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34 comments
Regarding your first objection, I can't prove it. I have nothing but my own perception, but it certainly seems to me that today we are "post truth" in a way that we weren't in the 1980s. (I was in high school in the 1970s, so maybe I wasn't in the best place to judge that decade.)
Now, it easily could be that, being more mature now, I find it easier to see the irrationality of peoples' positions today. That's quite possible. But it seems to me that the world - or at least the public discourse - is much less rational today than it was 30 years ago.
Now, it easily could be that, being more mature now, I find it easier to see the irrationality of peoples' positions today. That's quite possible. But it seems to me that the world - or at least the public discourse - is much less rational today than it was 30 years ago.
I don't think it's that people are less rational, just that irrational people have more of a platform these days. They were always around, but they didn't get as much airtime in the 1970s. The democratization of publishing has allowed them to finally have a voice, repugnant as that voice may be.
> Unwin described four “great patterns of human culture” and degrees of flourishing measured in terms of architecture, art, engineering, literature, agriculture, and so forth. ...
The article doesn't define the word "flourish," despite using it 11 times. Given the importance of this concept to the conclusions, it seems only fair to have some working definition, and ideally one that uses some objective, quantitative measure of "flourish" as applied to a culture.
That said, the original work was written at a time (1930s) at which non-western cultures were neither well understood nor respected. Without some quantitative grounding it's going to be hard to shake the notion that all the author is doing is re-iterating contemporary western values and ideals.
Oddly, the article doesn't mention anything about gender-specific expectations. The notion of pre-marital continence mainly applied to women, AFAICT. Men enjoyed much greater latitude and have for a very long time, despite what the church and morality observers may preach.
Edit: Why is this article flagged?
The article doesn't define the word "flourish," despite using it 11 times. Given the importance of this concept to the conclusions, it seems only fair to have some working definition, and ideally one that uses some objective, quantitative measure of "flourish" as applied to a culture.
That said, the original work was written at a time (1930s) at which non-western cultures were neither well understood nor respected. Without some quantitative grounding it's going to be hard to shake the notion that all the author is doing is re-iterating contemporary western values and ideals.
Oddly, the article doesn't mention anything about gender-specific expectations. The notion of pre-marital continence mainly applied to women, AFAICT. Men enjoyed much greater latitude and have for a very long time, despite what the church and morality observers may preach.
Edit: Why is this article flagged?
The article is flagged because the author is an anti-intellectual Bible-thumper, and we don't need such silliness.
I don't know anything one way or another about the author, but his website lists him having a phd in biophysics from an actual, respectable research university (university of Guelph), so i'm not real sure how "anti-intellectual" pertains per se.
I'm pretty sure i don't think he's right, but that's not at all the same thing.
I'm pretty sure i don't think he's right, but that's not at all the same thing.
Disagreeing with an article isn’t grounds for flagging it.
Author Bio: Thirty four years, and continuing, speaking at most of the major universities across Canada, focussing on topics pertaining to the interplay of God, philosophy, and science. This includes a few hundred talks and lectures as well as participating in approximately 80 formal debates on topics relevant to the defence of the basic beliefs of Christianity.
In other words, religious propaganda.
In other words, religious propaganda.
Propaganda tries to force you to believe something. Debate and discussion tries to present evidence and allow you to draw your own conclusion.
The article may not be effective at the latter, but it is not the former.
The article may not be effective at the latter, but it is not the former.
> Propaganda tries to force you to believe something.
The most extreme versions of it, yes. But here is a definition from Cambridges dictionary
"Information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions:"
I think the article fits that definition pretty well. As well as most articles that bring a higher being into a rational discussion.
The most extreme versions of it, yes. But here is a definition from Cambridges dictionary
"Information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions:"
I think the article fits that definition pretty well. As well as most articles that bring a higher being into a rational discussion.
> As well as most articles that bring a higher being into a rational discussion.
It's interesting to see how some people outright deny to even entertain the thought under the guise of rationalism. It really is another religion practically speaking.
It's interesting to see how some people outright deny to even entertain the thought under the guise of rationalism. It really is another religion practically speaking.
> In other words, religious propaganda.
Which does not automatically imply you can dismiss it without question.
Which does not automatically imply you can dismiss it without question.
Here's his primary source.[1] "Sex and Culture" dates from 1932, and focuses on geographically isolated cultures. Some from Polynesia, some American Indian tribes, some African tribes. All pre-industrial.
[1] https://archive.org/details/b20442580/page/232
[1] https://archive.org/details/b20442580/page/232
While I have not read this source personally it should be noted that most scholars treat sociological papers from this era about other cultures as somewhat embarrassing. They are usually written from a western civilization supremacy perspective. They tend to be poorly researched on the culture of the groups they are writing about because it is assumed that it must be inferior to western culture, after all the people are mindless savages are they not, what could an obviously superior western academic possibly learn from them. The fact that the paper covers numerous cultures makes me even more suspect.
The parts I found most interesting:
> Effect of sexual constraints: Increased sexual constraints, either pre or post-nuptial, always led to increased flourishing of a culture. Conversely, increased sexual freedom always led to the collapse of a culture three generations later.
> Highest flourishing of culture: The most powerful combination was pre-nuptial chastity coupled with “absolute monogamy”. Rationalist cultures that retained this combination for at least three generations exceeded all other cultures in every area, including literature, art, science, furniture, architecture, engineering, and agriculture. Only three out of the eighty-six cultures studied ever attained this level.
> Effect of sexual constraints: Increased sexual constraints, either pre or post-nuptial, always led to increased flourishing of a culture. Conversely, increased sexual freedom always led to the collapse of a culture three generations later.
> Highest flourishing of culture: The most powerful combination was pre-nuptial chastity coupled with “absolute monogamy”. Rationalist cultures that retained this combination for at least three generations exceeded all other cultures in every area, including literature, art, science, furniture, architecture, engineering, and agriculture. Only three out of the eighty-six cultures studied ever attained this level.
I'm curious how he ranked furniture to determine which of the cultures flourished or collapsed in their construction of chairs, tables, nightstands, etc...
There are all sorts of spurious correlations here. The part that might be interesting, to me at least, is whether a decrease in "sexual morality" as defined by the author leads to increased sexual misconduct a generation later, as OP seems to claim. That's indeed a plausible causal link to civilization decline.
Nonsense.
Any discussion of the sexual revolution's effects on society that doesn't discuss birth control is completely irrelevant. Before birth control, premarital sex inextricably meant premarital children, which fundamentally alters the lifepath of the parent. With birth control, sex moves out of the realm of life-altering acts and into the realm of personal experiences.
This entire article is a conclusion desperately trying to cobble together a narrative that supports it while completely ignoring any evidence to the contrary.
> The swiftness with which rational thinking declined after the 1970’s is astounding. In its place arose post-modernism, characterized by “scepticism, subjectivism, or relativism” and “a general suspicion of reason”.
What could be more rational than skepticism and using the tools of reason to study reason itself?
> the rise of extreme identity groups at war with each other … all symptoms of a society rapidly spiraling into collapse.
The Holocaust, Holomodor, Cambodian Genocide, Kazakh genocide, Armenian genocide, Indonesian genocide, Greek genocide, Serbian genocide, etc. all occurred before the sexual revolution, and most occurred after Unwin's text.
In fact, the only large scale genocides I see near the top of Wikipedia's list to occur after the sexual revolution are in Africa, where birth control is not widely available and the sexual revolution has arguably not yet reached.
If anything, the sexual revolution seems to correlate with a secessation in large-scale sectarian violence. Not too surprising given that many genocides are fueled in part by population pressure.
Large scale violence has dramatically fallen since the 1970s. Millions more were killed in the fifty years before the invention of the Pill than after.
Any discussion of the sexual revolution's effects on society that doesn't discuss birth control is completely irrelevant. Before birth control, premarital sex inextricably meant premarital children, which fundamentally alters the lifepath of the parent. With birth control, sex moves out of the realm of life-altering acts and into the realm of personal experiences.
This entire article is a conclusion desperately trying to cobble together a narrative that supports it while completely ignoring any evidence to the contrary.
> The swiftness with which rational thinking declined after the 1970’s is astounding. In its place arose post-modernism, characterized by “scepticism, subjectivism, or relativism” and “a general suspicion of reason”.
What could be more rational than skepticism and using the tools of reason to study reason itself?
> the rise of extreme identity groups at war with each other … all symptoms of a society rapidly spiraling into collapse.
The Holocaust, Holomodor, Cambodian Genocide, Kazakh genocide, Armenian genocide, Indonesian genocide, Greek genocide, Serbian genocide, etc. all occurred before the sexual revolution, and most occurred after Unwin's text.
In fact, the only large scale genocides I see near the top of Wikipedia's list to occur after the sexual revolution are in Africa, where birth control is not widely available and the sexual revolution has arguably not yet reached.
If anything, the sexual revolution seems to correlate with a secessation in large-scale sectarian violence. Not too surprising given that many genocides are fueled in part by population pressure.
Large scale violence has dramatically fallen since the 1970s. Millions more were killed in the fifty years before the invention of the Pill than after.
> The old adage, “correlation does not entail causation”, probably holds true here as well. Unwin makes it clear that he does not know why sexual freedom directly leads to the decline and collapse of cultures [...]
Does anything more need to be said about this? Correlation does not entail causation, but right in the next sentence, let's just pretend that it is causation anyway, without any justification whatsoever.
Does anything more need to be said about this? Correlation does not entail causation, but right in the next sentence, let's just pretend that it is causation anyway, without any justification whatsoever.
Of course. Wilhelm Reich and The Marquis de Sade said the same thing.
They just disagree with the author on ends.
They just disagree with the author on ends.
"But I don't think that teenagers are the way they are because of their age. It's because they have nothing to lose. They simultaneously have a lot of time on their hands and yet are very impatient to get on with their lives." "And that's kind of where you are right now?" "It's exactly where I am." "Horniness too." "Yeah. But there are ways to deal with that." "Don't look at me that way," Avi says. "I don't masturbate." "Never?" "Never. Formally gave it up. Swore off it." "Even when you're on the road for a month?" "Even then." "Why on earth would you do such a thing, Avi?" "Enhances my devotion to Devorah. Makes our sex better. Gives me an incentive to get back home." "Well, that's very touching," Randy says, "and it might even be a good idea." "I'm quite certain that it is." "But it's more masochism than I'm really willing to shoulder at this point in my life." "Why? Are you afraid that it would push you into " "Irrational behavior? Definitely."
... ...
He could very easily take care of the Hunk of Burning Love problem now that he has privacy, but astonishes himself by electing not to. This may be perverse; he's not sure. The last month and a half of total celibacy, relieved only by nocturnal emissions at roughly two week intervals, has definitely got him in a mental space he has never been to before, or come near, or even heard about. When he was in jail he had to develop a fierce mental discipline in order not to be distracted by thoughts of sex. He got alarmingly good at it after a while. It's a highly unnatural approach to the mind/body problem, pretty much the antithesis of every sixties and seventies tinged philosophy that he ever imbibed from his Baby Boomer elders. It is the kind of thing he associates with scary hardasses: Spartans, Victorians, and mid twentieth century American military heroes. It has turned Randy into something of a hardass in his approach to hacking, and meanwhile, he suspects, it has got him into a much more intense and passionate head space than he's ever known when it comes to matters of the heart. He won't really know that until he comes face to face with Amy, which looks like it's going to be a while, since he's just been kicked out of the country where she lives and works. Just as an experiment, he decides he's going to keep his hands off of himself for now. If it makes him a little tense and volatile compared to his pathologically mellow West Coast self, then so be it. It's not like anyone ever died from being horny.
... ...
He could very easily take care of the Hunk of Burning Love problem now that he has privacy, but astonishes himself by electing not to. This may be perverse; he's not sure. The last month and a half of total celibacy, relieved only by nocturnal emissions at roughly two week intervals, has definitely got him in a mental space he has never been to before, or come near, or even heard about. When he was in jail he had to develop a fierce mental discipline in order not to be distracted by thoughts of sex. He got alarmingly good at it after a while. It's a highly unnatural approach to the mind/body problem, pretty much the antithesis of every sixties and seventies tinged philosophy that he ever imbibed from his Baby Boomer elders. It is the kind of thing he associates with scary hardasses: Spartans, Victorians, and mid twentieth century American military heroes. It has turned Randy into something of a hardass in his approach to hacking, and meanwhile, he suspects, it has got him into a much more intense and passionate head space than he's ever known when it comes to matters of the heart. He won't really know that until he comes face to face with Amy, which looks like it's going to be a while, since he's just been kicked out of the country where she lives and works. Just as an experiment, he decides he's going to keep his hands off of himself for now. If it makes him a little tense and volatile compared to his pathologically mellow West Coast self, then so be it. It's not like anyone ever died from being horny.
- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
This is one of those neat tricks where by adjusting your success criteria you can make anything seem good or bad.
tldr: Sexual freedom and atheism (non-deism) are interlinked
tldr: Sexual freedom and atheism (non-deism) are interlinked
More to the point, atheism and anti-intellectualism are effectively one in the same, as he defines anti-intellectualism as anything that deviates from a 1932 view of Christian morality.
Worth nothing that these ideas about sexual restraint and a functioning society have been floating around on the so called "alt right" corners of the internet for years. It's unfortunate that political polarization and tribalism in society leads to marginalization of valid perspectives.
This idea that a well ordered family can lead to a well ordered state is a very old one.
Arius Didymus: "A primary kind of association is the legal union of a man and woman for begetting children and for sharing life... just as the household yields for the city the seeds of its formation, thus it yields the constitution."
Arius Didymus: "A primary kind of association is the legal union of a man and woman for begetting children and for sharing life... just as the household yields for the city the seeds of its formation, thus it yields the constitution."
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> The swiftness with which rational thinking declined after the 1970’s is astounding. In its place arose post-modernism, characterized by “scepticism, subjectivism, or relativism” and “a general suspicion of reason”.[9] But it gets worse … post-modernism is giving way to “post truth”. In direct contrast to rational thinking, a post-truth culture abandons “shared objective standards for truth” and instead, stands on appeals to feelings and emotions, and what one wants to believe.[10] People can now “identify” themselves as something which flat-out contradicts science and rational thinking and, in many cases, receive the full support and backing of governments and educational systems. Not only do people feel they have a right to believe what they want, but any challenge to that belief, even if supported by truth and logic, is unacceptable and offensive.
While I'm concerned about anti-intellectualism in this country I don't think it is worse than it was in the 1970s. The idea that "rational thinking" is in decline requires more evidence than the author provides. In particular his assertion that recognizing non-binary gender as a sign of anti-intellectualism doesn't seem to be supported by any evidence. What he is presenting as evidence of anti-intellectualism is just society moving beyond the overly simplistic model of humanity from 1932.
> he suggests that when sexual energy is restrained through celibacy or monogamy, it is diverted into more productive social energy.
I'm skeptical.