I’d nearly forgotten how much courage it takes to ask a woman out. Today we are told men and women are the same but in former times, men attracted women partly on their brashness, not always physical attractiveness or current financial success. Everyone has noticed young men and women failing to tie the knot, hence less babies, women putting off having children in favor of careers. Apple is taking the lead in volunteering to freeze embryos to help put off reproduction for another time, maybe never. Members of certain groups especially the economically advantaged, educated and religious, like in the old days, are marrying and having children, but otherwise few children are being born except outside of the marriage canopy.
The current discussion was triggered by texting someone showed me between a young fellow and a young woman about her old-fashioned will to get married and have children. He noted as how in 2014, nothing is out-of-bounds, if she wants children so much, why shouldn’t she just team up with another woman, and the two of them might find themselves elite sperm from a bank, and get pregnant and raise the progeny? Why are love and a relationships so darned important? Likely he was kidding or frustrated, but still I was appalled with so dismissive and mechanical a response, which I chalked it up to his social phobia leading him to rationalize about human relations.
Sometimes you have to kick yourself to recall how biologically men and women differ. So many social scientists say the opposite. More of the relationships that do occur start in one (sound) or two dimensions (on screen) and not in three real dimensions. Observing younger folks guys at least seem very squeamish about initiating anything, much to the disadvantage of both parties. Just as college graduates are hanging out in parents’ basements unemployed where they may be putting out into the cyberspace thousands of unsolicited resumes looking for nonexistent jobs, they are doing the very same with their personal relations. They function in a virtual, not the real world. The fallout is disastrous demographically, as all we will end up with older people, and children aren’t materializing to carry on our work.
The problem seems to be more on the man’s side but both men and women suffer. One of the hardest social acts to master even after an approach and flirtation is to ask a woman out. I can recall being cowed a good number of times when I was young, and making all kinds of excuses and rationalizations which in the final analysis prevented me from taking action. The bold act is most admired by women but also in the rest of society. We are most likely to benefit from a reasonably conceived bold act than by inaction and fear.
As explained in the past, I conceive of behavior as a complex of push-pull arrangements brought about by the brain. Behavior is nothing more than the resultant of countervailing influences. A simple example , over which there seems to be abundant confusion, is the courageous act, admired in our society, as well as in military history, as in Rome, as opposed to cowardice.
No one thinks courage is the absence of fear. Practically all commentators insist that the brave person master fear. Courageous persons act despite grave peril to themselves. We admire someone who will jump onto an electrified subway track to save someone else. Never mind that our hero modestly asserts he jumped without thinking, or thought only on of the danger of his fellow man. Having no means to measure fear under these circumstances, we assume two individuals exposed to equal peril will have the same amount of fear. That is, of course, untrue.
Observe those afraid of falling. Most of us merrily run through narrow mountain ledges and downslopes, thoughtlessly and rapidly. But a minority are very fearful of unprotected heights and downslopes, harboring a fear of heights. Falling over extreme heights is dangerous but fear impairs adaptive balance reflexes. Mothers will frequently tell you their toddlers can walk except for being afraid of falling and may well make the very same comment about their elderly parents or grandparents. Most of the time I have found the fear of falling is actually well founded. One who is afraid to fall is more often than not, likely to fall. Therefore this fear, like many, is simply realistic and adaptive. The person who is not afraid of falling is not more courageous, but simply for one reason or another has better balance, vestibular function or motor skills. So incompetence at a task is behind realistic fear resulting in being reluctant to do that task. Fear of any etiology leads to avoidance behavior that may well be interpreted as lack of courage whereas it only incompetence.
On the other hand we have all observed people who lack fear altogether. We like fearlessness in our fighting men, being less concerned about them losing their lives than seeing them run away and lose the battle. Armies are better off with fearless men who lack any inhibition even if they need to drink before a battle, or motivated them by ideas that make them willing to lay down their lives. Some of our best soldiers will have defective nervous systems which lack life-preserving inhibitions. it is best that they not be influenced by the frontal lobes such may occur in ADHD, previous frontal lobe injury, and in certain genetic conditions that eliminate judgement that resides in frontal lobes, These persons are far more likely, being disinhibited, to act in ways increasing risk to themselves, what some might misinterpret as being courageous.
If I were a generalissimo, I wouldn’t want that kind of fearless army. I’d prefer well-disciplined, well-educated competent troops harboring natural fear of death. Such well motivated troops have been most effective in defeating far larger forces of fearless dumb goons. Back to courage again. No courage without fear, realistic fear that you deal with by increasing competence. That is not to minimize the fact that wars have been won by sending wave upon wave of thousands of humans sometimes even unarmed as ammunition absorbers, such as Russians in WWII, but you will get further faster and far more accomplished with a well-motivated and equipped neurologically intact intelligent force.
Just as some persons display a realistic or unrealistic fear of heights and walking on mountain edges, others have social phobias that end up impairing advancements in work and life and in mating. It’s a pity how many of them will never advance in their job of find an appropriate mate or even reproduce a phenomenon easy to see in our millennials brought up to relate to their screens and devices but not people. They date and mate in smaller numbers and later than ever. I can appreciate that it takes a certain amount of courage to ask someone out or even to flirt. But given the inexperience or social incompetence of many young people we are seeing lots of avoidance behavior which stems not so much from a lack of courage, but the inhibiting influence of paralyzing fear of social interaction. They are socially awkward.
Many of our young women millennials want nothing more but to marry and have children but may be reaching the age, into their late thirties, near the end of their reproductive potential. It is true that the economic outlook for these young people has not been the best since the economic collapse of 2008 and job prospects have been wanting. This latter condition may also be attributable to social incompetence, But ineptitude on the social scale affecting both men and women, mostly men, who have not the courage to start a relationship or ask a woman out, will have marked demographic consequence.
Add to that the basic biological principle observed over most advanced species certainly vertebrates and especially among primates, that the brash,the brave, the thrill seeker gets the girls. In the bio world males are less particular than females. Among animals females typically choose a desirable males while the male finds most females desirable. And she chooses on the basis of his self-confidence, aggressively backed by competence, and reasonable risk-taking behavior, that is the basis for dominance. Males compete with other males, Dominance hierarchies are established and the alpha male participates in most of the copulations, or in monogamous species, wins desirable females,
The controversial anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon maintains, I think rightly, that most violent conflicts arise, not as most people seem to think, from religion, but over a struggle over women. Religion is a maker of differences and commonalities among groups but the fight is for the females, nine-tenths of the time. Many are the accounts of war where the victor kills the males and keeps the females. Ironically the victorious men get to reproduce, with women of the losing side. These women pass on not only the genes of the defeated combatants, but also the customs and mores of their people, both genes and memes, enough to raise a question as to who has won the prize of the next generation, victor or vanquished. Never mind. Our current generation of males appears weak and pusillanimous.
The result may alter demographics in that we will have far less worthy young people to carry on. Our women remain unmarried, and babies unborn. This is not from cowardice exactly. Our highly intelligent youth have healthy social phobias that are realistic given their incompetence in handling face to face social encounters. leading them to inaction. Should those that reproduce be the congenitally fearless and disinhibited, our society will pay a terrible price.
The above is a first installment on a two-part feature on our Millennials.