The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Sex, Science, Monogamy and Survival

Posted on | July 13, 2010 | 31 Comments

While checking in to see what Dave Weigel was doing at Andrew Sullivan’s “Daily Dish” — addressing the Trig Truther problem, among other things — I came across Chris Bodener’s latest post in a series, “The Evolutionary Case Against Monogamy,” which is every bit the bass-ackward exercise in Darwinian pretzel-logic that you might imagine.

Let’s begin with what should be an obvious question: Which requires more discipline to achieve, chastity or promiscuity?

We may consider it self-evident that virtue requires discipline, and discipline demands greater intellectual focus than does decadence. A major reason promiscuity has traditionally been stigmatized — and is still disdained by wise people — is that it is so frequently associated with other vices, including sloth and dishonesty. And this is true of societies as well as individuals. Ancient Rome declined in large measure because its leadership caste, once stubbornly attached to hardy virtue, became decadent and corrupt. Thorough knowledge of that history informed the concerns of the American founders most famously expressed by John Adams:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Once we elevate our gaze above the level of mere mammalian biology (the mating habits of bonobo chimps, etc.) and study the actual history of human civilizations, we can see the folly of any argument that aims at the derogation of pre-marital chastity and marital fidelity. And the “evolutionary” argument is as easily disproven as any of them.

Humans are not mere beasts, and human survival is dependent on many factors absent in the animal kingdom, where instinct suffices. For mankind to propagate, advance and flourish — to succeed as a species — requires that the young be nurtured and taught the skills, habits and beliefs that have sustained their ancestors. While it is possible for individual humans to survive anarchy, violence and poverty, it is impossible for human society to progress under such conditions.

Progress requires a sense of permanence and continuity, the notion that there is a future for which we must prepare. The integrity of the family historically has been protected by law because peace, stability and order are necessary to the general advancement and improvement of mankind’s condition.

“The cultural achievement of a people can be correlated with the degree of sexual continence they observe; and indeed is directly based upon it. Societies . . . which place no restriction . . . upon the early satisfaction of the sexual impulses, are at a ‘dead level of conception’; they possess the power of reason but they do not apply it to the world of their experience; a sense of responsibility has no place in their social vision.”
– Raymond Firth, reviewing Unwin’s Sex and Culture (1934)

After a half-century of encroaching decadence in America, we now have many soi-dissant intellectuals about whom we might well say, “a sense of responsibility has no place in their social vision.” Their misanthropic contempt for our inherited traditions is not coincidentally related to their lack of concern for our legacy to the future:

“To live for the moment is the prevailing passion— to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future.”
—Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (1979)

Faithfulness to ancient vows and a concern for long-term interests — not only one’s own interests, but the interests of one’s spouse, children and community – requires a larger vision than the puerile short-sightedness that would urge us to pursue the ultimately destructive impulses of selfish hedonism.

Those who resort to anthropological or biological justifications for promiscuity are transparently attempting to provide a patina of scientific authority for an ideology of selfishness, urging us to adopt habits incompatible with our survival as a civilization. If we imitate the sexual habits of bonobos, we can’t complain if the result is a Culture of Savagery, characterized by inhuman cruelty.

When we see authors calling for “a more flexible approach to sexual fidelity” in the name of science, we ought to be as skeptical of their science as we are of their motives. Personally, I wouldn’t trust such people any farther than I could throw them, and the fact that Andrew Sullivan relies on such “scientists” . . . Well, that’s not exactly a strong recommendation, is it?

At any rate, monogamy is very directly related to my own personal survival. You see, Mrs. Other McCain has a kitchen full of knives, and I’ve got to sleep sometime.

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Category: Culture, Science, Sex

Comments

  • http://homeschooling911.com Anne Galivan

    FANTASTIC post! I am going to be linking to this on my own blog, and retweeting it as well. Have not read such a well thought-out, researched article on this subject in a long time (maybe ever!)

    Way to go!

  • http://homeschooling911.com Anne Galivan

    FANTASTIC post! I am going to be linking to this on my own blog, and retweeting it as well. Have not read such a well thought-out, researched article on this subject in a long time (maybe ever!)

    Way to go!

  • goddessoftheclassroom

    Very well said.
    I would only add that it’s hard to have self-respect without self-denial.

  • goddessoftheclassroom

    Very well said.
    I would only add that it’s hard to have self-respect without self-denial.

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  • Joe

    As for declining cultural standards, I am pretty sure Adams would have been disgusted by Jersey Shore. The Romans had Nero and Caligula and we have Snooki and The Situation.

    As for Darwin, this story reminded me of him. Is there an award for close calls?

  • Joe

    As for declining cultural standards, I am pretty sure Adams would have been disgusted by Jersey Shore. The Romans had Nero and Caligula and we have Snooki and The Situation.

    As for Darwin, this story reminded me of him. Is there an award for close calls?

  • Joe

    Bonobos are not particularly savage (as chimps go). They just like to eat fruit and have sex all day. In a way, an anthromorphized vision some people’s vacation this week.

    But cultures evolve too. Monongamy was a form of cutural evolution to ensure the most number of children survived to adulthood. And it has worked fairly well for about 10,000 years (probably longer than that). And for the most part it is universal. When you take the goal of children out of the equation, well then pleasure for pleasure’s sake becomes the only virtue.

  • Joe

    Bonobos are not particularly savage (as chimps go). They just like to eat fruit and have sex all day. In a way, an anthromorphized vision some people’s vacation this week.

    But cultures evolve too. Monongamy was a form of cutural evolution to ensure the most number of children survived to adulthood. And it has worked fairly well for about 10,000 years (probably longer than that). And for the most part it is universal. When you take the goal of children out of the equation, well then pleasure for pleasure’s sake becomes the only virtue.

  • MrPaulRevere

    This should be required reading for Mel Gibson. Another home run by Mr. McCain, the Lou Gehrig of the blogosphere.

  • MrPaulRevere

    This should be required reading for Mel Gibson. Another home run by Mr. McCain, the Lou Gehrig of the blogosphere.

  • Rob

    I concur with Anne. Did Mrs.McCain buy CutCo knives? :) hehe

  • Rob

    I concur with Anne. Did Mrs.McCain buy CutCo knives? :) hehe

  • Adobe Walls

    If starting tomorrow all who are virgins remained virgins until marriage and monogamous after marriage STDs would be eliminated in a Generation or two.

  • Adobe Walls

    If starting tomorrow all who are virgins remained virgins until marriage and monogamous after marriage STDs would be eliminated in a Generation or two.

  • http://teaparty-editor.blogspot.com T.L. Davis

    Monogamy is simply the ability of the human species to overcome nature. As a Christian, I believe that this is proof of God. Without God, to what purpose would men deny themselves their urges? Oh, Mrs. Other McCain might be a reason. Nevermind.

  • http://teaparty-editor.blogspot.com T.L. Davis

    Monogamy is simply the ability of the human species to overcome nature. As a Christian, I believe that this is proof of God. Without God, to what purpose would men deny themselves their urges? Oh, Mrs. Other McCain might be a reason. Nevermind.

  • Estragon

    Joe @ #5 ~ Just so! It was the development of monogamy – “heterosexual marriage,” if you will – which enabled social and cultural progress at all.

    In the most primitive societies, men hunted and women gathered, and men sought to impregnate as many different women as possible – according to the animal instinct, this was the way to ensure one’s genes were perpetuated. But the practical effects were something different entirely: women with infants were expected to also gather with the others, because the addition of mouths to feed meant that ever more must be gathered. The children were not nurtured to the extent they might have been, and mortality was high.

    Where monogamy took hold, division of labor was rearranged, men took responsibility for their spouse and children because they could expect those children to be their own progeny, and this proved a successful means of propagating the species as well as establishing a regime of survival which ultimately led to more adult laborers, and a viable society.

    I have deliberately avoided religious references because the benefits of monogamous marriage transcend religious affiliation. No polyamorous societies survived; the only polygamous societies which survived did so via conquest (theft of resources) or luck (like oil being found on the desert you wandered and the idiots who found it deciding it belonged to you, or allowing you to take it).

    Monogamy permitted humanity to not only survive, but to prosper. Leaving all moral and religious questions aside, it is the pragmatic and practical ideal.

  • Estragon

    Joe @ #5 ~ Just so! It was the development of monogamy – “heterosexual marriage,” if you will – which enabled social and cultural progress at all.

    In the most primitive societies, men hunted and women gathered, and men sought to impregnate as many different women as possible – according to the animal instinct, this was the way to ensure one’s genes were perpetuated. But the practical effects were something different entirely: women with infants were expected to also gather with the others, because the addition of mouths to feed meant that ever more must be gathered. The children were not nurtured to the extent they might have been, and mortality was high.

    Where monogamy took hold, division of labor was rearranged, men took responsibility for their spouse and children because they could expect those children to be their own progeny, and this proved a successful means of propagating the species as well as establishing a regime of survival which ultimately led to more adult laborers, and a viable society.

    I have deliberately avoided religious references because the benefits of monogamous marriage transcend religious affiliation. No polyamorous societies survived; the only polygamous societies which survived did so via conquest (theft of resources) or luck (like oil being found on the desert you wandered and the idiots who found it deciding it belonged to you, or allowing you to take it).

    Monogamy permitted humanity to not only survive, but to prosper. Leaving all moral and religious questions aside, it is the pragmatic and practical ideal.

  • Tom Maguire

    “Faithfulness to ancient vows and a concern for long-term interests — not only one’s own interests, but the interests of one’s spouse, children and community – requires a larger vision than the puerile short-sightedness that would urge us to pursue the ultimately destructive impulses of selfish hedonism.”

    The global warming crowd certainly has a long range vision…

  • Tom Maguire

    “Faithfulness to ancient vows and a concern for long-term interests — not only one’s own interests, but the interests of one’s spouse, children and community – requires a larger vision than the puerile short-sightedness that would urge us to pursue the ultimately destructive impulses of selfish hedonism.”

    The global warming crowd certainly has a long range vision…

  • http://www.whitehouse.gov Barack Obama

    I am 100% faithful to Michelle.

    It is a combination of love and fear of being beaten to death. I doubt even the Secret Service could drop her before she inflicted serious damage.

  • http://www.whitehouse.gov Barack Obama

    I am 100% faithful to Michelle.

    It is a combination of love and fear of being beaten to death. I doubt even the Secret Service could drop her before she inflicted serious damage.

  • http://threebeerslater.blogspot.com Richard McEnroe

    Actually, you can understand pretty much any leftist political movement by studying chimpanzee packs.

  • http://threebeerslater.blogspot.com Richard McEnroe

    Actually, you can understand pretty much any leftist political movement by studying chimpanzee packs.

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  • http://artemisretriever.blogspot.com/ Retriever

    Thanks for cheering me up after this depressing re read: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/new-dating-game which AVI linked to.

    Love your post, and am sure my spouse has similar good reasons for holding fast to monogamy (apart from the fact that he likes my dinners better than any restaurant)

  • http://artemisretriever.blogspot.com/ Retriever

    Thanks for cheering me up after this depressing re read: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/new-dating-game which AVI linked to.

    Love your post, and am sure my spouse has similar good reasons for holding fast to monogamy (apart from the fact that he likes my dinners better than any restaurant)

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  • Occam’s Tool

    Control of sexual urges allows for sublimation, which is a psychological defense that creates accomplishments. In other words, Bill Clinton was more productive as a President with his pants zippered.

  • Occam’s Tool

    Control of sexual urges allows for sublimation, which is a psychological defense that creates accomplishments. In other words, Bill Clinton was more productive as a President with his pants zippered.

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