Societies use morality to direct the unknown trajectories of future evolution
Why is it that the only taboo shared by each civilization is letting people determine their own taboos? Why is it that, while no two societies can agree on what is sexually âgoodâ and sexually âbad,â every society thinks that it must make some definition? The answer is that our first humanoid (symbolizing and conceptualizing) ancestors were very ignorant, but not at all stupid. They were ignorant of the laws of genetics, but they were smart enough to suspect that such laws exist. Sperm-egg fusion is surrounded by violent taboos and fierce tribal conformity because the survival and future evolution of the gene pool depends upon which particular spermatozoa reaches which particular ovum.
Etymologists confirm the Freudian theory that there are ancient linkages between the words for the sacred, the erotic, the obscene, the awe inspiring, the awe-ful, the divine, the âthrilling.â All of these are primitive, powerful physiological responses to the mysteries of sexual attraction, mating, reproduction, inheritance, genetic drift, future evolution. The earliest god-forms found by archeologists are pregnant goddesses and ithyphallic gods. The most intolerant, bigoted and recalcitrant of all prejudicesâthe very last to fade away after cosmopolitanizing contact with other tribes having different valuesâare the taboos concerning the right way to reproduce. If one nation insists that the head of state must marry his sister, and another insists that he must not, both are acting on the assumption that the right way must be found and rigorously enforced.
There are unknowns in the area of reproductionâwhy twins? Why three boys in one family and three girls in another? Why miscarriages and stillbirths? There are unknowns in the area of inheritanceââWhy doesnât my son look like me?â many a domesticated primate has wondered uneasily, leading to a great deal of paranoia and male chauvinism. There are unknowns in the area of genetic driftâmodern researchers recognize twelve or more variables, but still have more questions than answers. There are unknowns in the area of future evolutionââWhere do we come from, what are we, where are we going?â, the title of Gauguinâs greatest painting, is the basic ontological question; the totem-pole, like the treatise on sociobiology, is an attempt to answer. Amid all these unknownsâof sexual attraction, mating reproduction, inheritance, genetic drift, future evolutionâthe shamans of every tribe try to establish guide-posts to tribal (gene-pool) survival. Thus âmoralityâ is invented.
Sexual attraction, mating, reproduction, inheritance, genetic drift and future evolution are all stochastic processes. (That is, processes in which, out of a random series, some âintelligenceâ or something that can be metaphorically conceived as an intelligence, is selecting a final outcome.) That these stochastic processes overlap, as shown in our diagram, is intuitively obvious; and it is also obvious that the future is being âselectedâ every step of the way.* Taboo and morality are tribal attempts to govern the random elementâto select the desired future.
References
- Wilson, A., Robert. (1983). Prometheus Rising Chapter 8 The Moral Socio-Sexual Circuit (Location 1442). Grand Junction, Colorado: Hilaritas Press.
Metadata
Type:đ´ Tags: Sociology / Sociobiology / Ethology / Psychology / Evolutionary Psychology / Philosophy Status:âď¸