Men's Memes: The evolution of consciousness

Sunday, May 14, 2006

The evolution of consciousness

Humans biologically the same as ourselves have been around for around 200,000 years, but its only in the last 5,000 to 10,000 years that we have made sustained progress. Certain arts of the male mind - like construction, seafaring, astronomy and mathematics - seem to stretch back a fair bit further than that, but its only recently that we've really created civilisations.

Anyway, all that is mere background to my theory that through time man has become more CONSCIOUS. That is to say more self-aware and more in control of his thoughts and destiny. We are still almost totally dominated by unconscious thought-processes, but I feel pretty sure that, say 50 or 60 thousand years ago people were barely conscious at all, and probably drifted through life in a kind of trance. I say this partially because even today most people, most of the time are barely conscious. Unless you make constant efforts to stay focused, you will join most people in letting your mind drift aimlessly from one thing to another. Like a windmill being spun round by the external force of the weather around you. Just spinning, spinning. One thoughts pops up, which leads you to start imagining something, which brings up a memory, then you hear a song, which cycles around and around for a while, then something about it evokes an emotion which leads to another thought....

and so on. Like a cow endlessly chewing on the cud of trivia.

I believe a man should try to train his mind to rise above this kind of trance state and become as conscious as he can be. Conscious of where you are. Conscious of where you are going. Conscious of the effect of your actions and words. This is not always pleasant, or comforting. But over time, this kind of realism will pay off in your life.

Remember, effective action can only occur when you have an accurate as possible model of REALITY in your mind. And you have to become as conscious as possible to get it.

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Turn of the tide: feminists begin to regret

Cosmopolitan (The women's magazine that urges women to use men for sex) Editor Lorraine Candy has a change of mind and now urges women not to have "Soul-less sex":

"We didn't feel ashamed about one-night stands...this, we thought, is what feminism is about."

70s feminist Fay Weldon now says:

"It is the fault of me and my like, who... got it wrong.

So were we wrong, we feminists, setting women free? The results have been devastating – greater than we ever imagined.

We steamed ahead, changing the world with too little caution, and I hope the future will forgive us.

The pendulum has swung too far over. But it may yet swing back again. Societies, thank God, tend to be self-righting."

"Once a man could look forward to starting a family and the dignity that came from being the provider. Forget it. At best as a man you're decorative, look after the kids and earn a bit sometimes; at worst you're a write-off. Women are elbowing the men out. The boys get anxious, the girls swagger. The male suicide rate goes up, female down. Twenty-eight per cent of us now live in single person households - a lonely and unnatural state - and most of the 28 per cent consist of young men. It is strange that it is left to a woman to suggest, in the normal nurturing way, that men start some kind of movement to promote their gender's status and self-esteem - call it masculinism, brotherism, machoism, what you want - and some mark of the success of the feminist movement, that it needs to be done."

60's feminist Doris Lessing now says:

"It is time we began to ask who are these women who continually rubbish men. The most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no one protests.

Men seem to be so cowed that they can't fight back, and it is time they did."

An excerpt from an interview with Joan Rivers:

"She's not with the feminists when it comes to matters of the heart. For her, they're to blame for the current parlous state of our relationships, as depicted in these television Shows (Such as Sex in the city) and films. "I saw this coming. You cannot be equal to a man, you cannot make a man feel 'I don't need you' or 'I'll take my sex when I want it'. All these shows are so sad."

Camille Paglia :

"Women have been discouraged from genres such as sculpture that require studio training or expensive materials.

But in philosophy, mathematics, and poetry, the only materials are pen and paper.

Male conspiracy cannot explain ALL female failures.

I am convinced that, even without restrictions, there still would have been no female Pascal, Milton, or Kant.

. . . Even now, with all vocations open, I marvel at the rarity of the woman driven by artistic or intellectual obsession, that self-mutilating derangement of social relationship which, in its alternate forms of crime and ideation, is the disgrace and glory of the human species."