Every single middle-eastern bigot I seen says "these are sexual perversion invented and pushed by the west to corrupt your generation" meanwhile studying middle-eastern history always goes something like
"Despite objections from the religious class, the sultans traditionally kept a harem of young men that would be dressed in feminine clothes and made to dance, homoerotic paintings of even earlier homoerotic poems became more and more popular over certain eras, and also gay bathouses regularly showed up in tax docments, until late 19th century when westernization..."
I can recommend reading Foucault's The History Of Sexuality. He explains how gender categories serve the exercise of power upon humans. This is particularly interesting given how important self-definition is in queer community.
To counterpoint the human nature point. Many have said violence is in human nature. Now weither thats true or not is certainly up for debate but it has been said for far longer than 100 years. A similar point could be made for people cheating on their spouses, many say thats part of human nature. Those are just the 2 that come to mind.
In my experience, these numbers seem very low. Ive never cheated but I've been cheated on in nearly every relationship ive been in and many of my friends have as well or have been the cheater. I'd believe these numbers as the percentage caught cheating. If it was self reported, which is probably the only way to collect that data, I'd assume some people lied.
Violence is inherent to our entire evolutionary tree, nature kills to eat. I think it's fair to say that violence is a part of human nature. It's a part of the nature of every predatory animal on Earth, and some plants, and I think you could probably successfully argue that even herbivores are inflicting violence on plants because they're destroying and consuming an organism.
There's a difference when violence results from instinct and/or having no other choice, and actively choosing violence. But this distinction is even more damning, as we see many smarter animals become capable of cruelty/spite/malice. Like that tiger who stalked and killed a man in revenge, or dolphins/orcas inventing elaborate methods of toying with their prey, or chimps being outright genocidal psychos.
I'll add to this an anecdote. My neighborhood is near a nature preserve. We get all kinds of animals theough here, but mostly racoon, possums and armadillo. Oh and feral cats. For a while we would occasionally have critters fighting in our yard. You'd hear it at night especially during summer. Not so much lately.
See a few years ago we got a feral kitten fixed as part of our local colony management group. Cat decided to stay, and we've been looking after her. Friendly, but stand-offish. We make sure shes fed, but let her do her own thing. Hasn't shown much interest in the inside.
We noticed that in the evenings raccoons would show up to steal her food. We chased em away, but theyd just come back later. The thing was that cat would sit there and watch the raccoons. She even moved out of the way once she was done, and let the raccoons have their share. Its been a few years now, and our yard cat manages things between other cats, the raccoons and the possums, and sometimes armadillos and nobody fights about it. Heck sometimes we find a small crowd waiting for our cat to summon the food for them.
The point being, violence may be an inherent part of nature, and the wilderness. However even animals when they dont have to work so hard to survive will cooperate when its to everyone's advantage. Which means that anyone who tells you that violence is the only law of nature is full of shit, and is really just telling on themselves. In my opinion.
you could probably successfully argue that even herbivores are inflicting violence on plants because they’re destroying and consuming an organism.
Don't need to stretch that far.
Lots of herbivores use violence, either in defense against predators or in competition with their own species for territory, resources, or mates. I'd even go as far as to say that the majority of them do, at least for the first of those two purposes -- it's rare to find an herbivore so passive that it wouldn't use 'violence' to protect itself against a predator attack if necessary.
People who cheat is not the norm though, it's very much not human nature. A part of humanity (or any species) doing bad stuff doesn't make it the nature of that species. Pedophilia has also been going on for as long as humans have existed but it's not human nature, it's some individuals being sociopaths and have a mental issue that makes them attracted to something over 99% of everyone aren't.
I don't think you get to be the apex predator on an entire planet without some level of violence in your nature. We got so good at murder it's just casually in the background courtesy of the vast ag-industry slaughtering tens of thousands of animals daily around the world.
Also, see: humans killing each other since forever and ever.
The caveman is a stock character representative of primitive humans in the Paleolithic. The popularization of the type dates to the early 20th century, when Neanderthals were influentially described as "simian" or "ape-like" by Marcellin Boule and Arthur Keith.
Also, the vast majority of people in this time period did not live in caves. It's just that caves are much better at preserving traces, so much of the evidence for these early peoples that still exists is found in caves.
To think that they were 'cave men' and mostly lived in caves is like, well, seeing dinosaur footprints preserved in mud and therefore thinking that dinosaurs spent most of their time stomping around in mud.
Yes, that is why it is a social construction of the last 100 years. The post is saying that all (or at least many things) we consider human nature are not older than 100 years, at any time in human history
Well no. It's natural for humans to seek shelter, caves are very dangerous particularly when we still had mega fauna around, and what is you home but not a fancy safe cave.
You joke, but one of the big Greek philosophers (Socrates maybe? I dunno) had a big rant about how relying on written texts instead of memorizing everything would make people stupid.
The specifics have changed, but "those damn kids" type complaints are truly timeless.
The joke was taking it literally instead of acknowledging the changing reason for the youth spending too much time doing something (music/books/movie/tv/games/phones).
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and chatter in the place of exercise."
- Socrates Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907, summarizing complaints directed against young people in ancient times.
It was crafted by a student, Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907. Freeman did not claim that the passage under analysis was a direct quotation of anyone; instead, he was presenting his own summary of the complaints directed against young people in ancient times.
29 replies
Every single middle-eastern bigot I seen says "these are sexual perversion invented and pushed by the west to corrupt your generation" meanwhile studying middle-eastern history always goes something like
"Despite objections from the religious class, the sultans traditionally kept a harem of young men that would be dressed in feminine clothes and made to dance, homoerotic paintings of even earlier homoerotic poems became more and more popular over certain eras, and also gay bathouses regularly showed up in tax docments, until late 19th century when westernization..."
::: spoiler Tap for example wikipedia articles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Iran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_and_gender_minorities_in_the_Ottoman_Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Egypt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Tunisia
:::
I can recommend reading Foucault's The History Of Sexuality. He explains how gender categories serve the exercise of power upon humans. This is particularly interesting given how important self-definition is in queer community.
Traditions are rarely more than a century or two old. Your ancestors didn't give a fuck about what your grandparents care about.
Religion also becomes insanely silly when you see it sprout up, badly recycling stuff from the previous religion.
To counterpoint the human nature point. Many have said violence is in human nature. Now weither thats true or not is certainly up for debate but it has been said for far longer than 100 years. A similar point could be made for people cheating on their spouses, many say thats part of human nature. Those are just the 2 that come to mind.
In case anyone else was curious, 23% of men and 19% of women have cheated.
I thought it was normal too! Both my spouse and I have cheated on past significant others when we were young, I guess we deserve each other.
In my experience, these numbers seem very low. Ive never cheated but I've been cheated on in nearly every relationship ive been in and many of my friends have as well or have been the cheater. I'd believe these numbers as the percentage caught cheating. If it was self reported, which is probably the only way to collect that data, I'd assume some people lied.
Violence is inherent to our entire evolutionary tree, nature kills to eat. I think it's fair to say that violence is a part of human nature. It's a part of the nature of every predatory animal on Earth, and some plants, and I think you could probably successfully argue that even herbivores are inflicting violence on plants because they're destroying and consuming an organism.
There's a difference when violence results from instinct and/or having no other choice, and actively choosing violence. But this distinction is even more damning, as we see many smarter animals become capable of cruelty/spite/malice. Like that tiger who stalked and killed a man in revenge, or dolphins/orcas inventing elaborate methods of toying with their prey, or chimps being outright genocidal psychos.
I'll add to this an anecdote. My neighborhood is near a nature preserve. We get all kinds of animals theough here, but mostly racoon, possums and armadillo. Oh and feral cats. For a while we would occasionally have critters fighting in our yard. You'd hear it at night especially during summer. Not so much lately.
See a few years ago we got a feral kitten fixed as part of our local colony management group. Cat decided to stay, and we've been looking after her. Friendly, but stand-offish. We make sure shes fed, but let her do her own thing. Hasn't shown much interest in the inside.
We noticed that in the evenings raccoons would show up to steal her food. We chased em away, but theyd just come back later. The thing was that cat would sit there and watch the raccoons. She even moved out of the way once she was done, and let the raccoons have their share. Its been a few years now, and our yard cat manages things between other cats, the raccoons and the possums, and sometimes armadillos and nobody fights about it. Heck sometimes we find a small crowd waiting for our cat to summon the food for them.
The point being, violence may be an inherent part of nature, and the wilderness. However even animals when they dont have to work so hard to survive will cooperate when its to everyone's advantage. Which means that anyone who tells you that violence is the only law of nature is full of shit, and is really just telling on themselves. In my opinion.
Don't need to stretch that far.
Lots of herbivores use violence, either in defense against predators or in competition with their own species for territory, resources, or mates. I'd even go as far as to say that the majority of them do, at least for the first of those two purposes -- it's rare to find an herbivore so passive that it wouldn't use 'violence' to protect itself against a predator attack if necessary.
to counteract your point this generation trusts strangers on the internet more than any other /s
People who cheat is not the norm though, it's very much not human nature. A part of humanity (or any species) doing bad stuff doesn't make it the nature of that species. Pedophilia has also been going on for as long as humans have existed but it's not human nature, it's some individuals being sociopaths and have a mental issue that makes them attracted to something over 99% of everyone aren't.
I don't think you get to be the apex predator on an entire planet without some level of violence in your nature. We got so good at murder it's just casually in the background courtesy of the vast ag-industry slaughtering tens of thousands of animals daily around the world.
Also, see: humans killing each other since forever and ever.
Shouldn’t human nature evolve too though?
At one point it was “natural” to live in a cave, not so much nowadays.
So yeah, about 100 years for the caveman meme.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveman
Also, the vast majority of people in this time period did not live in caves. It's just that caves are much better at preserving traces, so much of the evidence for these early peoples that still exists is found in caves.
To think that they were 'cave men' and mostly lived in caves is like, well, seeing dinosaur footprints preserved in mud and therefore thinking that dinosaurs spent most of their time stomping around in mud.
Yes, that is why it is a social construction of the last 100 years. The post is saying that all (or at least many things) we consider human nature are not older than 100 years, at any time in human history
You're describing too specific a behavior, not nature. Nature is more like:
"It is in man's nature to seek shelter from the elements", and this suffices to describe men who dwell in caves, houses, or anything else.
Well no. It's natural for humans to seek shelter, caves are very dangerous particularly when we still had mega fauna around, and what is you home but not a fancy safe cave.
Ah yes, the ancient Egyptian complaint about 'this generation' spending too much time on their phones.
Timeless!
Edit: I love that that this one keeps getting down voted and my explanation comment keeps getting upvoted. Never change fediverse.
You joke, but one of the big Greek philosophers (Socrates maybe? I dunno) had a big rant about how relying on written texts instead of memorizing everything would make people stupid.
The specifics have changed, but "those damn kids" type complaints are truly timeless.
And Seneca (I think) complained of “these kids going partying until the early morning lights” and dressing “inappropriately”
“Those damn kids!”
Children today are tyrants!
The joke was taking it literally instead of acknowledging the changing reason for the youth spending too much time doing something (music/books/movie/tv/games/phones).
Kids using the written word and polyphonics really get my goat
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and chatter in the place of exercise."
-
SocratesKenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907, summarizing complaints directed against young people in ancient times.Not a real Socrates quote. It’s very popular to make up this genre of quote.
Oh damn, TIL.
From Quote investigator
See also: Pliny the young complaining about how chariots getting bigger and bigger made the streets unsafe for Roman pedestrians.