A place where women rule.

Ophelia · Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 12:54 pm Post subject:

Thanks a lot , Lawrence,

I've read the first part of the story. So far it's suspense, suspense... Smile

DWill · Freshman Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 249 Gender:

Saffron · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 4:02 am Post subject:

I have to agree with DWill about using the concept of Darwinian evolution to describe how culture changes over time. It just does not fit. Evolution is based on the idea of natural section (i.e. traits that increase an organisms change of surviving long enough to reproduce and increasing offspring survival). You can not apply these concepts to cultural traits. For one, culture is learned and created by people. There are countless examples of cultural practices or cultural ideas that are ultimately counter to increasing or maintaining the successful reproduction and survival of healthy offspring. In thinking about this you have to jump to thinking about it in big time, not quite geological time, but bigger than decades and centuries. Take for example of the current trend in the western world away from breastfeeding infants; as in only about 15-20 % of women are breastfeeding at 6 months and that's not even exclusive breastfeeding. On the surface the cultural practice of bottle feeding seems like an advance; Dad gets to participate and bond, Mom gets to sleep, caregiver can control amount of milk, "quality control" of product; Mom is freed from the restraint of needing to be with infant. Cultural advance right? No. Milk is a living fluid; living cells pass from mother to child and these cells function inside the baby's body. Human breast milk has components that support and stimulate brain growth that can not be replicated in artificial baby formulas. A human's immune system is not fully developed until about the age of 5. At birth the immune system is just about non-existent. The living cells in breast milk are from the mother's immune system. Through the mother's milk the child receives the full benefit of the mother's immune system. One of the things scientist find when they study individual that are breastfeed (more than just a few weeks) is that their rates of autoimmune diseases are much lower. I read in the Washington Post just about a month ago that scientist are seeing a dramatic increase in autoimmune diseases. The article went into all the areas that scientists are investigating to locate the "cause" of such a dramatic upswing. pollution, viruses, environmental conditions were all suggested as possible culprits, but no mention of breastfeeding or the lack of. I would say that autoimmune diseases is a weakening of the species. And this is to say nothing of the other subtle changes that occur as a result of using artificial baby milks. How will these changes play out over hundreds of years? How can we account for the cultural practice of bottle feeding using evolution? I don't think we can.

Robert Tulip · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 6:53 am Post subject:

We can apply evolutionary theory to culture. The example of breast feeding is really interesting. It superficially appears that bottle feeding is better, for the reasons of convenience outlined by Saffron, but there are bigger deeper hidden reasons why breast is best. Hence the apparent evolution towards bottle feeding is contested, and the two methods will co-exist to the extent that they are adaptive. Purely Darwinian. A similar example is that people prefer living in warm climates, but it seems the rigors of cold climates have benefits. Similarly in the Chinese theory of dynastic change, a culture evolves to become soft and is replaced by a new hard culture.

Richard Dawkins introduced the concept of cultural evolution with his concept of the meme. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme says a meme is:

President Camacho · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 9:37 am Post subject:

That is really interesting!!!!

Meme - it has a name. I need to do some reading it seems. I feel like I'm always way way way way behind.

Saffron · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 8:10 pm Post subject:

Hey,
I'm a little late in coming to this discussion. I hope you don't mind that I am going to respond to something posted early on in the discussion.

The prez wrote:

Saffron · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 8:28 pm Post subject:

Again I am responding to an earlier post by, you guessed it, The Prez, in which he is referring to the original Washington Post article that started the thread:

Saffron · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 8:37 pm Post subject:

One more thing. Why do we have to call women standing up for their human rights, feminism? And if that is the definition of feminism, how could being a feminist be anything but positive? Is there a special term for men stand up for their human rights?

Saffron

President Camacho · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 8:48 pm Post subject:

Feminism is a movement with positive and negative aspects. It isn't just about gaining rights for women. It's about degrading a certain type of woman and promoting another. This isn't a great thing if you love being the 'wrong' type of woman. My mom is the 'wrong' type of woman and she's a great old gal!

The shelter for abused women doesn't apply to this particular situation. You're referring to something within something... not the something itself. There is a large difference here even if I'm not up to fully explaining my point.

You sort of contradict yourself in your first post. You imply that there needs to be a support structure for females and then you say that the most basic unit of society is woman and child. I don't understand. Without support from either other females or males the child wouldn't be born/survive early childhood and the female might not even survive pregnancy. If this is the case then nothing can emanate from just woman and child. There needs to be more people.

I could definitely be wrong about this...!

Saffron · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 9:02 pm Post subject:

Prez:


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