This morning, I received in my email a long essay, written (EDIT: or rather, quoted; this person has since said she isn’t the original author of the piece) by one of the founders of the New Age, Tantric-sex-loving “World Polyamory Association,” claiming that polyamory can save the world. The reasoning, if it can be described with that word, is very straightforward. The essay begins with
Polyamory – the answer to the hate of our world …
Polyamory is not about deception – devious behaviour, wantonness, lust, passion, licentious behaviour or wreckless [sic] abandon. It’s about the ability to see beyond the narrow forms of society’s restrictive norms – be able to reach out … touch, offer … share and grow.
Love is about being compassionate, giving, sharing … becoming whole – not destroying all that is about us … the negative, destructive … evil by-products of hate. Love is about connecting and forming that special bond with those whom we love. It is about reaching – attaining a higher plain in our evolutionary stage as homo sapiens.
When the world has lost all concept of humanism – waging wars – devastation & destruction… outright genocide – killing millions of innocent people (women and children) it no longer possesses any moral compass. We have been rendered to the lowest ebb of what civilization was ever meant to be.
It goes on from there, asserting that since polyamory is about love and that war and terror are about hate, the solution to war and terror is more love–ie, polyamory. Now, I happen to think this idea is bunk, for a number of reasons, but I didn’t come here to talk about polyamory at all. I came to talk about the nature of war, and the nature of hate.
It’s a mistake to believe that love is the opposite of hate. Human emotions aren’t so simple. Love and hate do not exist on opposite ends of the Great Continuum of Feeling, and increasing the number of people one loves does not necessarily move a person away from hate. In fact, it is quite possible, and indeed altogether common, for a person to love some people, and hate some other people, and adding names to the list of people in the “loved” category does not remove names from the list of people in the “hated” category. Only a shallow and tenuous grasp of human emotional behavior would suggest otherwise.
In fact, love can be the genesis of hate, and can sometimes even provide a fertile field in which hate can grow.
Consider, for example, the Palestinian refugee whose beloved family is killed by an Israeli bomb, or the mother of a child killed in the World Trade Center. The loss of a loved one usually results in a strong emotional response, and if a person feels that those he loves have been taken from him with malice, his love for those who were lost can fuel his hate for those he perceives as responsible for that loss. Combine loss with a feeling of powerlessness, hopelessness, or despair, and you can easily end up with a person who expresses his pain and hate by strapping dynamite to his body and blowing himself up in a roadside cafe.
It need not even take any act of malice for this to happen. Anyone who’s survived a divorce or the end of a romantic relationship is likely familiar with how easily and how completely love can transition into hate. The person who one once shared his life, his home, and his bed can become a threatening, spiteful monster in his eyes overnight; the loss of something valued leads to grief, anger is a normal and natural part of the grieving process, and anger is fertile ground indeed for hate.
This is not helped at all by the fact that we tend to look in the outside world for things which justify our emotional responses. Look for reasons to hate someone, and they become easy–trivial, even–to find. So much of the way we perceive other people is in interpretation. If we believe, rightly or wrongly, that someone means us ill, we interpret that person’s behavior very differently than we might if we perceive they love us; and that perception can make the love or the ill real.
There’s a monkeysphere issue at work here, too. At the end of the day, our monkeyspheres–the sum total of those people with whom we can form meaningful, intimate emotional connections–is finite. Not only is it finite, it’s pitifully small; perhaps a hundred and fifty people or so. Past that point, we start taking shortcuts–lumping people into groups, and considering them only in terms of the group to which we’ve assigned them.
There are people who say they love everyone, or they love the whole human race. Those people are full of shit, at least if you are talking about meaningful, intimate bonds of love rather than a vague, poorly-defined, general sense of generic goodwill toward all of mankind. The silliness in the idea that it’s possible to love everyone is exposed by a simple thought experiment: did you mourn the deaths of the hundreds of people killed in the Philippines last month like you would the loss of your lover, or your child? Would it even be possible to function if you did? If the lives and deaths of everyone in the world impacted you the way the lives and deaths of those most intimate to you did, would you be able to survive at all?
The monkeysphere sets an upper limit on those we can love, yet it the same does not apply to hate; love is a uniquely personal, uniquely intimate experience, but we as human beings seem capable of hating people as a class or a group. Witness only those who hate all blacks, or all Jews, or all Americans, or all Arabs, and the fanaticism and obsession with which that hatred burns. We can not seem to love in the same way; one can not feel a deeply personal love for all Muslims, but people can and do feel a deeply personal hatred for all Muslims, or members of any other group, and build the entire shape of their lives around that hate.
Is love the answer to war? Answering that question requires understanding why wars are fought, and that understanding sometimes runs counter to intuition.
Wars are sometimes fought for reasons at least partially rooted in emotion, it is true. It’s not terribly difficult to support the notion that the bitter conflicts in the Middle East are fueled at least as often by equally bitter personal hate as they are by more prosaic concerns, such as control of economic resources.
But it’s not always so straightforward.
Let’s take a look at a very simple question. You are the leader of one nation; I am the leader of another. Your army has four divisions of troops. My army has ten. Our troops are in all respects equally matched. Our nations are at war. When will our war end?
This is the basis of an article with a nonintuitive answer to the question. The most simple answer, of course, says that the war will end when our armies engage in battle, and my ten divisions destroy your four divisions. But is that actually the case?
A sociologist might say that the war will end before it even begins. Given that the outcome is certain, your best course of action is to surrender before a shot is fired; if we do go to war, you will lose your entire army, and you will lose the war.
But in the real world, the answer is neither of the above. The answer is that the war will end when one of us reaches a point past which we are unwilling to accept further loss. Even if my army dominates yours entirely, even if my soldiers kill 170 of your soldiers for every man I lose (as was the case with US and North Vietnamese armies in Viet Nam), if you are willing to sustain losses that are sufficiently greater than the losses I sustain, you will win and I will lose. War then becomes a question of information theory; we will know the victor when we know the point at which one of us is unwilling to sustain further losses.
So. Back to the question at hand. Why do we fight wars? We fight wars because you and I have different and mutually incompatible goals. How do we fight wars? We fight wars by inflicting pain on one another until one of us reaches the point at which we are no longer willing to tolerate any additional pain. This process may be hateful, but it need not be driven by hate; two competing armies do not necessarily hate one another, and nations that were once embraced in war, such as Japan and the United States, can upon the conclusion of that war be embraced as allies.
But the process of inflicting pain during the prosecution of that war can breed hate, and love is not the answer to that hate; indeed, love can be the progenitor of that hate. If in the process of inflicting pain upon your nation, I deprive your people of something that they love, I will breed in your people a hatred for me. This hatred can actually increase the amount of pain you are willing to withstand; if I deprive your people of that which they love, they no longer have anything left to lose, and a person with nothing to lose can withstand just about any pain. A person with nothing to lose can become a dangerous person indeed, as many governments throughout the world might be well-advised to remember.
A person capable of love is capable also of hate. A person who loses that which he loves can easily turn to hate, whether that loss comes through the irreconcilable differences that end a marriage or the acts of malice that begin a war. More love does not mean less hate, for love is fundamentally bounded and hate, sadly, seems not to be.
In the scheme of world events, polyamory is essentially irrelevant. It is a relationship model, nothing more. It does not breed love nor turn hate to love, and people who adopt this relationship model are as capable of malice and spite as those who adopt any other–witness the dot_poly_snark community. In fact, I submit that the belief that polyamorous people are somehow more enlightened, wiser, or more evolved than their poor plodding monogamous brethren is nothing more than narrow elitism, no different save in the details than the belief that whites are somehow better than blacks. Believing one’s self to belong to a class of people superior in any dimension to the rest of the people with whom we share this planet does not breed love, but it certainly can and does breed hate–a nice irony, if one believes the class of people to which he belongs is superior because it is more loving.
As a libertarian, I believe that polyamory will actually cause currency to stabilize (in emulation of privatized competitive currency backed by gold.)
My reasoning is that the gold standard is love. And polyamory means more love. Which means the gold standard.
Right?
Less facetiously, I think the underlying fallacy is “things I like are intrinsically and logically connected to each other.”
I like polyamory, I like peace, therefore polyamory and peace are linked.
It’s similar to the fallacy “things I don’t like are intrinsically and logically connected to each other.”
Both are psychologically compelling but easily falsifiable.
If the gold standard is love, then it follows logically that South Africa, the world’s largest producer of gold, is the most loving nation on earth. Which follows, because South Africa is the largest international trafficker in forced sexual exploitation, and since polyamory is about sex with more than one person, and South Africa sells people for sex in exchange for gold, then we can conclude that love is having sex with the gold standard.
Kinda like this?
Goldfinger is love!
Ah, but this means Dire Straits was confused.
Of course, your theory would explain the HIV/AIDS problem there.
As a libertarian, I believe that polyamory will actually cause currency to stabilize (in emulation of privatized competitive currency backed by gold.)
My reasoning is that the gold standard is love. And polyamory means more love. Which means the gold standard.
Right?
Fascinating as always. I tried to imagine who-all might be in Dubya’s monkeysphere, but nausea set in very quickly and I had to stop.
Your arguments make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, hate is one of those alligator-brain emotions, and so I don’t think the human race will be getting enlightened anytime soon…
I rather suspect that hate will be with us for so long as we are recognizably human, and certainly will be with us for so long as love is with us.
Well, apparently he things German Prime Minister Angela Merkel is, but she doesn’t look happy about it
*THINKS
Fascinating as always. I tried to imagine who-all might be in Dubya’s monkeysphere, but nausea set in very quickly and I had to stop.
Your arguments make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, hate is one of those alligator-brain emotions, and so I don’t think the human race will be getting enlightened anytime soon…
Less facetiously, I think the underlying fallacy is “things I like are intrinsically and logically connected to each other.”
I like polyamory, I like peace, therefore polyamory and peace are linked.
It’s similar to the fallacy “things I don’t like are intrinsically and logically connected to each other.”
Both are psychologically compelling but easily falsifiable.
I’m what I think of as a ‘good lefty’ *because* of the monkeysphere.
More social justice = less bitterness and hate (I hope), more people living better lives.
Seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? I think, too, a lot of fiscal conservatives are conservative because of the monkeysphere–“Why should I let some poor bum in some other city somewhere have all the money I’ve worked so hard to have?” Poor people in inner cities are outside the monkeysphere of the fiscal conservative, and therefore the fiscal conservative is hostile to them and indifferent to their suffering.
I think the biggest difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals think about the secondary and tertiary effects of their decisions with regard to welfare; a conservative thinks “My money is being taken away from me and given to bums, and I have less money and I don’t like that,” whereas the liberal thinks “My money is being taken away from me and given to people whose condition isn’t as good as mine, and this process helps to better their condition, removing the impetus to commit crimes and giving them the opportunity to gain the tools they need to become better able to function in society; this benefits society through decreased crime and increased opportunity for the economy to expand as lower-income people gain new skills, become higher-income people, and become able to buy iPods and Razrs and other products that help stimulate the economy; therefore, I become better off.” Though, of course, that could be my own particular biases talking. 🙂
:::nods:::
My attitude is that all the infrastructure and services I’ve ever used came from somewhere, and belonging to a beneficial society costs money.
The fiscal conservatives can go live out in the bush without tools for all of me…we ordinary people paid for and go on paying for a lot of stuff they get to use gratis for their business.
Actually, I don’t think you’re biased. The stats are there: when there is less poverty (smaller) businesses thrive.
:::nods:::
My attitude is that all the infrastructure and services I’ve ever used came from somewhere, and belonging to a beneficial society costs money.
The fiscal conservatives can go live out in the bush without tools for all of me…we ordinary people paid for and go on paying for a lot of stuff they get to use gratis for their business.
Actually, I don’t think you’re biased. The stats are there: when there is less poverty (smaller) businesses thrive.
right, this definition is going to
and here it is: http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/5759046.html
And WOW is the conservative hatred flowing LOL
My goodness, can we get any more close-minded and ignorant of their own position? This reminds me of the Christianity argument, where people claim to be of a certain party, then know absolutely nothing about the history and doctorine of said party and get all upset when someone reminds them because *they* are not like *that*! Sorry, if you claim to be part of a group of people, and the reason that group is a group is because of a philosophy they claim to believe in, then you are implying you believe in that philosophy too. You can’t say “I’m God-Is-A-Space-Alien-ite, but I don’t believe that god is actually a space alien” – uh, sorry, then you’re not a God-Is-A-Space-Alien-ite, by definition.
I think a lot of “conservatives” are people who don’t agree with the ultra-liberal hippie sect and have some less-radical ideas (i.e. conservative by English definition, not necessarily by Political definition, since there are political “radicals” on both sides) on how we should live, and therefore align themselves with Conservative politicians because the politicians are advocating certain specific concepts, whatever happens to be hot in the news that day, that the “conservative” individual happens to agree with. So, without any understanding or knowledge of what the Conservative Party stands for or the initial ideals it was created under – the Political definition of “conservative” – , they call themselves “conservative” because they’re not Peace & Free Love Hippie Communists, or something. They’re mixing up the common English definition of the word with the political definition of a party name. As an example, the Democrat Party (I think, my history is rusty) was actually the party that held what is now known as the Conservative Party, originally and they have since flipped.
They’re also not accepting (except for one person) that stereotypes are created for a reason: that there are many individuals within a given group who do fall under that description and the description is usually the extreme members of that group. It may not be accurate of every individual within the group, but if it wasn’t true for many, it wouldn’t have gained status as a “stereotype” to begin with. Plus, it was an “extreme” comment used to illustrate a point.
Not to mention a distinct lack of understanding in the reasons why they make their own choices. Such as the guy who says “how about those of us who do it because it’s right, not because it’s better for society”. Uh, why is it right? Because god said so? Because it makes you feel good? Because when we create a standard of living that benefits all members of society, we as individuals make out too? It’s right just because it is, damnit! *sheesh*
well, not to stereotype but a hallmark of current conservatives is a lack of reasoning & logic 😉
So you’re saying that liberals think more than conservatives? That does seem to be a robust theory, supportable with ample evidence.
Of course, for the ultimate test, we should see if fiscal liberals or conservatives are on average better at chess.
So you’re saying that liberals think more than conservatives?
Hmm. Now that’s one way to look at it…
In all fairness, though, the “capitalism is bad, globalism is bad, Monsanto corn will turn you into a three-headed mutant, we should all abandon the cities and live on collective farms” style liberals don’t much get my vote for the critical and analytical thinking skills, much…
I don’t even consider them liberal. They strike me more as anti-conservative reactionaries. All the dogma, all the drama, but now in new flavors!
I’m what I think of as a ‘good lefty’ *because* of the monkeysphere.
More social justice = less bitterness and hate (I hope), more people living better lives.
Very intriguing and well-written post — thanks for sharing it!
Very intriguing and well-written post — thanks for sharing it!
great deal of work to do, and a crushing deadline
Wow. We certainly benefit with cool posts when you’re trying to avoid work. *grin*
Re: great deal of work to do, and a crushing deadline
Heh. And the deadline is Thursday. We’ll se how this week goes in LJ land…
great deal of work to do, and a crushing deadline
Wow. We certainly benefit with cool posts when you’re trying to avoid work. *grin*
“World Polyamory Association” is Sascha and Janet Lessin having an attack of megalomania. S’okay; they were nuts *before* they were poly.
best,
Joel. Who still thinks they’re nice people, most of the time.
Janet’s a perfectly nice lady. Doesn’t mean I agree with most of what she says. But we have great chats via IM and she seems fairly sane in conversation. 🙂
I agree that she’s perfectly nice; our opinions of her sanity differ. Though mostly she just eggs Sascha on.
best,
Joel
Please note I said “SEEMS” in IMs lol
To be fair, Janet now says she didn’t write the original essay–she simply quoted it. I’ve never met either one of them in person, but I’ve had a few…err, encounters with them online. I think it’s fair to say we do not have compatible world views (space aliens from the Tenth Planet coming to Earth to mine for gold, anyone?).
Hmmmmm. Next time we chat I’ll have to ask her what her opinions are on ultraviolet light…
“World Polyamory Association” is Sascha and Janet Lessin having an attack of megalomania. S’okay; they were nuts *before* they were poly.
best,
Joel. Who still thinks they’re nice people, most of the time.
If the gold standard is love, then it follows logically that South Africa, the world’s largest producer of gold, is the most loving nation on earth. Which follows, because South Africa is the largest international trafficker in forced sexual exploitation, and since polyamory is about sex with more than one person, and South Africa sells people for sex in exchange for gold, then we can conclude that love is having sex with the gold standard.
I rather suspect that hate will be with us for so long as we are recognizably human, and certainly will be with us for so long as love is with us.
Seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? I think, too, a lot of fiscal conservatives are conservative because of the monkeysphere–“Why should I let some poor bum in some other city somewhere have all the money I’ve worked so hard to have?” Poor people in inner cities are outside the monkeysphere of the fiscal conservative, and therefore the fiscal conservative is hostile to them and indifferent to their suffering.
I think the biggest difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals think about the secondary and tertiary effects of their decisions with regard to welfare; a conservative thinks “My money is being taken away from me and given to bums, and I have less money and I don’t like that,” whereas the liberal thinks “My money is being taken away from me and given to people whose condition isn’t as good as mine, and this process helps to better their condition, removing the impetus to commit crimes and giving them the opportunity to gain the tools they need to become better able to function in society; this benefits society through decreased crime and increased opportunity for the economy to expand as lower-income people gain new skills, become higher-income people, and become able to buy iPods and Razrs and other products that help stimulate the economy; therefore, I become better off.” Though, of course, that could be my own particular biases talking. 🙂
Re: great deal of work to do, and a crushing deadline
Heh. And the deadline is Thursday. We’ll se how this week goes in LJ land…
:::nods:::
My attitude is that all the infrastructure and services I’ve ever used came from somewhere, and belonging to a beneficial society costs money.
The fiscal conservatives can go live out in the bush without tools for all of me…we ordinary people paid for and go on paying for a lot of stuff they get to use gratis for their business.
Actually, I don’t think you’re biased. The stats are there: when there is less poverty (smaller) businesses thrive.
:::nods:::
My attitude is that all the infrastructure and services I’ve ever used came from somewhere, and belonging to a beneficial society costs money.
The fiscal conservatives can go live out in the bush without tools for all of me…we ordinary people paid for and go on paying for a lot of stuff they get to use gratis for their business.
Actually, I don’t think you’re biased. The stats are there: when there is less poverty (smaller) businesses thrive.
Kinda like this?
Well, apparently he things German Prime Minister Angela Merkel is, but she doesn’t look happy about it
*THINKS
Goldfinger is love!
Janet’s a perfectly nice lady. Doesn’t mean I agree with most of what she says. But we have great chats via IM and she seems fairly sane in conversation. 🙂
right, this definition is going to
and here it is: http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/5759046.html
I agree that she’s perfectly nice; our opinions of her sanity differ. Though mostly she just eggs Sascha on.
best,
Joel
And WOW is the conservative hatred flowing LOL
Please note I said “SEEMS” in IMs lol
To be fair, Janet now says she didn’t write the original essay–she simply quoted it. I’ve never met either one of them in person, but I’ve had a few…err, encounters with them online. I think it’s fair to say we do not have compatible world views (space aliens from the Tenth Planet coming to Earth to mine for gold, anyone?).
Hmmmmm. Next time we chat I’ll have to ask her what her opinions are on ultraviolet light…
My goodness, can we get any more close-minded and ignorant of their own position? This reminds me of the Christianity argument, where people claim to be of a certain party, then know absolutely nothing about the history and doctorine of said party and get all upset when someone reminds them because *they* are not like *that*! Sorry, if you claim to be part of a group of people, and the reason that group is a group is because of a philosophy they claim to believe in, then you are implying you believe in that philosophy too. You can’t say “I’m God-Is-A-Space-Alien-ite, but I don’t believe that god is actually a space alien” – uh, sorry, then you’re not a God-Is-A-Space-Alien-ite, by definition.
I think a lot of “conservatives” are people who don’t agree with the ultra-liberal hippie sect and have some less-radical ideas (i.e. conservative by English definition, not necessarily by Political definition, since there are political “radicals” on both sides) on how we should live, and therefore align themselves with Conservative politicians because the politicians are advocating certain specific concepts, whatever happens to be hot in the news that day, that the “conservative” individual happens to agree with. So, without any understanding or knowledge of what the Conservative Party stands for or the initial ideals it was created under – the Political definition of “conservative” – , they call themselves “conservative” because they’re not Peace & Free Love Hippie Communists, or something. They’re mixing up the common English definition of the word with the political definition of a party name. As an example, the Democrat Party (I think, my history is rusty) was actually the party that held what is now known as the Conservative Party, originally and they have since flipped.
They’re also not accepting (except for one person) that stereotypes are created for a reason: that there are many individuals within a given group who do fall under that description and the description is usually the extreme members of that group. It may not be accurate of every individual within the group, but if it wasn’t true for many, it wouldn’t have gained status as a “stereotype” to begin with. Plus, it was an “extreme” comment used to illustrate a point.
Not to mention a distinct lack of understanding in the reasons why they make their own choices. Such as the guy who says “how about those of us who do it because it’s right, not because it’s better for society”. Uh, why is it right? Because god said so? Because it makes you feel good? Because when we create a standard of living that benefits all members of society, we as individuals make out too? It’s right just because it is, damnit! *sheesh*
Poly isn’t about PASSION??!! That’s kind of a sad commentary on the state of the author’s relationships I’d have to say. Just the part that jumped out at me…
Poly isn’t about PASSION??!! That’s kind of a sad commentary on the state of the author’s relationships I’d have to say. Just the part that jumped out at me…
well, not to stereotype but a hallmark of current conservatives is a lack of reasoning & logic 😉
So you’re saying that liberals think more than conservatives? That does seem to be a robust theory, supportable with ample evidence.
Of course, for the ultimate test, we should see if fiscal liberals or conservatives are on average better at chess.
Very well done.
Oh, and you made the hit parade again. Prepare yourself for an onslaught of lurkers linking over from my LJ.
Very well done.
Oh, and you made the hit parade again. Prepare yourself for an onslaught of lurkers linking over from my LJ.
Ah, but this means Dire Straits was confused.
Of course, your theory would explain the HIV/AIDS problem there.
So you’re saying that liberals think more than conservatives?
Hmm. Now that’s one way to look at it…
In all fairness, though, the “capitalism is bad, globalism is bad, Monsanto corn will turn you into a three-headed mutant, we should all abandon the cities and live on collective farms” style liberals don’t much get my vote for the critical and analytical thinking skills, much…
I don’t even consider them liberal. They strike me more as anti-conservative reactionaries. All the dogma, all the drama, but now in new flavors!