[p2p-research] Intelligent People Have "Unnatural" Preferences And Values That Are Novel In...

Sat Mar 6 10:25:39 CET 2010

My view is that enforced social models for sexuality are strongly related to
the emergence of property and class society, though tribal societies had
different models, but in any case, I think it would be fair to observe that
these types of relationships have always been enforced culturally, in one
way or another .. there is probably no such think as a unsocialized
sexuality and relationality.

I think the Church's role in that is not so crucial, they came to marriage
pretty late in the game, and in all the countries without the Catholic
Church, sexual mores are enforced just as much if not more, though the
accepted modalities may be different ...

Where I differ I think is in the analysis that the nuclear family is so
crucial to contemporary capitalism, on the contrary, I think they are
perfectly happy with polyamorous  and perpetually searching singles, now 50%
in western cities, and that the  individual consumer is very compatible with
the current  version of capitalism ... If the nuclear family is deficient in
terms of the happy social survival of the individual, I think that this
enforced lonelyness is even more so.

I personally don't think that the perpetually desire-following ego, without
regard for committment, long term needs of others such as children, is the
pinnacle of human development, but that freely chosen committment, in
whatever form, and that could include a polyamorous group for that matter,
is a sign of an overcoming of such primary ego orientation ...

Personally, I think being alone sucks, marriage sucks, and free love sucks,
I've tried all of them, they all have their advantages and disadvantages.
But when it works, a single long lasting relationship is about the best
there is. A person is infinite, and when the love and the committment
remains, the poly actually diminishes the full experience and synergy with
the other,

The family is still also one of the few remaining mechanisms of true social
solidarity .. when you're really really in trouble, you will see that
neither friends nor the state can be fully relied on, but the family, mostly
always ...

As for the thought that simple unregulated desire is the way forward ...
Let's assume that your desire leads to very young persons? You probably will
agree that there will always be a line somewhere .. So the solution can
never be a full a-social sexuality

Being fully committed and polyamorous at the same time ... good luck to you,
I've known many that tried, but really just a precious few that succeeded,
so I don't see that as a credible social solution for the overall majority
of human beings, who appreciate a full committment, not just because
authority of guilt, but because of all the complicated emotional realities
and struggles that are unleashed when this is not the case

All we can wish for is of course, the freedom to experiment and see for
oneself, so good luck to you

Michel

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 8:12 PM, j.martin.pedersen <
m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:

>
>
> On 04/03/10 04:28, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > who exactly in the West can still be married against their will? and
> where's
> > the power of the Catholic Church?
>
> Combined with protestantism, just about everywhere, embedded in that
> thing called culture, self-policed by each and everyone of us, expressed
> in common conceptions of sin, guilt, morality in general and, of course,
> monogamy (Foucault became quite famous for related observations). Also
> embedded in the political and legal systems, expressed in tax-based
> incentives, for instance. All connected to the rest of the patriarchal
> package deal that capitalists and church fathers have put together. Try
> a mainstream romantic or drama movie about relationships to see how it
> is perpetuated all the time.
>
> Additionally, the protestant work ethics in great part drives the
> economy (see Max Weber on that issue). Euro-America is thoroughly
> Christian and has been socially glued by a crusade on "the other" that
> has been unfolding with varying degrees of intensity for the last 1000
> years - currently "concealed" in the mantra "War on Terror" and the
> openly stated in rhetoric about freedom and democracy (i.e. the
> capitalist gospel).
>
> Christian power is all around us, inside us and between us.
>
> > so essentially, for most of us, monogamy is an expression of free will,
>
> Monogamy is not about being forced to be married or not. (Besides, what
> is "free will"?)
>
> > staying together in the absense of love of course still exists, but
> probably
> > as a complex social calculation involving many factors ...
>
> Monogamy is not about staying together or not, but about staying
> together ONLY with one. You can remain deeply, sincerely in love with
> and be fully committed to one person for your entire adult life, but
> still lead a polyamorous life. What marks the difference between the two
> - the moral/cultural force that divides the two (where the "other" could
> take a thousand different forms, yet are kept in check by the legacy of
> the church, and in fact arguments have been made that tie the rise of
> the nuclear family to the rise of capitalism (see especially Silvia
> Federici's "Caliban and the Witch" but also many others) - in great part
> finds its origin in the christian church.
>
> Monogamy, as derived from the church and from capitalist demands, is a
> force that seeks to curb the desire to be attracted to others, causes a
> tension because it forbids such attraction, which is pretty inevitable,
> deems it morally wrong, incorrect behaviour, leading to internal
> conflict. Divided and conquered we stand, or fall, rather. The nuclear
> family - the monogamous, stable unit, which must remain stable for the
> economy to be stable - is the core of reproduction (the reproductive
> ciruit, if you want) in the capitalist economy.
>
> As part of neoliberalism, moreover, christianity is on the rise in
> Euro-American culture, because outsourcing of social welfare often means
> that it is taken on by the church (you get help on the condition that
> you go to church) and in US public policy advice and consultation the
> x-tians are gaining strength, running workshops etc. (..see the work on
> civil society by Max Stackhouse for proud statements of breaking down
> the division of state and church in that respect).
>
> > reading the many messages that social players send out through
> advertising
> > etc... i.e. permanent sexual stimulation, you would rather think that
> > contemporary capitalism favours multiple impermanent relationships, and
> that
> > monogamy is a conscious counterchoice
>
> I think this is upside down: monogamy is a culturally enforced
> phenomenon, derived from religion and economic demands, and "the many
> messages that social players send out through advertising" are more
> likely constitutive of a reaction to that oppression, if they are at all
> related in that sense. Much more probable is the simple fact that sex
> sells and that it sells even better in a culture where monogamy is a de
> facto (self-)enforced value, because it plays on internal conflicts etc.
>
> - martin
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>

-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100306/afd2627f/attachment.html>