733. Motivation For Behavior: The Difference Between Deficits And Benefits

733.  Motivation For Behavior:  The Difference Between Deficits And Benefits

I value rationality as one distinctive and superior quality, by which human individuals differ from instinct driven animals.  This is a premise, which many people do not share with me.   I am fully aware that those, who value being guided and determined by unconscious instincts and inclinations more than by rationality, cannot and will not agree with the following application of rationality on how to live.      

As I myself am both a non-breeder and non-religious, both are for me expression of the same rationality.   As a member of a non-breeders' group, I asked some puzzled question to religious non-breeders.    
In the entries 656. The Placebo Church  and 441. An Ingenious Self-Deception I have already expressed my wondering about the weird Unitarian Universalist placebo church.   My question to a member thereof concerning what needs and deficits were met, ended as an impasse.  

I did not get an answer, I did not even succeed to convey my question.   The exchange has inspired the following thoughts.

 

A rational person has an awareness for the importance of evaluating behaviors and actions by the consequences and by comparing them with alternative options for its causes and reasons.

1.  One important factor is the baseline.   Behavior improving the subjective wellbeing can have one or both of these effects:  It either restores the baseline to the neutral state of neither pleasure nor displeasure, or it adds pleasure above this baseline.  
This is an important distinction, because I consider only this baseline of not suffering as a human right, while seeking pleasure can only be justified when nobody else is harmed or taken advantage of.  

2.   People, whose behavior is caused by a deficit, often get additional benefits above the baseline.   Sometimes they consciously only recognize the benefits as if gaining these were the original purpose of the behavior.   They are unaware or in denial that the initial purpose was restoring the baseline.   

3.   Another factor is the experience of cognitive dissonance, when people want to be more rational than they really are.  They want to consider themselves as rationally seeking benefits and not as if they were helpless robots succumbing to urges.   The denial of urges and deficits is a method to avoid experiencing cognitive dissonance.

4.   There are different kind of subjectively perceived deficits.   Deficits can be innate or acquired, they can be physical or cognitive.   Rational behavior requires thinking about all relevant factors and about the long-term consequences before coping with the perceived deficit.   Just following the urge is often irrational.   

 

A rational way of life requires people to scrutinize carefully all their inclinations to behave.   For this purpose they ask themselves several questions.   The ones in the not comprehensive following list are important

• Which is my baseline? 
• Do I only get benefits or are there needs, deficits, urges, wishes, discontentment, dishomeostasis hidden behind the experienced benefits?
• What would happen, if I resist the inclination to this behavior?
• What alternative behaviors are there?   

When interactive behavior includes reciprocal impacts by and upon others, rational persons apply these questions to others as much as upon themselves.   Not only the choice between respect and disrespect depends upon this, but also the choice between supporting and refusing to become a victim, between continuing the interaction and avoiding the person.

A few examples:

1.  Food
 

When a hungry, not obese person eats, this is rational.
When a not hungry but also not-obese eats something for the pleasure of the taste, it is unnecessary but not irrational.  
But when an obese person eats because of boredom, stress or a similar reason, then this is irrational.

2.  Alcoholism as an addiction
 

2.1.  There is no physical or real need for drinking any alcohol at all.   Not drinking is completely rational behavior. 
2.2.  When someone drinks restricted quantities of alcoholic beverages with sufficient intervals in between, this can be be considered as rationally enjoying the taste.  
2.3.  But in the case of someone feeling an urge for alcohol intake to reach the baseline, then this is an addiction.  
In the case of denial, the addict claims to drink for pleasure and does not recognize and acknowledge the urge.   He is not aware of the irrationality of his drinking.    
2.4.  An alcoholic having asked and answered the questions can admit, that his urge to drink alcohol needs an approach, which is anything between self-control and therapy, but not drinking. 


When irrational behaviors are reinforced or even instilled by a social norm, they become an even more devastating problem.   This is unfortunate for the many people, whose life would be better without acquired, harmful urges.   

There are special dynamics at work.  People are trapped, because they are allowed to consciously experience some benefits.  These benefits do not suffice to rationally justify the amount of sacrifices, which are required.   But unconsciously these people also experience the additional relief of some urge, of which they are consciously in complete denial.   This denial impedes them from considering and attempting other, more rational methods to deal with the urges.  
The urges instilled by the social norm lead to behaviors, which override any healthy individualistic approach towards living in a balance of giving and receiving in the exchange with the social environment.   By these social norms, people are deformed towards willingly allowing to be exploited and taken advantage of while being mistaken as being important and useful.   

These victims are not aware that the social norm serves only the interest of those, who use their power, influence and greed to usurp more such advantages. 

Two of these instilled behaviors are breeding and religious behaviors.  Breeding and religion have one aspect in common with alcoholism.   There are enough non-drinkers, non-breeders and non-religious people as evidence of the existence of alternatives.

3.  Breeding
 

3.1.  In modern western societies and even in some others too, there is no individual need for breeding.   Not breeding is a completely rational behavior. 
3.2.  Under some limited circumstances in the past and in some remote places, the survival of old people depended and depends on raising children.   These people have no need to belief in alleged benefits of breeding, they are succumbing to a necessity.  
3.3.  But someone feeling an urge to breed only for reaching the baseline has a serious problem, like an addict.    
As children cannot be undone, once the mistake was made, breeders are usually in denial of any remorse.  They insist that breeding has brought them benefits.   They do not recognize and acknowledge to have succumbed to an instinctive or instilled urge.   They remain unaware of the irrationality of breeding.     
3.4.  While breeders are consciously in denial, they implicitly often show a glimpse of belated rationality, when they stop further breeding after the first child.   But this is not a conscious change to rationality concerning breeding. 

4.  Religion

4.1.  A rational way of life is not deranged by any religious behavior.   A rational, responsible and considerate treatment of others requires rationality and the absence of any religious behaviors.   No rational person is religious.   No religious person is rational.
Religion manifests itself by observable religious behaviors, which not only include personal sacrifices of money, time and comfort, but even worse it also determines how others are treated.   

Weird ritualistic body movements only impact one person.   But often religion can cause as much damage as an alcohol addiction.     When someone wastes the family money on church donations and his time at the church service instead of with his partner, he inflicts damage on others for irrational reasons. 
Worse are those, who transgress, acquire religious forgiveness and feel free to continue transgressing.   A man, who by following his polygamous religion copulates with other women, deeply hurts his monogamous partner who experiences this as cheating. 
4.2.  Religious behavior is an expression of a belief, which can never rationally be justified.   What is based upon science and evidence, is not a belief.    Only pretending by outwardly imitated religious behavior can sometimes be rational self-defense, when needed for self-preservation.   
4.3.  Religious people's denial is extreme.   I have repeatedly asked religious people, which urges, deficits and experienced dishomeostasis causes them to be religious.   Asking this questions seems futile.  They just seem not to understand.  They enthuse about all their emotional benefits and even feel offended, when I keep on asking about the deficits.  These deficits are the core of what makes them religious and distinguishes them from rational people.     
4.4.  Some religious people overcome their denial.   When they finally get rational, the only possible reaction is to free themselves of all the religious beliefs.   But while remaining a believer, no religious person will ever admit, that they feel urges towards merely reaching a baseline of basic wellbeing, which rational non-religious people already have without any religion.      

Therefore, breeding and religion are as irrational as alcohol addiction, the only real difference is the social norm, which encourages breeding and religion, while alcoholism is considered deviant.

708. Men's Implicit Disrespect And Disregard For Women's Minds

708.  Men's Implicit Disrespect And Disregard For Women's Minds

Men are afflicted by feeling recurrent urges, for which they consider women's bodies as the best remedy.   But this is biologically asymmetrical, there are by far not as many women with complementary needs.    
Depending on many factors, men are coping quite differently with this asymmetry.   Unfortunately, these methods of coping show implicitly a lot of disrespect, disregard, denial and depreciation for women's brains and cognitive qualities.  

1. In some cultures more than in others, men feel entitled to abuse women, whenever their social or physical power enables them to do so.   They do not even consider to owe anything to their victims.
   
2. Men feel entitled to abuse women's body, whenever the women seem to sell their self-abuse as prostitutes as an alleged choice.
   
3. Gender roles in many societies generally attribute to men the role of being a source of material benefits, even when there is commitment and no abuse.    In marriage and often also in cohabitation, the man provides all or parts of the standard of living for his wife or partner.  During phases of courting and dating, or in any other forms of non-cohabitation, men feel obliged to pamper women by spending money on her for invitations to restaurants and events, and expensive gifts.   This is a social norm, women are encouraged to expect this.   Nevertheless men implicitly compensate for their asymmetrical physiological needs by material benefits.  
   
4. If men do not want to pay and nevertheless also do not want to feel as abusers or recipients of a favor, they (as pointed out in entry 707) belief the myth, that they could sufficiently please women physically and that in this case women would not experience and perceive the asymmetry.   This is a fallacy based upon male ignorance of biological facts. 

In all these constellations, men asymmetrically want access to female bodies, but they either give nothing or only material, non-personal advantages.  

They do not give anything of real value.   They do not give themselves.  
 

They either do not feel a need or they feel no reason and not obligation to share their mind, their cognition, their cultural and intellectual pursuits, their thoughts and feelings.   They want to connect bodies without connecting minds, without creating a unit of bonding, attachment and togetherness.  

This is a very blatant disregard, disrespect and depreciation of women.    I acknowledge, that many men are not even aware of this.  They are ignorant of more appropriate alternatives to the indignity of merely material compensation.   But this ignorance can only explain the plight of women, it does not justify it.   

Where are those few men hidden, who have true mindmate quality, who have a stronger need for the connection of the mind than for the connection of the body?

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.  

704. The Irrational Distinction Between The Abuse Of Women And Of Children

704.  The Irrational Distinction Between The Abuse Of Women And Of Children

A German politician has been caught as suspicious of owning child pornography.  Reported in the medias has been his possession of pictures of naked boys, which are not explicitly sexual.  Such pictures are actually not illegal in Germany.  

The German newspaper "Rheinische Post" writes today.  

"Die Bundesregierung plant, den Handel mit Nacktfotos von Kindern zu verbieten. Niemand dürfe mit den Körpern von Kindern und Jugendlichen Geschäfte machen" 

The federal government plans to make the trading naked pictures of children illegal.  Nobody should deal in bodies of children and adolescents.  

"Diese Bilder verletzen die Rechte von Kindern". 
These pictures violate the right of children.

http://www.rp-online.de/politik/handel-mit-kinder-nacktfotos-wird-verboten-aid-1.4046914     

Of course I agree with these quotes.   But it makes me angry, that all outrage and wish to protect is reserved to children, while the exactly the same treatment of adult women is considered as acceptable, normal and reasonable.   

There is a cruel fallacy in this arbitrary distinction of the victims by their age.   This fallacy is the entire focus upon the biological suitability of the victims for male needs and the subsequent denial of the damage done to victimized women.   

Abuse (by men) can be defined as the selfish, inconsiderate and irresponsible use of another human being's body, which a man in the state of dishomeostasis uses as an object for the purpose of getting rid of his body waste.  

Children are not biologically suitable for this.   Therefore nobody disputes children's need to be protected from all abuse, direct and indirect by pornographic representations.

But whenever women are concerned, the view is distorted.   Even though adult women are biologically suitable for sexuality, this does not imply any justification for abuse.  Women are entitled to be only targeted for a form of sexuality, which is no abuse, because it fulfills their emotional needs. 
It is generally accepted, that humans do not exist to be exploited as slaves, just because humans are suitable to do hard labor and others feel a need to make a profit from it.   Women do not exist to be abused, just because they are biologically suitable and men have physiological urges.   This still needs to be accepted.

This first distortion not only justifies the abuse of female bodies by their biological suitability, but the consequence thereof is also the male denial, that using a woman's body without emotional attachment and commitment even is abuse.  

The second distortion is the different interpretation of the damage done depending on the age of the abused victim. 

Only the damage done to children is recognized as such and attributed to the abuse.  
When abused women become drug addicts, alcoholics or psychiatric cases, this is not recognized and acknowledged as a consequence of what men have done to them.  Instead it is falsely attributed to genetic or personality defects.   

According to male attitudes, a sane and healthy woman can be abused without suffering, a woman, who cannot be abused without harm and trouble is defective and flawed.   Women are not considered to need protection against abuse, they are expected to be willing to be fixed, if they lack sufficient resilience.  
Women's self-abuse in exchange for material benefits is mistaken as a choice and as a healthy disposition.   Men's denial, that such self-abuse needs to be attributed to social problems depriving women of other options adds to the other male justifications of abuse.   The frequent delay between the abuse and self-abuse and manifestations of being damaged adds to the male denial of the true causes for the damage.
 

Therefore I am correcting the above quotes:  

Nobody should deal in bodies of other human beings, no matter the age.  

These [naked or pornographic] pictures violate the right of human beings of any age.

Suitability does not suffice to justify harming others.   

Those men, who consume pornography, who abuse prostitutes, who are promiscuous treating and perceiving women as mere toilets for their body waste, are hypocrites, if they demands more protection only for children. 

700. Research Concerning Female Self-Abuse

700.  Research Concerning Female Self-Abuse

This is entry 700 and I am still blogging to find a mindmate, who is not predominantly an instinct driven animal, but someone, who values a woman's brain more than her body.  
All I want is to find one such man.  Where is he?  

Sometimes in matchmaking sites they suggest answering among other questions, what one would change, if one were a deity able to create a better world.  
My answer:  I would change the male biology.   I would recreate a different version of men, who would never feel an urge to abuse a woman's body and remain emotionally unattached.   I would create men, who crave for emotional attachment and monogamous bonding and who would only consider, need and experience physical intimacy as a consequence of this.   I would create men, who never touch a woman, unless they also want and intend to share their lives with her.    

A few such men do exist, but if all men were like this, the world would be a much better place for women.  

In entry 688 I listed some of foolish women's reason for participating in self-abuse.  

I omitted one more unfortunate reason for female self-abuse.   Many foolish women compete for whom they perceive as alpha males and reject the others, whom they could have for themselves without competition.  
In long bygone times, women competed for men by their looks, the social status of their parents and their quality of character and personality.   
Due to male power over the media, the present social norm of promiscuity has the side effect of many women having been brainwashed to accept self-abuse as the unavoidable price to be accepted by men.   Today women compete by making themselves available for self-abuse and by presenting themselves in a way to trigger men's wish to abuse them.   These women have the delusion to get a relationship with alpha men by allowing their bodies to be abused before another woman makes her body available.     

But self-abuse is detrimental for women, as two studies indicate:

1.  There is a study showing the distinction between the attitudes of the genders concerning what is the best pursuit of self-interest.   

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131125164745.htm

"In the largest, most in-depth study to date on regret surrounding sexual activity, a team of psychology researchers found a stark contrast in remorse between men and women, potentially shedding light on the evolutionary history of human nature."

"They suggest that men are more likely to regret not taking action on a potential liaison, and women are more remorseful for engaging in one-time liaisons."

""For men throughout evolutionary history, every missed opportunity to have sex with a new partner is potentially a missed reproduce opportunity -- a costly loss from an evolutionary perspective." Haselton says. "But for women, reproduction required much more investment in each offspring, including nine months of pregnancy and potentially two additional years of breastfeeding. The consequences of casual sex were so much higher for women than for men, and this is likely to have shaped emotional reactions to sexual liaisons even today.""

"According to the findings:

    The top three most common regrets for women are: losing virginity to the wrong partner (24 percent), cheating on a present or past partner (23 percent) and moving too fast sexually (20 percent).
    For men, the top three regrets are: being too shy to make a move on a prospective sexual partner (27 percent), not being more sexually adventurous when young (23 percent) and not being more sexually adventurous during their single days (19 percent)."

These asymmetrical regrets reflect the impact of the current social norm of promiscuity, which represents the men with the strongest urge to abuse as if they were average.   Male regrets are about failing to perform as much abuse as prescribed by the norm.    Women regret to have been misled by the norm to act in a self-damaging way, hurting themselves by the denial of their emotional needs.  
Men are encouraged to feel entitled to more abuse, women learn the stupidity of self-abuse often only, when it is too late. 

2.  A study indicates, that self-abuse is unhealthy:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2013.848255#tabModule

"“Hookups” are sexual encounters between partners who are not in a romantic relationship and do not expect commitment. We examined the associations between sexual hookup behavior and depression, sexual victimization (SV), and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among first-year college women. In this longitudinal study, 483 women completed 13 monthly surveys assessing oral and vaginal sex with hookup and romantic partners, depression, SV, and self-reported STIs. Participants also provided biological specimens that were tested for STIs. During the study, 50% of participants reported hookup sex and 62% reported romantic sex. "

"hookup behavior during college was positively correlated with experiencing clinically significant depression symptoms. Sex in the context of romantic relationships was not correlated with depression."

"Approximately one-quarter of the sample reported at least one instance of SV by way of physical force, threats of harm, or incapacitation during the yearlong study."

"hookup behavior during the study was a significant predictor of incident STIs"

"The potential for negative health and social outcomes suggest the need for proactive educational efforts"

This is a tragic vicious circle.   Women are misled to mistake self-abuse as the only successful method to find a partner for their emotional needs.   This instrumental compliance reinforces the male delusion, that women would benefit when in reality they are abused.   Thus even those men, who would not abuse a woman, were they aware of what they are really doing, do not hesitate to abuse women pretending their compliance to be their true wish.  The male delusion of mistaking purposeful self-abuse for beneficial self-interested behaviors bears the risk, that sometimes men may believe to do something beneficial and pleasing to not consenting victims.       

696. Detrimental Longterm Effects Of Childhood TV Exposure

696.  Detrimental Longterm Effects Of Childhood TV Exposure

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131122084541.htm

"preschoolers who have a TV in their bedroom and are exposed to more background TV have a weaker understanding of other people's beliefs and desires."

"This study shows that TV exposure may impair children's theory of mind development, and this impairment may be partly responsible for disruptive social behaviors."

""When children achieve a theory of mind, they have reached a very important milestone in their social and cognitive development," said lead researcher Nathanson. "Children with more developed theories of mind are better able to participate in social relationships. These children can engage in more sensitive, cooperative interactions with other children and are less likely to resort to aggression as a means of achieving goals.""

People with empathy and a good theory of mind consider the consequences of their behavior upon others.   When men ruthlessly abuse female bodies as toilets for their body waste without any own need for emotional attachment and without any awareness for the degraded women's such needs, this indicates a deficient theory of mind and a state of serious desensitization.  

There have always been such abusers, but they harmed women in defiance to a generally accepted social norm of monogamous attachment.  Sartre and Camus are examples (entry 686).   This then happened inside some subcultures, but before the impact of media upon all young people's minds, abuse did not become a part of the social norm.  

The so called sexual revolution changed the social norm towards the nearly ubiquitous acceptance of abuse as men's alleged natural right and towards the tragic myth of the alleged benefits of self-abuse for the victimized women.

Reading the study quoted above, I can see, why this change of the social norm first happened in the sixties in the USA and only with a delay in other countries.   The first generation of people, who had grown up with TV from an early age on, were also the first generation of people, who were seriously desensitized and distorted in their theory of mind.   In other countries, as in Germany, the same effect came with a delay, which was the delay until the local ubiquity of TV.
An entire generation had lost the ability to fully comprehend the tragedy of the abuse for the victims.   When an entire generation of men had been desensitized to copulate like alley dogs, this sufficed to change the social norm.  Since then the impact of TV has even grown stronger, because as a compensation for the desensitization, the material has become even more drastic and more explicit and more available to choose from.   Therefore it has only been getting worse.    

I grew up as a child without TV, I grew up in the tranquility of not being prematurely disturbed by any detrimental exposure to what has its appropriate place only in the privacy of adults' bedrooms.  I was lucky not to be desensitized concerning my dignity as a female human being, having never lost the full awareness for the monstrosity of the socially accepted abuse.  

Instead I got allergic, The more men are desensitized, the more often women are exposed to the obnoxious impertinence of intended and proposed abuse.   Too frequent exposure to what is noxious can cause allergies, not only by physically noxious substances, but also by emotionally noxious proposals.   

692. The Difference Between Abusers And Nice Guys Explained By The Dual-Process-Theory

692.  The Difference Between Abusers And Nice Guys Explained By The Dual-Process-Theory

In entry 691 I presented the dual process theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory

Speculating that the predominance of one of the two systems is distributed along a bell curve can help to explain the difference between abusers and nice guys. 


By the criteria of their behavior, men can be roughly classified into three groups:   The abusers, the nice guys and those oscillating between abuse and attachment depending on circumstances.  

These three groups represent the two extremes and the middle area of the bell curve between the predominance of either system 1 or system 2.   The two extremes are clearly defined by an innate strong tendency, while the cut off between the groups and the behavior in the middle is fuzzy and depends upon external influences. 


System 1 can explain how instinctive physical urges towards a female body lead to the attitude of objectification.  

A predominant system 1 determines men to be abusers.  They do not comprehend the meaning of commitment and/or they are unable to get emotionally attached to a woman and/or they are disabled from recognizing the value of women's brains.   They commodify women as toilets for their body waste without even considering any alternative.  
Men with a strong predominance of system 1 are most probably men with a high libido, which causes them to perceive dishomeostasis as an overwhelming discomfort and to be strongly triggered by the perception of female bodies.   They also probably have a hedonistic pleasure center getting mainly stimulated by physical stimuli.

System 1 thinking causes men to confound every coincidence of their experienced dishomeostasis and the availability of female bodies as an automatic justification and entitlement to abuse women, perceiving them as existing for the purpose of being abused.  
Men, whose thinking is determined by system 1, are not any better than animals, they are unable to anticipate or to have empathy for the consequences of ruthless copulation. 

System 2 can explain the emotional and intellectual need for companionship leading to the attitude, that women are cognitively attractive and suitable for monogamous long-term attachment.  

A predominant system 2 determines men to be nice guys.   They automatically get emotionally attached to a woman, whenever they get physically involved.   They have an own genuine emotional need for commitment and bonding.  They have rational and intellectual needs for companionship with a woman.   Whatever the strength of their libido may be, their rationality enables them to have sufficient self-control to keep away from women's body unless they choose a companion.    They are Epicureans, who are mainly attracted to, motivated and stimulated by emotional and intellectual pleasures and joys.

System 2 enables men to act with responsibility and consideration and to appreciate attachment also for themselves.  They comprehend the impact of their behavior upon women.   
Men, whose thinking is determined by system 2 are able to recognize women as their human equals with a brain.  Only these men deserve to be called human.


According to the dual-process-theory, system 1 and system 2 coexist in each human's mind. 

I am not implying all abusers to be completely void of the system 2 nor all attachment formers to be completely free from the system 1.   Many men have both tendencies in any combination of strength in themselves.   Which one defines their attitude and their behavior depends upon circumstances and external influences.    Some abusers do feel doubt, guilt or remorse or they recognize abuse as a transgression, at least when the own sister is the victim.  Attachment formers can also be tempted by triggered instincts due to the exposure to drastic stimuli.  

Men in the middle of the bell curve are thus under contradictory internal tendencies towards a choice, which is dichotomous between either abuse or attachment.  Abuse and attachment are mutually exclusive by definition.   While at any moment, only one can be chosen, some men choose abusive behavior only under some specific circumstances and refrain from it at other occasions.    They are the men, whose choice is prone to be determined or impacted by external influences.
 
While many more traditional societies force violent abuse and injustice upon women, the modern western societies are very much biased towards subtle and non-violent forms of abuse.   Such abuse is the social norm of the majority, who considers pornography as an everyday media intake and prostitution as a job like any other, and who is seriously desensitized by the drastic oversexation of every day life and the media.    Only a very strong innate tendency towards system 2 enables a minority of the most precious men to be the nice guys void of the inclination towards abuse.

The effect of this detrimental social norm can sometimes be observed as a discrepancy of the predominances in the same man.   There are men, who appear to be predominantly system 2 persons in their professional life, in the pursuit of their hobbies and even with their families and friends.   Whenever it gets known, that such a man has cheated on his wife or has been to a brothel, it seems very incongruent with his other demeanor.   Due to external influences, the control of system 1 over such men is restricted to only when women are the victims.   So far I have never heard of any reversed case, of a man behaving generally by system 1 but applying system 2 to women. 

Thus, at the extreme end of the bell curve, the abusers are persistent and permanent abusers, while the social norm reinforces the men in the middle of the bell curve to also be abusers, but they are intermittent abusers.  They cause less harm but they are nevertheless a hazard to those women who happen to become victims.     

Therefore, unfortunately, there are many more abusers than nice guys.   

668. Where Are The Men Like André Gorz?

668.   Where Are The Men Like André Gorz?

I already mentioned Dorine and André Gorz in entry 100.    I have now finally read his entire book 'Letter To D.'.    

It is a very touching book.   It sadly reminds me of the role in a man's life, which I am craving for.   Those men, who are able to concede so much significance to a woman, are very elusive.  I have never met one.  

Andrè Gorz appreciated Dorine as a person, she was very significant to him.   He cared, what she thought, he valued her feedback, he accepted to be influenced by her.   He was intellectually and emotionally bonded with her.  She was even more than just a part of his life, she was the essence of their being a unit transcending the limits of being two persons.   

Dorine got the dignified and appropriate place in his life, which she deserved.   He never tired of her, the longer they were together, the more he felt attached and the more he learned to admit and recognize this. 

When the book 'Letter To D.' was published, the reactions in the media were not about an example of a happy marriage, they sounded more like the review of a fairy tale of a marriage.  

 

Men today are the victims of the subtly devastating collateral damage of the technological and economical progress which began, when my generation grew up and was in the decisive years of being most susceptible to being influenced.  

One generation earlier, the Gorzes grew up in a very different world, which facilitated the development of deep thoughts, while today this is more impeded than facilitated:

1.   Kind of media

When the Gorzes were young, there were movies shown in the cinemas, but the majority of media was printed text, and that was what people had at home to occupy their minds with.

Reading a book is a completely different process compared with watching a movie.   I grew up without TV, but it started in Germany, while I was a child.   In those days, any program on TV was continuous and could not be stopped or rewound.   If some part or some important scene was missed or not understood, it was gone without retrieval.   

This trained people to accept as normal the superficial consumption of what was not available for any deeper reflection.    

Reading a book allows people to process it much more thoroughly than a TV program.  One can put a book aside and think, one can go back and reread some chapters or talk about it.  Therefore books allow people to reach a profounder understanding of the content than do movies, when they cannot be stopped at one's own convenience.  Thus people can learn deeper thinking much better from reading than from TV.   

2.   Effect of media

I have already mentioned Kanazawa and his savanna theory.     
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201002/the-savanna-principle
His suggestion, that people's minds mistake persons on a TV-screen as friends, has made me aware of a much broader effect.   The human brain has not evolved to subconsciously distinguish between merely technical representations and real life experiences, whenever the quality of the representation is a good enough imitation of real life.   This is true for TV, movies and sound in the quality, which exists now since several decades.  
 

When people read a story in a book, it is easy to be aware, that this is an imaginary story and not a description of reality.    But when people see the drastic imagination of extreme behaviors acted out by real people, these actors as role models on a TV screen can subtly change the standards and the sense of what is morally right.  This effect of role models on a screen is much more devastating than the influence of books.   
Behavior based upon consideration and responsibility does not entertain people.   What entertains people, is drastic and extreme.    Consciously, people know, what is real and what is not.   But the subtle subconscious devastation nevertheless happens. 

Reading Casanova's written stories about his abuse is much less a lecture instigating men to abuse women in real life, than are movies presenting the hero-jerk's abuse of women as a positive role model.
 

The quantity of the exposure to the readily available mass of movies presenting the most extreme and outrageous behaviors has a strong impact upon the subconscious mind. This deforms and distorts, what is considered as normal and acceptable.    

Not only does this change social norms, it also leads to the desensitization towards the suffering of the victims of those imitating the role models.  Since people's standards have been damaged, hurting, cruelty, abuse, inconsideration have become so ubiquitous, that people have lost the awareness for the monstrosities done or at least tolerated.   

3.   Effect of distraction

A couple in the times of the youth of the Gorzes had not much alternatives to spend their time together except by communicating.  At least at home, there was not much entertainment available, and events outside the home were expensive compared with people's income.  

Communicating leads people to knowing and appreciating each other and to growing deeper in their connections.    Becoming deeper as persons makes communication more attractive and enjoyable.    

Today people can entirely avoid communicating by the permanent distraction of easily and affordably available superficial entertainment and activities.    A couple can thus never even discover the benefits and joy of a deep level of communication as was the life style of the Gorzes.  

4.   Effects upon men's attitude towards women

The above listed factors have damaged men's behavior and attitudes towards women.   

Men's instinctive tendency to perceive women as bodies are enhanced, while they are impeded to recognize and to notice, let alone to appreciate the benefits of women's intellectual abilities.

Relationships are considered as mainly between two bodies.  

Female bodies are presented as easily available and easily replaceable.  

Conflicts and troubles do not lead people to work on their relationship and develop depth and bonding.   By discarding and replacing their mates too easily, people never experience depth and are unable to recognize and value it in others.   

660. Mavericks, Outsiders, Misfits And Gender Roles

660.  Mavericks, Outsiders, Misfits And Gender Roles


Gender roles are a subset of social norms.   Gender roles accentuate those differences between the genders, which represent instincts.  Gender roles prescribe behaviors caused by these instincts and which enhance the breeding success.   This is not restricted to those instincts leading directly to breeding, it includes also those instincts, which aim at long-term benefits for all future bearers of the own genes.

Gender roles sometimes override people's innate inclinations and cause them to damage their own best interests.  

I consider the dire burden of procreation on women's bodies as biological abuse.   I am aware, that this is a drastic point of view, which can trigger hostility by some people, even though it is a very rational way to look at it.   

Whenever a person has a tumor somewhere in the belly and has it removed by an operation, most people would agree, that this is an ordeal, that nobody in his or her right mind would choose, if there were an option.   
In the case, when it is not a tumor, but a parasite like a worm, the situation is still the same.   This attitude does not even depend on the weight of what is an unwanted growth to be removed.   

But as soon as the parasite is a fetus, which is either removed by a Cesarean session or expulsed by a very painful procedure, then all of a sudden this is not called an ordeal to be avoided, even though a child's birth weight and size is much higher than tumors and parasites usually are.    Instead of recognizing, that this is an atrocity for women, which in contrast to growing tumors can be avoided, many people of both genders have the delusion, that breeding is the purpose of the existence of women.    They are mislead to believe, that having a womb is the same as being meant to use it.  

When comparing the suffering and damage to the afflicted body alone, the distinction between a child at birth and a tumor of the same weight and size makes no sense at all. 



When animals copulate, they follow their instinctive urges without any cognitive ability to anticipate the consequences.    Female (non-human) mammals have no option to avoid the ordeal of giving birth and raising offspring, because they cannot foresee it.  

The instincts leading to human breeding behavior had evolved in the animal ancestors, long before cognition and especially the included ability for anticipation have started to evolve.    As long as the evolution of cognition was evolving as a merely serving tool enhancing the success of the dominant instinctive behaviors, cognition could evolve towards enabling the human brain to amazing progress without causing disruption.   
Only when this evolution reached a ceiling, the conscious experience of individual wellbeing started to bifurcate from the wellbeing experienced as the consequence of maintaining the homeostasis of those instinctive urges, which lead to the survival of the species.  

A slight mutation. a haphazard genetic combination, and the result were and are individuals, whose cognition is not under an instinctive power strong enough to determine the goals and objectives of these persons' behavior.   Either their cognition has advanced one step further or their instinctivity is too low to override their cognition.   
As women, they fully anticipate the unwanted long-term consequences of breeding and they refuse such self-harm.  As men they are considerate and responsible enough to feel morally obliged to refrain from harming women by making them pregnant.   


Those, whose breeding instinct is still stronger than their cognition, but who nevertheless can also anticipate the harm of breeding, experience some cognitive dissonance.   The subconscious urges of the instincts are experienced as strong but vague, on the conscious level they are converted into attitudes, which are congruent with the instincts.   When there are also disparate and incongruent cognitive needs, this causes cognitive dissonance.  This is often solved by the impact of two distinct social influences.   

• Religious belief systems of any content promise rewards for procreation and threaten with punishment for the refusal.    The delusion of a god's power to do so in the afterlife is one example.
  
• Gender roles add artificial and irrational alleged value to instinctive behaviors and those traits favoring such behaviors.   In entry 647 I declared the gender role of masculinity as an obsolete anachronism.   The gender role of femininity is of course just as obsolete.    

Gender roles accentuate all those traits and behaviors, which are based upon physical traits and not on intellectual achievements.     To fulfill and comply with the gender roles does not require any intelligence or education.    Gender roles appeal especially to those, who are deprived of any choice, because they have a suitable body for the gender role, but no brains for anything better.

All those interests, skills and achievements, which require intelligence, creativity, education and sometimes maturity, are gender neutral.    To be a mother by choice requires femininity, to be a warrior by choice requires masculinity.    But the dedication to science, art, literature, languages, technology and other intellectual pursuits is favored by a predisposition, which can be labeled psychological androgynity.  


By unfortunate logic, only breeders continue to contribute their high instinctivity to the gene pool.  The conscious non-breeders do not contribute their more advanced cognition, unless they breed by accident or otherwise against their own wish.   Therefore the evolution towards a more dominant cognition has not completely stopped, but it is very slow.   

Persons, whose psychological androgynity is strong enough to not be overridden by irrational beliefs and non-fitting gender roles, are therefore not only a minority, but they are also under the strong pressure to conform to a majority's expectations.   
In spite of the difficulties of this adversity, it is nevertheless much better to accept being a non-conforming outsider than to suffer from the self-inflicted harm, which follows conforming to what is not suitable for the own innate identity.  


Therefore those who are mavericks, loners and outsiders are this for very good and valid reasons and not at all due to lacking any desirable quality.   They are not the allegedly flawed misfits, as whom they are not only treated, but also pressed towards accepting themselves as such. 
Not all of them have the awareness and self-confidence to understand, that they are lucky to be free from a biological burden.   They are made to feel excluded, while in reality they are spared the breeders' self-destructive and harming inclinations.   Feeling excluded is a fallacy of those, who have themselves very good reasons to avoid to be included.                

654. Gender Differences As A Research Result

654.   Gender Differences As A Research Result

I am aware of what I have learned by my own experiences and perception of men's behavior and of the huge distinction between how much most men are under the power of animal instincts and how little I am myself afflicted by such instincts.  

My own needs for attachment, commitment, companionship, appreciation of and respect for my brain and the recognition, that I deserve something better than being mistaken for a commodity are the contrary of many men's instinctive urges towards using female bodies without commitment.
  
But this awareness does not imply, that I am able to generalize correctly from myself to other women without a bias.   There are too many women presented on the web as allegedly and apparently by choice promiscuous, prostitutes and porno-stars to not be puzzled.   

The truth about this and about how many of them remain unharmed cannot be obtained from the standard media.  Feminist publications present this very differently.   Those of these women, who suffer later from irreversible psychological damage, are often either not presented or the damage is attributed to any other cause but not the self-afflicted compliance with being abused. 

Many people are gullible to social norms and external influences distorting their attitudes and evaluation of their own behavior, both as perpetrators and as victims.   In many societies, especially in modern western cultures, this favors men.   Women are fooled to underestimate the self-inflicted harm and men are fooled and fool themselves, that there is nothing wrong with what they do.   It is a sad reality, that too many men are naive and stupid enough to believe, that what they experience as beneficial for themselves, cannot cause harm for women.  Because they feel an urge to copulate like alley dogs, they cannot comprehend, that this harms women.   It is a good example, that a good theory of mind would be a better protection against harming others than is simple naive empathy.  

I am a allergic to any male attitude towards commodifying and objectifying women.  I am aware that many other women on the web appear to protest and to reject abuse much less than I do and to tolerate and to condone male harming transgressions more easily.   I cannot know the reasons, why they differ from me.  
I wonder if they really suffer less as the victims of male instincts.  Maybe the real difference between them and me is my greater resistance to being manipulated.   The socially propagated female gender role is not a part of my ideal self nor of my identity.   As an independent thinker I am immune to be made to believe, that what men do to women is automatically appropriate and that women should therefore not disagree but attempt to accommodate men by submission to their needs and repressing own needs.     


Therefore I always welcome research, which shows, that other women too are not the complying animals for copulating alley dogs, even though men prefer and misperceive them as such:  

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130410192806.htm
 

"Women saw the maintenance of their romantic partnerships as a team sport, involving equal input from both partners with shared goals and beliefs being the key to success. Further, their happiness and contentment were intimately bound up in both their best friendships and romantic partnerships.

In contrast, men were found to exist at a greater distance from both of their closest relationships. When asked to score themselves against their best friends and romantic partners on a range of attributes their responses indicated that, consciously or not, they continued to act as though they were members of the dating market despite being in committed relationships."

"Dr Machin concluded that: "Our research shows that successful relationships are much more essential to women's well-being than men's. Men seem to keep their relationships at arm's length with one eye on the dating market. It seems that regardless of our culture of monogamy and commitment the biological imperative still operates, to a greater or lesser degree, for men. The war of the sexes is still alive and kicking within our relationships.""  [My emphasis]

626. The Counterproductive Absurdity Of Recent Feminist Attempts At Provocation

626.   The Counterproductive Absurdity Of Recent Feminist Attempts At Provocation

Lately there have been several feminist groups protesting against real issues by attempted provocation.   The method of their provocation included the display of their fully or partially naked and painted bodies.  
They are naive and they are fools.   As far as they provoked anything at all, it was only the hypocrisy of pretended social norms.  Getting attention is not the same as provoking onlookers to reconsider their opinions.  

In reality, these young women gave to male animals, what they subconsciously enjoy to perceive:  Triggers to their instincts.   On the level of animal instincts, men do not discriminate between cognitive connotations of the triggers.   A naked female body is a trigger to drool, no matter if in a movie, a commercial or by a misguided feminist.    

These women did not provoke anything at all, instead they presented the sight of young, fertile female bodies for men to drool over.  


I am a feminist as far as this means that I refuse to accept any disadvantage to a woman based upon her gender.   I am not a feminist, if this means to upvalue dull and unintellectual occupations like housework and breeding.  

Therefore I consider the core objective of feminism as to defend, restore and fight for the dignity of women as equals and as persons with a brain, who deserve better than to be degraded by objectification and commodification.

The male biological affliction of recurrent sexual dishomeostasis is a real handicap of those men, whose reason gets temporarily blurred under the impact of this state.  As long as feminists (of both genders) are in denial of the devastating effects of this handicap, the success of feminism is doomed to be limited.   Since the beginning of feminism about a hundred years ago, some of the worst legal inequalities have been overcome.   For example, today women are allowed to vote, can have a job without the requirement of the husband's permission and are allowed to become soldiers.  

But where the dignity of women is concerned, the development has gone the other way.   Women's dignity is and has been dwindling, as far as it had ever existed rudimentary in any country's social norm.   
Never before in the German history has the objectification of women been more ubiquitous and more considered as all men's normal right.   Prostitution has been made legally a job as any other, pornography is easily available, the media and commercials are full with pictures of seductive and lascivious women.   While child pornography is illegal for good reasons, nobody seems to see, that the same reasons do also apply for the requirement to protect women.    No person in Germany can pass a day without somewhere being exposed to pictures representing  women in seductive and lascivious attire and posture.       
 
It has become an implicitly accepted reality, that triggers to men's instincts are not only available but that men are entitled to expose themselves to be triggered at their convenience.   People have been desensitized so much, that even many women consider being triggered as men's innate rights.   

Men in some cultures use their power to force women against their will under tent like garments.  This is not only an outrage, but it is also an interesting self-disclosure by these men.  While the men in western cultures are in denial of their affliction, these men clearly admit their own dysfunction.    They recognize to be so much the helpless slaves to their own instincts, that they are unable to cope with any subconscious perception of the triggers radiated by uncovered women.   Their awareness for their own biological reality would by itself be preferable over the western men's denial.   Unfortunately this awareness is not used to benefit the women.  It could be a challenge for men to learn self-control.  Instead these men use their power to force the women to suffer under the burden of men's failure to cope with their own dysfunction.


Many feminists rightfully fight against all male behaviors, which are assaults and infringements upon non-consenting women.   But at the same time they also claim to have the right to send out the most drastic signals to the male subconscious without any self-restriction.    It is not only irrational, it is even unfair to men, when women make men drool over their bodies, yet demand male self-control as if they had not contributed themselves to the drooling. 

Feminists who complain and fight against being objectified but paint their faces, wear jewelery and sexy attire are contradictory.   They send out double-bind messages.   Their seductive attire signals 'I want to be seduced', while as a feminist they implicitly add 'but I refuse to be abused.'  Seduction is the first step to abuse, while forming a serious relationship is based upon reciprocal rational convincing of being a good long-term match. Whenever a man reacts to the apparent invitation to seduce, his subsequent attempts to seduce and abuse are rejected as an outrage.   


A constructive form of feminism needs to cooperate with men towards finding a fair compromise between men forcing women under a tent and between women making men drool while refusing to be used.  Feminists' attire would be rationally based upon the conscious avoidance to trigger men's unwanted behavior as a support for men attempting to cope with their affliction without harming women.

There would be only one way to provoke men out of their desensitized entitlement to the ubiquitous availability of visible female nakedness.   It would be a triggering strike.   The provocation would be by women systematically making themselves appear in public as anti-sexy.   Imitating the wearing of a tent would be too extreme, but women would cover themselves as much as they can still feel comfortable.    Being deprived of triggers to drool would be much more effective to provoke men's attention, that something needs to be changed.

But this will never happen.   While some feminists may consider anti-drooling behavior an option, there are unfortunately too many women, who are void of any need for dignity.   Instead they are so stupid, uneducated, simpleminded, vain and brainwashed, that they identify entirely with their looks and with their bodies.    They feel flattered and ego-boosted by men's attempts to seduce.  They feel power by both, by either being able to reject the attempts and by else extracting material benefits from men as a result of making them drool.  


Therefore while I personally have become allergic to the frequent disregard of my dignity as a person, I am fully aware that this cannot be attributed only to the male biological affliction, but I have to recognize this being enhanced and reinforced by many women.

619. Objectification And The Ingroup-Outgroup Instinct

619.  Objectification And The Ingroup-Outgroup Instinct

The ingroup-outgroup instinct has evolved in many species living in groups.   It provided two sets of behaviors, automatic in animals and as a social norm in humans, which are sometimes very contradictory.   
Examples: 
Outgroup members are prey to be eaten by cannibals, while ingroup members are companions to share the food with. 
Outgroup women are prey to be raped during wars, even by men, who are no brutes to their wives or any ingroup women.

 

When a previously unknown man in real life initiates contact with a woman, for her this always bears the risk of at least the indignation of being considered as prey to be objectified and commodified, if not the worse victimization by violence.   

But there are two distinctive instinctive urges, which unfortunately add to the number of men behaving as disgusting alley dogs towards women.   

There are not only the general jerks, who driven by their instincts promiscuously objectify all women.    There are also the those jerks sufficiently determined by their ingroup-outgroup instinct, who behave differently towards ingroup women while treating outgroup women as mere prey.     

When younger and traveling alone through some Mediterranean countries, I have experienced the following pattern so often, that it started to cause me nausea.   
Sitting somewhere like on a bench in a park and being approached by a man I hoped for some interesting conversation about the country and its society and way of life.    But I was not treated as a human being with a brain.  Instead I was the target of a predator, flirting and attempting to seduce me, perceiving me as prey, as a body to be used.   

I doubt very much, that all of these predators would have caused the same indignation to local ingroup women as they allowed themselves to do to a tourist.  

Being a foreigner made me unequivocally an outgroup person by nationality.    But on a subtle and diffuse level, any subjective distinction by sorting them into either ingroup or outgroup facilitates some men's selective objectification of women.   

When driven by instinct towards abusing indiscriminately any female body for homeostation, while moral imperatives of their religion and culture forbid them promiscuity, uncoupled men suffer discomfort by either dishomeostasis or cognitive dissonance.   Defining an outgroup of women as such, upon whom moral rules do not need to be applied, is their mental trick to acquire homeostasis and avoid cognitive dissonance.   It is the mental trick of the selfish jerks attempting to acquire homeostasis without accepting commitment as not only bringing a subscription to recurrent homeostation but also meaning monogamy and emotional obligations.  

This mental trick enables jerks to have the sincere delusion to be decent and correct men, as long as they refrain from promiscuous behavior with women of their ingroup, while feeling free and justified to behave like alley dogs with women from any outgroup.   
The social history of an ingroup defined as an upper class, where so called gentlemen abused the servants and other poor and lower class women, is one example.           

618. What Comes First: Attitude Or Behavior?

618.   What Comes First:  Attitude Or Behavior?

In entry 615 I already mentioned the fascinating web page http://www.manipulative-people.com and work of George Simon.   I spent some hours reading his description of persons who in his words are disturbed characters.  

My writing on this blog is focusing upon my subjective and female preference of what attitudes and behaviors make a man either attractive or repulsive.    While reading Simon's texts, it has become clear to me, that those men, whom I describe as jerks, are a subgroup of Simon's disturbed character.   Jerks are male disturbed characters, whose victims of their disturbed behavior are women.    What I call commodification, objectification, domination, entitlement delusion and more, I found it all mentioned by Simon, in different words and explained in better English.  

Only he has come to a different conclusion concerning what causes, maintains, enables and reinforces the character disturbances.  

"One of the central tenets of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is that there is an inextricable relationship between a person’s core beliefs, the attitudes those beliefs have engendered, and the ways the person’s attitudes prompt him or her to to behave in various situations."

http://counsellingresource.com/features/2008/12/08/disturbed-characters-thinking/

I fully agree with this, because any discrepancy between core values (as I dislike the word belief), attitudes and behaviors causes unpleasant cognitive dissonance.   Getting aware of such a discrepancy motivates towards either changing the attitude or the behavior.   

If I have understood correctly, in Simon's view the attitudes and core beliefs come first and the behavior is the consequence thereof.  
Simon accepts the notion of the free will.   I have not found any explicit statement about this, but implicitly he seems to explain attitudes and core values as mainly or entirely acquired by education, socialization and external influences.  

From my point of view, which is derived from evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, the free will is a myth.   Behaviors are determined by the combination of the force of instinctivity, the avoidance of punishment and of dishomeostasis and the appetency of rewards and stimulation of the brain's pleasure center.   This is facilitated by the knowledge stored in the memory and anticipatory thinking.   

Subconscious instinctive urges are consciously experienced as the inclination towards specific behaviors.   Instinctive urges are mainly the animal instincts for procreation, sexuality, hierarchy, ingroup-outgroup, gregariousness.   

The cognitive and conscious attitudes follow as a justification when giving in to being driven by the urges, attitudes are formed to avoid cognitive dissonance.    These attitudes are influenced and modified by education and social norms either encouraging or repressing instinctive behavior.    

Attitudes and subsequent behaviors differ between individuals in the same society according to differing strength of their instinctivity and also between individuals with the same strength of instinctivity but living in different societies.  
The worst jerks and worst cases of Simon's male disturbed character are men with a high instinctivity, whose abuse of women is additionally enabled and reinforced in a permissive society.   

Accordingly I also disagree about how, if at all, disturbed characters can be changed:

"Changing some aspect of our behavior is always the first step toward having a change of heart. Just as our way of thinking influences our behavior, so our actions and the consequences that stem from them influence how we think about things, the attitudes we harbor, and the beliefs we hold about how to get along in life. Making meaningful changes in the way we typically do things is a prerequisite for changing the kind of person we are."

http://counsellingresource.com/features/2012/04/02/disturbed-characters-can-they-change/

I doubt, that attitudes can be changed, as long as these attitudes are an expression of an implicit identity defined by the acceptance of animal instincts.     A change of attitudes would require the conscious choice of an identity derived from the preference for cognition as superior over instincts.    But before someone is able to consider instincts as obsolete and disturbing evolutionary ballast to be overridden in favor of not harming others, he has first to get aware and recognize, how much he is driven by instincts.  
As long as someone accepts himself as an instinct driven animal and thus allows himself his instinctive urges without experiencing cognitive dissonance, he will continue to behave as a disturbed character. 

615. Social Change And Psychotherapy

615.   Social Change And Psychotherapy

I have been mentioning the growing amount of harm done either carelessly or ignorantly by promiscuous jerks as the consequence of the social norm of oversexation and the subsequent desensitization and lacking empathy for the suffering of the abused women.   (Entry 493:  The Social Norm Of The Drooling Men)

In a world, where men have their on average greater physical strength as an advantage enabling them to gain power and control over resources including media by hook or by crook, the instinctive reaction of many, if not most men is subconsciously welcoming the social norm of oversexation.  While some men would not consciously admit this, I have rarely found anybody explicitly pointing out the damage caused by it.   

By considering the appropriate place for sexuality being the privacy of couples' bedrooms I am sometimes even called a prude.   But I consider it as much better to be a prude than an animal blindly driven by instincts.  

Therefore I was very pleased to have found George Simon's web page.  He is a clinical psychologist and therapist, who has described this unfortunate social development with much better words than my limited English allows me to do.     The emphasis in the following quote is mine.

"Character Disturbance is indeed “the phenomenon of our age.” That’s because the intensely socially repressive atmosphere of earlier times has been supplanted with an atmosphere of entitlement, permissiveness, and license. It’s not as common for people’s shame and guilt to be so unreasonably intense and unyielding that they become pathologically debilitated with anxiety. Rather, it’s more common for folks to lack enough shame or guilt to inhibit them from doing harmful things to themselves as well as others. So, it would be fair to say that character disturbance is indeed more prevalent these days, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that significantly disturbed characters are everywhere."

http://counsellingresource.com/features/2011/10/10/are-they-everywhere/

But Simon not only expresses with better words than myself similar concerns about contemporary permissiveness and lacking inhibitions and constraint.   Simon takes this further to a very clever observation, which had never occurred to me:  The assumptions, upon which psychotherapeutic interventions are usually and implicitly based, have become obsolete and are lacking behind and failing to react to the real problems caused by the drastic social changes of the last decades.      

Therapeutic interventions helpful for people being overwhelmed with unbearable negative emotions about themselves are counterproductive to people, whose problems is predominantly the harming and exploiting of others, while harming themselves is only secondary by depriving also themselves of the benefits of close and harmonious relationships.  

Simon explains the example of denial:

"In classical (psychodynamic) psychology, denial is an unconscious ego defense mechanism.  Basically, that means that a person unwittingly puts up a barrier to experiencing what is too painful to consciously bear."

"Sometimes, denial is truly an unconscious psychological state.  Sometimes, it’s a refusal to admit a problem.  Sometimes, it’s a tactic of manipulation and impression management.  And the basic tactic of denial can be expressed in several other subtle variations such as feigning innocence, feigning ignorance, and acting surprised.   But no matter what form in which it comes, it’s most often merely a way of lying. "

"Disturbed characters of all sorts frequently engage in denial.  It’s extremely rare, however, that they do so because they are in such inner distress over their behavior that they simply can’t consciously accept what they’re doing.  Most of the time, they know exactly what they’re doing, but they want you to think otherwise."

http://www.manipulative-people.com/denial-what-it-is-and-isnt/

"Disordered characters often won’t admit when they’ve done something wrong, and resist looking at any role their behavior patterns have played in creating problems in their lives.  They lie to themselves and others about their malevolent acts and intentions as a tactic to get others off their back.  If their denial is forceful and convincing enough, others will likely be successfully manipulated. "

"Denial is not only an effective manipulation tactic, but it’s also a sure sign someone is not about to change his or her way of behaving.  A person who won’t acknowledge their wrongs in the first place isn’t likely to feel any inclination to correct them.  Habitual denial is the way many disordered characters resist internalizing the values and standards of conduct that could make them more socially responsible."

http://www.manipulative-people.com/denial-manipulation-tactic-4/

604. Commodification Under The Influence Of Culture

604.   Commodification Under The Influence Of Culture

Biologically seen, there are factors determining the watershed between the intrinsic commitment of nice guys and the promiscuity of abusive jerks.   

These factors are the innate strength of men's instinctive urges causing the discomfort of sexual dishomeostasis and the innate quality and strength of the cognition upon the behavior.  

Demisexual intellectuals with a strong need for bonding are able to appreciate women's personality, promiscuous jerks are programmed to always degrade women as objects for use.   But there are also the fence sitters having behavioral predispositions in a delicate balance between instinctive urges and cognitive strength.   Upon them, culture and social norms are a third and decisive influence.     

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120905135340.htm

"To be a 'success' in evolutionary terms, women need to have access to resources for raising offspring, and men need to have access to fertile females. Researchers have argued that women tend to prefer partners who have an ability to invest resources in their children (i.e., wealthy men), and men tend to prefer partners who appear fertile (i.e., young women) because evolutionary adaptations have programmed these preferences in our brains."

"They found that the gender difference in mate preferences predicted by evolutionary psychology models "is highest in gender-unequal societies, and smallest in the most gender-equal societies," according to Zentner."

"Because increasing gender equality reduces gender differences in mate selection, these studies indicate that the strategies men and women use to choose mates may not be as hardwired as scientists originally thought."

"But he also adds evolutionary roots shouldn't be ruled out entirely.

"Indeed, the capacity to change behaviors and attitudes relatively quickly in response to societal changes may itself be driven by an evolutionary program that rewards flexibility over rigidity.""

When a promiscuous jerk copulates with a female body like a dog in the gutter, this is determined by four factors.   

• The experience of the intrinsic urges of dishomeostasis, 
• The enhancement and magnification of the impact of dishomeostasis by external triggers upon the perception.
• The availability of bodies for easy abuse.    
• The basic attitude of accepting promiscuity as appropriate behavior without any damage to his self-esteem or confidence.   

While only the innate magnitude of dishomeostasis is biological, the availability and ubiquity of external triggers, the availability of bodies for ready use, and the choice between promiscuity and monogamy as part of the ideal-self depend also upon the social environment.   

I was a child in Germany in the 50s, before the fatal sexual revolution freed the worst in men.    The 50s were certainly not a golden age for women, while there was still no reliable birth control, no legal abortion and husbands had unjustifiable legal rights like the one to forbid their wives to have a job.   

But as far as women were commodified, it was as wombs, not as objects and utilities serving men's animal instincts.  There was no public objectification of women.   Sexuality was restricted to its appropriate place inside the privacy of the bedroom of committed couples.  

There were no pictures of naked or lascivious women in any public place, not in commercials, magazines or newspapers, nor in movies.  Most women were aware, that being nice but decently dressed was in their own best interest, just as was also the conscious rejection of any involvement except long-term commitment.    

It was a golden age of beneficial wise prudery.    

Public life was free from detrimental triggers for male instincts.   

There were too many jerks then too, but they were jerks by their own innate animality, they were jerks in spite of a social norm of commitment and monogamy.  Abusing women was not facilitated for them.  These jerks had to consciously decide first, that they really wanted to abuse a woman, because finding the hidden prostitution and pornography required a proactive search. 

The nice guys and the fence sitters were spared the involuntary exposure to triggers, which were incongruent with their real wishes and inclinations for intrinsic commitment based upon their cognitive personality.    

When they experienced the discomfort of dishomeostasis, the circumstances due to the social norm and the culture smoothed their path much more towards commitment and monogamy than towards promiscuity.   

In the 50s, it was much easier for intrinsic nice guys to remain decent, nothing perturbed and distracted them from living in congruency with their cognitive ability to appreciate women.     

Today, the public objectification of women does not only cause a lot of harm to women, but it also causes self-harming to those nice guys, who would be most happy in bonded monogamous commitment.   They are exposed without having a choice to the ubiquitous triggers to their worst animal instincts by the combination of the excellent quality of the realism of the media, the oversexation of every day life and the social norm of male promiscuity and female acquiescence.

The potentially responsible and considerate nice guys and the fence sitters are in the unfortunate situation of being triggered by instincts and encouraged by social norm to use those too many women, who acquiesce too easily.  Such women are also manipulated by the same social norm into believing, that promiscuity were modern, monogamy were prudish and old fashioned and that the only chance to successfully compete with other women is to allow themselves to be available first for use lest another would be chosen for being easier to get.  The sad result are many women suffering from unilateral and not-reciprocated attachment.  The men get desensitized by using too many women.    This is, how fence sitters convert themselves more and more to jerks.   

The guy described in entry 601 is a good example.    In the 50s, the easiest way to homeostation would have been to continue his efforts towards finding commitment, which he initially seemed to really want.   But now, the social norm and the triggers lured and lure him to desensitize himself, until he will be unfit for commitment by his own doing.     

 

I have a very high regard and appreciation for those nice guys, who are determined by their cognition and no trigger of any strength has the impact to cause them to stray from decency towards abusing women as bodies.   

The true quality of a man reveals itself, when no trigger and no influence can ever make him sink so low as to become promiscuous.    Such men are rare, but they do exist.    I am looking for one of them as my mindmate.  

602. Inconsistent Morals

602.  Inconsistent Morals 

In entry 601 I was puzzled about someone, who appeared and presented himself rather convincingly in his profile as a nice guy in search of a long term relationship, yet he decided suddenly to become an abusive jerk and to pursue the plan to copulate like a dog in the gutter.  

As the following article shows, some people are prone to lack moral integrity:

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2012/may/wearing-two-different-hats-moral-decisions-may-depend-situation

"An individual’s sense of right or wrong may change depending on their activities at the time – and they may not be aware of their own shifting moral integrity — according to a new study looking at why people make ethical or unethical decisions."

"workers who tend to have dual roles in their jobs would change their moral judgments based on what they thought was expected of them at the moment."

"“When people switch hats, they often switch moral compasses,” Leavitt said. “People like to think they are inherently moral creatures – you either have character or you don’t. But our studies show that the same person may make a completely different decision based on what hat they may be wearing at the time, often without even realizing it.”"

"Whether they know it or not, people are often taking in messages about what their role is and what is expected of them, and this may conflict with what they know to be the moral or correct decision."

"“We find that people tend to make decisions that may conflict with their morals when they are overwhelmed, or when they are just doing routine tasks without thinking of the consequences,” Leavitt said. “We tend to play out a script as if our role has already been written. So the bottom line is, slow down and think about the consequences when making an ethical decision.”"

Maybe this research is a clue towards interpreting, how some men may attempt or pretend to be decent and monogamous, whenever they are in contact with women, yet when they are in the company of a bunch of outspoken jerks and machos they nevertheless switch to the fallacy, that the objectification and other forms of the abuse of women were appropriate behavior.   As too many men already consider this as the social norm, they reinforce each other in the fallacy, that there were nothing ethically wrong with their attitude towards women. 

Maybe the man described in entry 601 had been drinking with a group of buddies, who bragged about their successes as predators, thus triggering his ambition to compete with them.   If his wish to live up to their social norm is strong, it overrides any moral consideration or responsibility towards women..  

585. Masculinity And Femininity As Identity Crutches

585.   Masculinity And Femininity As Identity Crutches

Masculinity and femininity are both identities based upon specific dispositions for needs and behaviors determined by virulent instincts.  The stronger the instincts, the more masculinity and femininity are pronounced.   The stronger masculinity and femininity, the more they bring out the worst in men and in women.  

Masculinity and femininity are consciously expressed as favorable attitudes towards specific instincts.

 

Masculinity is based upon a positive attitude towards more or less excessive instinctive urges for sexual homeostation leading to the objectification of women, and towards the hierarchy and ingroup-outgroup instincts, leading to competition, fighting, domination, aggression.   All this often causes extreme suffering for the victims.
 

Femininity is based upon a positive attitude towards the more or less instinctive breeding urge.   This leads not only to their sacrificing their own wellbeing for the priority of breeding, but they burden the disadvantages of breeding also upon other people.    

Masculinity and femininity are complementary identities.    Masculine men abuse women's bodies as objects, feminine women displace their bonding needs to their offspring and do not offer bonding to a partner.   

Masculinity and femininity are the social norm.   

1. When their high instinctivity predisposes people to innately conform with the social norm, they are at ease with themselves and with their social surroundings.   For people with more cognition than instincts, they are a hazard.
   
2. There are also those other men and women, who are either equally instinct driven and controlled by cognition, or their cognition is even stronger than their instinctivity.    In this situation, their confidence makes a big difference.

• Strong, secure and independent thinkers with high self-esteem are not impressed by the pressure from a social norm, which does not fit their needs.   They reject masculinity and femininity in favor of a gender neutral rationality, they are only concerned about their genuine emotions and needs.    They too live in the congruence of their attitudes with their innate inclinations.
  
• But those also lacking confidence, who are insecure and have low self-esteem, are in a especially difficult situation.   They need an identity.  Theoretically they have two options, a cognitive or an instinctive identity, depending what influences their ideal self.
  
  • The more appropriate cognitive identity is hard to obtain, it requires learning, working on oneself, mental and intellectual efforts and resisting social pressure.  
    The false instinctive identity is much easier to obtain.  It just needs to refrain from any self-control or reasoning and to allow existing instincts to rule.  The rest is imitation of all the other instinct driven people and to fulfill the expectations of the social norm.   It is the choice of the least resistance.
    
  • Some people may even not feel any of the instincts, and nevertheless strife to fulfill the social norm, because it supplies them with a fake identity.  They may even relapse at the same time into some apparent cognitive behaviors and appear contradictory and inconsistent.
  
  Whatever the exact dynamics, masculinity and femininity are for these people no real identities, but identity crutches.