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Comment by paulddraper | Hacker News Reader

Dismissing a multi-millenia multi-cultural fundamental norm as "indoctrination" severely downplays the collective learning of uncountable generations.

There is a common view of cultural norms as at worst tyrannical or at best random and arbitrary, rather than the sophisticated and curated product of billions of human lives.

Social iconoclasts dismiss organized religion, marriage, sexual norms, social duty, gender roles, and cultural traditions. Base human psychology and sociology must bow to their intellect and are theirs to shape as they choose.

> For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

> Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

> Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

> Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

> For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,

> Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

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> the collective learning of uncountable generations

Wisdom in one context can be foolishness in another. To live a good life it is necessary to re-evaluate the actions of your forebears and determine if it is still applicable to your modern context. That doesn't make someone a "social iconoclast", it makes them wise. Our ancestors did the same thing to their ancestors. Homo sapiens is 300,000 years old, and our societies have changed a lot since then, and will continue to change.

Note that I personally have no desire to be anything other than monogamous, but I know several people (both young and elderly) who are successfully polyamorous. I also know people who have catastrophically failed at polyamory; but then, of course, I also know people who have catastrophically failed at monogamy.

As far as I'm concerned, normalizing polyamory will strengthen monogamy. It seems like some people out there just aren't cut out for monogamy, and in a monogamous world they inevitably become cheaters. Let the polyamorous people remove themselves from the monogamous dating pool and you will exclusively remove people who would otherwise be compelled to cheat.

I like this take. Already you see specialization of dating apps toward different relationship styles, with Hinge more focused on Monogamy, Tinder on the casual/singles crowd, and Feeld for the nonmonogamous.

I agree this is decidedly positive for the monogamous folks. There is now less risk of them connecting with and falling in love with someone who isn’t a good match.

In your example, there’s a group of people who aren’t cut out for monogamy and are a problem for society no matter what. But I think there’s a much larger group of people that could do it in a society that offers them strong support and reinforcement, who will fail and flounder in a society that leaves them free to make choices.

In my culture, neither divorce nor cheating are socially acceptable. Now, I’m happily married to my wife. But I’m also aware that I had better do everything I can to make my marriage happy, because that’s it. My social standing would be devastated if I got divorced. People would be talking about me in hushed tones 12,000 miles away.

> In your example, there’s a group of people who aren’t cut out for monogamy and are a problem for society no matter what.

To be clear, in my example, polyamorous people are only a problem for society because that society has decided that polyamorous people are a problem. I am advocating for basing our societal mores on reasonable consideration from first principles rather than simply tradition.

> But I think there’s a much larger group of people that could do it in a society that offers them strong support and reinforcement, who will fail and flounder in a society that leaves them free to make choices.

While it is certainly possible to argue against the notion of such-and-such freedom, this appears to be making the following argument: "it is possible to imagine that greater individual freedom will result in undesirable collective outcomes, therefore, all of our traditional restrictions on individual freedom are necessary and may not be challenged." I find this argument to be unconvincing.

The support for this argument that you have given is of the general form: "I am incentivized to be a good husband because I would suffer socially if I were not; therefore, monogamy incentivizes positive relationships." I will counterargue that in a society where divorce is met with social ostracization, this disincentivizes being a good spouse, because you know that your partner is stuck with you even despite your bad behavior. My in-laws are proof of this: my mother-in-law refuses to divorce for religious reasons, despite the fact that my father-in-law is both abusive and a proven cheater. Her misery and guilt over her husband's infidelity does not benefit society in the least. And lest you think that this is a problem of society failing to properly ostracize the husband, rest assured that his children refuse to speak to him and he does not care in the slightest.

> To be clear, in my example, polyamorous people are only a problem for society because that society has decided that polyamorous people are a problem

I’m pretty sure that no kid has thought to themselves “I wish my parents had a bunch of unstable relationships with many different people.” That’s not a social construct. Monogamy is one of the most universal practices, embraced by different, unrelated cultures that differ along many other dimensions. How did all those different societies reach the same arbitrary “decision?”

> will counterargue that in a society where divorce is met with social ostracization, this disincentivizes being a good spouse, because you know that your partner is stuck with you even despite your bad behavior.

Empirically, American subcultures in where divorce is taboo, such as Asians, Mormons, etc., are more successful—e.g. their kids have higher economic mobility—than other Americans. Indeed, divorce as a phenomenon has largely affected the lower classes. In affluent WASP circles divorce may not be as openly condemned the way it was, but it’s still taboo in a way that it isn’t among, say, Appalachians.

> I’m pretty sure that no kid has thought to themselves “I wish my parents had a bunch of unstable relationships with many different people.”

You're begging the question. Polyamory doesn't imply instability any more than monogomy does. I know people who have been in decades-long poly relationship.

What I do see happen often in poly and poly-adjacent communities, especially those with children, is that children become a more communal responsibility, somewhat mimicking the effect of larger, multi-generational households you see in Asian and Hispanic communities, which usually leads to higher stability and better outcomes.

>You're begging the question. Polyamory doesn't imply instability any more than monogomy does. I know people who have been in decades-long poly relationship.

It’s doesn’t logically imply it. But statistically they are much more unstable. There’s studies that show 90+% of open marriages end in divorce.

Sort of, maybe, probably not.

The study you're citing doesn't actually have a methodology that one can interrogate about how it reached this figure, and there's some fairly common patterns like opening a marriage in response to infidelity, that would create a misleading correlation between open marriages and unstable ones.

That's vastly different from entering into a relationship with the intent to be non-monogamous (and perhaps already having multiple partners), but is probably much more common, because, for whatever reason there's less of a taboo on sleeping around while married than on having multiple committed romantic relationships.

There is also, you know, just paying attention and drawing our own judgements from what we see with our own eyes.

Not that normal marriages are sunshine and rainbows. But I have yet to see a poly marriage with kids that wasn’t deeply disturbing. Though of course the primary folks said everything was fine.

That’s entirely possible. It’s also entirely possible that something about starting a relationship monogamously and then transitioning has some kind of protective effect vs starting poly.

We don’t have enough data to tease out the cause. We can only say that open marriages, for whatever reason, are less stable than closed ones.

Asian and Hispanic families are built around nuclear families (more strongly than even in the west). In my language, we have a whole set of words you don’t have in English for identifying relatives through marital relationships. (E.g. different words for maternal aunts versus paternal aunts.) It’s all highly structured around the assumption that marital relationships are durable.

Your conclusion here doesn’t follow from the premise - when two families or clans are marrying each other the result is not a nuclear family.

It’s not just a nuclear family, but the nuclear family is still the foundation of the larger structure. Everyone is precisely situated in relation to durable marital bonds between two specific people. It’s not some free for all. Yeah, the cousins all play together and the aunties cook dinner together, but there’s no ambiguity or imprecision about who is married to whom.

Asian multi-generational family structures are often invoked to justify fatherless children raised “by the community,” etc., and it drives me nuts. There is nothing liberal about us—we have some of the most rigid marriage norms and gender roles around.

> It’s all highly structured around the assumption that marital relationships are durable.

You're again begging the question!

Non-nuclear doesn't imply non-durable!

> To be clear, in my example, polyamorous people are only a problem for society because that society has decided that polyamorous people are a problem

Any problem for the society is like that. You can say robberies are a problem only because society decided it is. That's how society works - there's no some external source where it could be checked, so the implication that it's arbitrary baseless decision because it is social is wrong - all rules of thd society are such, so if you want to have any rules at all, those would be the ones you'd have. It's impossible to have a society where everyone derives their morals from the physical laws anew all the time.

Reevaluate is fine, but I mostly see something like "oh it's all social construct" (somehow this implies it's worthless or even worse, oppressive) and that is considered enough to forego further consideration of comparative benefits. That's not evaluation, that's just hubristic dismissal.

> There is a common view of cultural norms as at worst tyrannical or at best random and arbitrary, rather than the sophisticated and curated product of billions of human lives.

Examine any of these “fundamental norms” and see that they were not so fundamental after all. With their narratives built to enforce cultural norms today, not genuinely explore lessons from the past.

My grandma will _insist_ that homosexuality simply didn’t exist when she was younger. This is the “sophisticated” product you speak of - a blatant denial of reality.

Nothing says fun times like pretending denial is a new - or only an old thing.

There are tradeoffs to every path, many only visible long after the path is taken.

It’s easy to reject the old path because the tradeoffs are visible and it’s clearly not perfect.

That doesn’t mean the new path is going to be better - just less known.

Note that these cultural norms evolved prior to modern birth control, STI testing/treatment, and peak population.

Birth control is a radical invention and it is shocking that it hasn’t led to even more rapid cultural change than it has.

One also needs to separate generalized cultural knowledge from individual knowledge. As people mature, they should tend to individuate and discover “what works for them” vs “what works for society”.

That individual knowledge can be bootstrapped on cultural knowledge, but ultimately we may each need to reject aspects of our culture in order to discover our unique path.

> That individual knowledge can be bootstrapped on cultural knowledge, but ultimately we may each need to reject aspects of our culture in order to discover our unique path.

But we’re not unique individuals. We’re 8 billion copies of two sexes of human animal, and pretty much everyone falls into a handful of archetypes and social roles.

Seeking to collapse the unique contexts and interplay between 8 billion individuals is incredibly dangerous, leading to things like command-and-control economies, socialism, and genecide.

The information surface area and processing power of 8 billion people far exceeds the few bits representing your “handful of archetypes and social roles”.

Anyone who believes that Western civilization has been largely functional should soundly reject these ideas and agree that individuation is a fundamentally Good Thing.

Western civilization is literally in the middle of wiping itself out. People have become so individualistic and self-absorbed that they cannot even perpetuate their own civilization and need to import people from the Middle East and Africa to avoid disappearing. The phrase “jump the shark” comes to mind.

All highly developed societies have birth rates below replacement. Nothing special about western nations there.

I think that’s more of a confounding correlation. America had birth rates above 3 when it landed a man in the moon. And Europe was “highly developed” before birth rates started collapsing in the 1970s. Several highly successful American subgroups, such as Muslims and Mormons, still have birth rates above replacement.

And Asia has its own distinct issue, which is that development coincided with population control evangelism from the west.

You’ve mentioned Mormonism twice now as an example of successful monogamous societies but it should be noted that the growth rate of the church has become negative. I’d be amazed if the LDS church is still around in any meaningful way 30 years from now. It’s hardly meaningful now.

As far as I can tell, it's one of the more robust sociological correlations that has been established worldwide. Fertility rates are dropping on every continent, and the drops are strongly correlated with economic development. See links below, they seem pretty damning.

And yes, it begun in the second half of the 20th century, but I don't think that makes it spurious.

I wouldn't be surprised if western cultural influence played a meaningful role, but I can't imagine that explaining the entire phenomenon.

---

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility (see the graph at the top)

* https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#total-fertility-ra...

* https://www.statista.com/statistics/1034075/fertility-rate-w...

Is it a bad thing ?

As you might know, Malthus was quite concerned about the issues of overpopulation. His solution was to educate women. This seems to be working surprisingly well !

>His solution was to educate women.

Really? I never knew this! Can you expand on his rhetoric at all?

Well, that too short comment of mine might be slightly disingenuous, considering what you might have thought I meant by this, but here's an overview :

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/aehr.12250

I seem to remember that he practiced what he preached (not only as the first ever professor of economics, but also as a pastor), and has founded at least one school for women, but annoyingly I can't seem to find the source any more ??

Of note also : by the end of the 19th century the (neo-)Malthusian feminists had already embraced ideas that he disagreed with like contraception and for some even abortion.

The elephant in the room is that “highly developed” is a euphemism for “women are treated equally and have rights”.

Only if you define “rights” and equal treatment in rather libertarian way. Americans’ ideal family size is the highest in decades. Almost half of women (46%) ideally want three or more kids: https://news.gallup.com/poll/511238/americans-preference-lar.... But the American ideal of “equality” is giving women the choice to be treated like childless men in the workforce. And America’s idea of “rights” is allowing women to abort pregnancies, rather than the “right” to social and economic support for having children.

Ideal != even close to going to happen. As you note, the reality on the ground is so unconducive to that actually happening, it’s a joke.

Is it individualization that's done that, or rentier capitalism?

Individuals in the western capitalist society spend most of their time making capitalists of all sorts exceedingly wealthy, rather than spending most of their time on themselves.

Give us 4 - 6 months off a year like our ancestors had, and we'll have plenty of children

While I agree with the central point, just wait until you see the data in China, Japan, and South Korea. It makes the US look damn healthy by comparison.

Asia has a distinct problem. For the last 50 years, western countries pushed the idea that population control was the only way for these countries to advance economically. My dad was involved in these efforts, supporting USAID projects in places like Bangladesh. And they were successful in bringing down birth rates. But you’ve now got two generations of people who were raised with the almost religious idea that having kids will hinder economic development.

I was having lunch with some of my dad’s USAID friends, and someone joked whether my wife and I were thinking of having a fourth. Then someone reflexively said “well nobody needs four kids.”

That and a serious demographic issue with too many old folks needing care and not producing ‘economically’ and not enough young folks who are.

> Dismissing a multi-millenia multi-cultural fundamental norm

This norm was not evenly distributed. Generally, if you were a peasant (and especially a woman), you were expected to adhere to the norms rigidly. While those with means or power frequently got to flaunt them or even started their own religions to get around them[1]. To me it just looks like another lever of control for the powerful over the "plebs".

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England

society doesn't function if everyone is as ammoral as the elites

> Dismissing a multi-millenia multi-cultural fundamental norm as "indoctrination" severely downplays the collective learning of uncountable generations

At many points in time this quote could easily apply to monogamous marriage, men having multiple wives and/or concubines, and consanguineous marriage.

> There is a common view of cultural norms as at worst tyrannical or at best random and arbitrary, rather than the sophisticated and curated product of billions of human lives.

> Social iconoclasts dismiss organized religion, marriage, sexual norms, social duty, gender roles, and cultural traditions.

Some of the cultural norms you named there are millions of years old and show little variance across cultures and time. Others only a few millennia old at best and show very high variance.

> organized religion, marriage, sexual norms, social duty, gender roles, and cultural traditions

Well, most of that is highly variable and contingent, local. Ask an anthropologist, they'll tell you.

Personally, I don't think one should prescribe the "one true" form of family for other people.

The question you raise in my mind is "What are you going to do to the non-conformists?"

This is indeed /exactly/ what I wondered once people started quoting St. Paul, and as a historian, the implications aren't great.

Your argument was stronger before your quote of scripture, or whatever it was.

I don't want to plagiarize, but I can't think of a better descriptor of the cultural zeitgeist than "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (St Paul)

> Social iconoclasts dismiss organized religion, marriage, sexual norms, social duty, gender roles, and cultural traditions.

It's important to recognise that western organised religion stomped on a great many multi-millenia gender roles and cultural traditions about the globe via colonisation.

Promoting what might made right as "the norm" severely downplays the alternative collective learning of uncountable generations.

> It's important to recognise that western organised religion stomped on a great many multi-millenia gender roles and cultural traditions about the globe via colonisation.

Sure, but let's be honest that the majority of humanity stabilized around a man and woman having children in a monogamous relationship, with a minority practicing polygamy. The rest were tiny outliers numbers wise.

That's not quite the blank slate that some people imply humans are, imho.

I was raised Catholic and I would summarize the faith as it was passed to me as an exercise in envy. Even the premise of your quote is the same: "Your puny ways of life are vain and laughable, because you do not want to listen to me and do as I tell you". Pad this into a few verses, flower it up with medieval language - and your God is speaking. Discussion not welcome, because only I, as a believer, can understand the arcane nuance of my verses. Bow down and submit.

Referring to the other comment about human morals evolving - religion is evolving as well, although it learned to cover it up. Catholicism is my favorite here, because it's perfected the art of bullshitting itself. For example, divorce is not allowed - but if you look for "evidence" that the partner has misled you into a marriage, then we call it "Marriage never happened" and boom - your not-a-divorce has been granted. Abortion suddenly in the spotlight? It's because our understanding has evolved and it's only now that we see that it's never been acceptable. And so on.

> Dismissing a multi-millenia multi-cultural fundamental norm as "indoctrination" severely downplays the collective learning of uncountable generations.

I agree in this case, but only because I think marriage is an institution that we’ve learned needs (sometimes strong) active endorsement and it’s pro-social.

My view is that cultural norms are at worst tyrannical and at best the essence of being human.

> Social iconoclasts dismiss organized religion, marriage, sexual norms, social duty, gender roles, and cultural traditions.

This is just true. But this is all of us: we all have a relationship with society around us and dismiss parts of it. As we should.

Is it a norm? I view all forms of having more than one significant other as being forms of poly. Office spouse, mistress, side boyfriend, sexting other people, etc. I think poly relationships are very common.

If you want to quote from the Bible:

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

So even looking at porn or thinking sexual thoughts about anyone else is engaging in a poly relationship. By that standard, nearly everyone is in a poly relationship.

I think you are conflating succumbing to a vice (eg porn) and orienting your life around an identity (eg poly)

Interestingly, Catholicism sees the former (doing the bad thing but agreeing that it is bad and that you should stop) as pretty normal, but the latter (deciding the thing is okay) as heresy, the sort of thing that could get you the bell, book, and candle.

Yes. This is the Christian concept of faith and grace.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith."

Because of Christ's grace, your belief is sufficient even if your acts are not.

I don't understand what you're saying.

Don't you find it weird that doing the bad thing but agreeing that it is bad is... okay, while deciding the thing is okay is... heresy?

I don’t find it weird. If we acknowledge that people are imperfect, then everyone should understand they will fall short of their own moral standards.

It seems logical. Analogy: I want to be healthy but I am imperfect so I will end up over eating or skipping my workout. Versus: I embrace being unhealthy and fat as part of my identity.

In one, you try to be better but aren't always successful. In the other, you've embraced the bad.

beliefs control acts.

otherwise you're <insert name of belief>, in name only.

mercy and justice are apprioriate outcomes for breaking the rules, not just 'yolo whatever i believe so everything is permitted'.

That's also true.

There what someone believes, and what someone says they believe.

People are (ought to be) in state of continual improvement.

To complicate things, there's then "being a hypocrite as a preliminary stage of changing oneself". If I know a behaviour is condemned by my principles/faith and yet I still do it, then so long I am working towards change, I'm still resisting that thing, it's... well, not all good, for sure, but it's something. And you can work with that.

> I think poly relationships are very common.

There is a difference between what things are common weaknesses and what things are social ideals. Just because sloth is not unusual, doesn't make it culturally acceptable.

> looking at porn or thinking sexual thoughts about anyone else is engaging in a poly relationship.

It is a poly relationship in your heart, which a step in the direction of an actual poly relationship.

Lust/adultry, anger/assault, envy/theft, etc.

"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."

That seems overly reductionist and devalues the entire concept of polyamory. Thoughts and actions are not the same and can not be treated as the same. Your viewpoint veers into thoughtcrime territory.

Well sure. Christianity invented thoughtcrime. Before Christianity, the essence of religion was observing the appropriate rituals at the appropriate times, with Christianity it became what you truly believe in your heart of hearts.

By that standard, everyone is a sinner.

Well you don't have to use that passage to know that's exactly what the Bible teaches--"For all have sinned..." Rom 3:23.

Or, later in the same letter, Paul speaks about his own struggles:

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” ‭‭Rom‬ ‭7‬:‭18‬-‭19‬

Not a single Christian would disagree with that statement.

That's the point, it's the entrance to their sales funnel. Convince people that they're dirty and broken, then sell them the cure.

I see where you're coming from, but it's more like trying to sell people a vaccine before they die from a preventable disease (eternal death). It's hard to argue that people at risk should be made aware of the cure's existence.

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