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Back to the Forum 2006
Archives In her book, "Male and Female," Margaret Mead, brings up many very important issues. One such has to do with the fragility of human communities and civilizations. Although it is not her point, she illuminates the reason religious crazies fight so hard to preserve a dead myth and continue to insist we are made in the image of God. What they really fear is the regression of our civilization, a degeneration into animal behavior. If we are made in the Image of God we are not and can never be animals. We are as superior to animals as God is to us. This is also why simple minded people fear primitive cultures and oppress blacks. It is simply that they are different. These fundamentalist are justifiably in terror of the regression of our civilization. In fact, this concealed terror is common to all cultures. Civilized behavior, as Mead points out, is learned behavior, not instinctive. We can lose the accumulated knowledge and wisdom that makes us distinctive as humans. It happened in Constantinople when religious savages from Europe sacked the city. The world's greatest library was lost and with that, the greatest civilization in the world at the time disintegrated. The Byzantine Empire regressed and never recovered. Pretty much everything humans do that is noteworthy is learned behavior. Hence, anything that seems to be instinctive, may also be seen as regressive. Ruth Benedict also makes this point in her book, "Patterns of Culture." Civilized behavior is culturally transmitted though education and it can be lost. Think about it. Without adult help our kids would not be able to feed themselves, let alone build a shelter. Anything that reminds us of that fact is fearful. That is also why our kids with their jungle drum music and their tendency to body mutilations, and mind destroying drugs terrify us to the point of phobia. We see the end of civilization in those regressive behaviors. They really are regressive you know. Fundamentalists are simple minded and they are likely to see any difference as regressive. This allows them to oppress anyone who is different than they are. They see blacks as different and this allows them to forfeit their ethic where blacks are concerned. Many people still see blacks as nothing more than particularly bright animals. This was as true of Thomas Jefferson as it was of George Wallace. It is very much about fragility of culture. The cause of this fragility is often misunderstood and human efforts at self preservation are misdirected in many cases. Margaret Mead gets into the basics of the problem. She points out that the basic building block of any human community, civilized or not, is the family unit. This unit is very fragile because it is not at all natural to the male. Instinctively, the human male is a free roving hunter. Thus, he must be trained to become a participant in the family and the community. In the rest of the animal kingdom, the male does not generally participate. The female is left to fend and forage as best she can for herself and her infant. It is this iffy nature of the male role that makes civilizations fragile. A community is dependent on the domestication of men. The woman, on the other hand, needs no such training. The mother child nurturing relationship is natural to the female of all animals including humans. So the true basic unit of racial survival is the woman and child. Whereas it takes a great deal of effort to train the male to his role in civilization, it takes even more effort to train a woman away from her role as nurturing parent. Training is always difficult when it demands unnatural behavior. Training is where community must come into the picture. It is a major function of the community to make sure the male can and will participate. This, in fact, assures the viability of the community. It is really about the ethos of the culture, the rules of behavior, our personal ethic. Ethics are about our relationships to and our sense of responsibility for other humans. It requires a reasonable level of cultural conditioning or education before a human can understand this. Children must be trained into it, especially male children. It is more natural to females. It is much too easy to train males away from this responsibility with macho role models and lack of positive nurturing. That is how we train young men into sociopathic behavior. Sociopaths believe they are completely separate. They see the entire rest of the world, including other people, as objects to be manipulated for personal gain. This sociopathic behavior is the main reason communities need laws. If you believe you are separate, the only thing that can control you is law, brute force. You cannot control yourself. There is no incentive to nurture and care for others. There is only the brute force of law. In that sense, sociopathic behavior is not an aberration. It is very natural to the animal male and to the savage human male. Thus we need the structure of community to educate people, civilize them, and acquaint then with the advantages of participation. We do indeed form communities to overcome the animal in us for the common good. As animals, our survival depends upon our speed, strength, and cunning. Hence, there are no old rover hunters. Only the young survive. It is community that can provide long term safety and stability. It is the community upon which civilizations are built. To maintain community, we need an education structure. The more sophisticated the community and civilization, the stronger must be that system of education. That is currently the greatest danger to our civilization. We are not doing well at all in the education of our children. Too many of them fall through the cracks. Too many are becoming child sociopaths. To many are on the streets with no direction. Too many end up as dependents of the state or in prison. It is time to get down to essentials. There are only four.
Community defense, human survival, child nurturing, and education.
Everything else is a luxury. At his time, we cannot afford luxuries.
Our situation is too fragile.
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