Why Men Compete

Another important dimension to your line reasoning, Pelle, is the role of mother as primary nurturer. The primary nurturer provides the “initial conditions” – the original template – upon which the brain of an infant self-organizes into its functional specializations. This original template for reality sets the stage for further experiences on into adulthood. It establishes the terms upon which reality is to be further experienced and understood. Putting it bluntly (and necessarily a bit simplistically in this brief comment), the thug first learns violence from his primary nurturer. Refer to my MND post:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/2009/07/11/child-abuse-is-domestic-violence-2/

This is the stuff of cognitive science. I was recently introduced to the ideas of Robert Lanza (Biocentrism). I’ve got to look at his work more closely, but on first impressions, his ideas seem to parallel my own line of reasoning.

There is an alternative paradigm looming on the horizon, and it is up to us to seize this opportunity.

Good point, Stephen. I actually wrote a review of Dr. Lanza’s book, published here:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/is-reality-predicated-on-perception/?singlepage=true

Very good review, Mike, though a tad less critical than I would have been. It is going off topic here, especially in light of how important Pelle’s observations are in this article, but I have never been able to buy the concept that time, space, matter etc., are all artifacts of consciousness. I say that even as an absolute believer in the collective conscious and unconscious, which are the only things, in this model, that would ever account for shared human experience.

But back to Pelle’s piece, I hope this something that down the line male studies will address. Despite a generation of supposed gender studies, how much literature is available that interprets male aggression and hierarchies through the human sociobiological lens?

We have been force fed a great deal of pseudo science that seems to just point to some sort of biochemical flaw in the nature of men without any empirical support for that thesis. Typical of feminist scholarship.

@ Steven,

I enjoyed your comment, but I don’t think that the idea of imprinting of violence from the mother is all that supportable. To support that idea, we would have to ostensibly accept that this stuff happens, originates rather, in the context of the mother child bond and that the preponderance of other developmental influences are unrelated.

If that is what you are saying, I’d love to hear more on it.

Stephen… Re: Putting it bluntly (and necessarily a bit simplistically in this brief comment), the thug first learns violence from his primary nurturer. ——————————–

What the thug actually learns from his mother is to suppress his empathy for both himself and other males…The big boys don\’t cry or whine mantra…In other words the mother plants the seed of violence by weeding out the thugs sense of empathy for himself while it is the father, or in the case of a boy without a father other violence prone males, who will teach the lad all he needs to know about being violent towards other males.

Paul, rather than attempting to explain my line of reasoning, which would take some considerable time, let me just emphasize a couple of key points:

1) What has to be understood is the notion of cultural “essence”, or cultural identity. This is the idea of culture as a whole, where the whole is “greater than the sum of its parts” (to paraphrase Aristotle regarding holism);

2) If culture is a whole, then it follows that everyone – every last person – within that culture is an accomplice, one way or another, in what that whole stands for;

3) The cultural “whole” requires a “division of labour” in order to be sustainable, which is where sex and gender roles are important. Men and women have different roles in sustaining culture. Obviously mothers do not “cause” violence. But they do provide the context that validates violence. They play an integral part in the cultural priorities that necessitate violence. It is well established that some cultures are more violent than others. Womens’ adulation of history’s tyrants and bad-boys (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot) is not incidental. It is a part of the context that has mothers and wives, in their capacity as nurturers, swelling with pride when their sons, brothers and husbands lead, conquer and annihilate;

4) Within the context of culture, women prioritize connection to something greater than themselves – connection to influence, power and dominance;

5) It would seem to be reasonable to expect that feminists would regard our interpretation here as good news, because it is a recognition of women’s power. It empowers women. Of course the informed readership of MND knows otherwise. We know that complicity in said violence is the very last thing that feminists would want to acknowledge;

6) Given the runaway global success of a phenomenon as absurd as feminism – what does this say about the failure of our mainstream life sciences, with their abysmal failure to understand human culture and psychology?

7) As an example of mothers and context – we already know about the relationship between single mothers and crime (refer Stephen Baskerville). There is more to it than mere father absence. Refer also to my previous MND blog re mothers and child abuse;

I think the biggest difficulty in getting this point across is in explaining holism and why it works this way. “Associationism”, which I introduced in an earlier blog, is an important part of it.

@ Stephen

You are describing the elements of a cultural gestalt, but I am convinced there is a flaw in the interpretation. Please correct me if I am wrong, but if point 2 is correct, “If culture is a whole, then it follows that everyone – every last person – within that culture is an accomplice, one way or another, in what that whole stands for”

Then would this not imply cooperative cultural influences rather than just the microcosm of the mother son bond?

@ Paul, Dabir:

“Then would this not imply cooperative cultural influences rather than just the microcosm of the mother son bond?”

Of course… For example, Dabir’s observation also holds true (mothers impacting adversely on son’s self-empathy with fathers teaching the violence). As I wrote in one of my essays, “women choose the types of men that they would like their sons to be.” The mother-son (and mother-daughter) bond, where we are talking about the mother as primary nurturer, is always a crucial primary context. But within a broader context, our identities are shaped by every person that impacts on our lives… our role models, our friends and our adversaries and even the media. Fathers can also be primary nurturers.

My reason for limiting my focus to the mother-son bond, in this thread, was to expand on Pelle’s thesis. Women’s participation in violence, for all its invisibility underneath the radar, is neither accidental nor incidental nor imaginary.

“It is going off topic here, especially in light of how important Pelle’s observations are in this article, but I have never been able to buy the concept that time, space, matter etc., are all artifacts of consciousness.”

I dunno Paul, last time I heard much about it, the best way to explain the Universe with only 4 ‘dimensions’ is if we’re actually two dimensional beings, with the 3rd dimension being essentially Illusion, and time existing as ‘slices’ of this 2D universe stacked one on top of another…

And these are eggheads that think in spots guys like you and I only really get into when the green hits the lighter…

As to the general argument, while I truly believe there is such a thing as a collective consciousness, I will not accept even partial responsibility for the actions of others (at least, via ‘cultural influence’), which – given the current cultural response to the voice of men – do not represent me even in the slightest.

In fact, I can hardly think of any major institution further removed from my needs than my current government…except the last one….

That was a really interesting and informative article. I had never before considered that side of the argument. To be honest I just accepted inter human fighting as a biological norm on both sides.

@ Factory:

And these are eggheads that think in spots guys like you and I only really get into when the green hits the lighter…

We need a new science framed from the perspective of pioneers – those who seek rigor and solid answers, and stand up for what they believe in – to replace the science of eggheads. Egghead science (the mainstream life sciences) has failed to formally identify anything wrong with feminism. They should be disqualified. To this day, feminist departments coexist merrily with the life sciences, often side-by-side. We might as well have tarot-card and astrology departments mixed in among them. What does that say about our mainstream life sciences? Clearly, egghead science doesn’t get it. We need revision science.

As to the general argument, while I truly believe there is such a thing as a collective consciousness, I will not accept even partial responsibility for the actions of others (at least, via ‘cultural influence’), which – given the current cultural response to the voice of men – do not represent me even in the slightest. In fact, I can hardly think of any major institution further removed from my needs than my current government…except the last one….

Factory, while you responded to the demands from your “superiors” to jump with “how high?” and “yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir”, you were an accomplice in everything that your culture and political system stood for. As was I. After you saw the light, and when you began to speak out and assert your rights, you began to reject what they stood for. Only in speaking out and rejecting what your culture stands for can you establish that you are no longer an accomplice and that you are now an agent of positive change towards a new identity. Speaking out is your redemption and you are doing that. Where’s the problem?

Stephen Jarosek: “the thug first learns violence from his primary nurturer.”

Absolutely..”There is an alarmingly high rate of sexual abuse by females in the backgrounds of rapists, sex offenders and sexually aggressive men – 59% (Petrovich and Templer, 1984), 66% (Groth, 1979) and 80% (Briere and Smiljanich, 1993). A strong case for the need to identify female perpetrators can be found in Table 4, which presents the findings from a study of adolescent sex offenders by O’Brien (1989). Male adolescent sex offenders abused by “females only” chose female victims almost exclusively.”

Source: The Canadian Children’s Rights Council

rebukingfeminism . blogspot . com

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