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The "Bonobo Masturbation Society"
I was reading a blog post that describes America, and the West in general, as a "Bonobo Masturbation Society." Bonobos are a species of Great Apes, very closely related to the Chimpanzee.
Whereas Chimpanzees are aggressive, Bonobos are generally passive, as they evolved in region with plenty of food. Another big difference between the apes; Chimps have sex primarily for reproduction. Bonobos, on the other hand, have sex all the time. Everybody has sex with everybody. Sex in Bonobo society is like "shaking hands." Sex is primarily for fun and pleasure.
The author then compares modern Western society with Bonobo society. People in the Western world, like the Bonobos, live in relative abundance and luxury, compared to the rest of the world. The majority of the hard, dangerous work that people used to do is either automated or exported to the poor countries. People in the Western world therefore no longer have to concern themselves with survival. So people seek out "masturbatory activities." Sex is social, and the society is full of meaningless pleasure and fun, the "Bonobo Masturbation Society."
Most leftists will probably disagree, but I think there's some truth to this. If you look at wealthier societies worldwide, you can see the same pattern in operation. They struggle for generations to get wealthy and when they do, an anomic misery sets in. There is no longer a purpose to life, it seems, so they try to invent one through empty sex, drinking too much, lots of toys, mass consumption, mass entertainment, etc.
What do you think?
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
When you get as wealthy as I am, sex comes to you in the form of a paycheck sent out weekly.
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I haven't masturbated in years, and that was only because I was in visiting Calcutta and I don't trust that those women will have a weekly STD test...
Warning for trolling. I don't care about your stupid thing of pretending to be Nicolas Cage. Either make constructive posts or expect administrative action.
Freedom before Peace
I wouldn't normally go off topic, but since this is only responding to someone else who's going off topic I think it will be ok.
You accuse me of "pretending" to be Nicolas Cage. You're making assumptions. I'd also like to see how anyone could get angry from reading my post. I doubt it would happen, so how am I trolling? Trolling requires me to try to piss people off. If I wanted to do that, I'd go to a more sensitive topic and say something which will actually piss people off!.
I think phrases I have underlined are utterly meaningless. How is casual sex "empty"? Why should people care about some "purpose of life"?
I generally think there's a point to be made there. Not to say the west is living the high life, a lot of people are struggling and there needs to be worldwide solidarity - but I think it would be foolish not to acknowledge the difference between the first and third world, and how we live - generally - as people
It's in the vein of what I bring up to people who try to debate me sometimes - it's easier to debate that capitalism "works" when you live in a heated house playing your X-Box, rather than living in a crap overstocked communal work home working insane hours making that X-Box.
To be clear - I'm not a third-worldist, but there are cultural differences due to being "more" or "less" "developed" economically.
I think by purpose, he means the main goal, so to speak.
Segui il tuo corso e lascia dir le genti.
Socialism resides entirely in the revolutionary negation of the capitalist ENTERPRISE, not in granting the enterprise to the factory workers.
- Bordiga
Possibly, but that either requires some sort of overriding purpose not assigned by individual humans, social tendencies etc. etc. - which is a theological notion - or it collapses into irrelevance since everyone has goals.
I don't know, a lot of this talk about how our lives are meaningless etc. etc. just strikes me as reactionary pining, and it's outright dangerous.
Well I don't know about this, it's sort of projecting maybe interpersonal relationships onto much larger and dispassionate systems.
As far as induviduals (and by extention families) who become wealthy beyond what they could actually use, well there are a lot of examples of pretty messed-up privilaged families where wealth is just inhereted and there is little need to actually personally manage it or do anything but sign checks. I lived in LA for a little while and knew a guy who went to a privite art high school for eliete kids and all of his friends were fucked up straight out of "Less than Zero" on every incredibly addictive drug you could imagine from perscription pills to heroin. These kids still probably weren't so wealth that their families had no expectations of them and most probably straightened up or went to rehab at some point - or are just wealthy enough that a little addiction maybe wouldn't prevent them from being able to function (i.e. they can survive some period of lack of employment and just dip into their trusts if they got in a bad place whereas other people would have to start hawking things).
But my guess would be that this has more to do with a sense of "purpouslessness" and alienation in a society that typically evaluates people on what they do (for the market). And probably just some period of experamentation - which really isn't a bad thing IMO... it just can be bad in this society where your life could get fucked up from legal consaquences of drug-use or just not being able to keep up with the demands of wage-work.
I would hope/imagine that a liberated society would de-couple "work" from "life's purpose" and so the point of life would be up to people to make of it what they can. I personally don't think this would result in apathy - even today there are pleanty of independantly wealthy people (or aristocrats in the past) that never had any real economic motivation to work, but did so because they thought it would be interesting or self-fufilling. I have no facts on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people from wealth dynasties who never HAVE to work, seek a professional area to work, in academia, or as a lawyer, or surgeon. If they are interested in these things, there are little barriers in their way. Also their position of having some power in society can also influence the rich I think. Bill Gates doesn't need money, but he wants to use his political influence to privitize education for whatever ideological or other reasons and so I'm sure he feels the responcibility to act (as fucked up for the rest of us as his philathropy is).
If society was organized so we all have some say and power over things, then I think that would also be motivation for many people. Getting rid of oppression doesn't just make things automatic - there'd still be pleanty of challenges... even if these challenges would seem like blessings to us today (how do you organize mass decision-making, how do you reorganize the material workings of this society so that things are based around us and not profit, etc).
As for the Bonobs - the standard thing on the Left that they represent is a real-world counter to claims of "human-nature" particularly claims which used our biological closeness to Chimps to explain rape, war, and violence as inherent and fixed human behaviors. Bonobs complicate that argument since we are similarly biologically close to them. But I think really neither one or the other represents "human nature" - though the "abundance"/"scarsity" aspects are provocative. Humans seem to have the capacity for both violence and altruism and circumstance (definately not biology) seems to play a much bigger role in which human aspect is expressed more often.
As far as sex specifically - I think there is more of a biological case for this - we are more like Bonobos in the sense that I believe we are sort of designed for enjoyable sex pretty much whenever we want it. The disfunction of sexual relations in our society has much more to do in my view with the power-relationships and property relationships caught up in sex and socially used to regulate when and where and who we have sex with.
I'm counting on much more sex and much more fufilling sexual and interpersonal relationships after a revolution when we interact and couple/tripple/whatever as equals and don't have social pressures on us. I wouldn't call that "decadent" or an escape at all - there's nothing wrong with enjoying sex, there's a whole lot wrong with how people relate to eachother now though.
Re: The "Bonobo Masturbation Society"
Repressive desublimation.
There is no metaphysically objective state of human sexuality. The act is universal but the social context, the means of which sex mediates and serves in society varies from according modes of production. There is no "revolutionary" essence in sexual relations, or the pleasure itself. Sexual pleasure can very well be incredibly repressive (I.e. Master - slave sex in ancient rome) which is why it is so incredibly terrifying from an intellectual standpoint. For Communists, there should be no objection to promiscuity, i.e. No moral qualms with it, but it should not be politicized (except through feminism) in an absurd manner. Though I always imagined "revolutionary sex" as like rough sex in the sense that it exposes directly the act with no social mystifications, i.e. For example, if we subtract a repressive relationship, a patriarchial one; if this is done away with sex becomes raw and direct and all tension between the genders is mediated not through a repressive relationship, but in bed, thus, like a revolution, rough sex is a brutal act of honesty.
Of course I know how ridiculous I sound, I'm only half joking.
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Last edited by Rafiq; 2nd June 2013 at 14:01.
[FONT="Courier New"] “We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Revolution and of the new order of life. ”
― Felix Dzerzhinsky [/FONT]
لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
Ha, I read the wiki article on this after you posted it - still have no idea what they mean. Oh Philosophy.
Does it just mean that the drive for sexual liberation was ultimately channeled into market- and ideologically-friendly avenues? That sounds about right. Or are they saying that this co-option had wider effects on moderating consiousness and struggle? That would be interesting to read more about, if so, but on the surface of it, I'd be a bit skeptical.
Re: The "Bonobo Masturbation Society"
It means like everything else from '68, sexual liberation has been bastardized by capitalism to serve the process of capital accumulation, but sex is not liberated today, it is entangled in several structural complexities and in the end remains repressive.
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[FONT="Courier New"] “We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Revolution and of the new order of life. ”
― Felix Dzerzhinsky [/FONT]
لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
Precisely. What motivates humans, in my best estimation, seems to be a need to have our attention focused on some task or goal.
I contend that our actions in life are based on deprivations. Deprivations of basic needs comes first usually, such as thirst, hunger etc.. But after this initial deprivation level, comes more refined ones such as comfort and boredom. We are constantly adjusting ourselves and readjusting ourselves to be comfortable.. getting away from annoying circumstances and moving towards less annoying circumstances. As far as boredom, we are always moving away from a state of boredom and towards a state of being entertained.
In the Western world, people no longer have to worry about exerting themselves to meet their physical needs, and therefore have time that must be put to good use, lest we fall into the trap of 'boredom.' Profound boredom we cannot tolerate, as it leads to existential angst, which we cannot deal with as it brings us close to the reality of an existence voided of meaning and comprehensibility. This need to not feel the void, might lead us to pursue the things I was talking about in the OP.... So our attention must constantly be occupied, lest we fall into an existential void.
Last edited by Let's Get Free; 2nd June 2013 at 16:30.
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
Most people in the "Western World" have to continuously exert themselves, often in a repetitive and tedious manner, in order to survive. Yes, the quality of life is much higher in the imperial centres than it is in the periphery, but this third-worldist cliche of "First World" workers as effete and indolent is just nonsense.
As for "empty" sex, drinking, toys (of both varieties), popular entertainment, and so on, why are these things bad, exactly? Some people might find them unsatisfying, of course, but why do their personal preferences take precedence over the preferences of other people?
And what is "empty" sex? I regret to say this, but in most cases this is code for sexual behaviour that violates patriarchal norms.
Oh, and the workers, and people in the third world, also have lots of "empty" sex. It's not like the proletariat and the plebeian masses are all puritans. Some of them also drink quite heavily, which is admittedly a problem in the current economic conditions. And if they do not have many toys or watch a lot of movies, that is because they are in crushing poverty, not because they are somehow happier than us decadent Westerners.
By “exert themselves,” I meant physically exert themselves to directly meet their basic needs of food, clothing, shelter. Very few people in the industrialized world do this, this is done rather through employment and market consumption.
When I was reading the blog, I think the authors contention wasn't that these things were morally “bad,” rather, these things offer an exuberant escape to help us forget our loss of freedom
When it comes to sex, I’ve found that most societies are to one extreme or the other- sexually repressed on one end, and sexually indulgent on the other end.
I’m not saying people in poor countries are ironside puritans. But what I’ve noticed is that the more industrialized and technically rational a society becomes, the more people need to escape into irrational pursuits that bring temporary amnesia or pleasure. Humans cannot stand to have their lives fully rational, subject to timetables, lists, and rules. Their instincts require an outlet that produces an altered state of consciousness.
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
Fair enough, but scavenging for food, building temporary shelters and making one's own clothes isn't really widespread in the "Third World" either.
That doesn't help, really. The term "exuberant" carries connotations of excess. Why are these behaviours excessive? Under whose standards are they excessive?Originally Posted by Let's Get Free
And what of this freedom we have allegedly lost? Comparing the present society to the feudal one, or even to liberal capitalism, it rather seems to me that there has been a small, though not negligible, increase in real freedom. Communists can not allow themselves to imagine previous epochs of social development as some sort of golden age - particularly when these epochs were murderously backward and bigoted.
Why "indulgent"? I think many modern societies are relatively sexually liberated, at least compared to the previous modes of production. In the communist phase of social development, can we expect anything but a further loosening of sexual mores, if not their outright disappearance? I don't think we can.Originally Posted by Let's Get Free
But you're using the terms "rational" and "irrational" in a colloquial way. Rationality means using reliable methods in order to accomplish one's goals. If I want to have sex - and, I mean, most people do - then having sex is, in general, rational.Originally Posted by Let's Get Free
As industrial capitalism continues to develop in the "Third World," yes, these things are becoming less and less widespread.
The pursuit of sex and love is not exuberant. Because most people, even if their existence were otherwise satisfactory, would feel deprived if they went on with their lives without ever having a romantic relationship. (But pursuit of an excessive amount of sex, more than one really needs, can be considered exuberant.)
The kind of freedom that actually counts, in my opinion. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one's own life. People celebrate the gaining of superficial freedoms (weed, same sex marriage, etc), but i think we're losing more meaningful freedoms everyday.
Sex is absolutely ubiquitous in Western culture. We're obsessed with it. After centuries of repression, when the repression comes to a point where you cannot repress it anymore it explodes: people go berserk.
Irrational, in comparison to an overly rational environment. As bureaucratic and technical rules proliferate, humans sense that they have lost personal control over their lives. Escaping into the realm of ecstasy seems to be rebellion against a too rational, too orderly existence. Drugs, alcohol, sex, violence, music, and video games are all forms of ecstatic escape.
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-aliens/
This is the American myth. Everyone on jet skies with some lame metal song playing in the background. Tanning oil on half naked perfect bodies and volleyball games on the beach. Like a Budweiser commercial or any commercial. It's what sell's capitalism in the west. The 'lifestyle'. A large portion of the population doesn't live this way and can't afford it but indeed some people can. Youth will max out credit cards, beg parents for cash etc. Those making over 50k a year without kids can live a life of relative leisure but still have to work. In the real world those who do have this leisure lifestyle, and it does exist, are in the minority but that's what everyone is chasing. Freedom from perpetual worry about work, bills, retirement, what to do about healthcare, teeth rotting, no time. Time is a major issue for working people. We're all now actually working more hours for less pay compared to the 1940's/50's/60's.
Personally, in boom cycles (I'm a self employed carpenter), I have nothing but work on my hands where I need to save money for slow times not so I can go rock climbing or boating or skying in Tahoe but so I can keep a roof over my head, eat and survive. The difference in the US and other advanced capitalist nations is there's an infrastructure in place to distract us from the hamster wheel but the hamster wheel is as real as ever and this system of cheap entertainment/distraction isn't freedom. Movie theaters, stores selling all sorts of cheap things, TV with 300 channels (if you can afford it), internet and yes there are bars/alcohol. Most (over 25) people in bars aren't living like 'the most interesting man in the world they're partly miserable with their jobs, overworked, tiered and looking for an avenue of escape. Just because the bird cages in the west have a mirror and a little whistle and swing bar in them compared to the empty bird cages of the third world it doesn't mean we aren't in a bird cage.
Above is the reality. Below is the lie.
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"More than one really needs"? And who decides how much sex we "really need"? Why is more than that arbitrary amount bad?
Oh, and what are those "more meaningful" freedoms that "we" are losing? People, the vast majority of people at least, have never been able to control the circumstances of their own life.Originally Posted by Let's Get Free
People are fucking in ways you disapprove of. How horrible. And who is obsessed with sex? Methinks it is the puritans that are obsessed with sex, more than the most eager libertine.Originally Posted by Let's Get Free
Again, you're using the term "rational" in a colloquial sense. If I want to have sex, it is rational for me to have sex. "Bureaucratic and tecnical rules" have nothing to do with that. These lay out, in certain cases, the rational course of action for large economic and state entities. That's an entirely different matter, though. Someone who follows timetables and formal rules in their personal life is not more rational than someone who does not, they just have a fetish for bureaucracy.Originally Posted by Let's Get Free
Or perhaps people find these activities enjoyable! Why do people have the need to weave grand existential narratives in order to explain something that is obvious to a child?Originally Posted by Let's Get Free
MarxArchist made the best post in this thread. That aside: it is not just people in wealthy countries who can be likened to bonobos in their habits.
Let's Get Free:
Sex is absolutely ubiquitous in all cultures!! Please don't start referring to "decadent immoral western filth". I live in the western world; I'm 23 and a virgin, though due to my consumption of free porn some fuckwits might be inclined to label me a "sex addict" anyway... (this post ends where an off-topic tangent begins).
Dann steigt aus den Trümmern der alten Gesellschaft, Die Sozialistische Weltrepublik!
The Soul of Man under Socialism
