[Blog-its] Irritant of the day
The hunter-gatherer romance needs to die.
The narrative of the brave hunter who needs constant stimulation, who is unduly restricted by the boring classroom and workplace, needs to die.
"We are not meant to do this" is a ridiculous proposition, a baseless romance.
Sure, go back to that time. Go back to a period where a woman had somewhere around a 1 in 10 chance of dying in childbirth and a near guaranteed death in childbirth if bearing multiples. Go back to a period where children were not named until their first birthday because the chances of them dying before then were that high. A period where a toothache could kill you if you didn't knock it out of your skull first. A period where if there was indeed polygyny, boys were chased out as soon as they reached puberty.
Even then, consider the fact that humans are adaptive creatures. We have had to be.
Evolution, Mother Nature, etc. They don't care about "the best." They care about "just good enough." So things creep on. Not forward except possibly in time. Not to more complicated forms or better forms - but forms that better deal with what is in the moment than most other available options.
To say "We are not meant to do X" (X= eat gluten, eat dairy, vaccinate our children) is to insult the progress that we have made (debatable, yes) and the capabilities of humanity, both great and terrible. It is to belittle ourselves and to stall us in our tracks.
The narrative of the brave hunter who needs constant stimulation, who is unduly restricted by the boring classroom and workplace, needs to die.
"We are not meant to do this" is a ridiculous proposition, a baseless romance.
Sure, go back to that time. Go back to a period where a woman had somewhere around a 1 in 10 chance of dying in childbirth and a near guaranteed death in childbirth if bearing multiples. Go back to a period where children were not named until their first birthday because the chances of them dying before then were that high. A period where a toothache could kill you if you didn't knock it out of your skull first. A period where if there was indeed polygyny, boys were chased out as soon as they reached puberty.
Even then, consider the fact that humans are adaptive creatures. We have had to be.
Evolution, Mother Nature, etc. They don't care about "the best." They care about "just good enough." So things creep on. Not forward except possibly in time. Not to more complicated forms or better forms - but forms that better deal with what is in the moment than most other available options.
To say "We are not meant to do X" (X= eat gluten, eat dairy, vaccinate our children) is to insult the progress that we have made (debatable, yes) and the capabilities of humanity, both great and terrible. It is to belittle ourselves and to stall us in our tracks.