Page 32 - Ruminations
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30. Neoteny’s bell curve

         The long, dependent childhood of our species enables intelligence
       to  be  developed  in  culturally  determined  forms,  producing  adults
       ready  to  function  within  their  various  social  and  physical
       environments.  It  also  allows  for  a  range  of  personalities  to  emerge
       from that extended period of easily absorbed influence.
         At  one  extreme  is  the  type  of  person  totally  accepting  external
       authority.  Blind  faith  provides  a  profound  sense  of  security  and  a
       reactive rejection of contradictory information: these are true believers
       able  to  deceive  themselves  and  others.  They  can  be  altruistic  if  the
       ideology  demands  it,  particularly  if  they  have  no  fear  of  mortality
       owing to belief in an afterlife. Natural selection must have favored this
       variant;  it  works  well  in  small,  closed  tribal  communities—but  the
       result  could  be  good  or  bad  for  the  environment  or  for  the  group
       itself. Perhaps the most violent of these groups, after destroying most
       of the others, ultimately became nations.
         At  the  other  extreme  is  the  total  rejection  of  external  authority;
       selfish solipsistic nihilism, either psychopathically self-destructive via
       insecurity  or  sociopathically  self-aggrandizing  via  cynicism.  These
       people fear or crave death. They have had very bad early childhood
       experiences  with  adults;  and  are  often  frozen  in  early  Freudian
       psychosexual stages. This dysfunctional neoteny is generated by urban
       anomic  environments  destructive  of  the  original  familial  and  tribal
       matrix;  it  is  tolerated  and  exploited  by  demagogues.  The  cult  and
       reprogramming  phenomenon  of  our  era  exposes  the  workings  of
       traumatic switching from one extreme to the other (demonstrating the
       primacy  of  original  blind  faith,  to  which  the  ensnared  person  is
       desperately trying to return).
         The  middle  is  an  ideal,  the  Chinese  “superior  man”  or  Western
       liberated  existentialist,  able  to  deal  rationally  with  situations  and
       relatively neutral in the knowledge of real limitations and the finality
       of  death.  Their  childhood  is  passed  without  either  the  trauma  or
       indoctrination  of  the  extremes;  as  adults,  their  confrontation  with
       irrationality in other humans is simply another problem to be solved.
       They  can  become  involved  in  a  “culture  war”  with  those  extremes,
       forced to defend doubt, diversity and rationalism. The worst effects of
       neoteny  in  Homo  sapiens  are  not  universal:  the  center  of  the
       distributive curve may be narrow, but it can always be widened from
       one generation to the next.
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