Disease, not paradox

[mcb]

I have things on my mind for which I don't have a good title. In the wake of my dietary discoveries of the last few months I have been reading two books, neither of which is about diet, and all of it seems to be trying to come together in ways that I could not have foreseen.

I won't say too much about my dietary experiences (it's already been said), except that I stopped gaining weight and being hungry all the time by doing what seems like the opposite of what has commonly been recommended, eating a high-fat, low-fiber, intentionally unbalanced diet. I already knew very well that science sometimes has serious problems with "personalities" and "authorities" that successfully champion very unscientific beliefs, calling it science. Still, I wasn't well prepared for what I learned recently about the supposedly scientific dietary recommendations that I had been following for years.

At the same time I was adjusting my diet, I was reading about the unbelievably horrible scam that is "psychiatry." This is a system in which I have been involved, and which could have easily ruined my life if I had believed all the lies and not chosen at critical points not to do as I was told. Again, I already knew quite a bit about what was going on, but I was not prepared to see the full breadth of it.

So what I am reading and learning about now shouldn't come as any great surprise either, and in some ways it doesn't, but in other ways it is overwhelming. I set out a while back to read Laura's 911 book, after it became available on Kindle (which lets me read it with large type). The first part of the book about 911 itself was already very familiar to me. As it moved on, I was still fairly familiar with the material. I had read the Andrew Collins book that was quoted, and seen much of the other material in one place or another since I have been around here for a while (8 years). It was saying more to me now, though, than it was before.

A few days ago, while still reading 911 (which I still haven't quite finished), I began listening to the audiobook version of Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá. This is where things turned strange. As Laura went into the Lobaczewsky material, which I had only partially read for want of a large print or audiobook version, I started hearing an "echo" from the other book (as well as further echoes from other diet-related books I had been reading). It's not so much what Ryan and Jethá wrote as what I was able to infer from what they said. The result was that I was seeing "ponerization in stereo," which is even uglier than the standard version.

Sex at Dawn is a good book. Like a number of other books I have read recently, it exposes the way essential scientific research has been compromised and corrupted. Rather that looking at food or at psychiatric "care," though, it looks at the study of human sexuality. These authors like the others do not appear to be aware of ponerization, but throughout the book (which I also have not finished) they point out the distortions, many of them obvious, that have been foisted upon us, and they even do it with a sense of humor.

I personally have been questioning the institution of marriage for quite a long time. I was brought up "religiously" and I have come to see those early teachings as pretty much a complete fraud, a big lie with a little truth mixed in. I was married for a very long time and I am divorced, and I didn't need this book to tell me that there was something fundamentally wrong with the system. But I was having trouble imagining how things might work if they didn't work this way. That is what I find especially interesting about this book. I don't know if their ideas about how things used to work are correct or not, but they certainly do suggest a lot of alternatives and along the way they show how science has avoided looking at the evidence in favor of falsely claiming that humans are a "monogamous" species.

It soon became clear to me that "monogamous" and "monotheistic" go hand in hand, and somehow my interpretations of what Ryan and Jethá were saying began to merge with what Laura and Lobaczewski were saying in 911. And the horror of it struck me. For as long as anybody can remember, many (now most) of the people on this planet have been coerced into a crippling way of life that is contrary to our nature. No wonder psychopaths are able to confuse us. It's a wonder we are able to think at all.

There is a parallel with our dietary situation. Our conventional food supply today is so different from what we evolved to eat that it is bound to affect a great many people adversely, and some of the issues go back 10,000 years. But monotheism and monogamy have been affecting our minds and feelings in a similar way for at least as long (it all comes from the same roots). Under this system it is practically impossible for most adults to have natural relationships -- everything is built on lies, twisted inside out. No wonder our species behaves the way it does! It's not paradox; it's disease. The implications are staggering, and it's part of the same manifestation of evil that we have been observing everywhere else. Humans are really, truly, screwed. (But I hear the sound of butterfly wings.)

I haven't made this as clear as I might, but because I am reading Sex at Dawn as an audiobook I can't simply scan (or copy) and paste passages to make my point. I may end up like I have with several other books lately, buying a Kindle copy for reference. There I can search easily, and by highlighting passages I can copy & paste into a message. In the mean time I would be interested in hearing other people's reactions to this book.

So that is what is on my mind. Now I am going to go finish both books.


ADMIN NOTE: changed thread title.

 

[Ben]

Re: What's a good word for it?

Hi Megan, I may be misunderstanding you but are you suggesting that monogamy and its associated programming are an inherently unhealthy or unstable situation for humans? Have you considered that polygamy may bring a completely new set of problems, or the same problems with a different 'flavour', as long as both situations are the result of mechanical human behaviour? Considering psychopaths, wouldn't polygamy be closer to their ideal situation since this is how many of them operate anyway?

 

[mcb]

Re: What's a good word for it?

Not exactly. I don't have a lot of time to write right now but I will do what I can. What I have observed over the years, starting with my own family life, is that long-term monogamous relationships don't necessarily create a good environment for raising children. I don't have anything against monogamous relationships per se, but good, enduring ones seem to be the exception rather than the rule, and I don't really see any evidence that our species is wired for them.

My parents had a horrible relationship but "stayed together for the me." My mother never talked much about it (or anything), but my father did talk to me about it after my mother's death. They didn't belong together and they knew it but they were trapped in this system. And while he didn't talk about other women, he was a military officer who traveled a lot and there was reason to think he had numerous other women. In the last years of my mother's life he set up housekeeping with a mistress, whom he married a respectable 6 months after my mother died.

This is not unique or even uncommon. Under this system people pretend to be monogamous but nevertheless behave the way they are wired. The present system is completely twisted. Monogamy is labeled "good" and anything else is labeled "evil." People can't even imagine that it could be some other way, and yet it could.

The chief evil of the system, I would say, lies in equating parenthood and monogamy. This creates a system with little redundancy where either of the partners leaving is a disaster for those remaining. The necessity for this kind of system arises from belief alone.

There are many other possibile arrangements, some of which are likely work better than others. Polygamy is probably not an example of a good alternative. A good place to start would be with our evolutionary history. None of the other great apes are monogamous, and there is no reason to initially assume that we would be either. We certainly don't act it.

This much, I worked out on my own over the years. What I appreciate about Sex at Dawn is that they take a serious look at the alternatives and at our past, and how the scientific evidence has been skewed to support monogamy. I don't know how accurate they are, but to free oneself from the existing thought control system you have to be able to clearly see other possibilities, and that is what the book is helping me to do.

 

[StrangeCaptain]

Re: What's a good word for it?

There is some discussion of "Sex at Dawn" here:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=20434.0

And surprise surprise... Hervey Cleckley, the grand-daddy of psychopathy research and author of "Mask of Sanity," wrote a book called "Caricature of Love" that is essentially about the ponerization of sexual relations and the physical expression of love. It is discussed here:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=21284.0

 

[Buddy]

Re: What's a good word for it?

How about a description instead:

Ponerization: a process that when allowed to run its course, becomes phenomenologically distributed throughout the whole system - horizontally across all domains, subjects and scopes of situational awareness and vertically all the way down and through our implicit paradigm (subconscious model of the nature of man, the world and universe). Nothing goes untouched (read: uncontaminated).

I follow your thinking and agree because I can feel it too. It is very unsettling to perceive so much of it all at once.

 

[mcb]

Re: What's a good word for it?

How about a description instead:

Ponerization: a process that when allowed to run its course, becomes phenomenologically distributed throughout the whole system - horizontally across all domains, subjects and scopes of situational awareness and vertically all the way down and through our implicit paradigm (subconscious model of the nature of man, the world and universe). Nothing goes untouched (read: uncontaminated).

I follow your thinking and agree because I can feel it too. It is very unsettling to perceive so much of it all at once.

Yes, I think so. I just had not quite seen ponerization on such a global/universal scale before, and across recorded history and beyond. It's possible to see something and still not quite see it. The breakthroughs come when I manage to completely unlearn some falsehood that I had always held true. New insight does not necessarily purge the old learning. The deeper misconceptions have to be rooted out.

 

[Laura]

Re: What's a good word for it?

Not exactly. I don't have a lot of time to write right now but I will do what I can. What I have observed over the years, starting with my own family life, is that long-term monogamous relationships don't necessarily create a good environment for raising children. I don't have anything against monogamous relationships per se, but good, enduring ones seem to be the exception rather than the rule, and I don't really see any evidence that our species is wired for them.

Actually, the human species - and a few other species as well - ARE wired for monogamy and that's the big problem. They are wired for something that they can't do anymore because of the intrusion of psychopathy into the equation. That's why it is so rare. Not only is the society pathologized so that normal people don't know how to really find their proper mate, but psychopaths mate with normal humans, or dominate the systems that are supposed to counsel and care for normal humans.

If you read "The Polyvagal Theory" all will become even clearer.

 

[mcb]

I've loaded the paper into my Kindle and I'll try to find time to read it soon. Thank you.

 

[Gaby]

Here is the chapter from the Polyvagal Theory regarding love and a "monogamy switch":

http://www.craniosacrale.it/pdf/dainfo/love_paper.pdf

Very interesting!

 

[go2]

The Polyvagal Theory (gr. 'polus', “‘many’” + 'vagal', "'Vagus Nerve'") was proposed and developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, Director of the Brain-Body Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The theory specifies two distinct branches of the vagus, or the 10th cranial nerve. Each branch originates in the medulla. The phylogenetically older branch originates in the dorsal motor nucleus (DMX), whereas the newer branch originates in the nucleus ambiguus (NA). Both branches provide inhibitory input to the viscera, including the heart. However, each does so in service of distinct evolutionary functions. The DMX branch is tasked with primary survival strategies, enacting defensive behaviors such as fighting, fleeing, or freezing. The NA branch, only found in mammals, is used in modulating the fight/flight response towards the execution of social affiliation behaviors. Functional organization of the autonomic nervous system is thought to be phylogenetically hierarchical, with response strategies to threat dictated by the newest neural structures first, then falling back on older structures when a given response strategy fails. Therefore, polyvagal theory predicts that the NA branch will inhibit acceleratory sympathetic nervous system (SNS) input to the heart when attention and social engagement are adaptive, and withdraw this inhibitory influence when fighting or fleeing are adaptive.

Talk about pieces falling into place----Monogamy depends on trust and security. The polyvagal theory provides a neural-psychological basis for monogamy as an evolutionary development of the capacity of human beings to form loving pair bonds which ensure security and trust essential for parenting psychologically sound children.

The evolution of the autonomic nervous system provides an organizing principle to interpret the adaptive significance of mammalian affective processes including courting, sexual arousal, copulation, and the establishment of enduring social bonds. According to the Polyvagal Theory (Porges, 1995, 1996, 1997), the well-documented phylogenetic shift in the neural regulation of the autonomic nervous system passes through three stages, each with an associated behavioral strategy. The first stage is characterized by a primitive unmyelinated visceral vagus that fosters digestion and responds to threat by depressing metabolic activity. Behaviorally, the first stage is associated with immobilization behaviors. The second stage is characterized by the sympathetic nervous system that is capable of increasing metabolic output and inhibiting the visceral vagus to foster mobilization behaviors necessary for 'fight or flight'. The third stage, unique to mammals, is characterized by a myelinated vagus that can rapidly regulate cardiac output to foster engagement and disengagement with the environment. The mammalian vagus is neuroanatomically linked to the cranial nerves that regulate social engagement via facial expression and vocalization. The Polyvagal Theory provides neurobiological explanations for two dimensions of intimacy: courting and the establishment of enduring pair-bonds. Courting is dependent upon the social engagement strategies associated with the mammalian vagus. The establishment of enduring pair-bonds is dependent upon a co-opting of the visceral vagus from an immobilization system associated with fear and avoidance to an immobilization system associated with safety and trust. The theory proposes that the phylogenetic development of the mammalian vagus is paralleled by a specialized communication, via oxytocin and vasopressin, between the hypothalamus and the medullary source nuclei of the viscera vagus, which facilitates sexual arousal, copulation, and the development of enduring pair-bonds.

Thank you for introducing the Polyvagal Theory, Laura and Psyche. I ordered the book, as it appears an important counter understanding to theories extant which attempt to normalize causal promiscuity as our primate heritage. I have been blessed with being born into a family which respects and prizes monotheism and monogamy. It has been a struggle to maintain our bearings in the modern deluge of war, financial exploitation and the intellectual movements which undermine family and spiritual life by denying mankind’s higher possibilities as emergent from our mammalian heritage.

Men and women’s higher spiritual potentials are threatened by a return to Sex at Dawn. This is not the dawn of our possibilities and it harms humanity to assert that Great Nature has not endowed us with an evolved capacity for love, compassion, competence and security within enduring social relationships. Psychopathy, operating through the institutions of state and corporation have reduced our social security within the family, which nurtures the man's higher aspirations. The modern institutions and intellectual movements reduce man to a soulless animal, necessary to staff and feed the soulless predation of psychopathy.

 

[mcb]

Here is the chapter from the Polyvagal Theory regarding love and a "monogamy switch":

http://www.craniosacrale.it/pdf/dainfo/love_paper.pdf

Very interesting!

I have finished the original paper and this one is now on its way to my Kindle. I am aware of the newly-published 368 page hardcover book by the same author and with a name similar to the paper, but I am not sure if I would be able to read it. Usually hardcover books are printed with better/larger type than paperbacks, so I might be able to. I appreciate the above PDF file -- thank you.

 

[mcb]

...it appears an important counter understanding to theories extant which attempt to normalize causal promiscuity as our primate heritage. I have been blessed with being born into a family which respects and prizes monotheism and monogamy. It has been a struggle to maintain our bearings in the modern deluge of war, financial exploitation and the intellectual movements which undermine family and spiritual life by denying mankind’s higher possibilities as emergent from our mammalian heritage...

I am aware of "higher possibilities" and their connection with monogamy. When one comes though, as many of us may have, from an upbringing where monogamy was "good" and everything else was "evil," it can be difficult to be objective when considering new information. Deep-rooted beliefs filter what we see, at least until we root them out. I don't see where exploring alternatives is a threat to monogamy or the emergent possibilities of humanity. There can be different paths for different people.

While I was brought up by parents who valued monotheism and monogamy (publicly, while living a different life privately and partly outside my awareness), I had the poor judgement to be (among other things) gender variant and, by extension, evil according to their beliefs. It was something that could not be discussed and I can only infer what they thought. Somewhere I got the idea that they might kill me if I came out to them, although being committed to a psychiatric facility was more common in practice (1950s-70s).

My issues seem to have arisen from a hormonal abnormality that wasn't serious enough to kill or disable me but had far reaching effects nonetheless. I suspect that I was exposed prenatally to a hormone disrupter such as DES but I don't actually know. It doesn't really matter what happened but, through no choice of my own, I found myself in a situation where I had to hide what I was just to survive. When I look back on prehistory and what we can glean of it, I do so with a different perspective than most because the cultural norm has never worked for me, no matter how hard I worked to be "normal."

An appreciable portion of the population identifies as some form of LGBT and apparently always has for as long as anyone remembers. The traditional solution to this problem among people intolerant of such differences and loyal to their god-ordained beliefs has been to kill them or, as is more popular now, to persecute them until they kill themselves. As with the present state of human sexual relationships, you can make whatever claims you want about how this (LGBT) situation originated, but I need to see more than "claims." In any case, being a member of a targeted population can help one to see things that other people don't. Such insights might or might not mesh with objective reality, but that is why we need to test things and not just make claims, and to discuss things in groups rather than just in our heads.

I am coming to realize that discovering the truth about what has happened in the evolution of human relationships could be a very tricky proposition. No claim or research result can be taken at face value. It's like one of those novels where the plot twists again and again. I don't know if it can be found. I shared something here because it was on my mind and I felt like sharing it. I don't claim to know the answer, or even what questions to ask. For now I will continue with the questions I have and to consider anything any of you have to say that seems to lead onward.

 

[Lan8r]

I have wanted to post a reply to this thread since first reading it, but had to go to work and did not have time. My thoughts are similar to what Laura has posted (although I couldn't express it so well and as succinctly)

Actually, the human species - and a few other species as well - ARE wired for monogamy and that's the big problem. They are wired for something that they can't do anymore because of the intrusion of psychopathy into the equation. That's why it is so rare. Not only is the society pathologized so that normal people don't know how to really find their proper mate, but psychopaths mate with normal humans, or dominate the systems that are supposed to counsel and care for normal humans.

I have studied extensively over the past 12 years of my life (the last year of my marriage and the 11 yrs following my divorce) on the subject of relationships, monogamy, long term life commitment, soul mates, etc. I have read countless books written by self help gurus, psychologists, religious therapists, relationship counselors and more over the years. Personally, I was devastated at the failure of my marriage. I didn't make the commitment until I was 30 yrs old because I didn't want to fall prey to 'youthful' folly. It lasted, technically 6 yrs, although it was over long before that. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to come to terms with, so far, in this lifetime. And I mean harder than realizing the 'terror of the world in which we live', which has by no means been easy. But I failed at my commitment, till death do us part, in psychopathy and health. Maybe that relationship drained so much of my life force that it only felt that way, and I had recovered sufficiently to be strong enough to begin see the 'terror of the situation'.

Megan, I feel that I recognize in your posts a process of contemplation and a desire to understand a purpose to intimate relationships (in relation to all things ponerized!). A very intellectual process and I might not be understanding you well, forgive me for that. I may be wrong, or not expressing myself well, and for that I apologize. But from what I have learned, what I have observed, and probably what I feel as well, I agree that we are wired for monogamy. And all of the manipulations, religious, legal, fairytale stories we're told as children, childhood traumas from parental relationships (also influenced by the manipulations), the whole structure of our society works to prevent us from succeeding in finding the person with whom we can share, grow and find mutual strength. And having so much force fighting against it only leads me to believe there must be something to it, why bother otherwise.

I have not yet begun to read the Polyvagal Theory link that Psyche posted (thanks for that by the way), I printed it out and am looking forward to reading it. Go2's comment...

Talk about pieces falling into place----Monogamy depends on trust and security. The polyvagal theory provides a neural-psychological basis for monogamy as an evolutionary development of the capacity of human beings to form loving pair bonds which ensure security and trust essential for parenting psychologically sound children.

... got me to hook up the printer post haste!!

You mentioned

While I was brought up by parents who valued monotheism and monogamy (publicly, while living a different life privately and partly outside my awareness), I had the poor judgement to be (among other things) gender variant and, by extension, evil according to their beliefs. It was something that could not be discussed and I can only infer what they thought. Somewhere I got the idea that they might kill me if I came out to them, although being committed to a psychiatric facility was more common in practice (1950s-70s).

I have to say that, undoubtedly, monotheistic religions have played a major role in shaping our ponerized understanding of what an intimate relationship should be, but monotheism (as well as many New Age 'spiritual paths') and monogamy are in no way related to each other, in my understanding anyway. Sure, monotheism has used monogamy as a tool of manipulation, twisting it to their own way of thinking, but that doesn't take away the drive that is instinctive to the Human Being. I can't truly feel or completely understand the trauma imposed on one who is gender variant (although I am not sure of your specific meaning of this term), as I have no personal experience and would probably be labeled as 'gender specific', but I doubt that it relates to judgement and would think that it wouldn't necessarily suppress one's drive for a monogamous, soulful relationship based on trust and security.

Respectfully, I speak only from my own feelings and experiences and from where I am now on the learning curve.

 

[DragonHunter]

Some of the still isolated south American tribes are very promiscuous by our standards. And for a woman to have multiple husbands is typical in some of those groups.

I think monogamy becomes an important species survival strategy anytime a society achieves sufficient numbers that sexually transmitted diseases become an issue. Our immune systems evolved in family sized hunter-gatherer groups like the ones mentioned above. And in a larger group setting like a city, the immune system can’t keep up with the increased variety of deceases. So it becomes necessary to quarantine oneself sexually with a partner, in order to insure that both parents live long enough to raise their children to adulthood.

The trouble we’re facing today is that we’re living a lot longer, and a lot healthier, after the child-raising phase of our lives. And after a while, that sexual quarantine starts to feel a bit restrictive.

But there is no such thing as “safe sex”. Only safe partners. Someday in the future, when the aids epidemic is one for the history books, the statisticians will compile the numbers on the victims. And the biggest pile of dead bodies won’t be the gays, sexual orientation isn’t a factor. It won’t divide along racial lines either. The thing that the people in that biggest pile will have in common the most is promiscuity. They, or one of their partners, broke sexual quarantine.

 

[mcb]

Here is the chapter from the Polyvagal Theory regarding love and a "monogamy switch":

http://www.craniosacrale.it/pdf/dainfo/love_paper.pdf

Very interesting!

I just finished reading that paper and it does indeed tie the Polyvagal Theory to monogamy, extending the Theory a bit in the process. It proposes a mechanism by which enduring monogamous "pair-bonded" relationships may result from having sex under favorable conditions. The key word is "may." The proposition appears to be a hypothesis at present.

Love, as an emotional and motivational process, may have evolved to maximize the adaptive benefits associated with reproduction and safety. (p. 20)

The bonding mechanism itself is presumed to lie in some as yet undiscovered function of the amygdala:

However, the role of the amygdala in the retention of positive affective states with prosocial consequences, such as a hypothesized conditioned love, has not been investigated. (p. 16)

So yes, the Polyvagal Theory could possibly present a physiological mechanism for long-term monogamous bonding. Again, I don't have a problem with the existence of this kind of relationship. The Polyvagal Theory only considers heterosexual sex, though. In my personal (and admittedly very limited) experience, most of the people I know that have remained in amicable long-term "monogamous" relationships are gay. This theory doesn't even begin to address the question of whether that type of relationship has an evolved physiological substrate. There might be more to the subject than has been considered so far.

I also found this paragraph interesting:

The potential gender differences in conditioned love vulnerability may result in an unstated, but assumed biological prenuptial. The biological prenuptial reflects the interactive negotiations between prospective mating partners in which the male requests exclusive copulatory rights of the female’s reproductive organs and the female requests that the male insure her security and safety needs before activating the monogamy switch. Violation of the biological prenuptial occurs when the male physically abuses the female or when the female copulates with another male. The valence of these two violations appears to be gender specific. In support of this hypothesis, Buss et al. (1992) reported that men are more distressed by their mate’s sexual infidelity, while women are more distressed by their mate’s emotional infidelity. Violations of the biological prenuptial are destructive to the love bond and result in a lack of trust and security for both genders. This gender biased prenuptial is so rooted in our history that it finds its way into our marriage vows and religious tenants, which have been used to support monogamy.

Here we seem to have the assumption of the validity of "The Standard Narrative" as discussed in Sex At Dawn, exchanging exclusivity for security. Whatever you may think of that book's other assertions and conclusions, I think it does a good job of raising questions about the Narrative that are well worth investigating.

I didn't exactly read in this paper that we are "wired for monogamy." We certainly have the capacity for it, under the right conditions. My personal experience is that it isn't difficult to remain monogamous for very long periods of time (but then back when that mattered I was hypogonadal due to my hormone problems, which did nothing good for the relationship). This paper suggests that there could be an evolved physiological mechanism that supports it, although it talks principally about "mammals" rather than "humans," and it is only triggered by having sex under favorable conditions of safety.

So I do see more clearly now, I think. What I have read so far does not constitute proof, but it points in a direction that might prove consistent with esoteric principles. Those advanced aspects of our evolution are far beyond where I am at the moment; my more pressing task seems to be to find a way to survive and to evolve in spite of my "machine's" endocrinological and other shortcomings.