I was watching the Jeremy Kyle show the other day as I relaxed after a morning considering chord progressions. What better way to reflect upon harmony than by watching dissonance?
I only caught part of one little ‘show’ but it was very interesting. Basically, it was the age-old female genes seeking male genes show. An attractive, no great beauty but attractive, 20-something woman (I guess) was ‘upset’ that her 20-something (I guess) male ‘partner’ may have been having sex with other women. Which, of course, he was.
He in turn made similar claims about her, which were not totally ill-founded.
Kyle was berating both of them for not understanding what a relationship was. Quite natural, after all he does have ratings to consider and moral outrage never lost an audience.
Of course, economics and its biological equivalent – evolutionary psychology – tells us all we need to know really.
English society, and most likely others too, is three-tier cake. The top (the smallest section) and bottom (the largest) tiers are rule breakers whilst the middle is rule observant. The rich can afford not to observe the rules and, in any event, they are most influential in making them so there isn’t that many they need to break. Those at the bottom are obliged to break the rules in order to survive as the rule makers need and have always needed a large number of workers to do the every day jobs that, if not done, make life intolerable. But the top tier is not sufficient in number to control the bottom tier so they have the middle tier – the rule observers. Of course, by being rule observers they not only seek to control the bottom tier but, by definition, themselves as well, on behalf of the top tier – the real power in any land. In this way society works, always has worked and, in all probability, always will work.
The main rule by which means rule observation works is to observe the main rule – repeat, parrot fashion, that which you have been told. That is, to pass an exam. The public examination system, introduce into England in the mid-19th century, provides access to large organisations. In other words, it mirrors their hierarchy.
That access provides financial reward that finances a lifestyle, which, in keeping with the concept of ‘rule observation’, has a rule-based approach to it – get married, buy a house with a mortgage, fund a pension, have children in a stable relationship. This is a highly effective way to obtain a stable lifestyle, it will have its ups and downs (some of the downs being quite deep) but it is, generally, very stable. The key factor is that of stability in the relationship. The young man and woman on the Kyle show were being berated by Kyle for the lack of such an approach to life. The attraction of the young man was fairly obvious; he had a straight face typical of a testosterone well-endowed male. In addition, his success with women made him even more attractive to the young woman as this confirmed, at a sub-conscious level, the worth of those genes. So the young woman faces a dilemma, the man she has identified as being genetically desirable is desirable by others and, therefore, has the incentive to exploit that attraction. But that value in the genetic marketplace makes him unsuitable for the long-term objective, bringing a child to maturity. He is likely to pursue his genetic prowess elsewhere and a human child is both nature and nurture..
Of course, as I have already said, Kyle may be reacting genuinely or merely expressing the attitude of his audience both on TV and in the studio. And if the studio audience is typical of his audience in general, a scan of the audience seems – on the occasions I have seen it – to be overwhelmingly female, then relationships matter to women. But we already know this to be so from the popularity of ‘soap operas’ (or continuing dramas as they are now known), where pseudo-relationships form the plot lines. So why should women be more interested in relationships than men?
Human beings are mammals but do not give birth to a coherent human being. A dog or a cat will give birth to young that within 12 months are quite capable of fending for themselves. This is not the case with a human being. Walking upright, narrow hips, with a large brain, large head, necessitates that women give birth to immature, in the sense of being independent of the parents, individuals. It is unimaginable that a 10-year old child, much less a one-year old child, would be able to support itself. Indeed, only part of the environment humans inhabit is ‘natural’, they also inhabit a manufactured world called society.
In fact this dependency seems to be getting longer. Within the last 20 years we have seen in the UK a larger and larger number of young people, particularly young men, stay with their parents well into sexual maturity. Sexual maturity being, for most animals, the point at which parental ties are broken
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/dec/08/young-adults-living-parental-home-ons
The interesting point behind this news story is that the number of young men living with parents is twice that of young women. I just wonder how many of those young women have children and are living in social housing..
We know two things about men and women, other than the obvious genitalia issues, women earn less than men, more males are born than females and women can give birth. So to have twice as many women leading independent lives, that is independent of their parents, is extraordinary. I suspect we have here a condition where the state is acting as breadwinner.
My mother, born in 1920 and pre-welfare state, used to tell me that her mother, a miner’s wife, had a truism – any fool can make a baby takes a man to keep one. But that was pre-1945 and pre-welfare state. Pre the state as breadwinner.
Now, the young woman on the Kyle show had no children from this man and was simply willing to give this man access to her body, which, in an age of contraception and terminations, is not the same as access to her genes.
It is only supposition, but using the McClean triune model of the brain we can see that the sub-conscious attraction, the mammalian limbic part of the brain, of this man’s genes might well be counter-balanced by the cortex, almost uniquely human, which recognises that, long-term, this individual is plain useless. So whilst access to the female body maybe be driven by hot sexual attraction (limbic) the nagging reasoned doubt of suitability (cortex) may deny access to genetic material – she is happy to have sex but not get pregnant.
Of course, as economics teaches us, individuals pursue their objectives logically, So becoming pregnant by one, genetically well-endowed, man and having the child raised by another, reliable, man makes perfect sense. After all, it’s a wise child that knows its father.
Economics also describes opportunity costs. In a given market, where consumers have large amounts of the means of exchange (money), the price of commodities rise. This was first recognised by Milton Friedman – Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.
The case of Vanessa Peroncell and Wayne Bridge serves as testament to this.
As can be seen from the photograph below, Ms Peroncell is an attractive women. She has the natural attributes of attraction, a curvy shape and round face indicative of being fertile and able to bear children. However, and with no direspect, not a great beauty.
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Mr Wayne Bridge, a professional footballer, has many desirable attributes. Patently good genes, as a professional sportsman, and the earning capacity that puts him in the mega-attractive range. So for Ms Peroncell to be willing to allow access to her genes, she is the mother of Mr Bridge’s son, requires both significant genes and money supply. The ‘cost’ of access to Ms Peroncell’s genes is vastly out of proportion to their value (as indicated by her physical appearance) as a result of the supply of money. She produces no more eggs and those eggs are not of a better quality but command a higher price due to the money supply in her ‘economy’ (her social circle being highly paid footballers) – i.e. inflation.
So in the environment in which Ms Peroncell operates, a lingerie model and VIP hostess, the Friedman analysis is all too evident.
The above may seem like mere philosophical meanderings; but no. Wthout the middle class core society implodes. There is nothing to keep the three-teired cake in place, the middle tier being at its centre. Without young middle-class men able to meet the ‘costs’ of access to the genes of young women (women look for men of at least the same status as themselves) then the middle-class, rule observing family diminishes in numbers.
Rule observation is at the heart of any society, without rule observation there is no society, and no one observes rules or causes rules to be observed as well as the middle class.
With a dearth of jobs for those who have observed the educational rules (pass exams, go to university – and become indebted, get a good job) such that they are unable to demonstrate the value of such rule observance – nice wife, nice children, nice mortgage nice pension – all funded by a regular wage, the value of rule observance begins to collapse and society with it.