The article, Arts
of Seduction, examines and seeks to explain art as a possible sexual
selection. Is art a survival
adaptation? Is it a courtship
adaptation? It is perhaps not
exclusively for courtship, but art clearly illustrates sexual choices. Anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake
provides three reason as to why art can be looked at
in terms of evolutionary purposes.
First, she states that art is ubiquitous, it is
present in every single culture. It is
universal across all human groups. Art
was discovered 35,000 years ago in
It
does not appear, however, that art directly promotes survival. Art is costly both in time and energy and is
apparently quite useless, yet it manifests a particular sort of beauty, which
Beginning with German Romantics of
the nineteenth century, art has been viewed as a “utopian escape from reality”
(p. 261). This perspective presents
artists in a positive light as “overcoming their instincts, avoiding banality,
striving against capitalism, rebelling against society, and transcending the
ornamental” (p. 261). It recognizes art
as pleasurable, both in making and looking at it, but it looks to pleasure as
being sufficient cause for the existence of art. However, if we compare this belief to eating,
we might say that we eat just for the pleasure of eating, when in fact we know
this to be untrue. We eat because we need energy.
It is for this reason why we must being with explaining pleasure.
The hypothesis that art functions as a glue
which holds society together, similar to religion, music, and dance, arose
during the early twentieth century; formed from a functionalist viewpoint. However, followers of this philosophy
expressed a behavior’s function as its place in society and its “cultural
stability,” which does little to provide any understanding from an evolutionary
standpoint. For example, primates such
as chimpanzees have no need for mechanisms such as art. So why, then, do humans have this need? Some seek to explain art through what is
known as the propaganda theory, thus conveying cultural values and socializing
the young. The trouble with this theory,
though, is that it does not make sense that in prehistoric times anyone would
have had the desire to produce propaganda.
Why spend the time and energy when language by itself has been found to
be the most efficient way of communicating what to do and what not to do. Still, others have looked to explain the
presence of art as a religious function.
But if art evolved as a way of appeasing gods, dead ancestors, and animal
spirits, how can we account for the possibility that these entities may not really
exist and consequently provide nothing?
And, if they do exist, appeasing them does not provide a reproductive
advantage. On the other hand, if certain
spiritual powers are able to grant higher status or reproductive opportunities,
then such behavior could, in fact, be explained by sexual selection. The same is true for artwork said to have the
power to cure diseases, which has never been medically or empirically
proven. If it does not truly have the
power to cure disease, what would the purpose be? Evolution does not give favor to one value
system or cultural practice. If the
artistic image does not do as intended or does not provide qualities needed for
survival, then the only answer for evolution’s attention to art is through
sexual selection. It is, however,
important to realize the differences in various functions of art. Art may serve a social function if it
supports certain organizations like religion and politics. It may also be created through an individual
motivation which includes making a living and achieving social standing. Lastly, art may be achieved according to a
biological function, which happens to be the focus of this article, concerning
survival or reproduction. But although
evolutionary psychology does attempt to answer many interesting questions of
human beings, it is impossible to answer all of the; nor does evolutionary
psychology wish to undermine the interest so art history or artistic
expression.
Two strategies that have been taken
to explain art as an evolutionary origin are top-down and bottom-up. The top-down approach looks at the fine arts,
while bottom-up focuses on visual ornamentation. The fine arts, then, are a “recent
manifestation of a universal human instinct for making visual ornamentation”
(p. 266). Scientists generally take this
top-down approach to counteract the stereotype that they have forgotten beauty
in the midst of their pursuit for truth.
But looking at the bottom-up and visual ornamentation presents us with
the opportunity to appreciate the art that surrounds us every day. Clothing, jewelry, big beautiful houses,
furniture, gardens, even automobiles are examples of this aesthetic behavior in
every day life; and really there is no clear line dividing fashion and
art.
This article takes a bottom-down
approach which makes more sense in regards to the evolutionary origins of art
and tracing “the adaptive function of these seemingly useless biological
luxuries” (p. 20). It is possible that
some of our bodily organs have evolved as visual ornamentation, similar to the
way in which the peacock’s tail evolved.
Examples in the human body include hair, faces, and muscles, which play
upon one’s senses. Another way of understanding
this phenomenon is by looking at bowerbirds and their mating practice. They can be compared to humans doing artwork
because a male bowerbird’s ornamentation does not grow out of their bodies, but
rather is consciously made, an obvious adaptation to female sexual choice. A female bowerbird will usually choose to
copulate with the male who has the most sturdy,
symmetrical, and well-ornamented nest.
Males will even go so far as to “paint” the inner walls of their bower
by using leaves or bark in their beaks and a bluish regurgitated fruit residue,
similar to an artist with a paintbrush.
In addition, the males which have evolved brightly colored feathers,
dance in front of the bowers and perform for the females. In all, this practice represents many
significant adaptations. Their skill
indicates good fitness, takes time and energy, requires the
to defend their bower which demonstrates strength- all indicators of
good genes. However, the bowerbird
probably does not know why he creates
art. He might explain it as an instinct
or desire for self-expression, much in the same way we explain human art. Artists, themselves, tend to reject the
notion that they create in order to procreate.
The bowerbird is a good example of the continuity between body ornamentation
and art. Which biologists are beginning to look at more closely.
Evolution does not stop within the
boundary of the body. Although
traditionally a person’s phenotype has previously only included parts of the
body, a person’s “extended phenotype is the total reach of its genes into the
environment” (p. 271). This means that
while some ornaments are worn on the body, ornaments also include memory and
reputation. Examples of such
ornamentation of the body are tattoos, makeup, braiding,
dying, and cutting our hair, and putting on jewelry and clothing. Apart from the body, however, we decorate our
homes with stylish useful objects and useless objects purely for aesthetic
appeal.
Suprisingly
enough, the theory that art has emerged through sexual selection is not a new
idea. It was mentioned as far back as
Darwin who “viewed human ornamentation and clothing as natural outcomes of
sexual selection” (p. 271).
In accordance with the sexual
selection theory, then, better artists must have attracted more partners or the
most desirable partners. In looking at
Picasso, we see a good example in the fact that he fathered one child by his
first wife, another by his mistress, and two more by a second mistress. Picasso was also a good indicator of one who
had acquired much wealth through the occupation of creating art.
There was a lot of sexual content in
prehistoric art, such as statues with large breast, genitals, phallic batons,
and so on. While it is an interesting
find, the author points out that it is not relevant to
the sexual choice model for evolution of art.
Such sculptures do not imply a favoring of hypersexual pieces of art,
rather that the artist’s interest. It
also could be coincidence as pointed out in the example of bowerbirds
resembling phallus’ and how many street outlines look like yoni (stylized
labia).
If one chooses to view art as an
example of biological signaling, it can be broken down into capacities for
producing art and capacities for judging art, both are complementary. It is no wonder that people have figured out
to create things aesthetically pleasing to others in order to attract sexual
partners and gain social status, as well as the fact that it has been mostly
men who have produced most of the famous art in the world. Men are the sex more likely to have the
motivation to take advantage of this situation in order to attract sexual
partners.
In answering the questions to why is beauty so compelling and why certain things are more
attractive than others, the author labels are reactions to beauty as footprints
of powerful selection forces. For sexual
preference, one might look to faces and bodies while our aesthetic preference
looks rather capricious but upon examination, reveals a deeper logic. If art did indeed evolve through sexual
selection then our aesthetic preferences could be part of mate selection,
however that is not the case. Our
aesthetic preferences are what we use in assessing one’s phenotype. To explain these preferences, one should be
able to use the exact same principles of selection theory that biologists use
to explain mating preferences including runaway effects, sensory biases, and
fitness indicators.
It is supposed that human aesthetics
possible emerged through runaway sexual selection with aesthetic tastes
evolving as part of the female mate selection, suggesting female hominids had
tastes for male ornaments. The artist
who can capture these tastes acquired more groupies and therefore able to
produce more offspring who would in turn inherit their talent and taste.
A clear example of this is is with the Wodaabe people of the
deserts of
While the practice of the Wodaabe people may seem strange, they are behaving normally
in that the males are displaying and the women are choosing. For men to make good art, they must hold the
same aesthetic discrimination as the women have. With the Wodaabe
men, when they are decorating themselves for the women, they must use the same
mindset in choosing decorations that women will be judging them.
With all this in mind, the runaway
beauty predicts similarities in aesthetic tastes, with much higher output by
males. The runaway beauty theory can
only account for its existence, it can explain why we find some things more
beautiful than others, but not explain how we come to our judgments.
The theory of sensory bias seems
ideal for explaining our aesthetic preferences.
The sensory bias theory is most valuable when can trace as to why our
brain circuits have evolved certain sensitivities. Physiological studies have lacked taking the
nest stake of asking the why questions.
This was a major flaw in Nancy Aiken’s study, in trying to identify
brain mechanisms that favor forms, patterns, certain colors, and symbols, as
she did not look at evolutionary costs and benefits of artistic behavior.
Unfortunately runaway and sensory
bias theory cannot fully explain human aesthetics. The theory of runaway beauty cannot explain
the preferences we have and why we have them and the sensory bias theory lack
evidence of our aesthetic taste. Under
the fitness indicator theory, is it suggested that our aesthetic preferences
lean towards ornaments and works of art by high-fitness artists.
In general, we tend to “find those
things that could have been produced only by people with attractive,
high-fitness qualities such as health, energy, endurance, hand-eye
coordination, fine motor control, intelligence, creativity, access to rare
materials, the ability to learn difficult skills, and lots of free time” (p.
281). In sum, beauty is expensive and
difficulty.
Unsurprisingly, much of what we find
beautiful depends upon cost. This is a
rather ancient notion that has carried on through time. Think of fashion, it seems the more expensive
an item is, the more “beautiful” it is.
The cost of an object is often measured in energy, skill, money, and
time. From all of this, one can draw the
conclusion that our sense of beauty has been shaped to create an awareness of
what is difficult, rare, costly, skillful, and fit.
Under indicator theory it is
suggested that by making things specials requires them harder to create and
reveals something about the creator. The
auother draws the conclusion that “almost any object
can be made aesthetically: anything can
be made with speacila care that would be difficult to
imitate by one who was not so careful” (p. 281). Therefore, when creating a work of art, an
artist much demonstrate his or her fitness that someone of a lower fitness
could not, as it would make them appear more socially and sexually
attractive.
Like the author states, “beauty
conveys truth, but not the away we thought” (p. 284). Beauty shows truth about the condition of the
artist, no truth about human condition.
“The aesthetic features of art make sense mainly as displays of the
artist’s skill and creativity, not as vehicles or transcendental enlightenment,
religious inspiration, social commentary, psycho-analytic revelation, or
political revolution” (p. 284).
Instead, the fitness indicator
theory can help use understand why art connotes high achievement, exclusiveness,
and superiority. Art is the application
of skill beyond the pragmatically necessary.
The fitness indicator theory gives us the framework to understand the
passion with which people label things as art or not.
While the fitness indicator works, it works better
for folk aesthetics than elite. Folk
aesthetics is concerned with what ordinary people see as beautiful and elite
aesthetics relates to what they consider beautiful, given their highly educated
status. In sum, folk people prefer realism
while elites prefer abstraction.
An interesting note is that while
most people want to interpret the work on art in relation to an artist’s skill
and creativity, certain styles of art make this a difficult task to
accomplish.
In the beginning of time, especially
in regards to art, there was a lack of technology to reproduce images,
ornaments, or works of art. In those
times, items with perfect symmetry, finish, and detail were considered to be of
the highest quality and craftsmanship.
Today, the opposite is true. We
have the technology available to create perfect works of art, such as spoons,
in mass quantities, therefore seen as cheap.
In order for works of art, such as spoons, to be considered art and
expensive, they need to be unique, thus spoons desired are the ones with
irregular finishes, crude orientation and so because it is a sign they were
hand crafted.
The same example carries over to
paintings. Prior to the invention of the camera, paintings considered to be
valuable were exact replications, now today pictures capture the same
thing. Valuable paintings of today stray
from exact realism, as the cheaper camera captures the moment.
In sum, technology has made accuracy
and precision cheap, which in turn has left art to become more abstract, as it
shows uniqueness and an individual’s work.
One indication from history that
hominids took care into form and finish can be seen in handaxes. Over two and a half million years ago, our
ancestors made instruments to serve in their hunting and gathering
societies. Then some 1.6 million years
ago their instruments evolved from mere choppers to handaxes. Such instruments were extremely popular.
The evolution of the handaxe grew into a rather complexly designed tool. Many of the handaxes
show signs of skill, design, and symmetry, far advanced for their times. Such designs seemed to be not necessary for
their practical usage. Scientists have
argued that such designed were indicators of high levels of fitness, a lot of
time consumed to produce, extensive learning to create, along with “a
combination of physical strength, hand-eye coordination, careful planning,
conscientious patience, pain tolerance, and resistant to infection” (p.
291). Such tools were hard to
produce.
The purpose of this example is to
highlight how taking a simple object that seemed to appear as a survival tool, has been tailored in more important ways and serves as
a fitness indicator.
The
Myth of Monogamy – David P. Barash, Judith Eve Lipton
Barash and
Lipton go into detail in Chapter Five of The Myth of Monogamy about what causes
the occurrence of monogamy in various species for the purpose of applying it to
human beings relationships. The chapter
explains some animals’ sexual relationships and what causes them to be
monogamous or polygamous. The goal is
not to criticize polygamy or condone monogamy or even to say which one is
better, but to offer factual evidence of what can cause these two very
different lifestyles. Ultimately, Barash and Lipton want to create a different perspective
for the reader to provoke new thought on the subject and to be able to
understand the behaviors of humans and other animals. Overall, they say that monogamy “is not done
well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” An interesting point and one that can be
understood by many on the surface in terms of seeing monogamous relationships
work and fail an almost equal amount of times.
However, the authors say that even though monogamy does not seem like a
very attractive life choice, there must be some good in it since it is accepted
and practiced, not always well, by the civilized world. In the following, we will introduce and
explain various traits of polygamy and monogamy explained by Barash and Lipton in order to better educate on why
monogamy occurs at all. Be flexible with
the manner in which Barash and Lipton give their
information. They do so in a relatively
random order. They change subjects
quickly and with little warning or lead-in.
They also speak on a topic and address the same topic several pages
later. So to may the
information written in this summary.
Barash and
Lipton suggest early on that monogamy may be the accepted lifestyle of a
“conservative” species. After all, the
time and energy that go into courting the opposite sex is rigorous and filled
with “rejection, injury, bad choices,” and the like which leads those who do
successfully mate to settle down with that mate and give up all future courting
escapades. In this situation if you are
well matched with your mate you will be better equipped to handle parenting
with future offspring. This is a
plausible assumption considering more often than not, good mates produce good
children. The opposite of this is the
occurrence of divorce, which may be attributed to unsuccessful reproduction
according to the authors. For example,
kittiwake gulls are very likely to split up if they are unable to breed after
one year.
In terms of finding an acceptable
and successful mating partner, there is a “phenomenon whereby mates tend to be
similar.”. The
authors find it amuzing how “individuals choose
members of the opposite sex who are similar to themselves.” They say this characteristic of mate
selection relates to monogamy because if the mates are well matched, as said
before, there is greater stability and a better environment for a strong
relationship. The best possible case
scenario is when each member feel “a bit less desireable than the other!”
This creates the feeling that they have entered into a “good deal.” However, if one feels they are far superior
and attractive than their mate, they are more inclined to venture into
relationships outside the monogamous bond.
Going on the point of perceived
attractiveness and how it relates to a couple’s relationship, it is generally
known that males are the least choosy of mates and females are very
choosy. However, these roles can be
reversed based on a given attractiveness of a male or female. If a male perceives himself to be highly
attractive and high-class, he will be far more picky
about his mates than would a less attractive male. Females may become less choosy based on their
attractiveness and situation. This point
about females will be addressed later in an example.
This idea of the authors of people
or animals choosing their mates based on their own attractiveness is comparable
to a couple’s situation and how it can cause monogamy or polygamy. In other words, a couple may choose to be
monogamous “simply because there is little alternative.” The couple may be monogamous, but not because
of love or great mating or even being excellent parents together. They may be monogamous “simply out of
necessity.” For example:
In one case, researchers designed an experimental setup in which female fish had to swim against a current of water in order to get to different males. In this situation, males that had been unacceptable suddenly became highly attractive, if the normally preferred alternatives were unattainable.
This
shows how monogamy or mate choosing relies on lack of alternatives and ease of
copulation and not always on attraction.
There is another experiment talked about in this chapter where Silvia
Lopez of
Here is a poem by Dorothy Parker
inserted into this chapter to illustrate that “males are more likely, in
general, to seek multiple mating opportunities than are females.” “Woman wants monogamy; Man delights in
novelty. Love is woman’s moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun. Woman lives
but in her lord; Count to then, and man is bored. With this the gist and sum of it, What earthly good can come of it?” The authors continue to speak about how a
man’s EPC’s (extra-pair copulations) can lead to
negative impacts on his female mate in the form of bad parenting, STD’s,
deserting his mate and children, or, worst of all, “devoting time an effort to
his lover’s offspring.” Males, however,
can be more successful in sexual reproduction if he has more than one
mate. They see it as a natural way of
guaranteeing there are plenty of his genes in the next generation. Females, being the ones who can experience
more harm than good in this situation take strides to not “let them bring their
girlfriends home.”
The authors go into detail about
different species and how the females assure that their man is forbidden from EPC’s and polygamy.
“In the species of lizards common in the Southwest, females defend small
territories from which they exclude other females.” However, when the male offers nothing more
than sperm to the relationship, the females do not care as much about other
females occupying their male. On the
other end are the extremely feisty females who force their male mate into a
monogamous relationship. More often than
not, when a male is given the opportunity to enter into an EPC, they normally
accept it accept when they are mated with an “unusually aggressive female” in
which case they refrain from the EPC.
Aggressiveness can lead into deadliness when females become violent with
other females who have been trying to attract their male mate. This is the case with the house sparrow where
the females will go as far as killing another females
offspring if she had been copulating with her male mate. The female bird wants to chase away the
intruding female also because she does not want to have another bird dropped in
her nest to be raised by her. This
female feistiness is also seen in such mammals as beavers, baboons, and wolves. In the case of insects, the beetle also has a
feisty female to make sure her mate is being monogamous. The female beetle will push the male of off
the other female to stop the copulation.
Researchers studied this act by tying the female so that she could not
reach her male copulating with another female.
When the male beetle is liberated from her mate, the
are “rewarded with additional girlfriends.”
In order to understand polygamy and
a female’s aggression towards a male’s actions, one should understand more
about the sexual nature of the male and female.
One of the reasons some males stay in a monogamous relationship with
their mate is because their present mate is in close proximity to him. However, when the male is open to some other
female his primary mate does not usually sit back and let it happen:
A female starling is especially likely to solicit copulations from her mate when he is actively courting other females! There is nothing as likely to make a female starling feel friendly and sexy than the prospect that her mate is showing interest in another female. Equally interesting: A large proportion of these solicitations are refused by her partner, but they nonetheless succeed in causing any prospecting females to depart.
The
male will usually refuse these copulation offers for two reasons. First, they may be broadcasting to other
females that he is already taken, and second, they may waste away more sperm,
which may lessen his resources. So what
else could the female do? For some
reason, some species will not simply attack the threatening female. They may refrain from this because it is
“likely to evoke the wrath of the male.”
This is especially true of very attractive males since they are followed
more and are more likely to cheat.
Presumably, females with unattractive mates are more confident that
their males will not be hit on.
Female protectiveness of their mates
is surprisingly more common in polygamous species rather than monogamous. This seems to be wrong since one would think
that the more protective a female is the more monogamous the males will
be. However, in monogamous species, it
is rare for the male to follow-up with child rearing with the female he had an
EPC with as opposed to males in a polygamous setting. Another interesting and counterintuitive
point is that female lionesses copulate with males near 100 times a day during
mating season. However, female lionesses
are capable of becoming pregnant with simply 10 or 15 minutes of copulation a
day. They do this because they want to
avoid the male impregnating another female and cause competition between the
two offspring. The way in which this
keeps the male from impregnating another woman has to do with a group of
females’ menstrual cycles. Groups of
women living together tend to synchronize their cycles and “agree to ovulate at
the same time.” This keeps a male from
being able to impregnate many women during a course of several days and causing
competition between the offspring.
Caring
for offspring emerges time after time as a key issue in the maintenance of
monogamy. Most biologists’ ideas about
the evolution of monogamy have long centered around
the presumed necessity of male parental care…polygyny
becomes possible when males can be ‘emancipated’ from parenting duties; that
is, when females are capable of carrying the whole burden by themselves.
This
opening quote is a very accepted theory about why monogamy occurs at all. From this we can understand why is it rare for monogamy to occur in mammals; “male
mammals…have comparatively little to contribute.” Women will tolerate polygyny
when the male with more than one mate can still provide more than one male
could in a monogamous relationship.
However, parental care still has to be observed in this matter:
Infant Homo sapiens remain helpless for months…and then they become helpless toddlers! Who in turn graduate to being virtually helpless youngsters. (And then? Clueless adolescents.) So there may be some payoff to women being mated to a monogamous man after all.
This
seems to be the case for humans.
Another idea presented in the text
is that perhaps monogamy became more practiced:
…as a way for males to minimize the risk that someone else’s sperm will fertilize the eggs of a given females…Accordingly, it is quite possible that such males find that in the long run their reproductive success is higher if they have only one mate, and keep close tabs on her extracurricular sex life, than if they accumulate many, each of whom might be unfaithful to him.
In
other words, males may have wished to eliminate the effort and uncertainty of
parenting caused by mating with females who in turn mate with other males. Although monogamy would limit a males
reproductive output to the females reproductive output, he would be given more
parental certainty and therefore take more effort in raising the child and
being faithful to the female in return for her faithfulness.
Parenting responsibilities taken on
by the father have various points to be made.
What initially causes the male to want to parent the young? It does not make sense that a male who
witnesses a birth will want to father the child, but when the male has “been in
attendance not just at the birth of their young but also throughout their
mate’s estrous.” Parenting also depends
on alternatives available to the male.
If their our several eligible females around,
the male may wish to skip out on the parenting of his young and mate with more
females. With little or no distractions,
the male may settle down and stay faithful to the family. The male thinking is basically this, “‘If there are no other females to solicit, and no other
males to worry about, then I may as well help take care of the kids.’”
Monogamy can be beneficial for a species since both “the needs of male and female are equally met.” In other words, since the sex population is about 50/50, nearly all members will be able to copulate as opposed to a polygamous society where not all members will copulate. Basically through mate-guarding, “each sex is equally successful in thwarting the other’s desires!”
In terms of sexual reproductions of males and
females, the text goes into several characteristics. Males wish to mate with virgins. This increases their chances of having parental
certainty if the female becomes pregnant.
“Among many human societies, it is still considered a major
transgression for a woman to have lost her virginity before marriage.” Males attract this females
and other females often with resources.
“Males who compete successfully for choice real estate, for example, may
be doing so in an effort to prevent their eventual mates from looking elsewhere
for mating opportunities.” It is likely
that the male who has the best resources and land will also have the best
genes.
This view was flushed out by Friedrich Engels who wrote that in the beginning a child born was everyone’s child. There was no exclusive parental care. However, when males began acquiring more land and property, they wanted an heir to pass it on to and thus developed monogamous relationships with parental certainty. However, Barash and Lipton believe he got it backwards, as was stated in the previous paragraph. Once a monogamous bond is formed, the male promises parenting services in return for sexual fidelity. However, studies show that a human father does not spend as much time with his children as the mother does, and most of his time is usually play. However, studies also show that a child without a father has a much larger risk of dying than a child with a father.
“Monogamy is widely seen as benefiting women, while it is often assumed that polygyny is a patriarchal, male-dominated system that oppresses women.” However, as was stated before, since the population is about 50/50 male and female, “if one man has ten wives…then there are nine without wives at all.” “With polygyny, more women have the opti0on of associating themselves with a powerful, successful man. For subordinate, less successful men, it is a serious problem, but very few women are likely to be shut out.” Monogamy may actually be more beneficial for men than women.
Monogamy has other pieces, which help it work in society. The one made most interesting by Barash and Lipton is the fact that some parents stay together simply for the sake of the children. “It sounds trite, but is nonetheless real for thousands, probably millions, of couples. This may be the critical reason keeping parents from divorce, although sad and unromantic.
Kristen Hawkes did a study on Hadza in northern
…successful Hadza hunters have younger wives, have more EPC partners, and father more children than do the less successful hunters…According to Hawkes, monogamy may have arisen as a result of ‘negotiations among males,’ whereby access to women is divided up and harmful fighting is avoided.
However, we still beg the
question, “Why is monogamy approved-in theory in not in practice-in these
Western countries?” Overall, as state
earlier, monogamy offers a chance for all members of a society to have the possibility
of mating and rearing offspring. “In a
sense, maybe (he) wasn’t altogether wrong, after all, when he suggested that
people were primitively egalitarian, with this
Monogamy may thus be, at least in part, a result of male-male equality; even more so, however, it is a cause of equality, a great reproductive leveler (for men)-at least in biological terms…The wealthy and powerful would in effect have agreed to give up their near-monopoly on women in return for obtaining greater social involvement on the art of middle- and lower-class men, who, if reproductively excluded, might have refused to participate in the social contract necessary for the establishment of large, stable social units.
Along with the leveling off of classes and growth of a large middle class in the world where more and more men were equal, there was also Christianity promoting monogamous relationships.
We will end this subject with the last paragraph printed in this chapter, typed here in its entirety. It aims at stating the present state all of us are in, in the world today:
Even Bill Gates is legally forced to be
monogamous…although successful sports and rock stars often have multiple sexual
liaisons, and, for all we know, so does Mr. Gates himself. Bill Clinton, too, is legally forced to be
monogamous…although powerful men are typically inclined to seek additional
pairings (if only briefly) and – because of the nature of female sexual
psychology – are generally able to find willing partners. It is easy , as
well, to imagine queen bees such as Elizabeth Taylor, Madonna, or Oprah Winfrey
being in demand – and command – as polyandrous females…except for the legal
restraints. The point is that although
social ideology and legal restrictions cannot change human nature, they can and do impose
egalitarianism in several forms:
Everyone is supposed to be equal before the law, equally deserving of
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and entitled to – or bound by –
monogamy.
-
One thing I still have a question about:
Why is it, that in the Western
culture, women are generally more ornamented (i.e. makeup, clothing, jewelry,
hair) if men are the ones competing for women?
-
One thing I still have a question about:
The author briefly explains how the
work of Immanuel Kant and his supposed understanding of beauty; in the end he
only recommends reading Nietzsche to understand the biological functions of
beauty. What I/we don’t understand is
what is the purpose of the example if he doesn’t even
go on to further explain it.
-
One interesting point:
The author imagines what a
bowerbird might say if interviewed by Artforum magazine. I
found it interesting what he predicts the bowerbird will say in response.
-
One interesting point:
The author explains how for men to
make good art, they must be as aesthetically discriminate as women.
-
One weak point:
If art is a sexual adaptation it
must follow that the best artists would then attract the most mates as well as
the most desirable. However, the author
was only able to give one example, that being Picasso. Why is it that
oftentimes those who create art for a living are labeled “starving artists?”
The author explains how males have
more motivation to play on human preferences to attract sexual partners but he
lacks any real clear explanations and examples.
Barash and Lipton
Interesting Point:
Females in many species can be so feisty, the men are almost forced into a monogamous
relationship.
Weak Point:
Males may have wished to eliminate
the effort and uncertainty of parenting by staying monogamous and having
questions over parental certainty.
Still have questions about:
So what is the main reason why
humans are monogamous.
The authors say in the end it is laws, but is this main reason? They
speak mainly about other species, but what is the bottom line?
Outline
Arts of
Seduction
A.
Art is ubiquitous
1.
Discovered 35,000 years ago in
2.
50,000 years ago among the Aborigine in
3.
And 100,000 years ago in
B.
Art is a source of pleasure and pleasurable behaviors
are often evolutionary adaptations
C.
Art requires effort and effort is rarely present
without some sort of adaptive rationale
D.
Art can be distinguished as a adaptation by
considering its relative enjoyment and ease in learning which is a
characteristic of genuine adaptations
E.
Varies from culture to culture as language does with
different styles and techniques
F.
It is not present at birth as most mental adaptations
are not, since adaptations do not emerge until we need them
II.
Art as a Courtship Function
A.
Art is costly both in time and effort and is
apparently quite useless, yet it manifest a sort of beauty- this,
III.
Problematic Theories of Explaining Art
A. Art as a “utopian escape from reality”
1.
Presents artists in a positive light as “overcoming
their instincts, avoiding
banality,
striving against capitalism, rebelling against society, and
transcending the
ornamental” (p. 261).
2.
Problem with this theory: Recognizes pleasure as
sufficient reason for the existence of art, which, if we compare to the
pleasure of eating is a faulty assessment.
We know that we don’t eat simply for the pleasure of eating,
we eat because we need energy.
3.
This theory does little to explain art from an
evolutionary standpoint, since other animals have no need for art
B.
Propaganda Theory
1.
This theory explains art as a means in which to convey
cultural values and socialize the young
2.
Problem: Why would anyone in prehistoric times have
wanted to spend the time and energy when language by itself has been found to
be the most efficient way of communicating what to do and what not to do
C.
Art as a Religious Function
1.
Art evolved as a way of appeasing gods, dead
ancestors, and animal spirits
2.
Problem: How do we account for the possibility that
the entities do not really exist and consequently provide nothing?
IV.
Differences in Various Functions of Art
A.
Social Function if it supports certain organizations
like religion and politics
B.
Individual Motivation, which includes making a living
and achieving social standing
C.
Biological Function, which concerns survival and
reproduction and is supported by evidence in this article
V.
Two Different Strategies Taken to Explain Art as Being
Evolutionary
A.
Top- Down: Looks at fine arts (“recent manifestations
of a universal human instinct for making visual ornamentation” (p. 261))
B.
Bottom-Up: Focuses on visual ornamentation, looks at
art that surrounds us everyday (e. g.
clothing, jewelry, houses, furniture, gardens, cars); this approach
makes more sense from an evolutionary standpoint
VI.
Bowerbirds as an Example of Adaptive Art
A.
A male bowerbird’s ornamentation is not a physical
part of their bodies, but is rather consciously made as an adaptation to female
sexual choice
B.
They “paint” the walls of their nests by using a
leaves or bark in their beak and a bluish regurgitated fruit residue, similar
to an artist with a paintbrush
C.
The bowerbird probably does not know why he creates art though, he would
probably explain it in much the same way we attempt to explain human art—as
instinct or desire for self-expression
VII.
Art as Sexual Selection is Not a New Idea
A.
It was Darwin who “viewed human ornamentation and
clothing as natural outcomes of sexual selection” (p. 271)
B.
Other scientist also agreed with
VIII.
Sexual Function Verses Sexual Content
1.
Example of how street layouts can look like stylized
labia
2.
Example of bowerbirds resembling phallus’
IX.
Darwinian Aesthetics
1.
Producing art
2.
Judging art
1.
These preferences are explained by selection theory
2.
Selection theory explains mating preferences including
runaway effect, sensory biases, and fitness indicators
X.
Runaway Beauty
1.
Therefore, one who can capture such tastes will get
more groupies and as a result be able to produce more offspring who will
inherit their taste and talent
2.
Example of the Woodabe
people
a.
Men would dance for seven nights to show off health
and endurance
b.
At the end, men would line up and women would pick the
male they find the most attractive to have a sexual encounter with
1.
Can only account for its existence
2.
Can explain why we find some things more beautiful
then others
3.
Can’t explain how we come to our judgements
XI.
Aesthetic Tastes as Sensory Biases
1.
Study looked at brain mechanisms that favor forms,
patterns, certain colors, and symbols
2.
Lacked looking at evolutionary costs and benefits of
artistic behavior
XII.
The Beautiful, The Difficult, and the Costly
1.
We tend to find things beautiful which are costly in
terms of time, skill, health, energy, endurance, coordination, intelligence,
rare materials, and creativity
2. &nb