727. How Instincts Reinforce Each Other Thus Aggravating Harm And Suffering

727.   How Instincts Reinforce Each Other Thus Aggravating Harm And Suffering

The biological spoils of war
Study finds those who take part in violent conflict have more wives, children

The study, ......  found that, among members of an East African herding tribe, those who engaged in conflict - in the form of violent raids carried out on neighboring groups - had more wives, and thus more opportunities to increase their reproductive success through having more children

In an analysis of 120 men, Glowacki said, the data was clear - those who participate in more raids had more wives and more children over the course of their lives.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/hu-tbs122914.php

In a scientific study, observed and observable data are presented.    From a very different point of view, I am looking at the suffering caused to individuals.   

• Raids cause deprivation and often the subsequent risk of perishing
• Raids often cause deaths, serious injuries and mutilations 
• More children mean women suffering more often the agony of giving birth.   
• There is often the additional suffering of those women, who are forced to share a husband in a polygamous situation in spite of wishing monogamy and/or to procreate more than they wish to. 

This is a clear example, how two instincts reinforce and enable each other leading to aggravated suffering.   

• The raids are an expression of the ingroup-outgroup-instinct.    The more the distinction between the groups is accentuated by this instinct, the less inhibitions there are against the ruthlessness and cruelty, upon which depends the success of raids.   Thus the success of raids both depends upon and rewards the ingroup-outgroup-instinct.   
• Procreation depends upon the combined strength of the procreation instincts and the means and occasion to act upon this instinct.   The more men are driven by the procreation instinct, the more they consider the acquisition of more wives and children as a desirable goal and a reward for embarking on a raid.  Thus a strong procreation instinct serves as a motivation for raids, such men's additional procreational behavior is enabled in the case of the raids being successful.

Would one instinct be absent, individuals would suffer less:

• Without the procreation instinct, there were less or no reasons for raids, depending on the own resources.   
• Without the ingroup-outgroup-instinct, raids were not possible, less procreation were possible due to less resources.

 

One should not shrug this off as if it were merely a remote problem in Africa.   The simple and therefore obvious mechanisms described in the study can be generalized and recognized in the sad every day occurrence, that people force disadvantages upon outgroup members in favor of advantages for their own progeny.    

• The raid can be replaced by the wider concept of exploitation in situations of asymmetrical power.  The same mechanism, that has been shown in the study above, is also at the bottom of all the outrageous injustice and cruelty of the world wide globalized system of exploitation.  
• Having more wives and more children can be replaced by the greedy accumulating of control over resources.    A person, who dies without offspring has no reason to amass more wealth than what he needs for the preferred standard of life during his own lifetime.    But someone leaving behind wealth as an inheritance bestows advantages to further generations of bearers of his own genes.   His offspring have a better chance of healthy survival, in turn they may have more offspring than without the inheritance.  

Whenever someone in the situation of direct or economic power exploits other humans, expecially slaves, illegal immigrant workers or inmates of labor camps, he has first defined them as an outgroup.   Only by this he is able to apply very different standards to them than to those people, whom he considers as his ingroup, while nevertheless not feeling cognitive dissonance with his idea of behaving morally.  

In the complex globalized system of exploitation, there are layers of ingroups and outgroups, as the example of this documentary shows.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gktid0YO9s

• To the privileged social class of plantation owners, the slaves are the outgroup.   These landlords are the most directly and knowingly cruel persons.  
• To those Ivorians, who abduct people from Mali, these are perceived as outgroup by being citizens of another country.   This is a form of raids, which are not a part of remote tribal life.  
• To the companies importing the cocoa beans and to the consumers of chocolate, all Africans are outgroup.  The majority of the uninformed customer are in denial or even truly ignorant of the sufferings caused by chocolate as an apparently inland product.   But those managers, who dictate the prices, are aware of the unavoidably dire situation of workers not being paid sufficiently.  

The worst cause of human suffering are the instincts, which humans share with animals.  There cannot be a better world, until people recognize the damage done by instincts and until the control of the instincts is eliminated and replaced by the rational concept of global equality and global equal rights.         

681. Strong Instincts Are Women's And Men's Common Enemy

681.  Strong Instincts Are Women's And Men's Common Enemy
 

This blog may appear biased, because I am a woman writing about what kind of a mindmate I am looking for.  Thus I am focusing upon the harm done by men's strong instincts to women, which I want to prevent myself from suffering, while the damage done by foolish and also instinct driven women to men does not concern me.   

This omission is no denial of the reality, that both masculinity and femininity as expressions of instinctive roles, which are equally dysfunctional for individual happiness.  

Male and female instincts have evolved in the animal ancestors to complement each other for an optimized success of procreation.  These instincts force people to make both themselves sacrifices for their offspring and they force them also upon others.  By these instincts, personal sufferings does not impede procreation.  
High instinctivity leads to a high identification with and display of masculinity in men and of femininity in women.  The instinctive urges cause different varieties of harm to the other gender.   Masculinity leads to the abuse women's bodies without attachment and commitment.   Femininity leads to the exploitation of men as providers by choosing attachment only to the children.
 

The instinctive attractions are often symmetrical, men with high instinctivity expressed as strong masculinity are attracted to women with high instinctivity expressed as strong femininity and vice versa.    In this case, the most abusive men fall for the most exploitative women and the most exploitative women are also the most prone to become victims of abuse by a bad choice.

But whenever there is a mismatch in the amount of instinctivity, then the partner with the stronger instinctivity is very prone to hurt and harm the less instinctive and more rational person, who does not reciprocate due to not being equally driven by instinct to cause harm.   

Thus, a battle between the genders is irrational.  Both genders have one common enemy, which is the subconscious power of animal instinctive forces over them, of which they are unfortunately usually not even aware.   If both genders would learn to reject, repress and fight against all instincts, which hurt and harm others, then male abuse and female exploitation could be if not eliminated then at least drastically reduced.  

 

Masculinity and femininity are not needed for the forming of bonded and committed couples.   The biological and therefrom deducted behavioral differences between the genders are only biologically needed for procreation.   Strong instincts only serve the compulsive production of offspring overriding any rational decision for or against breeding as a mere choice.  

There is evidence, that the difference between masculinity and femininity is obsolete for couples' happiness, when couples bond as individuals and not as breeders.  This evidence are all those lesbian and gay couples, who are getting married, where this is legal, and who are able and motivated to form longterm bonded unions based upon intellectual, emotional and physical intimacy.  

These couples can be a model for a new form of heterosexual couples, who also are focusing on equality in spite of belonging to different genders.   

When procreation is not the goal, then egalitarian models of choosing and preferring similarity are a rational option for all couples, also for heterosexual ones.   This includes the option to choose psychologically androgynous partners with only a low instinctivity towards being masculine or feminine.   

The happiness in a committed union of two individuals does not require any differences.  If only differences would attract each other, then twins, even identical twins, could not be so strongly bonded and attached as they often are.   Two persons, who are very much alike each other, could become attached like twins, with the addition of physical intimacy.

665. Possible Disruptions When Avoiding To Harm

665.   Possible Disruptions When Avoiding To Harm

As mentioned several times already, I consider the Epicurean principle of not harming as the basis of how I want to interact with other people.  I prefer to avoid those, who are determined otherwise like for example religious people, who justify harming by an alleged reward in the afterlife.
 

 
When two persons respect each other as equals and are consciously motivated to avoid harming each other, this does not automatically mean the absence of disruption by involuntary harming.

Harming includes hurting the other's feelings.   This implies the involvement of two sides, one person behaving in a specific way and another person perceiving this behavior as painful.

Some causes of disruption:

1.  Misunderstanding of the situation.    

Both can be guided by disparate and incongruent implicit expectations and unverified imaginary options.   
Well meant behavior based upon one set of such implicit presumptions can be perceived as for example betrayal, disappointment, disregard or depreciation by someone with another set.     This is the case for proactive and reactive behavior. 

2.  Not knowing the other well.    

Not harming by consideration is not possible without knowledge of the other's individual resilience and sensitivities. 
The responsibility of behaving morally according to one's own standards does not suffice to avoid, that the other feels hurt by the subjective perception of for example offense, slight, humiliation or rejection.    

3.  Misinterpretation due to lacking trust.  

Trust or the lack thereof has an impact upon the interpretation of the other's behavior and utterings as either benevolent or as a cause for suspicion.   Someone not trusting and feeling slighted can jump to the conclusion, that there really is a slight.

Some methods to avoid such disruptions

1.   Avoiding ambiguity.   

Clear agreements, explicit consent and outspoken options can lead to congruity and realism of expectations.    It allows a rational choice between pursuing or abandoning an endeavor.

2.   Adding consideration to responsibility.   

Acquiring sufficient knowledge about the other's value system, focus of identity and the impact of past experiences enables people to behave with consideration.   Involuntary hurting can best be avoided by knowing as much as possible of the other's subjective perception of all relevant behaviors.    

While responsibility can be regarded as a general moral obligation, consideration adds deliberate care for the other's wellbeing.

3.  The benefit of the doubt.   

Restricting all evaluation of the other to using the most trustful interpretation of his behavior avoids to mistake distrusting interpretations as indicating and even evidence for the justification of distrust.   Acting as if trusting enables real trust to grow, while this does not preclude to be nevertheless prepared for discovering the justification of the distrustful interpretation.  
Someone feeling slighted can ask back for further explanation in the awareness, that what he feels is only subjective and can be based upon wrong premises.

These methods constitute a learning process accomplished by rational and constructive communication, outspoken, direct, blunt and to the point of the matter.   

It is a learning process for both sides.   Learning how to be considerate is only possible, when the one feeling hurt acknowledges and admits the own vulnerability and refrains from blaming, grudging or accusing.  

I am aware that this does not sound very romantic.   But the special situation of beginning a contact by written messages and thus void of all non-verbal information asks for specific proceedings.  

The first step is a reciprocal consent and awareness concerning the options.    This means reciprocally ascertaining, that what each wants and needs as a goal is principally indeed offered by the other.      
The second step is a phase of constructive communication, which can lead to either the planning of a real life meeting or to the decision to abandon this goal.    
 

A well prepared meeting is then also the moment to start becoming romantic.

638. Research Indicating Indirectly A Correlation Between The Objectification And The Commodification Of Women

638.   Research Indicating Indirectly A Correlation Between The Objectification And The Commodification Of Women

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130130082258.htm

"Married men and women who divide household chores in traditional ways report having more sex than couples who share so-called men's and women's work, according to a new study co-authored by sociologists at the University of Washington."

The article states a link but does not supply explanations.   In the framework of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, it makes sense to assume the force of instinctivity as a shared cause, which leads directly to the objectification of a woman's body and indirectly to the commodification a woman as a utility to serve a man's other needs.    Of course the circumstances determine the magnitude of objectification and commodification.    A man's abusing a prostitute is much more drastic and conscious than subtle tendencies of a husband towards his wife as shown in the study.

The stronger a man's recurrent sexual dishomeostasis, the more the animal part of his brain is at risk of subconsciously experiencing a woman as an object to be used, even while he consciously is not aware thereof, even if he consciously rejects objectification and respects women.   

This subconscious objectification is not limited to the use of her body, but is also generalized towards the commodification of perceiving the woman's entire person as existing for the purpose of additionally serving the man's general comfort and convenience.  

"Couples who follow traditional gender roles around the house -- wives doing the cooking, cleaning and shopping; men doing yard work, paying bills and auto maintenance -- reported greater sexual frequency."

This division of chores is´not derived from biological differences in aptitudes, but from men installing for themselves the privilege to pick those chores, which require skill, creativity, intelligence and which supply the reward of experiencing achievements, while the women are burdened with the dullest, banalest and most unrewarding routines like cleaning. Women are made to do, what men do not want to do.  

Women are often so exhausted and worn by their ascribed and enforced work load, that they have no time or energy left to learn the skills needed for the chores, which the men have reserved for themselves.   Thus the men believe to have a sufficient excuse to perpetuate their privileges by claiming, that the women were unable to do anything better than cleaning.    

This study indirectly reinforces once more my conclusion:     

It is many men's fallacy to claim and believe, that a high sex drive were a positive and desirable attribute of male quality.  They often are even foolish enough to feel proud of their sex drive.  They are unable to recognize, how much it can also be an affliction causing harm to women, at least to those, who are intelligent and educated.   

The lower a man's sex drive, the less he is prone to fall into the trap of subtle objectification and commodification.    The lower a man's sex drive, the higher the probability, that a man is able to treat a woman with appropriate respect and appreciation for her as an equal partner and person.  

  

634. Equality And The Detrimental Effect Of Money On Men

634.  Equality And The Detrimental Effect Of Money On Men

Men are not only derailed by merely physical infatuation triggered by their instincts from making a wise choice of a companion.  The capitalistic distortion of deriving and attributing the value of people, especially of men, mainly from their financial power has additional detrimental effects on the mating behavior.   These effects are different for those, who are affluent and for those, who are not.   

  

1.  Men with low or moderate income 

  

Either in their profiles or in private correspondence, men with low to moderate income often express the expectation and fear to be automatically rejected due to lacking assets.   This frame of mind is real and thus it does not matter, if they have come to this state of mind from a realistic interpretation of their experiences.  

   

An unfortunate reaction is their loss of the ability to recognize, to trust or to accept, when a woman expresses clearly, that she is not interested in a man's money.    They appear bitter and angry, some seem to have a low self-esteem, not matter their intellectual achievements.    They are lonely and crave a relationship, but they do not dare to strife for it anymore, instead the rant and complain.  The less they expect, the less they are motivated to invest in any attempt and thus they also have no incentive for the challenge of conquering geographic distance.

It is disheartening for me, when I try in vain to encourage someone like this, but he withdraws, poofs or makes the fallacy to reject me first to prevent a wrongly expected rejection due to his financial situation. 

 

Some of them have been rejected, but for very different reasons being their behavior, habits and/or attitudes.  The attributing of rejections wrongly to lacking money has the unfortunate consequence of impeding the needed self-improvement.   Thus the not corrected reasons for rejections lead to repeated and continued rejections.

  
2.   Affluent men
 

A wealthy man is a hazard to a non-wealthy egalitarian woman.    The ability to spend money gives people power, no matter how much or how little they do enjoy having this power and how much they are not even aware of it.    

Spending money often creates a temporary hierarchy.    The English language expresses very clearly, how monetary transactions divide people between masters and servants:  The customer orders food in a restaurant, and to order is synonymous with to command.   The waiter serves the food.    Not asking a fixed full price, but maintaining the deplorable custom of tipping aggravates this undignified distinction.   The haughty master condescends to give some extra cash to a waiter, whose fake friendliness and servility is nothing better than the manipulation to get tipped.  

Buying bread at the bakers for a fixed price is a form of the division of labor.

The more a man experiences being the master with financial power as a daily routine, the more he is prone to loose all awareness of this being a situation of his asymmetrical advantage.  Instead he is desensitized to perceive this as his innate right.   

Thus he is prone to generalize his allegedly entitlement to power also to the privacy of a relationship.   This means, he is a hazard of not only attempting to dominate a woman, but also of not even understanding, that this is not justified but an outrage.  
      
There is a second hazard, which is often visible in the profiles of those men, who brag about their assets.    They attempt to buy women using material benefits.   The hazard here is the possible fallacy of thinking that by spending lots of money upon women they are dispensing themselves of any non-material obligations or responsibilities.   They mistake giving money for a sufficient substitute for any efforts to make a relationship work.
They are also prone to consider their wealth as enough reason to be eligible for considerably younger women, even though these women often do not reciprocate:  


When given all my other criteria including being in the same age group, men in a similar financial situation are elusive and discouraged, affluent men consider me as too old, while I consider men as old as 78, who have contacted me, as not suitable, no matter who and what they are.
 

There are things like no children and no religion, where compromising for me is out of the question.  But when it comes to the financial situation of a potential mate, I am willing to compromise.   

I do prefer someone of low or moderate income and the subsequent equality of sharing resources, expenses and decisions, who feels comfortable living frugally (entry 631), who does not mind nor hesitate to invest temporary discomfort for saving money, and for whom making the best of limited resources by using his brain and acquiring compensatory skills is welcome as a challenge and an achievement.  
But I am willing to accept a man of any financial situation, if he has the qualities of a mindmate.  

621. Politics In The Brain

621.  Politics In The Brain

This continues entry 576.    

Right wing, conservative, fascist political parties have one thing in common:   They all are fighting to establish or maintain inequality by allowing and allotting privileges to a minority of the society by disadvantaging the majority.    

The social class having the privileges can be seen as an ingroup of those, who experience themselves as distinct due to having succeeded in climbing to the top of the hierarchy of wealth and/or power.    They are most probably driven there by any combination of a strong hierarchy instinct and a strong ingroup-outgroup instinct.  Both instincts lead to behaviors favoring inequality.    Different strength of instinctivity would be hardwired in the brain.   

Entry 576 was about possible genetic influenced about some political issues.    

"recent studies suggest that genes also strongly influence political traits. Twin studies show that genes have some influence on why people differ on political issues such as the death penalty, unemployment and abortion."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120827122410.htm

Recently I read about another study finding indications of differences between the brains of people with known dichotomous political preferences: 

"the brains of self-identified Democrats and Republicans are hard-wired differently and may be naturally inclined to hold varying, if not opposing, perceptions and values."

"The results found more neural activity in areas believed to be linked with broad social connectedness in Democrats (friends, the world at-large) and more activity in areas linked with tight social connectedness in the Republicans (family, country)."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121101105003.htm

576. Politics And Instincts

576.  Politics And Instincts

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120827122410.htm

"recent studies suggest that genes also strongly influence political traits. Twin studies show that genes have some influence on why people differ on political issues such as the death penalty, unemployment and abortion."

Political differences are basically different attitudes somewhere between the egalitarian view of all humans being entitled to equal rights, and the attitudes of inequality by justifying privileges and restricted access to resources either for specific groups or for the holder of specific positions of power.   This favorable attitude towards inequality represents either one or both of the ingroup-outgroup instinct and the hierarchy instinct.  

Thus it seems logical to me, that high or low levels of these two instincts do predispose people to lean towards specific political ideas.   My emphasis is only on political general ideas, programs, goals, not on what politicians and parties really do.  

Oversimplified it seems:

• Fascism and Nazism are attractive for those driven by a high ingroup-outgroup instinct.
• Globalized capitalism is attractive for those driven by a high hierarchy instinct.  
• Other forms of conservative politics are attractive to those driven by a combination of both instincts.   
• Those low on these instincts are more attracted to leftist and ecological political ideas.

As the level of instinctivity is innate, it seems plausible to expect people's political preferences to be partly and indirectly determined by their genes.

In my quest to find a mindmate, I am using a man's expressed political leanings, whenever they are indicated in a profile, not only as a direct indication for either propinquity or the lack thereof.   

Even though the correlation between political preference and instinctivity is mere speculation, the probably high level of general instinctivity of a man with right wing preferences could indicate that such a man is also so much driven by his physiological urges towards female bodies, that he is an especially high risk for women being commodified and objectified by him.    

There is also the risk, that a man with a strong hierarchy instinct also is more prone to establish and enforce a hierarchy of his domination over a woman.  

566. Rational Feminism, Male Biology, Harm And The Liability Principle - 1

566.  Rational Feminism, Male Biology, Harm And The Liability Principle - 1

Entries 565, 554 and 552 were about the unjustifiable acceptance of and desensitization to harming and being harmed and how this is connected with religion having become a part of many cultures and being taken for granted as if there were no alternative.   
Even feminism is not free from this, often being much more politically concerned with justified anger about inequality and abuse, but not with the principle of avoiding harm. 

Lately I read an article protesting against any recognition of biological differences between the genders as a danger to feminism.    I strongly disagree.    Feminism without awareness for the insights of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology is doomed to be irrational.  
 

A rational form of feminism is needed, which focuses on ending not only the daily and ubiquitous harm to women by men, but also the tolerance to and acceptance of being harmed by women themselves.  
Feminism is rational, when it has been cleaned of all religious beliefs and myths concerning women and also of all indirect consequences of such beliefs on how woman are treated and what they accept as appropriate.     
Rational feminism has the predominant goal to avoid and to reduce harm to women.  This can only be accomplished by taking realistic account of the biological gender differences.  

Rational feminism includes the task of overcoming two fallacies.  Both fallacies are enhanced and reinforced by the underestimation of the disabling effect of instinctive urges upon the morals, the reasoning and the self-control of many men.  

• Fallacy 1 is the irrational denial of biological differences and the subsequent overestimation of the general moral qualities to be expected and demanded from men.   Men are not only believed to have a free will, but they are also considered to be able to act responsibly by always having a sufficiently strong self-control.  They are believed to be capable to behave morally by simply deciding to do so.   Whenever they don't, it is attributed to an individual man's personal failure or momentary blunder.   
  Women are considered as having no part in how they are treated nor are they held responsible for influencing men. 
  No matter how often and how strongly abuse of women is denounced and protested against under this fallacy, harm to women cannot be avoided, as long as men's attributed moral qualities are overestimated and unrealistic .  
  
  This fallacy is found by all female feminists, who focus on demanding different behaviors from men as a deliberate decision and it is shared by those more decent men of low instinctivity, who project their own rare qualities upon all men.
  
  
• Fallacy 2 is the irrational acceptance of all biased consequences of gender differences as unchangeable innate male privileges and innate female fate or doom to be harmed.  Any gender difference, no matter if by biology or by learned gender roles is mistaken to justify, condone and excuse inconsiderate treatment of women.  In more drastic cases, entitlement and grandiosity delusion lead to ruthless commodification and objectification of women.  
  Men are considered as unable to be responsible towards women. They believe their alleged male superiority as placing them above the requirement of responsibility towards women.  The trifled weakness of lacking responsibility towards women is not considered as significant enough to impair their alleged self-attributed superiority, because they perceive women as too insignificant.
  This fallacy is shared by men, who consider their abuse, domination and exploitation not as such but as women's appropriate fate, and by women, who are suffering in resignation without even feeling an outrage.  
  Women are not protected from but exposed to harm, their only method to reduce this is restricting their own liberty and scope of life.  

Both fallacies include the oblivion or denial of the fact, that the problem is caused by men's tragic defect, that their instinctive urges are far out of proportion of what would be beneficial for women.   

 
Making feminism rational means to discard both fallacies and focus upon how to end the harming of women on two levels:. 

1. Those men, whose cognition enables them, are required to take the responsibility to not harm women. 
   Taking responsibility requires to be able to have and to act by the insight, that harm to women is an outrage beyond any justifiability.  But to ask and to expect responsibility is only rational with people, who not only have this insight, but are also in the full capacity of being controlled by morals.  
   
2. When men are unable to refrain from harming women by responsibility, because they are too much enslaved by their excessive biological instinctive urges, then the protection of women requires stronger measures.  The study quoted in entry 565 is an example of the absurdity of punishing transgressors less due to biological explanations of their inability to act responsibly.  
   Such men need to be held accountable and liable by any means, no matter if and how much the procedures used are drastic, detrimental, disadvantageous, restrictive and unpleasant for the transgressors.  

When there are two option, either allowing a transgressor harm an innocent person, or to do some unavoidable harm to the transgressor to protect the Innocent, I consider the protection of the innocent as much more ethically justifiable than any clemency for the transgressor.   

The victims to be spared are innocent and therefore fully worthy of protection.  The transgressors have forfeited and damaged their worthiness by the harm already caused by them.   The innocence of not having harmed anybody is a strong moral justification for the privilege of being protected.

This general moral dilemma between protecting the innocent and forcing liability on transgressors is of course not restricted to men as transgressors and woman as victims, but it is the most drastic problem, because of the biological asymmetry  

• The average man is physically much stronger than the average woman.   Only a man has the choice between harming, forcing, dominating, coercing a woman and not harming her.  
• Men have a biological urge for homeostasis, which above a certain level of their instinctivity makes them predators, who harm women by objectification.
• The combination of urges to motivate and strength to enforce makes some men so fatally dangerous.

Rational feminism aims at finding methods, how to deal with this asymmetry in a way that ends the harming of women.

What I mean by holding men accountable and liable, will be continued in another entry.  

515. Responsibility And Liability Without The Myth Of The Free Will

515.  Responsibility And Liability Without The Myth Of The Free Will

Discarding the concept of the free will does not imply to accept, condone or excuse harmful behavior.   It only means a different approach how to protect people from being harmed.    Not harming others is a moral issue, no matter if there is a free will or not.  It requires to redefine the moral quality of behavior from the perception and experience of the target, recipient or victim.   The harm suffered by a victim does not depend on the ability of the transgressor to control his behavior or not.   The need to be protected from harm is independent from how this is done.

People's possibilities to harm others are drastically restricted by legal systems, and subtly also by social norms.     The myth of the free will limits the success of these protective methods for the innocent.   Without the myth of the free will, a person's inability to act responsibly is not a suitable and rational justification to release this person from all liability resulting from his actions.


Responsibility is the cognitive ability to behave deliberately without harming others.   The myth of the free will considers the ability to act responsibly as a part of human sanity.   Harming is legally punished for the purpose to enable the transgressor to learn how to apply his free will for not repeating the harm in the future.  
Only those declared as insane are not punished, as they are considered to have no free will to learn and to control themselves.  

As a consequence of this paradigm, the suffering of victims is considered the unavoidable collateral damage of the learning process of those, who are supposed as having merely strayed but have a free will to decide to change.    The focus is on the transgressors, the victims are considered the objects of their learning.  

The free will myth leading to dealing with a person lacking the ability to act morally by first allowing them to do harm and then punishing them is an inappropriate and cruel mistake.    It burdens too much suffering upon too many innocent victims by being too lenient with the transgressors.    Any person, who for the first time commits a crime causing serious physical or traumatic injuries to the victim, no matter if it is assault, robbery, rape, gets free after a few years.   Only when he has repeated harming innocent victims several times, is he considered as dangerous enough to be locked away for good.   

This is an outrage to the innocent second and further victims of known transgressors.   No punishment can ever undo and heal the damage to the victims.    Punishment may even impede those with lacking morals from changing their behavior.    They experience their time in prison as paying for the benefits of the crime.   Having paid is their reason to feel not or less guilty.  


Without the free will, the concept of universal responsibility has to be replaced by the concept of unrestricted liability.    Liability focuses upon the harm done by someone independent of the reasons for, causes and triggers of any behavior.   The focus is upon protecting the innocent from becoming victims, no matter, how this is accomplished and no matter the consequences for those, who are not able to refrain from harming.  

Responsibility does not require a free will, as it can be motivated by a cognitive calculation of preventing dishomeostasis and of expecting future stimulation of the pleasure center.    Responsible behavior can be the best behavior for the own long-term needs as already explained in entry 514.  

Under the liability paradigm of protecting the innocent, those able to act responsibly are the lucky ones, whose brain allows them to live without being externally restricted.    The others are less lucky, they need to be externally restricted from becoming the cause of harm. 

The ability to behave morally as experienced by the targets, to live without harming is a talent and a disposition, that people are either lucky enough to have wired in their brain or they are unfortunate enough to lack it. 

It is not in any way different from intelligence.    Logically, it should also not be dealt with differently.  
Most people take the benefits of intelligence for granted without even wondering about any injustice, when an intelligent person receives a lot of expensive formal education and reaches high positions of power in a factory.  He earns a lot more for a rewarding job than does the person lacking intelligence, who is given no choice but to do a dull repetitive job at the assembly line.  

Less intelligence is usually accepted as a justification for less quality of life, even though those with less intelligence are only detrimental to themselves.   But the lack of the ability to behave morally is even more detrimental, because suffering is imposed upon innocent victims, and the transgressors often get away with it.   It is time to accept the fact, that the inability to act morally is at least as much a justification if not much more than is intelligence for limiting and restricting the quality of life.   

Intelligence can be at least roughly measured and noticed by limited achievements, thus mistakes by wrong decision can be often prevented.  
Morals are more difficult to assess.  Unfortunately for the victims of first crimes, it is impossible or very difficult to predict the first occurrence of someone seriously harming another.  The first victim cannot be protected.   But after the first crime has been proven beyond doubt, the danger is known.   The second victim of the same criminal is not only a victim of him, but also a victim of a society, which fails to protect the innocent. 

I am not defending or justifying the inequality of chances.   Only when two needs are in conflict, then the needs of the innocent should have priority over the needs of the person known already as a potential danger.    The need to remain unharmed should have priority over the need to have a freedom, which includes the freedom to harm at the next occasion.   

514. Morals And Ethics Without The Myth Of The Free Will - 2

514.  Morals And Ethics Without The Myth Of The Free Will - 2

The myth of the free will (discarded in entry (512) is perpetuated as a result of the subjective experience of other people's behavior as moral.   This experience is often independent of the person's real motives.   Whenever another's personal benefits from choosing a specific behavior are not obvious, people are prone to ascribe the behavior to the expression of an apparent free will. 
   
Morals and ethics can instead be explained by the intrinsic and extrinsic cost and benefit calculation for deciding to choose a behavior. 
This calculation is not only using the perception of immediate and present dishomeostasis and the immediate attraction of present stimuli for expected pleasure.  Both can at least partially be visible and recognizable to others including to the target of the behavior.  
This calculation also includes the evaluation, consideration and expectation of emotional, social and legal direct and long-term consequences derived from experiences stored in the memory.   This cognitive part is invisible and mostly unknown to those exposed to the behavior, which is thus not or not fully explicable and comprehensible.  

Not harming others unless there is a morally justified reason to make an exception can be seen as a basic principle of all morals.    As outlined in entry 513, persons with the particles' identity value the species higher than the individuals.  They accept the justification of harm, when it is collateral damage in favor of the survival of the human species.  
For the individualistic identity, there is no justification for harming others.   

Therefore refraining from harming behaviors is at least an important ingredient in what is subjectively experienced as an expression of morals, if it is not the core of it.

Evaluating the morality of behavior implies the interaction between two or more persons.  There are two perspectives.  One focuses upon the target of possible behaviors, the other one upon the acting person's motivation and reasons.
 
The target can judge from direct subjective experience and according to the own concept of morality, if a specific behavior is either moral or not.  The motivation for the behavior is hidden, and can only be assessed as a guess.    The behaving person can either act morally by ethical principles or as the haphazard reaction to a singular situation.   

A monster is not less a monster, when once in a while a possible victim is lucky enough to remain unharmed in spite of being exposed to the hazard.   The non-victim in an ephemeral exposure can remain unaware of having been exposed to a monster and is unable to know, if the apparently moral behavior was only exceptionally and accidentally identical with what the target considers moral.     

There are four varieties of interactions, which are experienced as moral by the target.  None needs the free will as an explanation:  

1. Moral behavior in the absence of conflicting needs.
   
   1.1.   The acting person lacks any opportunity, occasion, method, means, tools or weapons to indulge in harmful behavior.
   
   1.2.   The acting person happens either temporarily or principally not to experience any need, urge or reason to do anything, that would be experienced by the target as harming.
   
2. Moral behavior by self-control as a result of expected consequences.
   
   The acting person anticipates external consequences following the choice of behavior, there is awareness of the pending punishment for harming and/or pending reward for not harming.   This includes acquiring correct knowledge of what is harmful to every individual target as a part of choosing, how to behave.
   Consequences can for example be legal punishment, harmful reactions of the victim or social damage as is the loss of a position of power and influence.   It also includes delusional rewards and punishments by an imaginary deity.  
   
3. Consistent moral behavior of apparently ethical persons.
   
   The acting person anticipates internal consequences following the choice of behavior.   This can be emotional dishomeostasis and/or emotional joy of the pleasure center.
   In a generalized anticipation of these internal consequences, some people follow rules and thus behave consistently in a way, that is experienced by the targets as not only moral but as the apparent expression of an ethical personality.  
   
   3.1.    Dishomeostasis can be triggered by 
   
   • suffering as a result of spontaneous empathy with the target
   • experiencing harming others as damaging the self-esteem and self worth.  This is the result of being influenced by social norms and/or a religion, when specific harming behaviors have been associated with despised traits like being weak, foolish, coward, guilty, ashamed.   
   
   3.2.   Stimulation of the pleasure center can be caused by an innate predisposition of the cognition.
   This innate predisposition is the prevalence of rationality over instinctivity.   Rationality determines a specific choice of an ethical principle.    When focusing decisions not only on self-interest, the interaction with individuals nor on the preference for any ingroup, but on looking at the big picture of the overall balance between giving and taking, then justice, fairness and equal chances are the most logical principle.  
   On this level, the generalized benefits of the golden rule and of tit-for-tat strategies are ethical, because they are logical.    Unjust, unfair and asymmetrical behavior and inequality are unethical, because they are irrational.  
   Rationality causes the pleasure of self-esteem, self-worth and self-confidence, while irrationality causes dishomeostasis.
   People with this predisposition are ethical, because they are rational.  

492. Mr. Mighty's Blunder

In many societies and cultures, there are fables, tales, sagas and myths about the creation of humans by deities.    So today I am writing my own creation fable.

Mr. Mighty's Blunder

Mr. Mighty is a very powerful entity.   He likes to create things.   Unfortunately, he is not very clever.  He learns by trial and error, often making a few blunders on the way.   And he is slightly immature.    

One day he created an earth.   He started to populate it with humans of the variety female.   They lived peacefully and in harmonious cooperation.    Mr. Mighty observed them for a while and got bored.    He wanted more thrill.

So he added a bunch of men.   They were those, who look at the females, notice their lack of physical strength and by a fallacy of thinking they infer, that women were as intellectually weak as they are physically.   
These men ascribe the role of servants in the kitchen to women, because they perceive women as not enough of a challenge to compete with, to win over and to enjoy the victory.  
They band together with their male companions to indulge in their own preferred occupations of discovering, conquering and controlling the world.  They have invented the tools and toys for adventurous thrills, like ships, football, racing, wars, alcohol and a lot more.   Women are insignificant for them.
 
Mr. Mighty first bunch were asexual men.  He had omitted to add any libido to the dough.   He observed the hustle and bustle on his earth for a while, then again he got bored. 
  
He wanted more thrill, so he created a second bunch of men.   This time he felt sure of making a good job of it by adding a huge dose of libido to the dough.   But he overdid it, it was way too much.  

By this blunder, Mr. Mighty created the promiscuous jerks.  

After been let loose, the jerks went all over the earth as dangerous predators in search of prey.   Whenever they get near a female, they start to drool over her body.  This drooling deactivates their brain and blurs their reasoning capacities.    They are bonding-disabled.  Instead of perceiving women as equal humans, they perceive them as nothing more than commodities, objects and utilities. 
They have the delusion, the Mr. Mighty had created the women only for the purpose of being used by men.  They feel entitled to use women's bodies by hook or by crook.   Drooling alone serves as enough justification to gain control over women's bodies, no matter if by lies, manipulations, pretence, tricks, threat, coercion, rape, money.  
Their promiscuity makes them emotional psychopaths, lacking any awareness or conscience for the consequences of their behavior upon the victims.    The same jerks often have nevertheless the delusion of being men of high morals, because of responsibility and consideration in their interaction with valued male companions.
During the latency time between just having used a body and before redrooling, they are not any better than the asexual men, they too prefer the company of other males to compete and to control the world.  

In short, Mr. Mighty's second bunch was only a nuisance for the women, without being in the slightest way better than the asexuals.   Suffering severely from the insult of being used, disrespected and depreciated, the women went to Mr. Mighty and complained about his blunder.  When he got tired of the women's insistent and repeated complaints, he finally complied and made a third bunch of men. 

This time Mr. Mighty succeeded.  He created his master piece, the demisexual men.   They are, what women want and need, innately monogamous companions.   Demisexual men get automatically emotionally bonded by getting physically involved.  Demisexual men never use a woman but enjoy to be together with a person.  Demisexual men have the intelligence and awareness to recognize and appreciate women as equal partners with a brain and a personality.  

This time, Mr. Mighty achieved the perfect mixture.   He used just enough libido to make the company of women a bit more attractive and enjoyable than that of other men.   But he dosed it carefully, so that the demisexual men are spared the indignity of drooling over bodies.   Their mind remains clear to the fact, that a bonded couple with the mental ability of experiencing intellectual intimacy spends much more waking time together out of bed than in bed.   This perfect dose of limited libido is just enough to make a man being attracted to have a woman as a significant other in his life, but he is able to make a wise choice of a matching personality.  


Unfortunately, Mr. Mighty overestimates himself and his skills.   For his first attempt, he was careful and used only a small amount of the dough, so there are not many of the asexual men.   But then he made the mistake of using nearly all of his remaining dough for his second attempt.   Therefore the promiscuous jerks are not only the worst blunder, but also the majority of men.   When Mr. Mighty finally created his master piece of the innately monogamous demisexuals, there was not much dough left.  

The demisexuals are not only the master piece, they are also as rare as they are precious.

 

But Mr. Mighty also lacks the maturity to correct his blunders.   He created his master piece only to appease the women, when he felt too annoyed by their complaints.   Being male himself, he has no empathy leading to the insight, that the promiscuous jerks needed to be removed and replaced by demisexual innately monogamous men.   Making more dough using the perfect recipe would have been an easy task.    

But Mr. Mighty does not care about the wellbeing of the women, only about the entertainment of the spectacle.    By removing the jerks and eliminating promiscuity, the world would have returned to a state of peace, harmony, cooperation and happiness.   But then he would have been bored again, while he prefers thrill and entertainment.    The limited supply of only a few specimen of his master piece enabled Mr. Mighty to lean back and amuse himself observing the struggle of the women to find the few monogamous men. 

 
__________________

I have many reasons to be an atheist.   But the fact of the ubiquitous women's suffering as victim's of ruthless promiscuity is already enough reason for a woman to refuse to believe in the wisdom and benevolence of a creator.   Promiscuous jerks just cannot be the product of any entity, that deserves the definition as a god.  

470. Men's Innate Inclinations

470.   Men's Innate Inclinations

When two persons hardly knowing each other start to communicate by written correspondence, they are prone to sooner or later encounter situations of misunderstanding and misinterpretations, leading to wrong conclusions.   Most people tend to react immediately by perceiving the other's incomprehensible statement as weird.   

Only on second thought, people reevaluate their spontaneous reaction more rationally.   This rational handling is a good indication of a man's general attitude towards women.   This attitude represents the priority of his genuine needs for either privileges or equality.   The sooner I find this out, the better for me.  

I am realistic.   I cannot make a man overcome gender roles, as long as he profits from them, while they are only to my disadvantage.   I can only help a man to overcome gender roles, of which he is oblivious, if he is in favor of equality by his own inclination, by his own wish.   I can only support someone towards equality, if he appreciates equality intrinsically as beneficial for himself.


1.  Men proceed in handling apparent weirdness of a woman in accordance with their needs.  

1.1.  The jerk

The jerk is selfish and he feels entitled to be so.  The privileges given to men by the traditional gender roles are in his favor.    Whatever flaw, defect and shortcomings he can ascribe to a woman helps him to justify to others, why his considering her as inferior suffices for him to establish a hierarchy of domination.  

The jerk wants to believe the woman to be flawed, this allowing him not to worry about others interfering with his domination.

1.2.  The emotional moron

The emotional moron is not as selfish as the jerk, he does not feel automatically entitled to have privileges.  But he enjoys the privileges, if he can have them without a bad conscience.   He welcomes anything, that offers itself to be used to reinforce his belief in his own superiority as the justification for his privileges. 

The emotional moron wants to believe the woman to be flawed, this allowing him to justify his domination to himself.

1.3.  The unconcerned

The unconcerned is ignorant and unaware of the paramount importance of equality for an egalitarian woman.   He is misled and maybe brainwashed by the christian demand for tolerance.   He is oblivious of the meaning of ascribing flaws. He is oblivious, that tolerance for alleged flaws is detrimental to developing intellectual intimacy.    He is ignorant of the importance of eliminating wrong impressions and of avoiding devaluation.   He is unaware of what attracts him mainly to a woman, her brain and personality or her body. 

The unconcerned is neutral, apparent flaws do not consciously influence his attitude towards a woman.  

1.4.  The egalitarian

The innately egalitarian and monogamous man with a genuine wish for a companion values intellectual intimacy more than having privileges, especially if having privileges are justified by nothing more than by being a man.   

The egalitarian man is intrinsically motivated to eliminate all apparent flaws, because the less he perceives a woman's brain as flawed, the more he is attracted to her.

  
2.  A man's reaction to a situation of temporary lacking comprehension for a woman is a very good indication of what to expect from him.  

2.1.  If a man wants a woman to be flawed, then this is a big red flag, he is either a jerk or an emotional moron.

2.2.  If a man is willing to tolerate a woman by allowing her to be flawed and is not concerned about this, then this is an important topic for some profound discussion about a woman's role in his life.    His real needs are hidden beyond his ignorance and unawareness,    

Most probably he would not be a jerk.  But a woman needs to know, if he is more an emotional moron or more an egalitarian.    He first needs to be made aware, that this distinction is very important for an egalitarian woman like me.   His attitude can only be discovered with his cooperation of careful introspection.     Since this is predominantly important for the woman, misunderstandings will not be cleared, unless the woman takes the initiative to do so and is not stalled by the man's obstruction. 

     
2.3.  If a man rejects intellectually flawed women, then he experiences any instance of incomprehension as disruptive and as a task to deal with.   He is not only motivated to clear all misunderstandings, but he takes the initiative to do so.  
 

When there is some disruptive misunderstanding, jerks and emotional morons can be easily recognized, because they show their appreciation of a woman's apparent flaws.  
Egalitarians can also be easily recognized, because they are themselves motivated to initiate efforts to remove wrong impression and to restore and create reciprocal respect.

The unconcerned are the real problem.  Not only is the woman the one with the onesided need to clear the misunderstandings, while the man is not bothered, but such misunderstandings happen most to persons knowing each other very little.    The woman initiating attempts to clarify a misunderstanding risks to deteriorate the situation by adding worse misunderstandings.

The next entry will give an example of how this can happen.    

469. Gender Roles, Instincts, Alleged Flaws And Inferiority

Gender Roles, Instincts, Alleged Flaws And Inferiority

This continues entry 468, where I mentioned the asymmetrical constellations of lacking reciprocity in the significance of another person.   The same allegation of flaws indicating inferiority is very often not considered or perceived as being the same but differing, when the target is either a woman or a man.   There are double standards concerning what treatment is pertinent and suitable for women but not for men.      

In the situation or disagreement with being treated as inferior by another man, a man often reacts to the insult with aggression and anger.   This is considered as only a man's appropriate reaction.  

When women are treated or considered as inferior by men, they are supposed and expected to react with acquiescence.  There is a general pattern of how easily men are prone to presume and accept a woman's inferiority without hesitation, doubt or further investigation, no matter, what the woman herself does, says, thinks or wants. 

This unfortunate pattern can be traced back to the combination of subconscious instinctive urges and more conscious gender roles serving those instincts. 

1.   Subconscious instincts

When a woman wants a companion for a relationship of two equal partners, this means for her the crucial and indispensable condition of mutual respect and appreciation.   It excludes alleging flaws, because this implies disrespect.   For such a woman, perceiving flaws or being considered flawed are indications of lacking equality and this impedes to get involved.   For her, it is equality or nothing.  
For many men, there are two levels, two alternative relationship concepts.   Even a man, who prefers to have an equal companion, does not automatically evaluate a woman as unsuitable, when he consciously perceives her as intellectually inferior, either by fact or allegation.   Instead, often instincts take control over him.   While he does not expect emotional and intellectual benefits from someone considered inferior, his instincts still react to physical attraction, and he continues to pursue her for the benefits from using her body as a utility.  

For any woman, who restricts her choice of whom to get involved with by her evaluation of being two equals, this leads to a tragic mismatch, whenever the man fails her expectations and instead degrades and devalues her as a utility due to her alleged flaws.  He subjectively feels as justified to use her as she feels justified to expect being perceived and treated as an equal partner.      

2.  Gender roles

Social gender roles represent the inclination and needs of the majority of the population.   These roles prescribe those behaviors, which are most successfully enabling this majority to live in accordance with their subconscious instincts.  This means that gender roles favor procreation.    
Gender roles therefore standardize behavior in favor of average people.   When applied to and forced upon people, who are different and not average, this is often very detrimental.   

Gender roles are installed into people's brains mostly during childhood and youth.   The gender roles still prevalent in my own generation here in Germany were based upon the asymmetry between the male breadwinner and the dependent housewife.  
These gender roles unfortunately confound innate inferiority and secondary inferiority caused by the lack of chances to develop the innate capacities, talents and skills.   
In those days men were on average better educated, better instructed, more skilled than women.   Therefore statistically, men and women more often than not found themselves in an asymmetrical situation of interaction, where the unfortunate women were intellectually inferior independent of their intelligence and their potentials.  
A woman wasting her life away as a housewife and mother was deprived of becoming an equal partner apt to participate in intellectual communication with a man, who was enabled and encouraged to cultivate his brain.  

By experiencing this circumstantial female inferiority, men were misled to generalize it to all women and to then treat them all indiscriminately as inferior, losing any perception to notice the exceptions.   Women were also brainwashed to expect all men as superior without even checking the reality of this myth.   Thus women omitted to correct the male prejudice and men got reinforced even more in their false belief in the general and innate female inferiority.  

Habituation and desensitization perpetuated this imbalanced situation.  Too many men continue to take women's inferiority and their acquiescence therewith for granted and natural, without consciously doubting this.  
In spite of the brainwashed average women's apparent or even real acquiescence, these gender roles are very harmful to those women, who are not average and not brainwashed.   The same attitudes and behavior, that are suitable or at least not harmful to average women, are often very hurting for egalitarian educated women.  

468. Reactions To Alleged Flaws

468.   Reactions To Alleged Flaws

The topic of entry 466 was the implication, that ascribing a flaw means the indirect claim of the allegedly flawed person's inferiority.   There is a clear distinction between a friendly and respectful noticing of someone's peculiarities and the devaluation of ascribing a flaw. 

1.  My definition of a flaw:

A flaw is a peculiar attribute, that is   

• detrimental to the own life of the flawed person or
• detrimental to the targets of flawed behavior

1.1.  A flaw is not trivial. 
It is a significant detriment according to the evaluation or experience of the one calling it a flaw.  Without being detrimental, it is a peculiarity and not a flaw.   Ascribing a flaw is a devaluation, calling something a peculiarity is not. 
Alleging a flaw without consent is always an insult, even when someone recognizes having the peculiar attribute, but disagrees to evaluate it as detrimental.  
When the alleged flaw concerns attributes or traits contributing to the person's identity, then it is not only an insult, but a rejection of the person. 

1.2.  There are detriments, that people cannot agree about, unless they share some basic values and attitudes.  

1.2.1.  A good example is the reciprocal disrespect of christians and atheists.  
For an atheist like me, a christian is flawed, because his behavior is often detrimental to others not sharing his beliefs.   Christians' belief in the reward in the afterlife is their justification to hurt others.  

Christians believe atheists to be detrimental to themselves as they are believed to suffer in hell.  

Atheists and christians can never agree on who is flawed, because they derive the logic for their mutual evaluation from incompatible premises. 

1.2.2.   When people share basic values and they are mutually significant as equals, then flaws are experienced as disruptive for their relationship.  This goes both ways, because they want to respect and to be respected.  Apparent flaws are a problem to be solved.   Both partners communicate, until there is no more misunderstanding and misinterpretation leading to the allegation of non-existing flaws.  

1.2.3.   There is a difference between permanent irreversible and temporary flaws.  

A person's real but temporary flaws like irritating bad habits or states of stress can be overcome, when the flawed partner accepts support from the other.    This requires agreement concerning the detriments and disadvantages of the flawed behavior.  Based upon this agreement, the partners can cooperate towards reducing the flaw and restoring equality. 
Innate promiscuity is an example of an irreversible flaw.    Innate promiscuity is an incurable detriment to any person with the quality of innate monogamy.    

2.  The target's reaction to the allegation of a flaw depends on the social roles and the reciprocal personal significance.

2.1.  People are usually not bothered about flaws alleged by insignificant persons.   Not sharing basic values or the awareness of each other's disrespectful opinion impedes any attraction between people.  They do not become significant. 

2.2.  There are specific problems of disruptive entanglement in family constellations, where the significance precedes the allegation of flaws.  Examples are siblings, of whom one is a christian and the other an atheist or one is a soldier and the other a pacifist.

2.3.  Situations of asymmetrical significance can be very painful.   People wish to be reciprocally considered and treated as equals and as significant by those, who are significant for them.   A person's significance determines, how much his allegations of flaws are experienced as insults, humiliations, degradations and indignities.     It is a very disruptive situation, when a person does not reciprocate his significance to another, but instead claims his superiority by alleging flaws and expecting acquiescence.   
    

2.3.1.  Between men, such an insult often provokes aggression, fighting and even bloodshed. 

2.3.2.  When women are men's targets of the same insult, they are supposed and expected to react with acquiescence.  The implications of this upon women as partners in a relationship or when choosing a mate are the topic of the next entry.  

466. Implications Of Alleging Flaws And Faults

Implications Of Alleging Flaws And Faults

Assuming the following constellation (, which in this context has nothing to do with couples supporting each other by agreement):    

A woman is egalitarian and has the need to be appreciated and treated as an equal partner and companion.
A man considers, perceives and interprets an expression of her thinking or behavior as flawed, while she disagrees.  

This implies, that the man creates a hierarchy of perfection, and he ascribes to her an inferior position below himself.   He also creates a hierarchy of competency of judgement, where he puts himself above her as the one able to assess her as flawed.  
This happens in his mind, no matter if the woman knows it or not.  Her ascribed position is his solitary decision, this deprives her of any influence to change her position.   By defining her low position, he perceives her as too inferior to be an equal companion. 

1.  In the case, that the man is brainwashed to accept the traditional gender roles, forming a hierarchy based upon imaginary flaws does not disturb him subjectively at all, he experiences this as how things are naturally meant to be.   
1.1.  When he only tells the woman, that he considers her as flawed, this hurts her emotionally as an insult and degradation, she feels humiliation and indignity.   She experiences any consideration based upon alleged flaws as condescension.
1.2.  When he also expects from her proactive acceptance of her inferior position, then this is narcissistic.
1.3.  When he feels entitled to do, what he wants to do, ignoring her subjective suffering by attributing it to her own alleged flaws, then this is domination.  
1.4.  When a man is not bothered about how inferior he perceives the woman, then this is a slippery slope for her.  While she does not qualify to get her own needs met as an equal companion, he often succeeds in benefiting from her as from a utility and commodity, used without being respected.  

2.  It often happens, that someone spontaneously reacts at first to any incomprehension by ascribing a flaw to the other.   But in the case, that the man himself wants equality as much as the woman, perceiving incomprehensible expressions as a flaw causes discomfort also to himself, maybe as much as it causes her.    His own wish to perceive her as equal companion and free from flaws is as strong as her own wish to be perceived as an equal companion.  
Therefore this case is a challenge for both of them to cooperate, until the misunderstanding has been cleared.   They communicate, until they both are content to have restored equality.   If he has explicitly blamed her of being flawed, he also takes this explicitly back.  
2.1. Either she explains herself until he has full comprehension of her reasons.
2.2. Or he accepts his personal limits of empathy, understanding and imagination as his own problem of not being able to judge her.   He recognizes the existence of differences and reasons, that are valid for her independent of his comprehension.  

How someone deals in the search for a mate with his incomprehension of the other's behavior is an indication of his innate ability to be an equal partner.  
If he feels ok by claiming a partner's flaws, this is a big red flag, because it is usually the first step leading to worse and more hurting behavior like domination.   If someone feels ok by taking advantage of someone judged as inferior, there is nothing to be done by the taken advantage of victim.  There is no way of convincing someone to change his behavior, while he feels good by having got, what he wants.  
I admit, that whenever a man claims me to be flawed but considers this as no problem, this not only hurts but also scares me very much.

Only if someone is intrinsically motivated and inclined to correct his spontaneous impulses to devaluate, this is a good sign.   I can rationally convince someone, who is interested and open to be convinced.   

My quest is to find someone like this as my mindmate.

455. Epicurus And The Hierarchical-Gregarious Brain

Epicurus And The Hierarchical-Gregarious Brain

This continues entries 452, 453 and 454.  

One of Epicurus' principles is not to harm and not to be harmed.  This principle makes his philosophy coincide so much with my own needs in how to live.  Yet equality or inequality and the pain caused by humiliation and indignity due to be forced into a lower position was never mentioned in what is known of Epicurus' philosophy.   For a long time I was very puzzled, how he could even own slaves and appear oblivious of their pain.  

I was projecting my own strong egalitarian emotions indiscriminately upon others.   Epicurus' brain was obviously strongly hierarchical-gregarious and so was the brain of all those, who were his disciples by their own free choice.    I am completely void of the hierarchical-gregarious instinct.  

Epicurus lived in a society, where there were three categories of people, free men, free women and slaves.  About 30% of the population were slaves.  Free women were very restricted in their lives.   Their main function was to reproduce.   They were excluded from schools, from public offices and from entering many public buildings and from participating in public events.   They were free only as far as not being owned or sold, but they were not free to do, what they wanted, their life was restricted by their dependence on husbands or other men to act on their behalf.

Epicurus seems to be completely void of any empathy, consideration or responsibility for the harm done by pushing people down to and holding them in inferior conditions and situations.   Not all people experience this as equally harmful, because their subjective experience depends upon the predisposition of their either more egalitarian or more hierarchical-gregarious brain.   But at least some people do get harmed by enforced hierarchy.   

A philosopher teaching a general way of life supposed to be valid for everybody should take such harm into consideration.   Therefore there is a contradiction between his benevolent philosophy of homeostasis and enjoying life on this earth and his unconcern about the pain, that he was inflicting himself upon those hierarchically lower.    He himself did own slaves.   He did allow women and slaves to enter the garden community, but it was doing them a merciful favor as exceptions.   He seems to have been void of any comprehension for the unjustified humiliation of this attitude.  

Epicurus was the infallible guru, the never erring teacher, whose wisdom was above the criticism of his disciples, whose veneration and reverence was ascertained by an oath to adhere to his teachings.    He was someone, who enjoyed the power, praise, prestige and influence of being the guru on the pedestal.    He had a narcissistic need for veneration, but he earned it with real achievements, so he was successful in fulfilling his needs.   The benefits from his place on his pedestal were his motivation and compensation for the certainly hard work, stress and exhaustion of doing, what was expected from him.  
The followers accepted their devote role as the price to be allowed into the community.   Those free men having a choice, whose egalitarian brain was determined by the need for the dignity of being equals, were not attracted to become Epicurus' disciples but deterred to stay away.   The slaves of course were not asked.  Women with an emotional need for equality got treated better than elsewhere and had to be content with the emotional alms given to them.   There were no places offering the appreciation of full equality to women, they had to take the best there was.              

Epicurus had a psychological need for submissive disciples, succeeded in attracting them, got reinforced by their willingness to allowing him the place on his pedestal.   People with egalitarian brains were deterred from getting near him, therefore he was deprived of even noticing their existence.  The entire garden community including Epicurus' himself were driven together by the shared very strong hierarchical-gregarious instinct.   The hierarchy established was logical only to those choosing it, while it was a deterrent to those with an egalitarian brain.    Epicurus' blind spot was the conclusion, that the deliberate submission of his disciples was not the choice of some self-selected persons, but a ubiquitous human trait.

Epicureanism as it has come to us from 2300 years ago needs to be adapted and modified by two major additions:  

Apistia and egalitarianism.    

453. The Egalitarian Or Hierarchical-Gregarious Brain Scale

The Egalitarian Or Hierarchical-Gregarious Brain Scale

This continues entry 452.  

I speculate that there is a bell curve of the innate strength of the gregarious instinct.  

1. At one extreme end of the scale are the people with the hierarchical-gregarious brain.   They are very much driven towards other people by a strong gregarious instinct.   They accept domination, deliberate and enforced submission as morally acceptable.  They perceive the acquiescence with any position in a hierarchy as a natural part of life.  They accept this not only concerning positions due to individual differences, but also to externally ascribed and enforced differences, that are sometimes haphazard, irrational and not justified by any trait or quality of the individual.  

They are equally prone to accept disadvantages from having low positions on the hierarchy and to ruthlessly inflict suffering upon those, who are on a lower position.   They inflict such pain on those, whom they have pushed down by competition and by power struggles and on those, who have such positions by haphazard circumstances.    They are often either not aware of causing pain or they are in denial.

2.  At the other extreme of the scale are the people with the egalitarian brain.  They are void of the gregarious instinct.  They consider all people as entitled to have equal chances in accordance with their individual traits, talents and skills.    They accept only individual differences as reasons limiting what someone can get and achieve in life.   They do not want to form hierarchies, they prefer a just exchange between people.   They choose to interact with some individuals and to avoid others.    They prefer to stay away from hierarchies and to cooperate selectively.    By consideration and responsibility they refrain from pushing people down to a lower position, because they are aware of the pain of being forced into an undeserved inferior position.       

Unfortunately, the innate inclination on the scale often does not correspond with the possibilities and circumstances.  The position in the hierarchy of external options is not a choice.  Racism, slavery, discrimination by gender, discrimination by the place of birth are examples of reasons morally accepted by those with a gregarious instinct as a justification to force a low position upon individuals without allowing them an alternative.   
A person with an egalitarian brain, who happens to be born in a privileged position has the choice to refuse the option of a high rank.   A person born into an underprivileged position does not have any choice.    
This has very detrimental consequences:  A person with an egalitarian brain suffers emotional pain when forced into a low position for unjustified reasons.    This person feels humiliation, indignity, abasement.   But the person with the gregarious brain, who has a high position and who is well meaning, caring and patronizing is unable to understand the pain of the egalitarian brained subordinate. 

Slavery is a good example.   A master and a slave of equal intelligence and talents experience the hierarchical situation very differently.    While the slave with an egalitarian brain suffers extreme pain from being in such a predicament of unjustified indignation, the master with a hierarchical-gregarious brain is oblivious of doing any harm, if he subjectively treats the slave with care and consideration for all his ascribed and alleged needs.   Instead he feels to be a good person for treating the slave better than required by law and social norms.   He may even feel entitled to gratitude from the slave for such mercy done to him.  

448. The Impact Of Christianity On Western Culture

The Impact Of Christianity On Western Culture

My wish is to live in a society, where apistia, egalitarianism and Epicurus' principle of not harming and not to be harmed were the basis of a life in cooperation, justice, security, consideration and responsibility.    Only there is no such society.  
Unfortunately people can free themselves from the childhood christian indoctrination and brainwashing, while they continue to be implicitly influenced by the secondary religious thinking.

1.  The acceptance of and tolerance for suffering
Christianity claims that people get rewarded and compensated in the afterlife for the sufferings before their death.   As a consequence, christians are motivated and feel justified to irrational behaviors:
1.1.  They are prone to endure suffering without feeling outrage, protest or rebellion.
1.2.  They Inflict suffering upon others without feeling guilty.  
1.3.  Sometimes they consider inflicting suffering as beneficial for the vicitms due to creating their alleged entitlement to be rewarded after death.    

2.  The value of life
Life is considered as a gift from the god, belonging to him and being at his disposition only.   The individual is not considered as having an own right to subjectively evaluate if life is worth living or not. 
2.1.  Abortion is not socially accepted and/or forbidden by law.
2.2.  People are not considered to have the unrestricted right over their own life including the evaluation of the quality of life.  They are not allowed the option to decide, if it is worth living or not.  Terminally ill persons are not given the right and help to end their sufferings.  
2.3.  But taking lives in favor of any cause serving higher goals than the individual is accepted, as is in forcing men to be soldiers and women to risk their lives in child birth.

3.  Injustice combined with the acceptance of suffering
3.1.  Forgiving is considered a positive behavior, even without the transgressor's remorse, insight or amends.  Transgressors feel entitled to be forgiven.   Victims are morally coerced to forgive.  They are brainwashed to believe that forgiving benefits themselves.  This kind of forgiving is dangerous, because the transgressor is indirectly condoned for his evil and is prone to repeat damaging others as a consequence of getting off the hook too easily.   
3.2.  The legal system does not focus on protecting the innocent from becoming victims of transgressions.   According to christianity, only the god is entitled to do justice.   This god is presented as someone more in favor of the repentant sinner than of the innocent, who never hurts another person.   

Evil is an imbalance between the transgressor and the god.   Gaining benefits by doing evil is considered as a deal between the god and the transgressor.  The evil is a debt to the god, until the price is paid, the account balanced, and god and transgressor are even again.   The christian sins, pay for his sin by rituals, prayers, sacrifices.  As soon as he feels forgiven by the god, he can be oblivious of the victim.   The victim is insignificant.  

The law focuses on the breach of rules and evil is something paid for by the penalty, by which it then is legally undone.   The victim of physical violence like rape, assault, robbery is often traumatized and damaged irreversibly.  The culprit goes to jail for a few years, is only limited in his freedom, gets maybe even the benefits of training for a job.    After the release, he is considered as having paid his debt to society.   For him, it is over, while the victim still suffers.    The suffering of the victims is often much worse than the legal penalty for the culprit. 

The culprit is enabled to damage another victim.    This is considered the next victim's bad luck and unavoidable fate.   Nobody really sees the outrage of the lack of protection for the innocent.   

4.  Inequality
Inequality is a part of the teaching of the bible.   Atrocities to outgroup members are not only accepted but commanded as service to the god.  Women are not accepted as equals, but as wombs serving to supply more lives to the god as due to him.   Slavery is accepted too.  
4.1.  As a consequence, while discrimination by explicit behavior is often outlawed, subtle and implicit discrimination is prevalent, condoned and tolerated. 
4.2.  A god being the top being and the clerical hierarchies serving him are the model for the general acceptance of hierarchies of power and access to resources.   Forming such hierarchies is done by ruthless, cruel and devastating competition, which has general social acceptance.

5.  Restricting rules
When the rules of specific religious behavior are fixed as laws, they also restrict the life of non-religious persons.   An example is the law in Germany forbiding shops to open on Sundays as being holy.   Laws against blasphemy are another example.