Worldview: Human Behavior

by A Concerned Citizen

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Retired on 31 December 2007

Introduction
Genetics and Behavior
Doubts About Liberal Culture
Economics and Behavior
Religion and Ideology
Demographics
Various Humans
Human Comedy
Great Shows
Sexuality
Miscellaneous

Worldview Menu

Introduction

This page will serve as a catch-all for items related to human behavior, such as psychology, sociology, culture, religion, genetics and other matters. General discussions of political philosophy are posted on my Political Philosophy page, and discussions of politics and religion on my Politics and Religion page. The discussions on this page will probably be free and speculative, as opposed to the more news-based pages, typical of this website, which deal with specific issues or regions of the world.

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Genetics and Behavior

Experiments on Breeding Rats (28 July 06): It has been shown that through breeding, rats can become either very docile or very aggressive. Extrapolated to humans, this suggests that our behavior may be more strongly influenced by our genes than previously suspected. It is now a PC taboo to look for genetic causes and influences over human behavior, but of course no intelligent person ever swallowed that proscription. (Unfortunately, Larry Summers was too intelligent for Harvard!) Although genetics can be horribly misused, I suspect that a careful application of genetics goes a long way towards explaining why we behave as we do. The ethical and religious implications may be enormous, but that doesn't mean that we should shy away from this topic. I'll even permit myself to wonder whether some social groups in some parts of the world are beyond 'rehabilitation', and should instead be quarantined. For example, some terrorist groups seem like gangs of mad dogs, so what is the point of trying to be nice to them? In our modern age, it is generally considered indecent to suggest the ruthless extermination of any group of humans, even if it could be proven that they are genetically constrained to behave like barbarians or criminals. But if they cannot be isolated and quarantined, then perhaps one should be less inclined to take any of them prisoners when fighting them in a just war.

Joe Garofoli (SF Gate): Women's and men's brains are different

Frans de Waal (Spiegel): Bloodthirsty chimps and sex-crazed bonobos

Economist: Women and men feel pain differently

American Scientist: Chimps can murder and mice can laugh

BBC: Humans show major DNA differences

Pharyngula: It's not just the genes, it's the links between them

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Doubts About Liberal Culture

Introduction
Chic Perversion
Articles

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Introduction (April 06): I have discussed religious fundamentalism, which I consider problematic in America but lethal in the Middle East. As a matter of principle, I am a so-called 'liberal democrat' in the classical sense, who believes in the Western values of democracy, human rights, free speech, secular government, individualism, maximum freedom in one's private life, and so on. However, I am not entirely or blindly pro-Western, as I am deeply concerned with the decay of our popular culture. I consider it to be as much of a long-term threat as Islamic militancy.

This presents a bit of a quandary. I do not like puritans or other kinds of self-righteous conservative people who wish to restrict personal freedom in the name of morality. I am fond of much of the fringes of American culture through the 60s and 70s, from Betty Page to Jimi Hendrix. (Perhaps you wouldn't want your children to emulate them, but they seem safe enough as entertainment.) However, in the last several decades, much of popular culture has become ugly, violent and idiotic. Rap music boasts of violence (including against women), and rock stars glorify in looking diseased. I don't keep up with popular music anymore, but a perusal of the iTunes music store (including the video previews) is a pretty good barometer of current tastes. Sorry to sound like an aging elitist prig, but I think most of it is stupid and obnoxious, if not worse. (Jacob Heilbrunn thinks that vulgarity is an inevitable by-product of the capitalist economy, which creates a tension among conservatives between the moralists and the free-market enthusiasts.)

Why does this matter? Because, the spiritual health of a society is intrinsically important, and because it affects all other aspects of society. As the cliche goes, no man is an island. When people are not honest, decent, mature and responsible, the whole society gets sick. Families argue and fight; employers and employees compete rather than cooperate; crime and fraud get out of control; the public becomes cynical and opportunistic; and so on. A social catastrophe is looming on the horizon. We have massive government and private debt, propped up by foreign dollars which may evaporate once investors loose faith in us. Not only minority teens, but increasing numbers of white teens are said to be dropping out of high school (though some skeptics disagree ). What is certain is that Asian countries are presenting stiff competition, and I don't know how long America can survive on airy 'information' jobs that don't seem to really produce anything. Anyhow, whatever our economic future, social and spiritual decay will certainly magnify the problems.

As I said, this presents quite a predicament for the true believer in liberal democracy. I do believe that the freedom and individualism of Western society is the root cause of our intellectual and economic success. Freedom unleashes the energy and imagination latent in the human spirit. Communism and Islam are giant Frankenstein social experiments that demonstrate the futility of trying to order a good society into existence. Yet freedom can also sow the seeds of its own destruction. The neglect of spiritual values will lead to an inevitable decay and disaster which no institutions can stave off. Freedom is a privilege which must be used responsibly. Our present environment may seem prosperous and powerful, but we neglect the importance of intangibles like culture and spirituality at our own peril. Their absence has a slow but ultimately disastrous corrosive effect. To this extent only, I share the Islamic disgust with our society. At the same time, finding the right balance between repression and dissolution is delicate, and I would prefer to err on the side of indulgence and hope for the best. (Then again, spending some time at this site may turn your stomach.)

Back to Doubts About Liberal Culture

Now I will post further examples of aspects of modern culture that I find troubling:

Chic Perversion (20 Jul 06): I like to consider myself 'open-minded', but the recent trend in Europe towards underage models is making me sick. You can start by reading Liz Jones in the Daily Mail, a British newspaper. She mentions several currently 'hot' models: Lily Cole (18), Lily Donaldson (19) and Gemma Ward (18). These three girls have been modelling since 14, 16 and 15, respectively. I have no problem with pictures of sweetness and innocence, such as this, but showing young girls with makeup, pouting and assuming sexual poses, seems rather nauseating to me. Who likes this stuff anyway? I might point out that little Hindu girls can sometimes be dolled up without losing their innocence. It is the sexuality of the European models that offends. In general, European fashion has become rather hideous and decadent, regardless of the age of the models. No wonder the Muslims in Europe think they only need to wait a generation or two to take over the continent.

Robert Hughes (London Times): The Curse of Free Love

Richard Parry (London Times): Rude Japanese youth

Spengler (Asia Times): Cheap American culture driven by resentment

Amy Sullivan (USA Today): Why Democrats are losing the culture war

Jewcy: Mother Devasted by Daughter's Porn Career

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Articles

William Lind: A modern-day Luddite hates computers

Bill Moyers: Faith & Reason: Mary Gordon

Patrick West: Heather Mills and the nutty Beatles

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Economics and Behavior

Introduction
Houellebecq and Sexual Liberalism

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Introduction (30 Aug 06): How much does economics affect our behavior? Would a sweet and sensible person living a comfortable life become a savage if flung into poverty? Or does wealth inflate our ego and comfort spoil us? Does economic prosperity lead to an educated and enlightened citizenry? Or is intellectual and/or moral achievement the precondition for prosperity? And so on.

Megan McArdle (Reason): Wealth makes us virtuous

New Yorker: A Psychotherapist falls for the Nigerian email scam

Johan Norberg (Policy Magazine): The Scientist's Pursuit of Happiness

Jonathan Rose (City Journal): The Classics in the Slums

Matthew Price: What would Thorstein Veblen make of us now?

Roger Sandall (Culture Cult): On Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West

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Houellebecq and Sexual Liberalism (17 Sep 06): Houellebecq is a noted French writer who may seem trashy at first but who has some interesting observations regarding modern Western society. I have not read any of his works, but this review of his new book mentions an intriguing analogy between modern sexual freedom and the ruthlessness of the free market:

It's a fact, I mused to myself, that in societies like ours, sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. ... Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. ... It's what's known as 'the law of the market'. In an economic system where unfair dismissal is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their place. In a sexual system where adultery is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their bed mate. In a totally liberal economic system, certain people accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment and misery. In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.

Houellebecq is also bitter that his 1960s beatnik mother abandoned him, yet he has led a similar sterile life of loveless sexual gratification. I guess he speaks for the times. This demographic disaster of the breakup of the traditional family will certainly help the fertile and aggressive Muslims take over Europe, almost like a divine punishment. As a secular humanist and card-carrying devotee of the Enlightenment, I am loathe to find redeeming values in anti-rational faiths like traditional Christianity, but maybe Europe's Christian past did provide enough structure to prevent social fragmentation. Liberty may be a curse for the spiritually handicapped. Also, I might find sympathy with the common European notion that economic liberalism as ruthless as ours is cruel to a large mass of nondescript losers, but that is for another time. The other side of the coin, of course, is that socialism can be equally oppressive.

Spengler (Asia Times): Jihadis and whores

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Religion and Ideology

Introduction (1 Sep 06): Although I talk a great deal about religion and ideology throughout my website, I thought it would be a good idea to have this special section for articles that don't fit in easily elsewhere. For example, the first article discusses recent research by neuroscientists that religion may have evolved as a survival mechanism and is to some extent hardwired into the human brain.

Ian Sample (Guardian): Is religion a biological survival mechanism?

Kim Sterelny: Review of Dennett's Breaking the Spell

David Barber (Boston Globe): The Aeneid and US Imperial Angst

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Demographics

Introduction (2 Sep 06): This section was prompted by reading this article by Spengler in Asia Times. As usual, Spengler is brilliant and confusing. Like Mark Steyn, he points to the low birth rate of Europeans as a looming catastrophe for Western civilization. At the present rate, Europeans would die out in a century or so. Contrast that with the high birth-rate of the Muslim immigrant horde, and Europe as we know it seems doomed.

Spengler takes the idea further by referring to the works of Oswald Spengler, who is evidently the inspiration for his nom de plume. The earlier Spengler foresaw the population decline at the beginning of the last century. Indeed, the French army was already worried about a lack of soldiers in the upcoming war with Germany. The later Spengler isn't very clear about the causes of the decline, but the emancipation of women seems to be a major part of it. As a woman ceases to be the 'peasant mother' and demands a career and other opportunities for self-fulfillment, she no longer has the time or inclination to have many children. This pattern, according to the Oswald Spengler, was seen even in ancient civilizations. The Romans died out from a lack of reproduction as much as from barbarian invasions. It seems that people who are closer to the soil, so to speak, are more vigorous and fertile. As they become educated and move to cities, they get distracted by career and culture, and reproduction becomes an inconvenience rather than a spontaneous part of life. Here is a quote from Spengler's Decline of the West:

At this level all Civilizations enter upon a stage, which lasts for centuries, of appalling depopulation. The whole pyramid of cultural man vanishes. It crumbles from the summit, first the world-cities, then the provincial forms, and finally the land itself, whose best blood has incontinently poured into the towns, merely to bolster them up awhile. At the last, only the primitive blood remains, alive, but robbed of its strongest and most promising elements. This residue is the Fellah type.

What exactly is the 'Fellah' type? The word means 'a peasant or agricultural laborer in an Arab country'. How is this different from other kinds of peasants? The term here is evidently pejorative. Neither Spengler thinks highly of Muslim civilization, and a Fellah no doubt denotes a dull kind of peasant with no enriching culture (or stripped of his culture by Islam).

Evidently, Oswald Spengler imagined that great civilizations arose among populations which were still rural enough to be vigorous and prolific, yet which also had a spark of natural culture, such as we see in the great ancient epics of Greece and Rome. These epics were composed either before the rise to a great urban civilization, as with the Illiad and Odyssey, or at the birth of power, as with the Aenead, in other words, while the society was still red-blooded and connected to the soil. This was surely the case during the ancient time of Homer, and during the time of Virgil, the Romans still prided themselves on their agricultural past. As civilization grows, the best and brightest cannot resist the allure of the cities, to which they migrate. Once urbanized, their birth-rate declines. Meanwhile, only the dregs are left in the countryside, and the society as a whole collapses, which frequently leads to invasion by a more vigorous race. An interesting modern case of the country gentleman is Thomas Jefferson. The country was young enough for rural Virginia to host such scholar-farmers.

Of course, one needs to study this sweeping thesis (which I may have distorted) in much greater depth, but it does help to explain why so many great civilizations have simply disappeared. Furthermore, it seems to be happening today in Europe. Are we next? The multitude of Hispanics in our Southwest fit the mold: rural, agricultural, fertile...

George Will: Japan's Wrenching Choices

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Various Humans

Introduction (30 Aug 06): The lives of famous people provide insights into the so-called 'human condition'. The following articles provide glimpses into those lives. For one thing, an individual may be great in some respects but otherwise quite ordinary. Or, despite many virtues, a great man may be cursed with some fatal flaw that brings him down, as the ancient Greeks were acutely aware. Or his life may simply be remarkably uneventful, despite his impact on history or culture, proving a kind of triumph of mind over matter. On the other hand, the lives of creative people may be largely irrelevant to the great mass that toils away. Whatever the case, their biographies fascinate us all.

Marlowe — The man who wasn't there

Shakespeare — Goes to Paris (book review)

Rubens — Was a violent sex-maniac

Voltaire — Voltaire's garden

Rousseau — Loved humanity, abused individuals

Schiller — Say it loud — it's Schiller and it's proud [more]

Disraeli — Inventor of modern conservatism

John Stuart Mill — Radical humanist

Melville — Almost forgotten

Flaubert — Homme plume (book review)

Chekhov & Tolstoy [more]

Einstein — 1905 Miracle Year (book review)

Churchill — British hero with a huge ego (book review)

Stalin — Closing in on Stalin (book review)

Mao — Mao the Monster (book review)

Malreaux — Grand illusion

Feynman — Richard Feynman's letters (book review)

Philip Johnson — Some ex-Nazis are forgiven

Solzhenitsyn — Traducing Solzhenitsyn

Henry Darger — Reclusive, imaginative, creepy, child-obsessed folk artist

Shing-Tung Yau — Emperor of Math

Timothy Leary — The Acid Guru's Long, Strange Trip

Molly Ivins — Cheerful fighting liberal journalist (1944-2007)

Taki Theodoracopulos — Outspoken Iconoclast [more]

David Hackworth — Brave and honest soldier

Long Tack Sam — His Magical Life

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The Human Comedy

Introduction
Mac vs. PC

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Introduction (27 Sep 06): I guess I should have some humor at this website, and nothing is funnier than human behavior. I've laughed at a number of Onion articles over the years. It's time to start recording them, and others.

Onion

Onion: Relations Break Down Between U.S. And Them

Onion: American People Ruled Unfit To Govern

Onion: Reagan Pyramid Nears Completion

Onion: Area Homosexual Saves Four From Fire

Onion: Nation's Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue

Onion: National Museum Of The Middle Class Opens In Schaumburg, IL

Onion: Women Now Empowered By Everything A Woman Does

Onion: U.S. Holds Going-Out-Of-Business Sale

Onion: Democrats Vow Not To Give Up Hopelessness

Onion: 'Iraqi Gandhi' Preaches Slightly Less Violence

Onion: Poverty-Stricken Africans Receive Desperately Needed Bibles

Onion: Critics Blast Bush For Not Praying Hard Enough

Onion: N. Korea Detonates 40 Years Of GDP

Onion: DNA Evidence Frees Man After 15 Years Of Marriage

Onion: Politicians Sweep Midterm Elections

Onion: Bush Urges US Be Quiet For A Minute While He Tries To Think

Onion: Thousands More Dead In Continuing Iraq Victory

Onion: 800,000 Privileged Youths Enlist To Fight In Iraq

Onion: Area Man Says He'll Learn Difference Between Shiites And Sunnis

Onion: Giuliani To Run For President Of 9/11

Other

Ann Althouse blog parody [more]

Reuters: Mummified body found in front of blaring TV

Brian Frisk: Become Republican (animation)

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Mac vs. PC (18 Oct 06): I'm a big Apple fan and use only Apple computers, iPods, etc. However, I get annoyed sometimes by the somewhat obnoxious Apple image. If I were an employer, I'd be inclined to hire the nice, decent, unpretentious, goofy, low-key PC personality in this advertisement, just to ease my nerves. I have no use for any affected youth culture, with its emphasis on attitude. Unassuming people are much more pleasant to have around. Still, it's a very good, elegant and easy-to-use computer, and I recommend it, even if it costs a bit more.

MacWorld: Windows development chief 'would buy a Mac'

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Great Shows

Introduction
Full House (Korean version)

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Introduction (11 Feb 07): Of course, there are too many great movies or TV shows to list them all. Instead, I will list some favorites as I discover them or as they occur to me, especially if they are a bit unusual by contemporary American standards.

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Full House (Korean version) (11 Feb 07): Here's a great TV drama to start us off. It is a thoroughly enjoyable miniseries from Korea called Full House, aired on Korean TV in 2004 and now available in DVD from Amazon for about $30 (with English subtitles). It consists of 16 1-hour episodes of a love story between Lee Young-Jae, a young Korean movie star (played by real-life music idol 'Rain' or 'Bi') and Han Ji Eun (played be popular actress and model Song Hye Kyo). Basically, Han Ji Eun lives alone in a stylish house built by her deceased parents, which is stolen from her by some devious (yet likeable!) friends, and then purchased by Lee Young-Jae. She gets entangled with him by borrowing money, which she must pay back by doing housework for him. He treats her badly for quite a while, and their relationship soon turns into a contract marriage, so that he can get some cover from never-ending scandals. She is spirited and pushes back when hurt, and slowly his appreciation and love of her grows, and she reciprocates (though they don't always realize this). What makes the drama so enjoyable to me are the attractive characters and excellent acting all-around but above all the absolutely charming and delightful expressions on Han Ji Eun's lovely face. Not too serious, this bubbly drama is how melodramas should be, but I have rarely seen anything this good on American TV. Korea has come a long way from being a grim industrial park! It's now a sophisticated and culturally vibrant place. This series enables one to take a bit of a virtual trip there.

Korean TV Dramas

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Sexuality

Anita Jain: Is arranged marriage really any worse than Craigslist?

Alex Renton: Learning the Thai sex trade

BBC: Prostitutes speak of their ordeals

Anneli Rufus (AlterNet): Sex Workers' Lit Ruined My Sex Life

Jewcy: Mother Devasted by Daughter's Porn Career

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Miscellaneous

Before 2006

Brendan I. Koerner: Coffee fuels creativity