I’m not sure hunter-gatherers typically avoid pregnancy—they’re much more free-lovey and screw-it-let’s-just-kill-excess-kids-ey than low-tech farmers.
Sex aversion in cultures I’m most familiar with seems to have to do with proof of paternity (individual, small set of individuals, or even just the local band) than with pregnancy avoidance. Sex when you have too many kids to raise is stupid but not gross; sex out of wedlock when you could totally raise a kid is. Don’t know if it’s because many cultures have incentives to condition for that or if it’s innate.
But that’s not quite my question. What I’m asking about is why physical and moral disgust have so much overlap. Touching poop then eating is gross, but I don’t feel it’s morally repugnant. Killing your neighbor is evil, but not gross. So why does disgust leak into morality? I don’t think we ever do in/outgroup or fairness or harm/care without a moral element. Most emotions (joy and curiosity and the like) affect moral judgement, but they’re not fundamental bases.
And why do we have such specific emotions for the sacred? It’s a weird-ass intersection of cleanliness, morality, ingroup bonding mechanisms, appeasing the high-status, and aesthetic appreciation. Who ordered that?
I’m not sure why disgust can be conditioned at all, but we can do that for all emotions anyway and cultures that learn win.
Or interacial kisses?
No, that one’s easy. The proper place for a person is among their race, leaking out is matter out of place—impurity, dirt. Plus, whites are better than blacks, so mixing black with white is disgusting corruption, like mixing dirt with food.
Whereas I’d expect basically the Ancient Greek stance on homosexuality: doing men is More Purer, and men are better than women so they’re nobler in the sack. (And two women can’t have sex, silly.)
I’m not sure hunter-gatherers typically avoid pregnancy—they’re much more free-lovey and screw-it-let’s-just-kill-excess-kids-ey than low-tech farmers.
Where are you getting this from? It does match my model, but it’s a controversial-sounding enough point that I think a cite would be beneficial.
I don’t know that there is a culture (other than some subcultures in the modern First World) who don’t consider sex sacred, though certainly there’s quite a gap between “Son, if you ever lust after another guy you’re going to Hell!” and “Son, if you don’t suck enough cock, you’ll lose your vital energy!”.
No, sacredness is way more specific. Sacred things are:
Special. They belong to their own sphere of sacred things apart from mundane ones.
Powerful. If you fuck with them, they will fuck you up.
Important. You care about them a lot.
Emotionally charged. This kinda follows from the above, but the stronger and more unusual emotions you add, the sacreder. Awe is sacred as balls.
Big. You can’t quite comprehend them; maybe there’s too much importance or power or emotion for you to handle, maybe they act unpredictably (because they’re people or something), maybe they’re inherently and magically mysterious.
A lot like your parents when you’re a little kid, really.
the prevalent culture is very much not to regard sex as sacred in that sense
That’s how that culture “wants” people to think (believe-in-belief) - because sex-in-itself has largely the “taboo” + “big” + “powerful” factors for it so people shrink from thinking too much about it; while the “importance” and the “emotional charge” factors are attached to the intersection of sex and romantic love/marriage/childbirth. Thinking about sex with those attachments is easier in such a culture than thinking about sex-in-itself.
Presumably to make sex without those latter attachments less desirable/less of a goal on a memetic level, but keep the overall cover of sacredness.
Sounds plausible/falsifiable enough within MixedNuts’ model, doesn’t it?
I’m not sure hunter-gatherers typically avoid pregnancy—they’re much more free-lovey and screw-it-let’s-just-kill-excess-kids-ey than low-tech farmers.
Sex aversion in cultures I’m most familiar with seems to have to do with proof of paternity (individual, small set of individuals, or even just the local band) than with pregnancy avoidance. Sex when you have too many kids to raise is stupid but not gross; sex out of wedlock when you could totally raise a kid is. Don’t know if it’s because many cultures have incentives to condition for that or if it’s innate.
But that’s not quite my question. What I’m asking about is why physical and moral disgust have so much overlap. Touching poop then eating is gross, but I don’t feel it’s morally repugnant. Killing your neighbor is evil, but not gross. So why does disgust leak into morality? I don’t think we ever do in/outgroup or fairness or harm/care without a moral element. Most emotions (joy and curiosity and the like) affect moral judgement, but they’re not fundamental bases.
And why do we have such specific emotions for the sacred? It’s a weird-ass intersection of cleanliness, morality, ingroup bonding mechanisms, appeasing the high-status, and aesthetic appreciation. Who ordered that?
I’m not sure why disgust can be conditioned at all, but we can do that for all emotions anyway and cultures that learn win.
No, that one’s easy. The proper place for a person is among their race, leaking out is matter out of place—impurity, dirt. Plus, whites are better than blacks, so mixing black with white is disgusting corruption, like mixing dirt with food.
Whereas I’d expect basically the Ancient Greek stance on homosexuality: doing men is More Purer, and men are better than women so they’re nobler in the sack. (And two women can’t have sex, silly.)
Where are you getting this from? It does match my model, but it’s a controversial-sounding enough point that I think a cite would be beneficial.
Miswiring.
Is it? So sex isn;t sacred. it is just believed to be. By some people.
I don’t know that there is a culture (other than some subcultures in the modern First World) who don’t consider sex sacred, though certainly there’s quite a gap between “Son, if you ever lust after another guy you’re going to Hell!” and “Son, if you don’t suck enough cock, you’ll lose your vital energy!”.
Not sure what you mean by “sacred”. Almost everybody obsesses about it, positively or negatively. Is that sacredness?
No, sacredness is way more specific. Sacred things are:
Special. They belong to their own sphere of sacred things apart from mundane ones.
Powerful. If you fuck with them, they will fuck you up.
Important. You care about them a lot.
Emotionally charged. This kinda follows from the above, but the stronger and more unusual emotions you add, the sacreder. Awe is sacred as balls.
Big. You can’t quite comprehend them; maybe there’s too much importance or power or emotion for you to handle, maybe they act unpredictably (because they’re people or something), maybe they’re inherently and magically mysterious.
A lot like your parents when you’re a little kid, really.
Uh-huh. Where I come from, the prevalent culture is very much not to regard sex as sacred in that sense.
Attempt at explanation:
That’s how that culture “wants” people to think (believe-in-belief) - because sex-in-itself has largely the “taboo” + “big” + “powerful” factors for it so people shrink from thinking too much about it; while the “importance” and the “emotional charge” factors are attached to the intersection of sex and romantic love/marriage/childbirth. Thinking about sex with those attachments is easier in such a culture than thinking about sex-in-itself.
Presumably to make sex without those latter attachments less desirable/less of a goal on a memetic level, but keep the overall cover of sacredness.
Sounds plausible/falsifiable enough within MixedNuts’ model, doesn’t it?
You can rescue any theory with a furry of auxilliary hypotheses.
Fixed that for you.