Family Shames: 1

          Family Shames: 1

1.    O so Masculine

2.    A Magic Trick

3.    Mr. Charisma

4.    A Shameful Tale

 

          I write this essay to expose three Family Shames; and the family I refer to is the entire human species. I see, in certain quirks of human behavior, the genetic imprint of successful mating strategies dating back to the Paleolithic; and these strategies are not exactly admirable.

 

1.    O so Masculine

          I see in the news that George Zimmerman, famed for shooting to death a 17-year-old armed with Skittles, is in trouble again, this time for domestic abuse. He had already left his wife; this is another woman; and the question is, why would any woman seek such a man?

          GZ is not alone in enjoying such curious solicitude. Death Row inmates are routinely mailed marriage proposals from women utterly unknown to them. This effect goes beyond the personal to the political; for it is also routine for the worst tyrants to inspire the greatest loyalty. Why?

          I think this resembles a curious custom amongst the lions. A lion pride has one adult male; sooner or later he is challenged by a wandering younger male; if he is defeated then the young male takes his place; and the first thing he does is kill all the lion cubs. What then follows is (to a human) mind-bending; namely, the lionesses make new cubs, and this by mating with the very same male who had just killed their cubs!

          From an evolutionary point of view this makes sense. The new lion is strong, so his cubs will be strong too. I suspect that a similar logic used to apply to Paleolithic humankind. It was a strategy that our distant ancestors borrowed from the lions; truly the King of Beasts, for I have a low opinion of kings, and now of lions, and now of our distant ancestors, who gave us tendencies that we bear to this very day.