If we accept humans are evolved to devote most of their energies competing with other members of their society for status, it makes sense that we will never be truly content. For those humans who were too easily satisfied were at a evolutionary disadvantage and weeded out, as reproductive opportunities were limited to those who with the highest social status (if we discount the strategy of rape, which is basically a fringe form of competition).
So in that light, it's pretty obvious that almost every men in modern society will experience what's commonly known as a midlife crisis. For sooner or later, their evolutionary trait will propel them to seek more status and therefore mating opportunity. (women do not have midlife crisis because they do not gain any significant reproductive advantage with multiple partners)
In this predominantly Christian society, it's easy to forget that monogamy is actually a fairly recent invention. Almost all successful men have multiple partners, if not all at once, then serially.
So what's the point of this post? Well, obviously I am interested in hearing what others have to say on this subject. It should be pretty obvious that neither the usual Christian morality nor the trivial "what's natural is obviously good" sort of justification is what's looked for here.
What's the old saying? Women stay in relationships for security, men stay in relationships for sex. Also, they say that an attractive man is less likely to settle down and marry early than a less attractive one. No idea if it's true, and I'll leave this "folk wisdom" to you.
Comment by Filthy Stinking No.9 — June 21, 2005 @ 9:37 am
Well, Mrs. Strangelove reads this blog as well so I guess I will have to put in a good word for monogamy, but I'll get to that later.
I am not so sure about your whole evolutionary psychology set up. But I think a couple of basic ideas are right. (1) Humans naturally want more than they have, so contentment is an unstable state. (2) Men (and women in fact) naturally want more sexual partners, so it is difficult to remain content in a monogamous relationship.
Some religions claim to offer a stable state of contentment. Presumably a reliable supply of heroin would also do the trick. But, assuming you don't want to descend into some state of delusion, you should just get used to the idea that contentment is a moving target. You succeed in getting what you want, you feel content for a while, you come to want more, discontent returns, and so it goes on.
Now the way you set things up there is really only one thing that humans can want. They want to maximise reproductive opportunities. But, as a means to that, they also want to maximise their social status. If this is right then the way to achieve contentment, most of the time, is to make steady progress in your social status and to get laid often, with lots of different women.
But I think your problem is that you are suffering from a kind of alienation. Your view of how the world works tells you that these are the things that humans are wired to want. But your moral views tell you that the rat race is strictly for rats, and you shouldn't cheat on your wife. In effect the problem is that you don't want the only things that you think humans can want.
So what to do?
You could get yourself some moral views that fit better with your view of how the world works. After all it makes no sense to despise the "rat race" when you think it is the natural vocation of humans. It makes no sense to promise to remain faithful when you think that a faithful relationship is not fit for (male at least) human habitation (so to speak).
Alternatively you could get yourself a view of how the world works that fits better with your moral views. I think that evolutionary theory and human psychology allow for a much wider range of desires than just status and sex. In fact I think the objects of human desire are nearly unlimited. So there is no need to limit yourself to just those two things when you think about what you do want, and what you ought to want.
Oh, and about monogamy - I think humans naturally want certain things, like love, stability, and trust, which are best (or perhaps only) obtained through a monogamous relationship.
Comment by Dr. Strangelove — June 21, 2005 @ 2:28 pm
The steady progress is definitely the magic ingredients of happiness - we spend an awful lot of time looking for small doses - drugs, cigarettes, junk food, and *gasp* computer games... But obviously these are merely distractions to stop us from really attacking the problem head on.
The way I see it, almost all the "solutions" to this problem involves denial of one sort of another, whether it's the Buddhist "detachment/enlightenment" or the Christian "abstinence/fear-of-hell". I wonder if we can do better...
To be sure, I think the modern society actually has a pretty good compromise. You are no longer severely punished for having a fling, yet society maintains this veneer of monogamy to appease those having to settle for one. It has been pointed out that monogamy can be viewed as a form of social adaptation to minimize competition from males that have nothing to lose.
But in the end, I am not sure you made such a strong case for monogamy. It's just a bit vague and not up to your usual rigorous standards, perhaps you don't quite believe it yourself?
Comment by ethlite — June 21, 2005 @ 7:02 pm
If "solution" means "way to get stable contentment" then I think they all involve delusion or a radical remaking of human nature. I don't think we were "meant" to be permanently content. The cycle, from content to discontent, is perfectly healthy and there is nothing to solve. When you are discontented you should consider what you want and pursue it. When you are contented you should enjoy the feeling while it lasts.
You can think of my last post (Sex by the numbers) as an evolutionary explanation of promiscuity for women. My next post is going to be an explanation of monogamy for men. I actually think that both promiscuity and monogamy come quite naturally to humans - that is we can be quite happy living either way. But because we are wired to desire aspects of both ways of living, whichever way we chose we need to learn to live without the desirable aspects of the way we have passed up.
Comment by Dr. Strangelove — June 21, 2005 @ 8:32 pm
As usual I have had no luck in finding web references...
A documentary I saw not so long ago was about the several-thousands-year-old grave of three young adults - 2 men, 1 woman - where the woman had a spear stabbed through where her genitals would have been. They postulated that these people were participants in adultery and were executed as an example to others. If true then this would be the earliest known example of punishment for adultery, back at the time of initial formation of larger human societies.
See ethlite, not all TV is crap!
Comment by sausageofdoom — August 9, 2005 @ 8:48 am