and that it feeds the default human tendency toward monogamy.
From what I understand the default human tendency is is medium term monogamy (with cheating) combined with extreme promiscuity, particularly by the highest status males. Some polygamy thrown in too.
I think that “humans tend towards monogamy” and “humans don’t tend towards monogamy” are both misleading, as they lump together two things which don’t necessarily go together: being monogamous, and requiring monogamy of others. Instead, I’m inclined towards thinking that there’s a tendency to require sexual/romantic monogamy from one’s partner while still wanting to have sexual/romantic relationships with others.
Though some people seem to be strongly monogamous (in both senses of the word) by nature, others seem to be strongly non-monogamous (in both senses of the word), and some fall in between. So if there is a strong genetic component, there’s also the possibility that some kind of frequency-dependent selection might be going on instead of just a universal tendency towards one thing.
Yes, humans are bad at plenty of things they want (or seem to / claim to want). Bad at rational action, yet members at this site strive to do better. Bad at ethical & consequentialist reasoning, yet many of us strive to do better.
So being bad at monogomy is not a particular good argument for abandoning it. But maybe you didn’t mean to imply that—I speak to it because I’ve heard that claim from a few poly folks before. If so, disregard.
If you just meant to clarify that, yes, humans are not perfect monogomists, then okay, we’re agreed on that.
If you just meant to clarify that, yes, humans are not perfect monogomists, then okay, we’re agreed on that.
Um, no. And not anything about arguments for abandoning things either. It was a straightforward description of the approximate default human instincts with neither practical or normative argument implied.
From what I understand the default human tendency is is medium term monogamy (with cheating) combined with extreme promiscuity, particularly by the highest status males. Some polygamy thrown in too.
I think that “humans tend towards monogamy” and “humans don’t tend towards monogamy” are both misleading, as they lump together two things which don’t necessarily go together: being monogamous, and requiring monogamy of others. Instead, I’m inclined towards thinking that there’s a tendency to require sexual/romantic monogamy from one’s partner while still wanting to have sexual/romantic relationships with others.
Though some people seem to be strongly monogamous (in both senses of the word) by nature, others seem to be strongly non-monogamous (in both senses of the word), and some fall in between. So if there is a strong genetic component, there’s also the possibility that some kind of frequency-dependent selection might be going on instead of just a universal tendency towards one thing.
Yes, humans are bad at plenty of things they want (or seem to / claim to want). Bad at rational action, yet members at this site strive to do better. Bad at ethical & consequentialist reasoning, yet many of us strive to do better.
So being bad at monogomy is not a particular good argument for abandoning it. But maybe you didn’t mean to imply that—I speak to it because I’ve heard that claim from a few poly folks before. If so, disregard.
If you just meant to clarify that, yes, humans are not perfect monogomists, then okay, we’re agreed on that.
Um, no. And not anything about arguments for abandoning things either. It was a straightforward description of the approximate default human instincts with neither practical or normative argument implied.
This is what I meant by my last sentence, that humans are not perfect monogamists. Sorry I was unclear.
Ahh. Agreement!
Monogamous (for how long?) is probably a very important question in discussions of to what extent monogamy is natural for humans.
Is there a convenient term for raising that sort of question and/or filling in that sort of blank?