Thursday 8 November 2001

Pic of the day: Once the nest is built, the female birds are a lot more interested. Or so I've read. (Screenshot from The Sims.)

Games that lovers play

Basically, humans play the same game as most animals from fish upward, even though there are certain differences. In some people more than others, I must say.

In its simplest form, it is important for the male to impress the female someway. Given a choice, the female will mate with the most impressive male. Males will mate indiscriminately, in many species, but not in all. In the relatively few monogamous species, the females also have some impressing to do. Humans are toward the monogamous end of the scale, but certainly not to the same extent as for instance various songbirds. So the pressure should be stronger on the men.

In lower organisms, the impressive display is purely organic. You have probably seen tropical fish with overly large and frilly fins in bright colors. The larger the fin and the brighter the color, the more impressive the male. Nor is this restricted to the very simplest of bony animals. The antlers of reindeer and various other members of that family are largely for display too. And of course there is the peacock with its glorious tail. (In humans, glorious tails may be mostly a female feature, but the males have their own body parts to worry about.)

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As the brain grows more complex, some animals use impressive behavior instead of physical features. Mating dances are common among birds and some reptiles, and can be bewilderingly complex. As is good and proper - they are also an opportunity to show off. The critter with the most stamina and the best body coordination is at an advantage. Feel free to draw your own comparisons to human activities of striking similarity.

But perhaps the most shockingly human behavior among animals is found in the nest-builder birds. Here the male labors mightily to build a nest from suitable natural resources. He then tries to attract the attention of a fertile female and point her in the direction of the home he has built for her. The larger and better constructed the nest, the more impressed and receptive the female.

It is my impression that this has really taken off in humans. And because humans are not completely monogamous, and because fertility is not a once-a-year thing, the poor male is forced to continue building on the nest for decades, expanding in size or dragging in twigs like new furniture or decorations.

On the basis of this, it is not surprising that some religions recommend celibacy for the more active believers. Even the Christian apostle Paul felt that a married man's body belonged to the wife while an unmarried man was free to serve the Lord; but he admitted that most people just could not stay celibate. (He was probably on to something there. If it were that easy, the human race would have died out long ago.)

You sure free up a truckload of resources the day you realize that you can continue to be single for the rest of your life without going to Hell. Time, money, thoughts ... you name it. Reproductive games take up a lot of a man's capacity, whether you try to keep one woman staying with you, or to have short and hectic affairs with many different ones. In any case, it takes a lot of planning and time and money.

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There is a price for everything, and certainly also for dropping out of the reproductive race. The heaviest cost in a greater perspective is that you don't have any kids; so your bizarre behavior (or lack thereof) dies with you. This certainly helps hold that kind of attitude down.

There are also more immediate concerns. Most humans feel some need to be with another, in various meanings of that expression. Outside a family situation they feel discontent, and their mood keeps falling to the point where they are desperate to get back into the nest. If this is for some reason not possible, they start to die while alive. The process can be abrupt, with suicide as the climax. Or gradual, with less and less care for their own health and safety, until they succumb from "natural" reasons. Poorly organized criminality is somewhere in between those, I guess, and is a leading cause of death among certain population groups in which long term pair bonding is less common than the average. (It would not be politically correct to mention such groups, I suppose. And anyway, it is likely to vary over the course of history.)

There is however one nifty thing about being human, and it is indeed replete with nift. We live quite long lives, unless some tragedy befalls us. In fact, if you have survived to the age of 40-50, you still have lots of time to drop out of the reproductive race and take on other hobbies. In Hindu lore, the man in particular is encouraged to surrender his worldly goods to his sons and take up a life of pilgrimage. In America, it is more common that women decide to stop having sex at 50, and take up their real interests. The husband may or may not hang around for the duration, and the kids may come home to borrow the washing machine, but basically it's a new life phase. In some cases they go heavily into religion too, in other cases it could be the arts. But basically, they drop out of the lifestyle that follows from the reproductive game.

It is an interesting thought, and my recent reading about eastern philosophy has again made me aware that other cultures have norms for such a non-reproductive life. In fact, most cultures even have alternative pathways for those who do not or can not follow the family path. Even Europe had its monasteries, and a few of them are still open. But by and large, the current mass consumer culture is centered entirely on the family folks. And this is not random: For our consumer culture is built upon providing twigs and moss and feathers for the nests. It is all about getting the poor birds to run faster to build bigger nests. And every day on TV the females are shown greater nests, and the males are shown more attractive females, so that the frenetic spiral of mating games can go faster and faster, powering the greatest economy of all time.

Now you may say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure:
The rich have got their channels in the be bedrooms of the poor
And there's a mighty judgment coming - but I may be wrong ...
You see I hear these funny voices, in the Tower of Song.

(Leonard Cohen, Tower of Song.)