At the instinctive level, the lives of young men are more expendable than the lives of young women, and there is a good reason for this instinct in terms of human survival. Imagine there were only 100 people left alive on the Earth, but that these 100 lived together in a single village, and they were all young adults. If 99 of these people happened to be men, leaving only one woman, the village would be lucky if she were to bear maybe a dozen children in her lifetime, and this would not repopulate the Earth very quickly. But if 99 of these people happened to be women, leaving only one man, theoretically this man could impregnate all of the women, some multiple times, so that by the end of his lifetime there could be hundreds of new inhabitants living in this village. In terms of repopulation, then, and how this relates to human survival, more women are needed than men. Perhaps this is why young women are consistently treasured more than most anyone in human societies, and are fiercely protected as well.
Because men are more expendable in terms of reproduction, and because they tend to be stronger physically than women, men have historically fought the wars. One may be tempted here to assert that all wars are vainglory, and that men are simply being foolish when they engage in war, but let us look deeper at the substance of war and how it relates to the survival instinct. Colonies of ants will fight wars over access to food sources, and they will fight over territory as well. In his book Walden, Henry David Thoreau relates having been astounded by witnessing a ferocious war between distinct species of ant. He had been collecting tree stumps from a field to be used as firewood during the upcoming winter, and he inadvertently must have transported partial colonies of ants living in these stumps till now they encountered one another. It was war in a sense that we would understand, replete with death and carnage, and for many of the same reasons humans fight wars. If one of our American cities happened to be transported into the middle of Saudi Arabia, does anyone believe that the result would be peaceful? The Gombe Chimpanzee War lasted four years in Tanzania during the nineteen-seventies, and is well documented. A group of six males, three females, and their young separated from the main group and attempted to establish a distinct group. Over the next four years, all six males from the splinter group had been killed, as well as at least one other, by members of the main group, effectively disbanding the splinter community.
Following this, it becomes easy to understand how powerful is the instinct to conform in human communities, as the consequences for failing to conform can be quite severe. People will conform to the dominant culture even when they don’t believe in it, for they cannot imagine living in opposition. Here is the genesis of hypocrisy, and is understandable in terms of survival. Cultures are an amalgam of permissible and impermissible behavior traceable to instincts, including nuanced spectrums of permissibility which will invariably distinguish one culture from another. Cultures may favor the expression of certain instincts to the exclusion of others, in much the same way as religious denominations may emphasize certain passages of scripture. This is what distinguishes one denomination from another. Culture and religion, therefore, are analogous terms, though they are each rooted in something very different; and the human genome can be seen as nature’s scripture, informing cultures ceaselessly all throughout the world.
Some cultures love flirty women, while others value social restraint. There is a constant tension within societies which tendencies ought to be valued more. This tension often finds expression in the political arena, where depending on who is in power certain traits will be given the aura of respectability while others may be condemned as degenerate. Here is the dynamic potential in democracy, and though it may sometimes border on the schizophrenic, it needn’t remain there. There are tremendous forces at work in human societies, and democracy allows for the healthy untangling of cultural contortions, generated by the assertions of instinct. Culture trends in cycles, and given enough time every instinct finds legitimate expression. Even the instinct to prey on an isolated woman can be legitimized in healthy consensual role play, so that we never need silence the heart but rather find how to make it productive.
Women are instinctively swayed by a man’s wealth and prestige, and men are instinctively swayed by the irresistible allure of a woman’s fertility. It makes sense for a woman to be swayed by the promise of a financially and socially stable future, especially if there are children to be involved; and it makes sense for a man to be swayed by the sexual irresistibility of a woman, for that may translate into the promise of healthier and more socially appealing children, resulting in a greater likelihood of future success for the family. These are instincts, and there is substance in these instincts, though they are not God’s infallible expression. I once saw a girl of around eleven years old smile at me from a distance, and the smile was so sweet and the eyes so penetrating that I was deeply moved. It wasn’t a sexual appeal, but rather more of a romantic one, and I was astonished that an eleven year old girl could appeal to me romantically though I was decades older. I was romantically attracted to girls as early as first or second grade, but I wasn’t sexually attracted to girls till I was in eighth grade. I have a distinct memory from eighth grade where I witnessed a girl stretched out in her chair so that her flat stomach was perceptible through her skin tight shirt, and it made me a little crazy to see that. It was the first time I remember such a thing. These instincts never really go away, and it is a constant struggle sometimes to preserve our sanity in the midst of so much random sensory information.
We may look to nature to escape from our social overload, and we may be tempted to idealize what we see. The fox squirrel, for example, always seems to be gliding through life, for it approaches life with such exuberance that it seems to be enjoying every moment, tirelessly proud of itself and of its own accomplishments, so that I cannot help but to admire it. A closer look, however, reveals its own instinctive stresses. While it is foraging, every few seconds the fox squirrel will stop searching for food, and rise up to see if anything is about to eat it. All day long this diligence is maintained, so that my admiration is tempered somewhat by a shallow pity, sad to be witnessing such an expensive survival mechanism, wishing it weren’t necessary. The foraging robin will do likewise, as will the cottontail rabbit. We are not alone in the apparent tyranny of instinct, but we must appreciate the substance present there. I observed one time several male fox squirrels fighting over a female on a large white oak. The female had positioned herself about two-thirds of the way down a large branch rather high off of the ground, and was observing the raucous males chase each other around and around the large trunk of the tree, up and down, round and about, until one of them finally emerged victorious. He then tiptoed gently out to her, and appeared to be whispering in her ear, no doubt cackling something gently. Here was the great payoff for fidelity to his instinct, but there were at least a couple of others rendered less than overjoyed. Survival is the great theology of our instinct, and we would be naïve to think that it hasn’t served us rather well to this point. It is equally naïve to assume that all we will need is to be true to our instincts in the future, for, unfortunately, the human genome isn’t quite enough to get us where we will need to be.
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