[Glorantha] Nurture: hardware or software?

In message <00c601c6a11f$d64b6040$0200000a@malkhome02> "Malk Williams" writes:

>OK, the main one I had in mind was the sexual repression that in
>our society more or less typifies the Victorians. OK, I think
>that reputation is a little over-done, but I still think it existed.

The sexual repression is a result of a conflict in women between the reproductive instinct and survival of offspring instinct. In a society where women have no independant right to property or way of earning a living she must catch a man to support her and her offspring. To do that the woman has to show that any children are also her husband's. The whole structure of upper middle class Victorian society was built round that. Not upper class, those women could get away with all sorts because their family would provide. Equally many working class women at that time couldn't afford to be that particular. It was only in the 20th Century when economic pressures eased that the Victorian morality filtered down to the working class.

>One could argue that sex is a basic instinct regardless of
>reproduction; in females as well as males - now who's being
>sexist? ;-) Certainly there are some homosexuals of my
>acquaintance who would be quite vociferous on that point!

There's certainly an argument that way, however I have encountered enough adult women who have no sexual interest at all to conclude that it isn't a basic instinct. This derives from the physical fact that a physically normal man can't get past puberty without discovering sexual pleasure whereas women can.

>Certainly I would say that the idea of recreational sex was taboo
>within British "polite" society well into the post-war era.

Discussing sex at all was taboo in polite society (read society which included respectable women). My grandmother broke that taboo in the 1930s by arranging a talk by a female doctor on contraception for a group of married women. There were lots of discussions about recreational sex between men of all classes.

>Survival of offspring. I would have said that the Victorian tendency
>to put children in factories, work houses and up chimneys is not the
>best expression of the instinct to ensure their survival.

Pure economics, for many families if the children didn't work there wasn't enough food. Most children have worked from an early age in just about every society until the British educational acts of the late 19th Century. The gradual exclusion of children from the workforce was due to legislation made by the elite who extended the instinct for their offspring to survice to all children. Eventually everyone benefited but at the time it hit the incomes of the poorest families very hard.

>> The cultural attitudes came into
>> existance to best achieve that in the society of that time.
>
>Do you really believe that? I'm sure an argument can be made in
>support of it, but some societies at some times do not seem to
>serve the natural interests or instincts of their members. The
>Cultural Revolution in China and was it "Year Zero" in Kampuchea
>seem to illustrate that. The Victorians are a more moderate
>example than either of those, but they seem geared towards the
>prejudices of the social and religious elite rather than to
>best achieve survival and reproduction in the society at large.

These are all attempts to manage cultural attitudes from the top and fail because they do not take into account that a country has many different cultures within it. The culture of the social and religious elite is rarely shared by the majority who can't afford it. Often the result is to distort the majority culture in unexpected ways. Remember instincts apply to the individual and their circumstances, there's no instinct which relates to the society at large. At best there's a recognition that it is necessary to co-operate with your neighbours.

>Nevertheless, to take the examples I quoted from you above:
>"individual survival, reproduction (sex in males, babies in females)
>and survival of offspring" I am still quite certain in my own mind
>that the instincts of males are more inclined towards protection and
>production, and those females are more geared towards care and
>nurture.

You've obviously never seen a woman protecting her children. Sure most will let a male do it if there's one present but even women who have been conditioned to rely on male protection for themselves break that conditioning if their children are threatened.

>Now my own *personal* opinion, is that it is more "sexist" to deny
>that there are differences between genders that are beyond the
>purely physical, and to claim that everyone is absolutely equal,
>than it is to recognise them for what they are, and accept them
>accordingly. I realise that not everyone would agree with that,
>but I am confident (some would say arrogant) enough to think that
>I am not the one who is flying in the face of reality!

There isn't even a strict line between male and female in physical terms although the numbers on the margin are very small. And there are enough people who don't fit the sterotype male and female for me to question the definition of anything as gender based unless it can be directly related to a physical attribute.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/