Questions on Patron/Client relationships

[jpholding]

I imagine that both collectivist and individualist cultures have their pros and cons. Though maybe the idea of saying that our culture is some degenerative mutation really disturbs me

IIRC I only said "mutation". That offers no judgment one way or the other. I do say they both has pros and cons.

[nightbringer]

Yeah I realise you withheld judgment. I was just voicing my concern should it ever be apparent that the mutation is a negative one.

[CodewordConduit]

JP - I've been doing a little light reading (just Robert Winston's "Human Instinct", written to accompany his BBC series - not highbrow or anything) - Winston reckons that sexual jealousy underpins most every cultural structure. Would you say that the honour/shame set-up contains elements of sexual jealousy and if so how much do they feature?

Furthermore, can the parts that are built around human sexuality be at all analogous to the human-God relationship?

[Virgil]

JP - I've been doing a little light reading (just Robert Winston's "Human Instinct", written to accompany his BBC series - not highbrow or anything) - Winston reckons that sexual jealousy underpins most every cultural structure. Would you say that the honour/shame set-up contains elements of sexual jealousy and if so how much do they feature?

Furthermore, can the parts that are built around human sexuality be at all analogous to the human-God relationship?

I would be wary of non-anthropologists say when they make broad claims about cultures. But here's what Bruce malina (He seems to be JP's favorite scholar if you search his name in tektonics) has to say about sex

"The extreme Mediterranean emphasis on the human genitals (for example, circumcision, phallus as evil-eye apotropaic, castration concerns), on sexual transgression and on the male’s uncertainty of his maleness are part of the same scenario, as I shall describe subsequently. Here I wish to note that focus on legitimate cohabitation and the constant threat of sexual transgression fail to create a definite self-image in the minds of both men and women, as well as a definite image of the opposite sex.Young men come to consider their own sex drive so strong that only the physical impossibility of sexual access to the women of his social circle (because of their segregation, supervision, etc.) prevents them from satisfying their urges. The image young men are provided of girls and women complements this self-image. Of course, this image of females has been developed and maintained by males. According to this picture, the female sexual drive is equally strong. So should he but manage to corner any female alone, she might put up a wild show of resistance at first, but once he has as much has kissed her, she would give in and readily become his. In fact, it is popularly assumed that a woman's lust is greater than that of a man, hence the even greater urgency to keep women duly circumscribed.

"Women, in turn, are enculturated to believe this feminine self-image. Girls are brought up to believe that once they might find themselves alone with a male, they would be unable to resist his advances. Therefore the proper female must never allow herself to be found in such a situation. Girls are taught to believe from childhood that the central human being is the male -- his honor replicated symbolically in his sexual drive. Thus from childhood, girls are led to believe that the mere sight of a woman is sufficient to arouse a man sexually, and only external, social circumstances can prevent him from having his way with her. These views and expectations are, of course, self-fulfilling."

(The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels, p 49)

[Virgil]

IIRC I only said "mutation". That offers no judgment one way or the other. I do say they both has pros and cons.

I dunno. From what I read in Malina's book , group oriented societies seem pretty harsh.

Early in the process, Mediterraneans are taught to keep all family
secrets within the family, to deny them to the rest of the world, or in
sum simply to deny them. Because one is to focus entirely on the
needs of others, one begins to neglect one’s own needs, and thus
stifles normal individual psychological development.
But persons have their feelings, especially of hurt, and they are
quick to learn to repress and deny those feelings. Mediterraneans
thus learn at a rather early age to tolerate emotional pain increasingly,
thereby becoming numb to that pain, and unable to grieve completely
over everyday losses. In this way they learn to lose the ability to
sympathize with the pain of others and are quite willing to abuse
others physically, emotionally and spiritually. They abuse those in
their group “for their own good,” for example, their children, spouses
and elderly relatives; and they abuse those not of their group simply
to underscore their own social boundaries.
This sort of emotional stifling and constant attention to the cues
of others leads to blocking one’s own growth and development in
the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of one’s personhood. In
such situations, people find that compulsive behavior allows them a
glimpse of what might be as well as a release of tension. But if the
compulsive behavior is destructive to oneself or one’s group, one
feels shame and a resulting lowering of self-esteem. At this point one
begins to feel more and more out of control and one attempts to
compensate by the need to control even more. The result is a sense of
delusion and hurt and often a projection of pain onto others
(attacking, blaming and rejecting).

Tension in such a society builds to such an extent that stress-
related illnesses manifested by aches and pains and by dysfunction
of one or more body organs are quite common. This marks an
advanced state of codependence, which can deteriorate to one or
more of the following: extreme mood swings, difficulty with intimate
relationships and chronic unhappiness (cf. Whitfield 1987:30). Hence
if Mediterraneans believe that they live in a “vale of tears,” that “all
life is suffering,” that “it is only human to have a difficult life,” and
this during periods when there is no war, it is probably codependence
that puts them in that vale of tears.

social world of Jesus and the gospels p114-115

[jpholding]

I dunno. From what I read in Malina's book , group oriented societies seem pretty harsh.

They would be for YOU as someone raised in a much more lax setting.

For them, though, when it does not get into an abusive stage, this is all quite comfortable, though like any system, subject to abuses. I'd be quite comfortable in a society like that one.

Before anyone gets too antsy about what Malina describes, let's not forget we live in a society where we have had parents neglect children so that they (the parents) can play video games.

[jpholding]

JP - I've been doing a little light reading (just Robert Winston's "Human Instinct", written to accompany his BBC series - not highbrow or anything) - Winston reckons that sexual jealousy underpins most every cultural structure. Would you say that the honour/shame set-up contains elements of sexual jealousy and if so how much do they feature?

I haven't looked into that aspect much, but there's certainly an element of setting of boundaries when it comes to marriage relationships.

Furthermore, can the parts that are built around human sexuality be at all analogous to the human-God relationship?

Maybe, depending on how we read the Song of Solomon. But seriously, I would say that something more general lies behind both aspects.

[NeilUnreal]

Human sexual structures are highly malleable. This is probably representative of our quick expansion as a species into diverse environments during times of climate change. (We appear to have retained this flexibility from our primate ancestors.) Flexibility in terms of group, family and sexual structure were as important as survival traits as was our omnivorous diet. Since sexuality is the preeminent trait when it comes to individual and group survival, it makes sense that many social structures would relate strongly to the patterns of sexuality chosen by a group in any given environment.

The archetypical human pattern in response to the environment is this: a highly flexible biological response, coupled with the encoding of specific patterns in that response in terms of culture and narrative. Culture thus functions as a kind of “Lamarckian” evolution, allowing selected packages of biological response to an environment to be passed on as an “acquired trait.” Culture, in a sense, is Darwinian evolution’s discovery of Lamarckism.

In the past, relative cultural isolation allowed different groups to focus on different sexual and family responses. Strong selection of honor and shame features are found in some cultural responses. One possibility is that honor and shame play a role where individuals or tight groups must maintain relationships with similar groups in the absence of immediate supervisory (i.e. day-to-day) authority. In that case, the honor and shame play the role of supervisory authority. These structures carried over into early city states and remained important even when formal authority became ubiquitous.

However, as cultural isolation vanishes in the blink of an eye (in evolutionary terms), we seem to be converging on a model centered around a single couple, tightly or more loosely coupled (depending on social mores). The fact that we are able to do this so easily and universally demonstrates that – rather than being novel – it is coded in our natures. It may been suppressed in certain cultures (as honor and shame are in ours) but it is part of our basic toolset.

-Neil

p.s. Note to fellow Christians. I find the idea that aspects of our culture and even religion are a result of evolution no more threatening than the idea that aspects of our biology are a result of evolution. After all, God had to create us and our cultures somehow; why not the same mechanisms for "us" as biological creatures and "us" as rational creatures? If the idea that my knees can be biological entities is non-threatening, why should the idea that the religious structures I adopt when using those knees to kneel in prayer be any more threatening? After all, God is in it all and above it all.

[Andius]

Ah. That explains why you're a jerkstore.

Oh man, I am terribly sorry if I caused offense bro. I didn't foresee that you would take offense with my sarcastic response (admittedly, I did make it heavily sarcastic).

[Manwë Súlimo]

Oh man, I am terribly sorry if I caused offense bro. I didn't foresee that you would take offense with my sarcastic response (admittedly, I did make it heavily sarcastic).

Andius, he wasn't being serious

[Teluog]

I don't know how to put that "warning for the sarcastically impaired" box up

[Raphael]

use the sarcasm tags

<Sarcasm>

like this

This is a fair warning to those sarcastically impaired the preceding text was written in jest.

[Manwë Súlimo]

I don't know how to put that "warning for the sarcastically impaired" box up

<Sarcasm>

Geez, you Canadians are brainless.

This is a fair warning to those sarcastically impaired the preceding text was written in jest.

[Teluog]

<Sarcasm>

Geez, you Canadians are brainless.

This is a fair warning to those sarcastically impaired the preceding text was written in jest.

we aren't as nerdy























Also,

<Sarcasm>

jerk

This is a fair warning to those sarcastically impaired the preceding text was written in jest.

[Manwë Súlimo]

we aren't as nerdy

Don't be hatin'.