Abuse with an Excuse

“Social” is BAD

 

“He’s very social.”

We say it like it’s a good thing. There’s a biology specific definition that is generic, where “social” is the totality of the concept and it is made up of things that can be any or all three of prosocial, antisocial, and asocial – well, that’s the rational definition. That social is “good” – that’s the social definition. There is a little more to this dynamic than  “lay” and “learned,” and although the Venn diagrams would line up that way, the political disaster of social media demands that we start to think in terms of social vs rational if we want to understand what’s going on. Social memes can be ubiquitous, reaching way up into the learned crowd, even to the very top.

Maybe not the anti-Christ but close enough guy is very social. We debate his intellect, his madness, but that’s not where his power is. He’s very social. We all knew it, tacitly, intuitively: his victory was the victory of social bullshit and the defeat of rationality.

It isn’t “National Socialism,” it’s nationally “being social,” which is not socialism, at all, it’s the opposite. Socialism is about the people, all the people. “Being social” is about discrimination, who to be prosocial with, who to be antisocial with. Socialism is a political attempt to expand our prosocial network to all, to rise above endless social conflict. Of course, co-opting the term to mean the opposite is what the discriminators do – when you have been defined as fit for discrimination, you don’t deserve the truth about anything either.

Of course their own “nation’s” citizens don’t deserve the truth either. That is Antisocialization Theory. The business end of nationalism requires an abused, desensitized and violent citizenry, so when mass murder is your plan for some other, then mass beatings are what you have for your own.

This is the reality of the situation, antisocial without, antisocial within.

The evolutionary psychology explanation of morality, antisocial for the enemy and prosocial for the tribe – same as lay vs learned, above. The truth is antisocial for the tribe and family, and so very antisocial for the enemy, that’s a true psychological as well as evolved function. The idea that simply not killing your own falls on the prosocial side of the social sphere, that not murdering your cousins brings what actual, active love and nurturing brings, that punishments and discipline are supposed to have the positive effects of love because you’re alive aren’t you – this is a pathetic read of the data, or rather it’s a veiled threat in lieu of any read of the data.

This is the same sort of science gives a baby monkey a wire cage for a mother and to make it a prosocial experience they wrap the cage in a towel. It’s alive, isn’t it?

 

Lady Leaders

 

I’ve been silent about something, holding back, I didn’t want to express this thought, it’s a misogynist one, I’m not proud of it and it’s an enemy maker in context, let alone what it could mean out of context. I’ve been on about that human society is warrior society, that so much of what we do “for morality and civilization” is what hurts people and makes us all generally more violent and aggressive, and I’m mostly talking about abuse, including the use of abuse in legitimate punishments and discipline practices. That implicitly includes motherhood as a major vector for this function, gives the ladies a share of responsibility for the world as it is today, the hand that rocks the cradle at least also rules the world in this way. Of course that’s not the new evil thought.

The evil thought starts with the feminist trope that if women ruled the world, there would be less war and conflict, and yes, I’ve got an argument. Put your evil-repellent glasses on.

I must ask – is that because they live as second class citizens, because they’ve been put upon and abused?

Are we so sure that having been abused is what makes you smart and peaceful? Ever heard of this new thing they have in California – psychology, I think they’re calling it?

That is the response I always thought I would have to that idea of lady leaders, that’s the thing I haven’t said out loud, and that’s years of my internal snide showing, but . . . first, that nasty meme is composed of truths, isn’t it?

Second, this train of thought, Antisocialization Theory, like it does with many unsolved puzzles, suggests a real answer to this sarcastic question. Well, AST and Trivers’ evolved self-deception do, together.

Yes, leaders are indeed leaders because they have been abused, to some degree. Not every man wants to try to wipe some huge portion of the Old World off the map either. If we made a law, only women can be elected, we would straightaway elect the meanest, most warlike women on Earth, just like we do with the boys. The ones who want the job the most, trying the hardest and doing whatever is necessary to get it – exactly the wrong ones, as usual.

I know, not entirely fair, the hypothetical could be stated as “if we were the sort of folks who elected women,” but sorry, stupid, evil brain says again, there are a few good men we could vote for too, if we were the sort to do it. Don’t get me wrong, I love lady leaders, relative to male ones, Hillary vs anti-Christ or close enough guy was the widest gap between good and evil respectively ever voted for anywhere and no question more women leaders would look like Obama as opposed to this monster than men, all civilization long – but Obama didn’t and probably couldn’t stop the wars either, all I’m saying. And electing that guy was apparently so difficult on us, look at what we elected for a rest.

I’m in a bad mood.

I’m sorry. Plus I know he wasn’t elected either, by anybody. Somehow, the comment stands, sort of like somehow, the election did.

Crap.

 

 

Jeff

Aug. 17^th., 2019