The chapter I read was a reprint of an article by Daniel Lehrman originally published in 1953 critiquing Konrad Lorenz’s Theory of Instinctive Behavior (the link opens a PDF to the full article, which is excerpted in the chapter in Cycles of Contingency). I would like to touch on a couple of things in response to reading the chapter: The relevance of Lehrman’s critique to current approaches, especially in evolutionary psychology, and the odd reluctance to adopt systems approaches.

Lehrman provides some interesting examples from animal studies that call into question Lorenz’s claim to innate behavior. His approach lends itself to generalization in answering the question: How do we want to explain the origins of behavior? And his critique seems to echo some of the concerns with evolutionary psychology. His approach can be gleaned from his example on the pecking behavior of chicks. Lorenz attributed this behavior to innate forces: The chicks are born with the tendency to peck; it might require just a bit of maturation. Lehrman points out that research by Kuo provides an explanation based on the embryonic development of the chick. The pecking behavior can actually be traced back to movements that developed while the chick was still unhatched. Hardly innate! The main point Lehrman makes: If we claim that something is innate, we stop the scientific investigation without fully understanding the origin of the behavior. This leaves out important – and fascinating – parts of the explanation because we think we’ve answered the question. As he puts it: “the statement “It is innate” adds nothing to an understanding of the developmental process involved” (30). I think this is also the danger of genetic/evolutionary explanations: If we explain mating behavior, for example, by tracing it back to supposedly genetic origins, we ignore potentially richer explanations that capture all the influences on the development of certain behaviors. I mentioned the development of lactose tolerance in adults briefly in a comment. Lactose tolerance is genetically driven but if we stop with the gene, we would miss that the tolerance in human adults developed only after agriculture became part of our culture. And apparently, it developed independently in several places – in some places with the same genetic change in others with different. Why? Again, the “genes did it” answer misses this question. The answer might be fascinating (I don’t know if scientists have figured this out yet…). Similarly with mating behavior: Maybe monogamy is not innate but so many humans live monogamous (or at least try to), there are obviously forces at play that go beyond the innate tendency. And even with genes themselves: What triggers certain genes to become active while others don’t? This is also very important for understanding certain diseases, such as hypothyroidism, which have a genetic component. But just having a genetic predisposition is not enough. Something must trigger the gene to start acting. It is very important to realize that neither Lehrman nor DST advocate “nurture” explanations. The key is to move beyond the nature-nurture schema, which includes giving up figuring out the percentage contribution of each, but to look for explanations of behavior that integrate all influences.

Lehrman’s article was originally published in 1953. And as Timothy Johnston points out in his introduction to the article, it largely fell on deaf ears. Researchers responding to Lehrman thought he just switched sides by contributing all explanatory power for behavior to learning (aka “nurture”). He does not: Again, he advocates leaving the innate/learning dichotomy behind. It’s not either-or; it’s always both. Similar patterns of reactions to systems advocates can be found in other areas as well. Anne Fausto-Sterling has called for using systems approaches since the mid-1980s. Then again very obviously in her 2006 Bare Bones articles. She suggests that we cannot understand the development of bones if we only look at genes, for example. She identifies seven systems that influence bone development, some biological/genetic, some environmental, all interacting. It is as if nobody heeded her call and she threw up her hands and decided to do the research herself because she is now actively doing research, following her proposal (of course, she might have planned this all along and I might be reading frustration into her “Bare Bones” article but…). A similar thing seemed to have happened with system-justification theory, an approach to explaining internalized stereotypes proposed by John Jost and Mahzarin Banaji in 1994. Their follow-up article written 10-years later reads just as much as a call for using systems-justification theory as the original article. It seems like the systems approach had not taken off. Why this reluctance to adopt systems theories? Systems approaches tend to be more complicated. It’s not just genes (with a little bit of environment or culture thrown in) or ego-justification (with some group-justification added). It is an interplay of various forces that combine to develop certain behaviors and/or traits. Maybe this complication makes these theories less attractive. They seem to make a lot more sense, though, at least to me. System-justification, for example, explains the “weird” phenomenon of people acting against their own self-interest: Even lower status groups, people discriminated against, act to maintain the status quo. System-justification captures this (maintaining the status quo requires that we justify the system). Of course, explaining that behavior pulls in the other systems theory: We need to look at the interplay of cognitive biases, such as resistance to change, and cultural forces, such as pressures to maintain a system, including oppression.

What am I going to study, you ask? I have been accepted into the master’s program of the philosophy department at SF State. The areas of philosophy that I am particularly interested in are feminist and moral philosophy, especially applied ethics. I would like to center my investigation of these areas around the development of an ethical framework that helps us humans create life-affirming and sustainable societies that are just to all individuals no matter what our relationship status.

Musings over our current economic and environmental situation have deepened my interest in addressing these problems more rigorously by switching careers. As the financial crisis deepens, most economists and policy makers suggest that the way out of the crisis is to spend. They call on the government and individuals to increase our spending, ignoring that one of the root causes of the crisis is a mountain of debt. This debt was largely created by a desire for growth – economic growth as well as the idea of “more” on the individual level. We were accumulating stuff in an attempt to attain happiness in life. If only we could get this one more thing, we’d be happy and our life would have meaning. Overconsumption – and the associated debt – is a symptom of an ethical crisis that might lead to the destruction of our life support system. Back in the 1950s, Victor Frankl talked about an existential vacuum. The existential vacuum emerged from a meaning crisis in most of the Western world: As religions were replaced by humanist ideas, no ready-made life meaning was available and humans no longer felt connected to something larger.

Additionally, our connections to other human beings have narrowed with the increasing emphasis on the nuclear family. The community of friends and acquaintances merged into the idea of “The One” – one person who can meet all of our needs. Underneath the façade, though, the needs for connection and meaning remain unfulfilled. Combine this need deficit with an economic system that pushes growth as the only factor that matters and the consumption and debt patterns we are witnessing now result.

In order to create a life-affirming and sustainable society, we need to find an ethical framework that reconnects us with genuine sources of meaning. My task as philosopher is to help develop this kind of framework that provides potential answers – or guidelines on how to find them – to the quest for meaning in life and the desire to be part of something larger. I suggest that there are better ways to fill the existential vacuum: By strengthening our connections to ourselves and to other people, as well as nature. These connections have to be founded on a profound understanding of justice – an affirmation of the individual as connected to a larger world, no matter who that individual is or how these connections are established (i.e., through marriage or friendship or anything in between). In order for us to increase our chances of survival as a species we need to change our priorities. This redefinition, though, requires a vision of a new way that is grounded in a deep understanding of our interconnections but does not need religious concepts.

• We fight Relationship Status Discrimination (RSD) by preventing that any relationships carry special benefits.
• We support offering automatic legal protection to relationships when they dissolve whether through break-up or death.

What would a society look like when we’re all done, when we’ve eliminated RSD?

A world without Marital Status Discrimination might look like this:

• Values all couples for their commitment no matter what institution sanctioned them.
• Expands rights/ privileges/benefits to all couples. E.g.:
  • One can get health care through a partner.
  • Tax benefits for couples.
• Coupling is assumed as the highest form of maturity.

To me, this is still very couple-centric, which is something I would like us to move away from. That is why I suggest that we take on Relationship Status Discrimination.

A world without RSD would look something like this:

• Values all people for who they are not who they’re with.
• Either expands all rights/privileges/benefits to all people or eliminates special treatment. E.g.:
  • Health care for all rather than health care for the working and/or coupled.
  • Everyone is taxed equally.
• People are viewed as fully human whether they’re in a relationship or not.

I like this much better because it is striving toward equality for all and really means all, not just married or coupled folks.

It is important to me, though, not to eliminate all protections for people in special alloparents to raise our children collectively. This might be a lofty ideal, which will proof ultimately unrealistic. On the other hand, the trajectory we’re currently on seems to lead to the extinction of at least the human race. So maybe it’s worth trying something else.

Clearly, fear is at play. There are strong archetypes that entice us to stay on the wide path – for else we’d be beaten, poor, and unloved. As women, we’re told again and again that we need to fear the stranger as rapist and are better off in the safety of a marriage (never mind that a woman is more likely to be abused by her husband than a stranger). If we’d make our own path, we’d surely end up in the poor house and that would be horrible because money is what makes us happy!

Maybe it’s time to rethink all that… To me, though, the most important question is the why: What is keeping us from being upset over living such unsustainable and largely meaningless lives. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe everybody is perfectly happy and I am just a disgruntled spinster… Somehow I doubt that…

(Here are some similar thoughts from Barbara Ehrenreich who is musing over the unemployeds lack of complaining… Another trance at play: We’re lead to believe that looking for a job is a full-time job therefore we don’t have time to demand, for example, that those who created the current recession be held accountable.)

Historians argue fiercely about when the transition from pragmatic to “affective” — personal – marriage, took place in Europe. It’s been placed anywhere from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century.

I am not a historian but based on what I have read (for example in Stephanie Coontz’ work), I would argue that romantic marriage didn’t take off until the eighteenth century. It might’ve been around before then but it didn’t turn into the motivating factor for marriage until fairly recently.

The industrial “revolution” happened somewhere between 1760 and 1830 depending on the historian. Coincidence? I think not. Though it would be difficult to prove, these dots can be connected, the two are related. Romantic marriage comes along with the idea of nuclear family, both reduce our connections to the larger community. These connections were in the way of people moving to the industrialized centers, so utilizing the limiting idea of the nuclear family helped industrialization.

Does anybody know of someone (or multiple people) who have studied this (the interaction of the emergence of romantic marriage and industrialization)?

Research on interaction of the emergence of romantic marriage and industrialization
Here are some links to papers/articles that might be promising, though they look at the nuclear family, rather than romantic marriage but I think the two are closely linked:

• How industrialization has led to an increase in the nuclear family structure (No sources cited)

So, the key link between the existential vacuum and consumerism is that sense of self (or lack thereof). Loy argues that therefore we need to acknowledge the religious dimension of the issue. I don’t think that’s necessary and possibly even dangerous. I do think it is very much important that we need to understand the tremendous importance of the self-narratives. They ground us, they give us meaning and a sense of self. History shows that religion can give us that grounding but unlike Loy, I think that grounding is still inauthentic because it is imposed and thus can be easily commodified, something Loy calls “junk religion.” To develop an alternative, we need to understand how self-narratives develop. According to Wilson, self-narratives are interpretations of our behavior, most of that occurs when we interact with our environment, including other people. Other people reflect back our behavior, so interaction is important. Community is important.

There’s still a puzzle piece missing – or maybe several pieces: I think that our narrowed definition of relationship has also created some detrimental effects. The word “relationship” is now almost exclusively reserved for that “special relationship” we have with one other person who we – so goes the cultural narrative – ultimately marry. The claim that I, as a single woman, am not in a relationship is absurd to me. I have tons of relationships but only if I use a broader, connecting, definition. I sense that this narrowing of the definition has also something to do with our overconsumption and all the other problems but I haven’t quite figured out how yet.