I watched a thing this morning, I know, I should have known better at this point. Thing watching and comment reading are banes unto my existence and I have no one to blame but myself. Today's thing was an examination of the links between having a penis and being a pedophile. What can I say, abnormal psychology is interesting and I couldn't help but wonder how they would justify that shit.
The problem arose around 5 minutes in when it became clear that a core component of their argument was evolutionary psychology. I have a few issues with psychology as a general thing but by and large I think it is well intended. Evolutionary psychology, however, seems to disproportionately focus on finding ways to justify being fucking terrible. There wont be a lot of links in this one, I don't want to contribute to the traffic of these cuntbags. If you're curious as to the veracity of my claims put on your grown-up pants and look it the fuck up.
*First let me just say that I quite firmly believe that are indeed evolutionary directives that can contribute to bad behavior. Greed, can easily be validated in a survivalist, high scarcity environment. Rape, while wholly fucked up, becomes an effective means of procreation in dire circumstances. Pedo- and hebophilia start making sense when a significant portion of the population doesn't live past twenty five and we really fucking need to breed. However, when considering the evolutionary value of any fucked up activity it is important to remember the context of all evolution. Survival. All "evolutionary behaviors" are fundamentally dependent upon a state of scarcity and an immanent need to survive as a species. The crease in this thinking arises when these behaviors start feeding on themselves and destabilizing the species that harbors them.
When your whole world is freezing over and you will probably only just barely find enough food to feed yourself, greed is handy. In this situation being a little greedy can keep you healthy enough to replace the neighbors who died of starvation and keeps your from dying alongside them. This mentality starts breaking down when we run into a situation where modern agricultural techniques could feed the world with relative ease. Outside a context of natural scarcity greed becomes monstrous.
When everyone absolutely needs to procreate for the species to survive, consent is secondary to success. It's fucked up but understandable. But when a significant percentage of the population could choose keep it perpetually in their pants and the rest would just keep soldiering on, consent goes from a preferable option to an obvious prerequisite.
We know better now. We understand that teenagers essentially have nothing more than hormonal paste between their ears. Anyone willing to show some attention is liable to garner an undue amount of affection from someone going through puberty, that's exploitation and we know it to be fucked up. We understand, at least those of us who actually qualify as people, that sex, gender, color, sexual preference and/or ability set do not have a bearing on what rights a person deserves. Every day more and more of us understand that manufacturing scarcity and hording resources is going to get all of us fucking killed.
Humans are animals, no rational person denies this. However, we don't have to be base. The whole of human history is driven by people developing techniques for overcoming scarcity, for making the question of survival obsolete. We are tripping ever closer to a world where these aren't problems so much as bitter memories, so why are we still clinging to a mentality dependent upon them? We have a responsibility to ourselves to progress, to move towards ever more wondrous futures. That requires not only striving for greater freedom and power, but greater civility and accountability. Crediting behavior to evolutionary factors removes accountability just as readily as an omnipotent egomaniac in the sky. I'm all for examining our words and actions, but only to find ways to be more empathetic, better socialized, and more capable of doing good in the world. If you feel the need to justify an action, it was the wrong one. Humanity prides itself on its rationality, so lets start being rational and put down these childish things.
*I'm not condoning any of this shit. I don't support any of these despicable activities. Don't be a dick.
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