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.
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.
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.
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.
