Previously: Preamble Chapter 1 - The Why Preamble to Digression In my Preamble Post I stated PGtCR was “very interesting in its own right, introducing a lot of striking ideas and concepts.” This is true, and those striking ideas and concepts are sprinkled haphazardly throughout the book without rhyme or reason.
I think it's something of an inconsistency to be both into Calvinism and polyamory. There are branches of spirituality much more sympatico with polyamory, such as anything tantra, which notably also eschews self-denial.
Spirituality is ultimately about having a principle that is more powerful than the self guiding you, so it's important not to get lost in the exoteric aspects of religion when trying to dream up a new one.
In addition to having fewer unattached young men, monogamous societies have typically had longer good periods, and less frequent bad periods. Or longer rises and fewer falls, if you prefer. Peter Turchin documents this in Historical Dynamics, and it fits into his view where falls/bad times are caused by intra-elite conflict: In a polygamous society, elite men have more women, and far more children, so the ratio of elites:nonelites grows more quickly.
The main relevant differences I see between polygyny and polyamory are:
- Polyamorous have fewer kids
- Elite women, not only elite men, can sleep around
- Polyamory allows some male losers to share a woman instead of having nobody
- Polyamory doesn't (currently) appear to have a way to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate children.
I expect that a high-fertility culture where polyamory is widely accepted differs little from polygyny in its social consequences. Elite men still have many kids, and male-fenale differences in sexual jealousy mean the typical poly man has more partners than the typical poly woman, and so many more men are excluded from sex and success than women.
I think the "more male losers" effect is avoided if poly stays opt-in, with a high male:female ratio, as today. But in practice, I expect this can't be maintained, because polyamory becomes the default relationship style in any society that doesn't stigmatize it.
A lot of polyamory in a culture was downstream of male disposability. If a quarter to a half of your male population was expected to be lost in war and raiding, than you can expect men to have multiple wives. If your culture requires you to be a 'warrior' in order to be a 'marragable adult', then you kind of have to expect a lot of dead people.
1. Monogamy is likely adaptive to farmer economics, which is why and how it spread, and is less useful to industrial economics, hence why its power has waned over the last 200 years. It's hard to say what will be adaptive in a world of AI economics.
2. Many Protestant Christians practice in denominations that originated with Calvinist beliefs, but unfortunately much of that has been lost. My own light experience with Presbyterianism is that some of the cultural Calvinism remains there (thanks, I suspect, to Presbyterianism's governing structure), even if the explicit Calvinist beliefs have mostly been lost.
I think it's something of an inconsistency to be both into Calvinism and polyamory. There are branches of spirituality much more sympatico with polyamory, such as anything tantra, which notably also eschews self-denial.
Spirituality is ultimately about having a principle that is more powerful than the self guiding you, so it's important not to get lost in the exoteric aspects of religion when trying to dream up a new one.
(Slightly delayed) AI Narration created for this part of the series:
https://open.substack.com/pub/askwhocastsai/p/pragmatists-guide-to-crafting-religion-0ba
In addition to having fewer unattached young men, monogamous societies have typically had longer good periods, and less frequent bad periods. Or longer rises and fewer falls, if you prefer. Peter Turchin documents this in Historical Dynamics, and it fits into his view where falls/bad times are caused by intra-elite conflict: In a polygamous society, elite men have more women, and far more children, so the ratio of elites:nonelites grows more quickly.
The main relevant differences I see between polygyny and polyamory are:
- Polyamorous have fewer kids
- Elite women, not only elite men, can sleep around
- Polyamory allows some male losers to share a woman instead of having nobody
- Polyamory doesn't (currently) appear to have a way to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate children.
I expect that a high-fertility culture where polyamory is widely accepted differs little from polygyny in its social consequences. Elite men still have many kids, and male-fenale differences in sexual jealousy mean the typical poly man has more partners than the typical poly woman, and so many more men are excluded from sex and success than women.
I think the "more male losers" effect is avoided if poly stays opt-in, with a high male:female ratio, as today. But in practice, I expect this can't be maintained, because polyamory becomes the default relationship style in any society that doesn't stigmatize it.
A lot of polyamory in a culture was downstream of male disposability. If a quarter to a half of your male population was expected to be lost in war and raiding, than you can expect men to have multiple wives. If your culture requires you to be a 'warrior' in order to be a 'marragable adult', then you kind of have to expect a lot of dead people.
Couple of comments:
1. Monogamy is likely adaptive to farmer economics, which is why and how it spread, and is less useful to industrial economics, hence why its power has waned over the last 200 years. It's hard to say what will be adaptive in a world of AI economics.
2. Many Protestant Christians practice in denominations that originated with Calvinist beliefs, but unfortunately much of that has been lost. My own light experience with Presbyterianism is that some of the cultural Calvinism remains there (thanks, I suspect, to Presbyterianism's governing structure), even if the explicit Calvinist beliefs have mostly been lost.