, and I particualrly enjoyed this quote: "The progressive view of liberty assumes the fence is to keep you penned in rather than keep the monsters out." That really landed firmly, and well, and frames so much of what we're facing today.
I'm never more happy than during the pursuit.. With experience I have come to realise that the effort of the pursuit is the real goal, the virtual goal nothing more than an aiming point to maintain the course.
Sometimes the outcome is not the point. Or, worse, is a disappointment. What do you do a week after the marathon? Lie on the couch and eat pizza all day?
It is a conundrum. I do wonder how many look back after the accomplishment and realize they loved the effort.
Brilliant take on the paradox of freedom. The constraint-breeds-creativity point realy resonates, I dunno if people get how structure actually helps us flourish rather than suffocate us. I had way more free time in college than now, but accomplished almost nothing compared to what I get done with rigid schedules and deadlines. Modern society's rejection of tradtional limits assumes they were arbitrary cruelty, but they understood human weakness way better than we do.
True freedom does NOT mean isolation from others. It means living in a way that respects individual/property rights of those around us and them respecting ours. That includes keeping any government from imposing on those rights.
So true. The whole idea of eminent domain comes from Europe and the crap idea that a king “owned” all the land and could take it whenever he wanted or give someone limited rights to it, depending on how much they kissed his butt.
U.S. isn’t structured that way, or wasn’t supposed to be. Don’t get me started on “national” parks. Thanks, Teddy Roosevelt. Sheesh! While we’re at it, let’s talk about the Kelo v. New London decision by SCOTUS where they said a government could take property not for things like roads but for any development that would generate more tax revenue. Kelo was fighting to keep her house. She lost. Her house and a lot of others are now gone. And there’s been no new development or tax revenue increase. Dumbasses.
One always needs to maintain employment of some type either for someone else or yourself. Or should I say stay active? I always dreamed of retiring and spending my remaining yrs fishing, photography my hobbies. But a week straight of fishing becomes a chore. As does photography and wood carving. I believe it’s variety of interest and even better an area of interest that you have to grow in, that keep your mind active and challenge your existing skill sets. Oh and don’t forget God. Because he is our anchoring that cannot be moved.
Yes I think imagining non-stop leisure as enjoyable is a mistake. Treats need to be occasional.
There is also a surprising amount of satisfaction to be had in a job well done, from household chores to writing books. I think the happiest among us are busy doing interesting things and rarely loafing about.
Excellent points and observations. You mentioned 50 years ago, and some do think of the 60s and '70s as the era when Women's Lib ruined our time-honored way of life, but the truth is more complicated. As Mary Harrington and others point out, the halcyon (for some) 1950s Father Knows Best nuclear family was a new phenomenon after people left farms and small towns for cities and suburbs. More men than ever were liberated from endless toil, nosy neighbors and church brethren and many traipsed right off to the brothels (Playboy Clubs) and the bars with the family rent money. Feminism in this view was a reaction to men's individualism by women who had all the disadvantages of individualism, raising kids and doing housework without extended family, but none of the freedoms men had to choose vocations and pursue pleasures. My mother was the first in generations of her family's women who didn't have to put up with abuse from a husband. Many women in that wave of late 1960s feminism wanted the freedom to pursue happiness too. The post industrial effect of, first, men's liberation from strict social constraints and then women’s liberation from men is the fractured families and over emphasis on individual happiness that we see. We haven't been off the land for very long, historically speaking, so not surprising that our social orders haven't adjusted, and we're still seeking the right balance.
I agree. I think we romanticize a brief period in history that was itself an aberration. A dangerous distortion.
Although what we have now seems to be worse. So I think a big step back is needed. We could do with fewer -isms calling the shots and leave people to work it out.
I have read the younger ladies are becoming wary of hookup culture and even social media. So who knows what the future holds.
Good observation, Spiff. This is being studied scientifically as Evolutionary Mismatch theory.
Thanks to technological progress over the last few centuries, we changed our environments in such a way that previously healthy instincts now lead to dysfunctional behavior:
- taste for good food + abundance -> obesity instead of sustenance
- sexual urges + free infinity porn -> porn addiction instead of procreation
- information-seeking + attention hacking TV, apps, smartphones -> garbage instead of useful information
- the urge to satisfy needs + overabundance -> unbounded hedonism
- too much freedom & goodies -> loss of meaning
- the needs we could only satisfy collectively now can be satisfied individually -> loneliness
- my favorite: altruism + view of third-world suffering -> import infinity Bomalians -> collapse civilization
We can to a degree moderate these effects by recognizing them and rectifying them. The individual ones are doable, e.g. no unhealthy food at home, app/website/porn blocker, no TV at home etc. The collective ones are hard because most people don't think about this.
If we don't adapt, evolution will take care of it and regress civilization to a point where the instincts are adaptive again.
Yes I agree. Especially the Bomalian situation. Misplaced altruism indeed.
We have a lot of cool things that are not being managed well by our stone age brains. Porn and computer games give young men enough of the real thing it dulls their blade, so to speak. Catastrophic if it becomes widespread.
As you say, it is ultimately self-correcting.
Agreed, and I would add to the list that women's instinct to enforce social norms (think henpecking, it's real) through gossip is magnified by social media into the rabid, destructive cancel culture we're seeing now. In other words, online porn is for men what online gossip is for women, addictive and destructive.
More than gossip; character assassination is a good example. Amplified by online social tools as is herd thinking, the degeneratedversion of the instinct in women to seek consensus. All exploited of course.
Gotta infuse the henhouse with some better social norms for them to enforce.
Check out this post by Martin Sellner: https://x.com/i/status/2003530206892704035
Very interesting take. Change the mainstream and the ladies will follow. Makes sense.
Fascinating trend. If I can convert the graph into something easier to take in for the female mind:
Women's voting patterns are like a fashion trend. What might seem outrageous will eventually be worn by every Tammy, Doreen and Harriet once enough other women parade around in it.
This is literally true with fashion. Some real horrors over the years. So why not with societal trends?
If only we had a rule book, or some kind of guide, a way to find the strength to take risks, trust others enough to start a family.
Quite.
If only...
I don't recall the exact words of the book but doesn't O'Brien explain to Winston, whie torturing him, how Freedom is Slavery?
That's what Freedom equalling no constraints become, slavery.
Don't know if there's any other Oldhammer types reading the comments-section here, but it put me in mind of 'Slaves to Darkness' and 'The Lost and the Damned' books, esp. the parts about the Lord of Excess, She-Who-Thirsts, Slaanesh.
Its champions strive for the ultimate expression of pervection of their specific fixation, only to fall into spawnhood or be elevated as a Champion. All at the cost of their soul - everything they are, and ultimately ending up as lost and damned slaves to Darkness whatever they do.
And realising that, revelling in damnation becomes the only option.
Point being, it is a universal theme:
Total freedom means being an animal.
No freedom means being an animal.
Total freedom, seeking zero constraints or rules, is itself degenerate. True freedom seems to be mastery over impulse which is transferrable to the rest of life. It somehow liberates us as it triggers mental changes that we use to better navigate life.
It is an odd paradox. Less overt freedom frees us. All of it lost on the hedonists and their fellow travellers like the feminists and climate people.
Yes.
I feel the kenning of it is the riddle of steel in a very real sense.
A lump of ore is useless but has potential; it can be anything, do anything.
A thing made is only so by way of discipline, will and skill - but it is fixed in form, the potential now being in what it can be made us for.
---
Another aspect-angle is the word itself. I think native English speakers would benefit in wisdom from learning not just the words for freedom in other languages but also the different ways the concept is understood. The ubiquitousness and ever-present go-to status of English creates a lock-in effect I think, for the native speakers, wheras non-natives such as I must learn not just the literal translation but the idiomatic one as well, to be able to properly communicate.
An occupational hazard with us Anglos. We rarely learn foreign tongues.
Excellent, subject and article.
But there is a select group of people who contribute immensely to society when they go beyond the bounds of current restraints. They are people who are endowed with positive human traits. Here is at least a partial list: Integrity, intelligence, inquisitiveness, intuitiveness, industriousness, insight, inspiration, imagination, inventiveness, and intentness.
When constraints become too stringent, society becomes Luddite.
I think the key element here is overcoming restraints, using them to rise higher and accomplish more. Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine chapel are an extreme example that required most of the qualities you listed. They would have been absent with an easier task. He had to dig deep to achieve his aims. He accepted the constraints and overcame them.
It is the rejection of constraint as useless, old fashioned or unnecessary that damns us. Wishing away obstacles because they are inconvenient. The body positivity movement attempted this with obesity and failed. But it shows where it ends up. No one wins.
"I think the key element here is overcoming restraints, using them to rise higher and accomplish more. Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine chapel are an extreme example that required most of the qualities you listed."
I was thinking along the lines of: Galileo, Newton, and Einstein.
Well yes, they did push through barriers. They obliterated previous constraints if that is what you mean.
Painfully true. I can sum this up with five words - when anything goes everything does. I am reminded of two analogies in fiction. One - the story of Pinocchio. And the 1940's American film - It's A Wonderful Life - both depict what society devolves to when selfishness, anything goes mentality prevails. Interesting how art can represent life but life very often imitates art.
Yes I agree. Life echoes art in a sense. How could it not?
But these lessons are worth learning. If you want to be really free it will take work.
Reminds me of Doc Holiday's quote concerning outlaw Johnny Ringo in the movie, "Tombstone": "A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of himself. And he can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it. What does he want? Revenge. For what? Bein' born."
This was a fantastic article. Ultimately, human beings were made to worship the living, everlasting, God. There is nothing else in the Universe that will fill that deep, dark, chasm, within their soul. After being rather hedonistic myself and the definition of a 'prodigal son', I found peace, joy, and love through Jesus Christ.
I think people find their salvation in different ways. Some via religion and spiritual belief. I am convinced most of it is restraint and discipline. It feels right if you can harness it.
Ah, Bukowski. Patron saint of alcoholics everywhere. <3
He got it together in the end. So there is that. I think his legacy is the power of perseverance. He never gave up.
Outstanding as always, and I particualrly enjoyed this quote: "The progressive view of liberty assumes the fence is to keep you penned in rather than keep the monsters out." That really landed firmly, and well, and frames so much of what we're facing today.
And also, modern art buttplugs...
Indeed. Tear it all down before we understand why our ancestors built it.
I mean, they were all just colonizing white supremacisss anyway, amirite?
Of course. And misogynists to boot.
<wags index finger at self>
Coincidently, I just started reading this, which landed in my inbox over the weekend; you'll probably appreciate it.
https://www.jdhaltigan.com/p/death-by-a-thousand-cuts
I'll check it out, thanks.
I'm never more happy than during the pursuit.. With experience I have come to realise that the effort of the pursuit is the real goal, the virtual goal nothing more than an aiming point to maintain the course.
Sometimes the outcome is not the point. Or, worse, is a disappointment. What do you do a week after the marathon? Lie on the couch and eat pizza all day?
It is a conundrum. I do wonder how many look back after the accomplishment and realize they loved the effort.
Reading this reminded me of the current publicity campaign being waged by Oprah Inc. to promote Ozempic.
Don't take personal responsibility for anything, just blame "genetics" and take this pill.
Of course, the dupes who fall for it are only kicking the can down the road.
Yes, McDonalds makes you fat etc. Ideal for low agency types. The exact people who will pay for dieting drugs.
...unless they can get the state to pay for them. The blessings of Universal Healthcare never end.
Yes, that too. Big nationalized entities are ideal for lobbyists.
Brilliant take on the paradox of freedom. The constraint-breeds-creativity point realy resonates, I dunno if people get how structure actually helps us flourish rather than suffocate us. I had way more free time in college than now, but accomplished almost nothing compared to what I get done with rigid schedules and deadlines. Modern society's rejection of tradtional limits assumes they were arbitrary cruelty, but they understood human weakness way better than we do.
We definitely need structure and constraints of some sort. Total freedom to do anything usually results in nothing.
Also a sense of urgency helps too.
True freedom does NOT mean isolation from others. It means living in a way that respects individual/property rights of those around us and them respecting ours. That includes keeping any government from imposing on those rights.
Well yes property rights matter. And having a government impose unfair ones, like eminent domain, doesn't change that.
So true. The whole idea of eminent domain comes from Europe and the crap idea that a king “owned” all the land and could take it whenever he wanted or give someone limited rights to it, depending on how much they kissed his butt.
Yes, the state nominally owns all lands etc. So it can apply to a republic too. All nonsense of course.
U.S. isn’t structured that way, or wasn’t supposed to be. Don’t get me started on “national” parks. Thanks, Teddy Roosevelt. Sheesh! While we’re at it, let’s talk about the Kelo v. New London decision by SCOTUS where they said a government could take property not for things like roads but for any development that would generate more tax revenue. Kelo was fighting to keep her house. She lost. Her house and a lot of others are now gone. And there’s been no new development or tax revenue increase. Dumbasses.
It all degrades. Perhaps we are learning some kind of founding/refounding mechanism is needed every two to three centuries.
One always needs to maintain employment of some type either for someone else or yourself. Or should I say stay active? I always dreamed of retiring and spending my remaining yrs fishing, photography my hobbies. But a week straight of fishing becomes a chore. As does photography and wood carving. I believe it’s variety of interest and even better an area of interest that you have to grow in, that keep your mind active and challenge your existing skill sets. Oh and don’t forget God. Because he is our anchoring that cannot be moved.
Yes I think imagining non-stop leisure as enjoyable is a mistake. Treats need to be occasional.
There is also a surprising amount of satisfaction to be had in a job well done, from household chores to writing books. I think the happiest among us are busy doing interesting things and rarely loafing about.
Excellent points and observations. You mentioned 50 years ago, and some do think of the 60s and '70s as the era when Women's Lib ruined our time-honored way of life, but the truth is more complicated. As Mary Harrington and others point out, the halcyon (for some) 1950s Father Knows Best nuclear family was a new phenomenon after people left farms and small towns for cities and suburbs. More men than ever were liberated from endless toil, nosy neighbors and church brethren and many traipsed right off to the brothels (Playboy Clubs) and the bars with the family rent money. Feminism in this view was a reaction to men's individualism by women who had all the disadvantages of individualism, raising kids and doing housework without extended family, but none of the freedoms men had to choose vocations and pursue pleasures. My mother was the first in generations of her family's women who didn't have to put up with abuse from a husband. Many women in that wave of late 1960s feminism wanted the freedom to pursue happiness too. The post industrial effect of, first, men's liberation from strict social constraints and then women’s liberation from men is the fractured families and over emphasis on individual happiness that we see. We haven't been off the land for very long, historically speaking, so not surprising that our social orders haven't adjusted, and we're still seeking the right balance.
I agree. I think we romanticize a brief period in history that was itself an aberration. A dangerous distortion.
Although what we have now seems to be worse. So I think a big step back is needed. We could do with fewer -isms calling the shots and leave people to work it out.
I have read the younger ladies are becoming wary of hookup culture and even social media. So who knows what the future holds.
Freedom requires Virtue or moral excellence, something only developed as a habit through practice.
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”
Nice quote and certainly fits with Bukowski's observations.
Add the words on his tombstone to the equation:
"Don't try"
Do this day I wonder if George Lucas was inspired by Bukowski for Yoda's phrase about "there is no try".
I wonder that too.
Janice Joplin
Joplin was a perfect example of a loser, one who lived their short life with few constraints.
Roger Miller