SEX AND
RANK:MODERN MAN’S
ANCIENT PROGRAMS
Chapter from the book
2. The World of Conflicting Groups
Most
attempts to consider male-female relations have been made without accounting
for the factors that have formed modern humanity. The most important factor
that has usually been ignored is the existence in the world of conflicting
groups. As groups we mean clan, tribe, nation. Man is a top predator, and the
higher the place in the hierarchy of predators, the harsher is the interspecies
competition between them. Competition takes place within the clan for the
female, and between families for territory, and the females within the clan
make the males fight for their choice of female. The literature today does not
for some reason pay full attention to these clear facts of competition for
resources. After all, those of us alive today are the heirs of the victors.
What
we understand as a family is quite precise. It can be monogamous or polygamous.
What comprises a tribe is also not open to doubt. But between the family and
the tribe there is another structure. In human communities that structure is
called the clan. The clan itself has no precise definition. For instance, the
Random House Dictionary provides the following definitions:
1. a group of families or households, as among the
Scottish Highlanders, the heads of which claim descent from a common ancestor:
the Mackenzie clan;
2. a group of people of common descent; family;
3. a group of people, as a clique, set, society, or party, especially as united by some common trait, characteristic, or interest;
4. Anthropology (a) the principal social unit of tribal organization, in which descent is reckoned exclusively in either the paternal or the maternal line; (b) a group of people regarded as being descended from a common ancestor.
2. a group of people of common descent; family;
3. a group of people, as a clique, set, society, or party, especially as united by some common trait, characteristic, or interest;
4. Anthropology (a) the principal social unit of tribal organization, in which descent is reckoned exclusively in either the paternal or the maternal line; (b) a group of people regarded as being descended from a common ancestor.
Definition
3 is not apt as it blurs the meaning of the term and moves over into
metaphorical territory. So, to summarize:
the
‘clan’ is a robust union of kinfolk;
women
do not marry into their own clan but into another;
the
clan is more than a family and less than a tribe;
a
clan consists of several families that often have the same surname;
primordially
the clan has inhabited one piece of territory and controls it.
Thus,
a clan is a community of several families where the men are tied by kin and
often have the same surname, whereas the women come into the clan from other
clans. We will see below that such clans existed even before the appearance of
man. It is commonly accepted that clans exist only among humans, but what if
they existed before man appeared on the earth? Besides, if orcs can live in
clans, why not chimpanzees?
The
family or clan is a primordial unit. Mammals live in clans. And these clans are
constantly waging war over territory. This is part of the behaviour of man’s
closest relative, the chimpanzee. In contrast to other mammals, man and the
chimpanzee belong to patriarchal clans. The female passes from clan to clan,
but the male remains on his primordial clan territory. Chimpanzee clans wage
permanent war with each other over territory. When the enemy’s clan is
destroyed, the victor’s clan occupies its territory and as a rule splits into
two. Then history begins anew.
Another
approach. When the partner has freedom of choice, in other words, when one’s
offspring is of the best possible quality as a result of the free
redistribution of genetic material, half of that offspring is born with quality
higher than that of their parents and half with quality lower. In addition, the
number of ‘malignant’ mutations vastly outnumbers the number of ‘benign’
mutations.
The
consequence is that for procreation both in quantitative and qualitative terms
parents must produce at least four offspring. This is also the Palaeolithic
norm, according to archaeological findings. A population must grow twofold with
each generation, entailing a subsequent shortage of resources. The only way of
securing these resources is to take them from your neighbours. As a result the
permanent war for resources becomes one of necessity.
Man’s
forebears fought as clans, like the chimpanzees. The people began to fight as
tribes, then as tribal unions. Then nations appeared. Most recent wars have
seen the conflicts of national unions. There is no larger unit than a union of
nations.
We
should note that clan, tribe and nation are biological units because it is
within these units that basic cross-breeding takes place. Otherwise these units
can be called populations. Tribal unions and national unions are not biological
units.
If
there exists a world of conflicting groups, then who must fight with whom?
Theoretically, everyone with everyone else. Until the system of universal division
of labour was created people fought with their territorial neighbours.
Chimpanzees are no different, because as a rule neighbouring populations
occupied similar habitats. Populations who occupy similar habitats are enemies.
Lions
hunt antelope, but lions are not enemies of the antelope. Habitats are
different. But hyenas also hunt antelope. Lions and hyenas share the same
habitat. Therefore lions and hyenas are enemies that cannot stand each other,
like cats and dogs. Lions kill hyenas whenever they get the opportunity,
although lions do not eat hyenas.
The
same situation exists for nations. Nations occupy different habitats. The best
of these habitats is where hi-tech goods and banking services have been
developed. The main enemies here are America and Europe. They may demonstrate
unanimity in a whole range of areas, but they are biological enemies because
they share one food source. At the level of industrial production the main
enemies are India and China. Again similar habitats, but they do not hide their
antipathy towards each other. At the level of raw materials provision Russia
and Saudi Arabia are enemies, although on the surface there would not seem to
be any enmity between them; however, Saudi Arabia hugely contributed to the
financial ruin of the USSR, a process that culminated in its collapse.
Methods
of waging war change, but their essence remains the same: seizing someone
else’s resources. And seizing someone else’s resources is not possible without
suppressing those who used to own those resources. In such transactions as
‘Introducing the Euro’ and ‘Airbus 380 versus Boeing 747’ more resources were
utilized than in some military operations of World War II.
The
most savage wars occur when one nation divides into two, because both new
nations occupy habitats very close to one another. Nations very close to one
another offer the most potential for strife. Chimpanzees experience a similar
situation. Very often after victory over a neighbouring clan the victorious
clan splits, and then these two troops that previously belonged to one clan try
to destroy each other.
Ideas
for transforming the world of conflicting nations into ‘the world of
NON-conflicting nations’ have not been developed. There have been many
humanistic proposals, but none of them have stood the test of time. Maybe
somebody one day will think of something better.
The
world of conflicting groups is the fundamental tool for human selection and
improvement. Whatever helps populations win in this struggle is good for those
populations. What is good for the populations is biologically correct for the
populations.
The modern world, as it always has been, is a world of
conflicting groups. Modern man is formed by the world of conflicting groups.
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