707. Selfish Men's Delusion And Myth

707.   Selfish Men's Delusion And Myth

Recognizing the biological reality, that only a man has a recurrent physiological urge to get rid of body waste, which women do not have, enables him to acknowledge, what a woman really does, when she contributes to his maintenance of his homeostasis.   He appreciates this as a gift of love from her.   As a caring and equal partner, he returns his own gift of love, by equally fulfilling her needs: He bonds with her in committed monogamy, he reciprocates her emotional attachment and the feeling of belonging together, and of being a unit, he shares intellectual intimacy, he enables her to feel significant and protected in a reliable save haven. 

But there are also those men, who want access to women's bodies without giving any of the above, and nevertheless they avoid to experience themselves as selfish or abusive.  The complete denial of the biological asymmetry is their method.  

These men have created a myth, which is perpetuated by the male dominated media:   This myth is a collective male delusion and fallacy, that allegedly women would have the same need for sex as men and would therefore also equally benefit.   This claim serves as these men's justification to refuse giving anything to the women or to ever accept any obligation to fulfill women's different needs.  

But it gets even worse.   Not all women are brainwashed by the oversexed social norms, some are quite aware of their own reality, that a behavior, which every animal without a rational brain does by instinct, is just too banal and stupid to be bothered about it.   For an intellectual woman, the question, how much or how little she enjoys a book, an art exhibition or a theater play is so much more significant than the question, how much she enjoys food or sex.   When a woman states this comparison about food, most men are able to grasp this.   But not about sex, which blurs male brains.   Whenever a woman has the self-confidence to insist, that she considers the male needs merely as an unavoidable banality in a relationship, most men are just unable to accept or respect this attitude.   Instead of recognizing, that some women's cognition is above such banalities, these men defame such women as flawed, inhibited or repressed.  

642. Statistical Evidence Of The Asymmetry Of Instincts

642.   Statistical Evidence Of The Asymmetry Of Instincts

According to estimates recently published in the local newspaper, the yearly transaction volume of prostitution in Germany are € 14.5 billion and the daily number of abusers (euphemistically called clients) of prostitutes are 1.2 millions.    The population of Germany is nearly 82 millions.    

Even by a cautious interpretation of estimated numbers, the magnitude of this market gives clear evidence of the biological asymmetry and the differences between male and female animal instincts.
 

I am basing my consideration, that prostitution is clear evidence for a blatant asymmetry upon the logic in people's decision, what they are willing to pay for and what they only supply in return for payment.  
People choose to pay money for the fulfillment of a need by another person, who himself does not benefit from his part in the activity and who therefore has no own reason to engage in unless for money.      
Outside training and instructing, people have no need to pay a partner for shared activities as is playing chess, tennis or dancing.  Such activities are chosen by both partners in a symmetrical dyad for the purpose of mutual benefits. 

Someone shining another person's shoes does not do this for personal benefits or by deriving pleasure engaging in such an activity.  Without being paid, nobody would shine shoes.  The person wanting his shoes shined can therefore obtain this service only by the compensation of payment.   

The statistical fact, that so many men can only restore their physiological homeostasis by paying indicates very clearly, that the emotionally unattached copulation of two bodies is not or rarely experienced by women as beneficial.    

1.  Evolution

 

Some men justify their abuse of women as this being natural and that humans are just animals and thus nothing were wrong with behaving as such.  This is a fallacy, because it does not take into consideration the very unique distinction in humans between the evolution of both genders, where only in the females the cognition has evolved towards overriding the force of instincts.

Most species of non-human mammals copulate for the purpose of procreation at the moment of the female estrus.   As these animals are lacking the human cognition, especially the long-term memory, copulation does not create attachment.  For animals, copulation is a physiological act of limited duration, which leaves no traces except fertilization.  For most mammals, male dishomeostasis and female estrus are balanced and occurring following a similar cycle of recurrence.  

In humans, this balance is disrupted and modified in several ways. 

• The female estrus cycle is about one month, while male sexual dishomeostasis is a cycle of days or even hours.  
• Women are neither consciously and innately aware of nor signaling the moment of the estrus.
• The moment of estrus is for women only an option to become pregnant, not an automatic urge.

This means, that the human evolution has changed male instinctive urges to copulate with a female body only towards a higher frequency of the dishomeostasis.    But it has separated the female urge to procreate from being driven by the estrus to copulate for the purpose of becoming pregnant.   Emotional attachment has replaced the estrus as what is motivating women towards physical intimacy.  
If women were able to react adequately to this imbalance by refusing any abuse of their bodies and demand emotional attachment from men as a condition for giving them homeostasis, the human species would have been extinct a long time.   

But the concurrent superior male physical strength has enabled men to enforce their homeostation by the abuse of the bodies of non-consenting women.   Thus the ability for emotional attachment did not evolve equally in men.    

2.  The effects of this evolutionary asymmetry on contemporary people. 

A man wanting to merely copulate with a female body has only the choice between abuse by force or abuse by payment.   If he wants a woman's motivation to give him his recurrent homeostation, he has to take care, that she has a reason to experience physical intimacy as beneficial for herself.   This reason is giving her emotional attachment, bonding and long-term commitment.  

In modern civilized countries, the risk of the dire consequences of abuse by force is so high, that the abusers usually choose prostitution. 

   
Prostitution is for the man the exact simulation of the situation of the animal copulation.   But a woman, who is not driven by an estrus to get pregnant, has no own reason to copulate with a body.   She does not experience any personal benefits by being abused as a toilet for men's body waste.   The prostitute takes money as a compensation for the damage of allowing herself to be abused (if this even is a free choice). 

2.1.  Modern communication technology like the web enables people to find a partner for any activity.  Whenever an activity supplies reciprocal and symmetrical benefits, people can find a partner without needing to pay.  

If uncommitted copulation of two bodies were beneficial for more than a tiny minority of women, men would find them and avoid paying for prostitution.   The web is full with ads and profiles of men, who want intimate encounters, no strings fun, friends with benefits or any other euphemism for wanting a woman as a living toilet. Any woman (if there are any) attracted to be used this way, would be certainly found.   But the € 14.5 billion yearly only in Germany show, that the consent to be abused is not available for free, it is only sold.   

2.2. There is a big difference between reducing dishomeostasis and attempting to find and indulge in pleasure.   Dishomeostasis is experienced as an urge to remove or reduce a state of discomfort and return to the neutral relaxed state.    This urge can severely disrupt rational thinking and distort appropriate behavior.   

When in a relaxed state there is a free choice for additional pleasure and enjoyment, this is an undisturbed mind's wise choice or preference.   

Most people would prefer to buy for example a piece of cake or a newspaper rather than a painkiller.   But when they experience the dishomeostasis of having a headache then they need the painkiller and cannot spend that money on buying something else.   They are more driven to pay for relief than for pleasure.   

A man in the state of homeostasis can wisely choose between spending a sum of money on a book, a visit to the zoo or in a restaurant.    But a man, who pays a prostitute instead of buying a book is unable to make a wise choice, he is driven by an urge to reduce his physiological discomfort.    

2.3.  By evolution, women's strong need for emotional attachment has replaced the urge to copulate as being identical with the urge to get pregnant at the moment of a noticeable estrus.   This need to not only be in a situation of being able to get attached but also to experience the attachment as reciprocal is doomed to bring harm and pain, as long as it is onesided, because too many men are driven towards copulation without attachment.   

Many women get emotionally attached to their children, while they commodify and take advantage of men as material providers.  Based upon the evolutionary asymmetry, I am wondering, what is cause and what is reaction and how many women do breed not by really preferring their children for emotional attachment, but by perceiving this as their only chance to get any emotional attachment, which they do not consider possible with a man. 

  

Women commodify men as purses and men objectify women as bodies, but there is a huge difference.    Men are at least respected as being able to fill the purses.   Women are perceived as bodies only apt to trigger men's instincts, which is not considered as an achievement requiring a brain and justifying respect. 

2.4.  By recognizing the reality of men's instinctive urges I do not excuse or condone any abuse of women.  Men have the problem, it is their task to cope with it without abusing women.    

When someone has a recurrent problem, which causes him so much discomfort, that he is willing to pay for a remedy, because he is unable to solve it in any other way, this is usually considered as an affliction, as an unfortunate and detrimental situation.   
But when the recurrent problem is a man's sexual dishomeostasis, and his choice of a remedy is paying for prostitution, because he is unable to get emotionally attached in a serious relationship, then this man often feels proud of his high libido and is in complete denial, that he has an affliction, a disability and a defect.  

I consider men, who are proud of their high libido, as pathetic idiots.   

The man, who has a low libido and no need for emotionally unattached copulation is the winner in the lottery of life, which has given him the genes, which cause the least harm to himself and to women and the most long term benefits.   

High libido is as obsolete as excessive hunger or appetite.  For long parts of human history, overeating served survival.  Fat stored on the body, when food is plenty was needed in times of scarcity.    Before modern medicine, the mortality was so high, that male high libido combined with physical strength enabled men to force so many pregnancies on women, that the species survived.    Today, the same combination has led to overpopulation.    Men overeating damage themselves, men driven by high libido towards abuse damage women.  

Unfortunately, people are more prone to change attitudes and behaviors, when they experience the damage on themselves, then when they only harm others.   

Not all men abuse women, and there are many, who theoretically and generally agree that women deserve better than being abused, with or without being paid.    But this is not sufficient.    What is really needed is a radical change of men's attitude towards their own libido.   

 

It is the same as with obesity.   As long as a man considers it as good to be fat, he will continue with a positive attitude towards overeating.  Only if he changes his attitude and considers overeating as harmful and undesirable behavior, he can control. his behavior and loose weight.   As long as a man considers it as good to pay for the abuse of prostitutes, he will continue with his positive attitude towards a high libido.   Only if he changes his attitude and considers copulation without attachment as abusive, harmful and undesirable behavior, he can control his behavior and stop all abuse of women.  

While there is nothing wrong with any amount of libido, as long as it can be absorbed entirely by the physical intimacy earned by emotional attachment in a bonded monogamous long-term commitment, men need to acknowledge and recognize, that all libido beyond this is a dangerous and detrimental affliction.    Only then the world can become a better place for women.

631. Frugality

631.  Frugality

I have labeled myself an Epicurean before, because the Epicurean lifestyle suits my own inclinations.    Or more precisely, my own lifestyle is congruent with Epicurus' philosophy.   But while a philosophy as a way of thinking can continue to be valid without modification for more than two millennia, a lifestyle based upon such a philosophy cannot be carved in stone and ever after be followed literally.   A lifestyle has to be an adaption to specific social and technical realities.   While a modern lifestyle needs to be without a contradiction to Epicurus' writings and teachings, if it is to be called Epicurean, it also needs to accommodate factors, which did not exist at his time.   

Frugality was and is a part of the Epicurean life style.   But it is a good example of an aspect, which cannot be applied literally to today's way of life as it was suggested about 2300 years ago. 


According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frugality,

"Frugality is the quality of being frugal, sparing, thrifty, prudent or economical in the use of consumable resources such as food, time or money, and avoiding waste, lavishness or extravagance.

In behavioral science, frugality has been defined as the tendency to acquire goods and services in a restrained manner, and resourceful use of already owned economic goods and services, to achieve a longer term goal."

Frugality means thus the lack of the motivation to act towards deriving physical pleasures from the consumption of material goods.   In this sense, frugality is the absence of hedonism.   But frugality is not anhedonia, it is not the general absence of feeling any pleasure.   Instead it means deriving a different kind of pleasure, derived from emotional and intellectual causes, which are immaterial.   

Frugality is a core trait of a personality type, whose behavior is determined more by cognition than by instinct, and which is represented consciously by attitudes coinciding with the Epicurean philosophy.  


Modern frugality embraces factors, which did not exist 2300 years ago:

1. Mass production and the price of consumption

In ancient times production was manual labor using simple tools and appliances.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_technology).  Clothing as were the Greek chitons are an example.  Produced from wool or any other fiber they needed at least spinning, before even the spinning wheel was invented, and weaving manually on a loom.  Food production also was hard labor of agriculture without machinery.   Even producing containers for food was the hard work of pottery, metallurgy or woodworking. . 
 
Under such circumstances, obtaining and consuming any necessity of life equaled the decision to obtain and/or to destroy the result of many hours of someone's hard labor.   Therefore every single act of the frugality of not consuming something had a drastic effect of saving the investment of a portion of someone's life time.

Today in our modern western society, containers for food are mass produced from plastic and considered as waste, when empty.  Anybody can buy a t-shirt, a loaf of bread or even an electrical saw for the money earned in less than one hour of even a moderately paid job.   The single act of frugality of not buying any one mass produced item brings little or no material or time benefit to anybody.   

Today the benefits of frugality are therefore predominantly immaterial.


2. Technical complexity and the second-hand principle

While there was already in ancient times a division of labor, most production required only a few basic skills, some practice and experience, but mainly it was a lot of routine work.    Many tools and utensils could be self-made or at least easily repaired, when necessary.    Repairing was usually more economical than discarding and replacing.    

Today the technological complexity of even the basic standard of living requires special knowledge, that many people are lacking.    While a mass produced electrical saw can be bought for very cheap, to construct it and to construct the machines to produce it requires long years of studying engineering.   People have thus no choice but to throw out any machine, even though it may only have a slight defect, because any repair is beyond their knowledge or beyond the availability of spare parts.    

But this does not automatically imply the justification for throwing out without hesitation also what is not broken, because in comparison with the own income it did cost so little.   

Many machines do have real value in reducing hard labor.   For example, an electrical saw has real advantages compared with a manual saw.   Therefore frugality today cannot mean to fall back on not using the available machines from mass production.  

Modern frugality includes the principle of second-hand use as a compromise of having the benefits of using helpful machines and tools while avoiding waste.   Instead of throwing out what can still be used, frugality conscious people give away or resell for cheap, what they do not need anymore.  Those, who choose to or are compelled to live frugally, receive or buy those second-hand items.


3. Practical necessities and compensatory skills 

Consuming the results of mass production requires money, which is earned by participating directly or indirectly in this same economy of mass production.    While a single item of mass production often does not cost much, the sum of the goods of mass consumption is nevertheless bought in exchange for long hours of dull, hard routine work.

While few people could build their own electrical saw, there is a lower level, where people have a choice between either paying for services and products or picking up some knowledge and skills towards being creative, self-sufficient and self-reliant.   

The option to acquire compensatory skills is another aspect of frugality.  It is a method to either gain free time or at least to add intellectual quality to the time spent to obtain the necessities of every day life.    

A conscious frugal life style means people having gained the awareness of having the option to acquire beneficial basic skills of some crafts and artisanries.   This enables them to a certain extend to avoid paying for the expensive services of electricians, carpenters, computer technicians or other specialists.      

    

The less they need to pay, the less they need to earn.   Unfortunately in real life this option is often limited, because people are not free to chose their amount of paid work.   Instead they are glad to have a job at all, working the hours required by the employer.
 
Therefore frugality by compensatory skills has material benefits mostly for the poor, but it also brings emotional pleasure to those, who enjoy learning and achieving things.  


4.  Globalized exploitation.

In the mainly regional economic system of manually production in ancient Greece, people obtained, what they needed, by exchanging goods, which where produced by similarly long hours of labor.   Some had the power to exploit slaves, but this was visible and open.   Everybody, who profited from the exploitation of others, was fully aware of this and could not deny it, not matter if having or lacking a bad conscience. 

Everybody choosing frugality by refraining from owning and exploiting slaves could rightfully have a self-concept of being a person acting responsibly and morally.

Today in modern western societies exploitation is anonymous, hidden and ubiquitous.   The life of the exploited producers of the consumer good is most probably not any better than the life of the ancient Greek slaves.  
 
Whatever someone buys here in a shop for cheap, no matter if a t-shirt, an electrical saw or a bunch of bananas, has been completely or partially produced by people in some poor country, whose wages do not allow them the minimum standard of living, which would suffice to be considered as fulfilling basic human rights.   
We all here could not indulge in our material comfort, were it not obtained by exploiting modern slaves in sweatshops far away.   Most people do not even know it and they do not want to know.   But even knowing it does not help much, because there is no real choice.  

 
Whenever I can choose between a t-shirt for 5€ or for 50€ and between an electrical saw for 10€ or for 100€, this is only a choice concerning how much I decide to pay.   There is no way to know or to decide, where the difference goes to.   I would appreciate to be able to pay a fair price for the goods, a price high enough, that those producing them get a decent wage.   But there is no way to know or to influence, how much of the higher price of some goods only fills the pockets of greedy exploitive capitalists.  

Today personal frugality has no impact upon global slavery.   Not only being exploited, but also having a materially good life made possible by others' slavery is forced upon people often against their will and wish by cruel and inconsiderate capitalists installing and maintaining the imbalance of economic power.      


To sum it up:  

A hedonist derives pleasure from consumption.   A capitalist or wanna-be-capitalist derives pleasure form his power to pay for goods and services.    Having economic power adds to his self-esteem and self-worth.   
Both enjoy, what is not a personal merit, but the result of the lottery of life, which has given them the citizenship in a country with economic power or the membership of the privileged class of some country.

A frugal Epicurean enjoys learning and applying skills and knowledge as a cognitive pleasure.   Every success and every instance of saving money or avoiding dull routine work without exploiting another human being adds to his self-esteem and self-worth.   Thus the frugal Epicurean earns doubly, by not only adding quality to his life, but by thus also having a reason to be proud of himself.     

541. The Distinction Between Utilitarianism And Commodification

541.  The Distinction Between Utilitarianism And Commodification

I am not very learned about the standard philosophical theories.   My paradigm of a rationally based commitment of two egalitarians as presented in this blog is the result of extensive pondering over my own relationship needs.   
I just discovered, that my own commitment paradigm coincides a lot with the philosophical theory called Utilitarianism.        

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

"Utilitarianism is a theory in philosophy about right and wrong actions. It says that the morally best action is the one that makes the most overall happiness or "utility" (usefulness). This is not limited to the happiness caused by a single action but also includes the happiness of all people involved and all future consequences."

"Bentham wrote about this idea with the words "The greatest good for the greatest number", but did not use the word utilitarianism. It was Mill, a follower of Bentham's ideas, who named the idea."

There are two ways of calculating the total costs and benefits.

• Pleasures and pains are all put together in one overall calculation. 
  This principle is accepted and lived by those people, who consider exposing oneself deliberately to serious hardships for the purpose of earning pleasures as an option.   Extreme sports are an example.
   
• Based upon the reasons, why the impact of suffering is comparatively much stronger than that of missed and renounced pleasures, both are considered separately and independently. 
  This calculation accommodates my own inclinations, which I consider as important to be shared with a mindmate.

1.  Limitations of the application of the utilitarian principle

Applying the utilitarian principle to maximize the happiness of a couple has limitations.   If these limitations are ignored, the possible benefits of the utilitarian principle are reversed into a situation even worse than that of two persons basing their interactions upon bartering and bargaining.  

1.1.  Every utilitarian decision how to behave requires the correct knowledge of the other's subjective perception and experience of this behavior depending upon individual differences of sensitivity, endurance, resilience and needs.   

The utilitarian principle only works for both partners, when

• shared decisions are based upon a correct assessment of the impact of every decision upon both.
• each partner's independent decisions are as valid as if shared, because the assumptions about the impact upon the partner are correct.  
• people are a match concerning their evaluation of the meaning and magnitude of the impact of specific behaviors.  

1.2. Haphazard people with very different individual needs and situations applying the utilitarian principle upon their shared decisions cannot expect this to lead to a fair balance of giving and receiving.
But the subjective experience of justice due to a fair balance is one important factor in what makes a relationship stable and durable.   

Therefore only two persons being a match in their needs, priorities and sensitivities are prone and able to have the combination of both, the benefits added by the utilitarian method of shared decisions and the overall long-term balance of giving and receiving.

This requires to focus upon the careful choice of a suitable and compatible partner as a matching criterion of paramount importance.    The attempt to enhance happiness by utilitarian behavior fails with a mismatch. 

To sum it up:  
The more two partners are compatible and a good match, the more the utilitarian principle can enhance happiness for both of them.   Otherwise the relationship is doomed as either a never ending battle over unresolvable conflicts or as an asymmetrical situation, where one has the power to benefit and the other has the disadvantages.   
The more there is for example a discrepancy between a man's instinctive urge to use a female body and the woman's emotional needs for a committed safe haven, the more the utilitarian principle is a onesided hazard for the woman.  


2.   The baseline of wellbeing

The neutral feeling of the absence of both pan and pleasure is the logical baseline, the state of homeostasis, of being at ease.    People can experience this baseline as sufficient wellbeing without missing anything, as long as they are not aware of its existence.   

The difference between suffering pain or displeasure and the baseline is much more drastic and significant than the difference between the baseline of homeostasis and pleasure.  

Example 1:   When air does not contain any olfactory stimulating content, this is neutral.  People would feel perfectly fine, if there were never anything to smell.    

Being exposed to stink is worse than to be deprived of fragrance.   Someone exposed to an equal mixture of stink and fragrance would most probably prefer to have none rather than both.
Without knowledge and previous experience of the fragrance of any specific flower like a rose, nobody would be attracted to walk over to a bush of roses for the pleasure of smelling them.

Example 2:   Silence is the neutral base line, suffering from noise is worse than only lacking the pleasure of hearing the favorite music.  
Someone exposed simultaneously to the same loudness of an electrical drill and of his favorite music would most probably prefer both to end.  

Someone can only actively choose a specific music for the pleasure of listening, if one has discovered the pleasure by having heard it at least once before.   

Habituation effects the prolonged exposure to pleasure and to pain or discomfort, but with different long-term consequences.  While habituation just reduces the perceived stimulation by what initially was a strong pleasure, the habituation to lasting or repeated pain, displeasure and discomfort often results in harmed health.  

 

I personally include the neutral experience of neither suffering nor enjoying as the baseline in my definition of human rights.  

• It cannot be justified to impose harm, displeasure or discomfort upon others.   If there is a purpose considered worth to be earned by suffering, it is only justifiable as a personal choice.      
  
• Nobody is entitled to have pleasures, if the price is paid by another's sufferings.  

3.   My understanding of utilitarian commitment

For me, utilitarian commitment includes the Epicurean principle of the priority of not harming and not to be harmed.  I perceive suffering by being harmed and hurt, both physically and emotionally, as much more drastic than pleasures missed, renounced or deprived of.

Based upon the reciprocity with a mindmate being a match, I am willing to be guided by the following utilitarian behavior:

• Renouncing and abstaining from a small pleasure, whenever this results in the partner's much bigger benefits.
• Suffering small pain or displeasure, whenever this results is sparing the partner a much bigger harm, pain or displeasure.  

When a man is guided by these two principles, this is an indication of his being an egalitarian partner.


4.  The distinction between utilitarianism and commodification

But I refuse to accept the sacrifice of suffering any pain, displeasure or discomfort, as long as this only serves to give or enhance the partner's mere pleasure.   This is out of proportion.   Maintaining the baseline of neither pain nor pleasure is more justified.   

When a man expects and demands a disagreeing woman to suffer for his pleasures, this indicates his attitude to commodify women.

When a man uses any power and advantage to coerce and force a resisting woman to suffer for his pleasures, this is active commodification and abuse.