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Doctor Hammer's avatar

Man... you totally beat me to this. I was just thinking about this topic the other day, well, middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. My thoughts were very much like yours, around the notion that "there are a lot of ways of living humans can make work, but the proportion of people that can make non-standard ways of living work is very, very small." I think the past 20 years have enabled people to drift away from the standard ways that worked towards things that seem like they should work, but turn out to really, really not in practice for 99%. Whoops.

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

Write it anyway, man. Covergent writing evolution is fine - gets us different viewpoints on the same issue.

I'm interested to see as this goes on how people are going to disagree on this because in the end it's such a "things I can see from my vantage" type argument overall. I'm honestly hoping someone will do a contra.

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Doctor Hammer's avatar

Ooooh brace for disappointment... I totally agree with you :D

https://dochammer.substack.com/p/there-are-many-ways-humans-can-live

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

Dammit! We've had conversations and you know that's generally a mistake! (I liked the article)

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Doctor Hammer's avatar

Glad you liked it! Let's see how many others do... considering I wrote it bareback in between those two comments it is as much a test of my mid-writing editing as anything :P

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cdh's avatar

I think the problem is commitment-matching (or expectation-matching). In the traditional relationship you're describing, 100% commitment is matched by 100% commitment, and when one side lets the other side down, he or she should feel like he or she is to blame and that the other party's ensuing disappointment is legitimate. (I will allow that there may be disagreement about what 100% commitment entails between the two parties). But if you're trying to match each other's commitment in a way that is less than 100%, (say, 45% to 45%), two problems emerge. First, the parties will disagree on what constitutes 45% commitment, as in the previous situation, but also any time one person naturally increases or decreases from the agreed 45% threshold, that person's or the other person's expectations are very likely to be unmet. I guess the difference is between "I will always be disappointed if you cheat and you agree my disappointment is warranted" versus "I will agree not be disappointed if you cheat, but I can't guarantee that I won't be, and if I am, you won't necessarily agree that my disappointment is warranted." Maybe another way of looking at it is that in the traditional view, regarding an action that demonstrates decreased commitment, "you know it when you see it," and in the poly view, you don't. Expectations can be illegitimate, improperly communicated, impossible, etc., in the traditional view in similar ways that they can be in the poly view, but the poly view has a lot more menu options that can lead to unmet expectations than the traditional one does. If the happiness you derive from the poly lifestyle doesn't overcome the increased difficulty with expectation-matching, and the additional disappointment that ensues, it's probably not viable for you.*

Final thought is that by definition, "going the extra mile" for your partner (like giving up a poker night with friends to nurse a sick SO) in a traditional relationship is almost always a net good, while "going the extra mile" for one of your two poly SOs is likely to be a net neutral or negative (like giving up a night with SO 1 to nurse a sick SO 2) , in that the SO who doesn't get the extra attention/time/fun loses out on the attention/time/fun he/she was supposed to get AND is at least at risk of getting a heaping helping of jealousy to boot.

*Insert all caveats RC already applied. I'm theorizing here, not pontificating, although I admit that I come from a traditional background and have traditional views on this issue.

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Robert C's avatar

I don't really see where the points about Aella failing to establish commitment with a guy she really likes, and polyamory being a recipe for depression are connected to my interpretation of the main point - that establishing dependencies with a person builds trust and fulfillment when those dependencies get fulfilled.

Why shouldn't you be able to be dependent and dependable on/for 2+ people?

I ask/say this as a person who is in a loving committed relationship, where both of us have questioned if we are too co-dependent, but who are also dipping our toes (or maybe quickly walking) into the pool of polyamorous water.

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

So there's a couple different angles here that I have to take. The first is to sort of address teh "why don't you think poly works" part of your question.

First thing: you say Aella failed to establish commitment, but that actually isn't correct, or at least it's more complex than that. Aella and the guy entirely committed to a deal. She describes herself as loving him, and being in love with him. She describes their relationship as one where they were free to fuck other people and pursue relationships. All that was by design; the poly relationship model calls for this whole detailed contract with rights and privileges; that's what's supposed to make it work, and everything we see her say seems to indicate she had it.

And she's miserable. Absolutely miserable. She reacts exactly, 100% as you'd expect anyone to react when their boyfriend cheats on them in front of them and they don't think there's anything they can do about it - she's heartbroken and jealous. He reacts 100% as you'd expect any normal guy to react when he's able to bang a bunch of hotter (either actually hotter, or by nature of being new and novel) chicks - he loses all interest her.

Now, you can say "well, there's a bunch of reasons why, it's because..." and post-hoc reasons why this isn't a failure of poly, but you at the very least have to acknowledge that this is entirely what any non-poly person would predict would happen here.

So we have this instance where, basically, under *poly* definitions she has commitment. And that commitment works out really, really poorly. And it's working out really, really poorly for the exact woman you'd expect to work out for it - rich, pretty, sex positive, incredibly committed to the poly concept, etc.

Under non-poly definitions of commitment, she never had shit and it worked out about as well as you'd expect using non-poly expectations.

Again, all this stuff works out fine *on paper*. You and your SO are committed, and you've worked out on paper that you will be just as committed once you dilute your commitment among 1-several more people, that you will continue to prefer each other physically and emotionally to others (maybe, I don't know the exact text of the contract), and so on.

And part of why it works on paper is that people much like Aella are telling you, listen, this all works fine - it's perfectly easy and fine to do, you just have to make careful rules and think about it a certain way. But when you check to see if they will ever, ever admit any downsides, you find Aella getting her heart broken by a guy who gets tired of her in favor of hotter girls while she sits in another room boiling with jealousy and her ideology just won't allow her to even consider that to be evidence of a failure of her model.

So you have to ask - do you really know both of you won't be jealous? Do we really know both of you won't grow to prefer another person to their SO, and neglect them for that reason? Do we really know that for both of you this isn't an indicator of other problems (like boredom with the other person) and that this is being pursued as an alternative to that?

Like that's sort of my first question - this works on paper. But the argument tradition makes is that it's more complex than that, and that cold logic on average *can't* override how humans actually react. It's one of those things where either several thousand tech people were the first ones to ever try out convincing their wives it totally wasn't a big deal if they slept around, or there's some other reason monogamy tends to be so popular.

So more on dependence vs. commitment in a sec.

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

So then we get to dependence, which is sort of a different thing. You absolutely *can* be dependent on multiple people. Like I'd be silly to deny that - like, otherwise people couldn't have more than one meaningful friendship.

From my last post, you probably noted that the lack of commitment in a poly relationship is tautologically true by my personal definitions of romantic commitment, and that I don't really think things work on like the poly-on-paper version most of the time. But let's take for a moment as given that everything in the poly-on-paper version does work out - that your love doesn't lessen, that neither party is doing it out of boredom or as an escape, that jealousy won't play in, etc.

We now have a situation where, basically, you can all be dependent on each other (since that's a thing that can happen with multiple people), and there's no downsides. And I'm actually, like, I'm not comfortable claiming there's NOBODY this has happened for. Outliers are a thing.

So then we move on to, say, some kind of alternative definition of commitment - one that isn't compromised by poly, full stop. So say you are committed to your wife, fully. And y'all bring on another wife, who you both agree it's fine for you to be committed to, fully. And one day both of your wives you are fully committed to come to you and say "listen, man, we can't tolerate each other anymore. We actually hate each other now - this is a recent occurance, but it's real. Choose."

And you find out that full commitment to a person is actually only possible to one person at a time.

I think there's a fair argument that under an idealized poly model this might not end up mattering that much; like, how often does it come up that you actually have to choose one poly partner or another? And assuming no jealousy, and endless attention to give to each party (or the lack of need of it because of balancing counter-partners on the other end, or whatever), it might work. I think the real world is messier than that; most poly people write rules that indicate they don't.

Basically what all this - both posts - boils down to is that my *personal* advice to you would be to run exactly opposite the poly idea as hard as you possibly can, screaming, and to take a very long look at what made one or both of you go "you know, this doesn't feel like enough anymore". And that's why I'm explaining all this - it's like, this is the mindset my advice is coming from.

Other people are going to basically say some version of "Listen, as long as you get this on paper in a logical enough workable form and everyone agrees to it in good faith (which you will be able to tell they did), then you can expect success, it's a perfectly workable, safe form of relationship". And it's possible that they are right - even if not generally, which is possible, they might be right that you are an outlier.

To put it another way, I disagree with them that this is a good idea for most people, and I don't think it's really possible for most people to tell if it's a good idea for them until *after* the problems occur. But they disagree with me, and you are an adult person - it's your call to make.

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Randy M's avatar

Arrested Development nailed this.

"You know, when I was a therapist, a lot of my clients tried an open marriage."

"Oh, did that ever work?"

"No, it never did, somehow each couple convinced themselves that they'd be different but they never were. But in our case, it might!"

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Nathan Young's avatar

Ehhhh I don't think that's a very generous reading of Aellas article. I think she enjoys the freedom polyamory gives her. That's the reason she doesn't fundamentally question it in that paragraph. I guess she has at other times.

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Annie's avatar

I dunno. I come from a more coastal culture than most, but am far from a rationalist Bay Area libertarian poly person, and was in fact raised in a culture that does somewhat emphasize tradition and social structures. I don’t feel deeply lonely or unhappy except on my worst days, but when I do, I don’t think being more traditional than a rationalist helps me that much.

I want a significant other, a tight social circle, and an activity in which I can easily meet new people, all at the same time. I’ve had that before and felt deeply happy while at the same time feeling stressed about, "What if they leave me? There’s New Person A but I feel too stressed to talk to them. Is Established Friend B mad at me? Should I be hanging out with them more?” This stress makes me feel lonely even when I’m not.

I think I just have more neuroticism around social stuff than some people, possibly to the point of social anxiety. I also don’t have much life experience, though.

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

I think I was trying to put together a sort of average unhappy person for the purposes of this essay, if that makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up tracking very few people in an exact way, and maybe not a lot more even generally.

But beyond that, I don't think there's any chance at all I covered *all* the reasons people are happy or unhappy. I go through long spurts of unhappiness myself, and I'm what most would consider to be socially rich - good family, good friends, etc..

Like a lot of things, it's complex. I think when I do something like this I'm more or less aiming to cover a few people the words might help, and hope I come up with something for the others later.

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William Collen's avatar

I agree that we need a new term for the good kind of co-dependent relationship. "symbiotic"?

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

Believe it or not, Cassander (DSL mod/founder) was pitching the exact same word and is probably peeved at me that I didn't put it in.

My only complaint about symbiotic is that I associate it with Venom from Spiderman and thus end up thinking of it as a sort of negative thing, and it sort of *sounds* negative by virtue of being so sciency/biological. But I think that might just be me.

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​​​​'s avatar

Symbiosis is a broad concept that includes parasitism. I wouldn't expect soi-disant rationalists to read deeply enough to realize that, but I have, and the subset of symbiosis that contains mutually beneficial such relationships is called "mutualism".

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

I think I like mutalism better. It's got the warm fuzzies!

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Sean's avatar

I think I've heard the term interdependent used.

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Pete P's avatar

Good stuff. I sometimes am amazed that so many people find each other in this world. Most just seem to fall into a relationship, not understanding what drew them to the other person and why the other person wanted to stay around them.

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Plumber's avatar

I’m a deeply unhappy man ResidentContrian, and most advice I’ve heard boils down to

1. “suck it up buttercup, stay miserable and be a good Dad”

2. “Abandon the kids you’re raising and completely leave your marriage”

3. “Something something somehow be able to pay enough rent to have joint custody” (I’ve done the math, after a legal divorce I’d have to sleep at work, in a car, or my Mom’s basement).

4. “Start worshiping a god who you think is indifferent to human suffering or does care and enjoys torturing humanity”

5. “Stay with your wife and visit whores”

None of these alternatives appeal to me!

I hate my job (as I’ve hated every previous job), but I feel a need to do it to keep two kids health insurance.

I hate my celibacy (which, depending on your definition of “sex” started either over 30 years ago after I fell in love with the woman who I would later marry, or nineteen years ago after me and my wife’s child was stillborn).

My wife has two sons, both conceived via in-vitro using a donor (allegedly because she didn’t want kids that were like my relatives, but in hindsight because she didn’t to have sex with me), those sons call me “Dad” and seem to love me, but (to my shame) that’s not enough for me to be happy, I want physical and verbal affection from a woman I love who I can at least pretend loves me.

Despite her still being painfully beautiful to me because if I’m away I can pretend I’m rejecting her instead of her rejecting me I’ve lived away from my wife for about a year, but at her request “for the kids” I still live with her on weekends and holidays.

My wife says she wants me back full time, but no sex ever and frankly she isn’t much for verbal affection (she’s an “acts of service” ‘love language’ lady, while I’m tied for “words” and “touch” with “gifts” a distant third). She also says that marriage counseling would be a “waste of time and money”.

For a year I’ve lived with another lady as a roommate, and over time we’ve become emotionally close, and I often feel smitten by her (besides her charm and kindness that she’s stricken with cancer pushes my “white Knight” to her “damsel in distress” buttons, besides when I was told that I had an “80% chance of advanced lung cancer” and that I likely had “less than two years” to live a little over two years ago I emphasize with her), and she does give me some of the verbal affection that I crave, and she’s hinted that she’s open to a physical relationship if I “don’t visit the kids” because she “can’t risk kid germs”, but that seems too cruel, especially to the six year old (which is near the age I was when my Mom kicked my Dad out, so I know what’s that’s like from a child’s perspective), plus I can tell from her history that she’s not a one man woman, and I’d be jealous.

Unfortunately I crave a loving, romantic, and sexual monogamous relationship with I woman I may wake up with rather than “flings”/“massages”.

I see no virtuous end to my misery except death.

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

So first I apologize for taking so long to get to this - I've had some stress issues lately, and one of my most practically devastating personality flaws is that I tend to cut "things I should be doing" first when I get deep enough into sleep/stress issues.

One of the first things I want to point out here is your situation is, very frankly, deeply fucked up; I think anyone who gives you a single-sentence piece of advice and says "that's the fix" is mostly comforting themselves. If there was an easy, just-make-a-little-effort fix you would have found it by now.

Out of the options you listed, I think I find that #1 is unique in that it's the one that has to do with non-marital duty. And yes, do suck it up, do be a good dad; the kids are (presumably) not to blame for the overall fucked-up-ness of everything going on here. But with that said, #1 is a solution for *them*, not for your marriage; it relates to a different relationship entirely than the one that's killing you.

Beyond that, it's hard to give advice that works here for a couple different reasons.

The first, and what seems to me to be the biggest, is that you are (if everything is as I've seen you describe it a lot of places) in what amounts to a tremendously abusive relationship. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that, but from what I've picked up over the years it seems your wife wants a certain set of things from you (and generally gets them) but doesn't view herself to have any responsibilities TO you. That's a disaster; I don't want to compare it to other forms of abuse, but it's not insignificant.

(I don't know all the details here; it could be that she has reasons for this that would adjust how I think about it. But broadly this isn't exactly as rare a story as you'd think.)

On the subject of your wife specifically, I don't think Christianity is your "out" here. Don't get me wrong - I'm all about getting people to Jesus if I can do that - but Christianity starts at a place of "Here is this God who is real and has authority; he is justified in asking me to do things". That "me" does a lot of work there, because even if you were to convert to Christianity, wholly and sincerely, it wouldn't necessarily (or even probably) fix *your wife*, which is what you are ideally going for.

There's some possible permutations of theology that might consider your wife's decades-long withholding of sex as a "sexual immoraility" in a way that permits divorce, but this would do you little good; you can get divorced in your current moral system, but the mere bare existence of that option doesn't/hasn't solved your problems.

Again, I'd guide you towards Jesus for a number of reasons, but it's also not a cure-all for every problem of life. There are a lot of Christians with problems they will live with until they die; the hope of Christianity is not a perfect life (even if it has advantages in making a *good* life); it's a hope of what comes after death, in a lot of ways.

The second woman you referenced is something I have to deal with in "atheist mode", as it were. I think you can guess that the Christian you are asking about this is going to say something like "yeah, don't commit adultery", so please actually do take that as a given as I move forward.

From an atheist perspective, she's bad news anyway. If all I knew about you was what was in this post, my first instinct would be to say "Plumber is the kind of guy that women notice they can abuse, and who most easily attracts abusive women". This new woman is demanding that you abandon your kids to have access to sex, but not your job or any number of other germ-interactions you might have.

As kid germs are not different than adult germs. there's a real risk here that her actual ask is "find ways to isolate Plumber so that he will be more entirely in my power and under my control". Even if that's not the case, she's trading precious little for that - you are expected to abandon your children and your duties to your children, while she isn't even expected to commit.

Basically what I'm saying is I don't have any good immediate answers here. People are hurting you; any answer I'd give you would have to magically make your wife less abusive or something of similar magnitude to fix your problems.

I do have a set of questions, however: If I'm not right about the abusive nature of these relationships, how am I wrong? What's actually going on there? And if I am right, what is it that you think makes you attract women who assume an all-take-no-give stance on relationships?

If I'm missing the mark on tone here, I really do apologize. It's just that the baseline problem here seems to be at least partially that you are "available to hurt" in some way, and I want to know if that's true and what is driving it if it is.

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Plumber's avatar

^ […]what is it that you think makes you attract women who assume an all-take-no-give stance on relationships?” ^

Maybe desperation, loneliness, and low self esteem.

As I remember it, I pretty much wanted to be married from at least the age of twelve, and my wife was simply the first woman to invite me to live with her (there had been a girl who wanted to live with me years earlier, but I lived with my parents then). As for my roommate; almost exactly one year ago: “I lent my redhead roommate my decades old Honda for the day, she picked me up from work, suggested we stop by at a grocery store on the way home where we got about $40 of wine, cheese, and crackers, we crested a hill on the way home, saw they ocean and said “Let’s go there”, we parked, watched the sunset, illegally drank the wine in the car and said “cheers”, looked into each other eyes, and talked past when the stars came out.”, all the date-like, but mostly touchless (brief hugs and handholding, which is almost exactly the same as with my legal wife after I left, in the year before there wasn’t even that) going to movies and restaurants “hanging out” had been deeply craved by me, I had specifically asked for “dates” again from my wife months before I left.

I’ve often felt that except that I’m the breadwinner and my wife has been stay-at-home for a decade before we were legally married (and for two decades since) that I’m the stereotypically “woman-ish” one in the relationship, craving dates and non-sexual romance, as well as a more stereotypically male craving for physical affection.

A VERY big reason I left was because when I was told I most likely had “advanced lung cancer” my wife was (it seemed to me at the time) wasting her time researching what the medical possibilities were instead of comforting me, she’s simply a practical minded concrete deeds oriented person, which I only am when paid to be, kind words and touch are far more meaningful to me.

I can imagine a man well suited to my wife, he would probably be older than her (I’m five years younger) and thus has a lower libido, enjoys fixing things around the house (if I had a white collar job I could imagine being like that, but because such work already fills my waking hours I’m not eager for more, especially because of my chronic work injury induced physical pain), enjoys thinking about finances (I don’t care), enjoys children more (I can remember being more playful with the older one when he was younger, but I sadly lack the physical and emotional stamina for the younger one), shared her right-ish political views (the taxes she complains about pay my wages, and I resent her complaints about “the government”), and shared her interest in violent television like “24” instead of my love for old black and white films like “Waterloo Bridge” (my roommate, on the other hand, goes too far in the other direction from my wife in most ways, her leftier politics, et cetera).

“Why did you stay so long” my (now on strike) therapist has asked me, and all I can say is “because I made a vow”, but in hindsight I really don’t understand my past self.

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James M's avatar

First, my sympathies and respect. This is an agonizing situation and it says many good things about your character that you've been persevering and prioritizing morality through it.

Second, if I'm understanding the moral constraints you're operating under, I might be seeing options (6) and (7) that are different from (1-5), but this is your personal business so I don't want to butt in and make suggestions without an invitation, especially since these options might just be illusory / me misunderstanding the situation.

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Plumber's avatar

I’m very interested in what you may suggest, thank you James M

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James M's avatar

Option (6) is: stay separated but not divorced from your wife, keep visiting your kids on weekends and holidays, build a loving, romantic, sexual monogamous relationship with a woman who isn't your wife or your current roommate and who would thus accept you visiting the kids.

[I'm guessing this is a viable option because you appeared to have considered the idea of starting a relationship with your current roommate, and were only stopped from doing so because you didn't want to abandon your kids]

Option (7) is: move back in with your wife and kids, use that period of time to save up some money [not pay rent at your current place], let the kids grow up a little, and while that is happening focus on yourself / your career and try to maximize your attractiveness*. This has a small chance of rekindling a sexual relationship with your wife** but even if that fails it sets you up for happiness later because it gives you the ability to have a full divorce & be attractive to other women afterwards once the kids are old enough to handle that.

*killyourinnerloser.com appears on the surface to be an odious website, but it is less evil / more positive-sum than it appears on the surface and has some very practical advice for what things matter in terms of male attractiveness to women; obviously the website is written by a proudly promiscuous man and that's not relevant to you or I, but his knowledge on what is/isn't attractive is probably relevant even if there's no guarantee that it's truly universal

**again, it's been 30 and/or 19 years, so it's unlikely to happen, but becoming more attractive can sometimes produce strange results. Lower bodyfat + more confidence, in particular.

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lazarus's avatar

It's annoying that this was very clear to everybody not 60 years ago. That's why we had all these laws about adultery and sodomy and generally treated committed married couples better than cheaters and bachelors. We knew that people are happier when there's strict, traditional rules for how to behave romantically. Especially in our modern society which is anathema to our natural romantic instincts. And they knew back then that the rules needed to be enforced and mostly followed. Climbing up a girl's balcony to get a good night kiss on the cheek can only be romantic when that conduct is nominally prohibited. Nowadays, her dad is fine with you coming through the front door and waltzing right up the stairs at 1am to engage in sexual intercourse. And the rest of society cheers you on to treat her like a pig as long as she says yes. There can't be any romance in a situation like this.

Yet the demons, whatever they are, that control our cultural drift, keep pushing for bigamy and sexual sadism. The rationalist community is particularly at fault for endorsing the depraved and necessarily sadistic bdsm culture which has caused so much strife. So people get more and more unhappy. Kids in America today are both the most sexually aware generation, and the least likely to have strong youthful romantic relationships.

Sadly I don't think people can really be helped by good advice in articles such as yours. Our institutions and social mores existed because it was too hard for individuals and small groups to self-moderate this kind of behavior. Moderation required somewhat remote institutions enforcing these norms even though people in general agreed that they were good. The institutions and mores are gone and with them go all the people who they could have moderated, but whom lack the ability to self-moderate. The only people who can benefit from your advice are those who have the ability to self-moderate their sexual and romantic desires, and aren't able to figure out that they *should* moderate those desires on their own.

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James M's avatar

Based on the widening gulf between the marriage rates of the college educated and the rest of society, most of the self-inflicted injuries that Western culture has sustained over the last 60 years seem to have come from a subset of unusually self-controlling conscientious people assuming that everyone is actually like them and that thus it was safe to rewrite the rules to deal with some troublesome edge cases that would stay edge cases.

IIRC the marriage rate went from something like 90% for everyone to 80% for the college-educated but only 40% for everyone else, and the divorce rate for the college-educated is also much lower than it is for everyone else. The college-educated aren't treating the collapse of marriage as a crisis yet because in their world the default life script is still *mostly* working.

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Sarahn's avatar

I’ve previously asked you about non monogamy. So I appreciate this article and not to come in and flame you. I’m not mon monogamous but I’ve considered it and at times, practiced it. But your article tracks to my life experiences: you need consistency, you need regular dependability for strong solid relationships (family included). Non monogamy can impact that. I certainly felt not good enough, and an option. And I can feel that in my monogamous relationship now, when “competing” with work and kids for attention, but I feel a robust societal support for me to request and expect respect and “showing up” for me. And the imperfections in me matter less, as I’m not an option, I’m the choice. (And my partner has imperfections too, but again, we’ve chosen to continue and invest in one another. We’re not open yo other options)

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Leo Abstract's avatar

This article appears correct in its main thrust, which is descriptive. You are rightfully reluctant in the secondary thrust, which is prescriptive. A few points to offer:

1) I read Henrich's book after reading Scott's Review, and can confirm he seems careful not to praise traditional wisdom on social topics. However, he extensively explores the value of monogamy as a kind of cultural technology that domesticates men in a pro-social manner. You likely would find this a very interesting discussion.

2) There's a reason that prescription fails, thus:

We are not in a position to debate whether or not to remove one of Chesterton's fences. Rather, we are forlornly standing by the side of a busy highway, looking at the few broken posts where a fence used to be -- posts which are outnumbered by crosses with names and flowers on them. It simply isn't possible to tell someone (say in East Africa) "Hey this cassava is poisoning you, better take the poison out" and have them comply. They won't believe you, won't be able to figure out how (and you don't know either -- you just read a blurb about it in a book), won't be willing to stick with the intense labor, and probably don't really care if maybe they get sick in a couple of decades: life is short and hard and tomorrow is not promised. Which is why the best way to solve the problem is to take that cassava away and give them a different variety. The reason indigenous cassava-processing cultures were able to make it a safe and successful food was because of the robust fence around the behaviors that evolved. Just knowing the behaviors are now gone and we should put them back doesn't cut it.

The people who fail to make traditional relationships work aren't rationally choosing bad policies that lead to failure, they themselves are personally the result of fences having been removed decades and in some cases centuries ago. If they get fed up and decide to larp as reactionaries online, they're no more reinstating lost tradition than the poor bastards in CHAZ with their store-bought starts in potting soil on pieces of cardboard were doing permaculture.

This, as I heard recently on a podcast, is what is wrong with the so-called conservative claim that various societal problems can be fixed with better fathers. Sure, if you had better fathers, maybe that would help. But it's thinking past the sale -- the thing we can't get is better fathers. Not in the inner city, not in the suburbs, not anywhere. If a pair of people meet young at church, have near-identical cultural backgrounds, have a deep and unquestioning faith in the value of family and staying together, that's great for them. Their lives are better than most, just as tall, handsome, smart, or rich folks' lives are better. It's a privilege, and I hope they're appreciative of it. (Still, probably one of their five children will turn out a drug addict. Fences are down everywhere, after all.) But someone from a different background can't build back up again through wishful thinking downed fences that took his ancestors millennia to construct. The opportunities missed during peak neuroplasticity cannot be regained with force of will. He can wear a polo and stand in church and pray with tears on his face that Jesus will wash him off and give him a white garment to wear, but even if successful that doesn't mean he'll be able to make a marriage work with his more fortunate pew-mate's daughter.

You're right that people might be better off moving in another direction, and might as well start picking up their feet and putting them down again while facing the right way, rather than the wrong way. But the wounds are deep and the road is long -- and lies along a ridge like a razor's edge. There used to be fences on either side. They've been gone a while now.

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Gunflint's avatar

Well we’ll probably never agree about Trump but I’m with you on this one. :)

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

We probably actually agree on more Trump stuff than you think - like, I think he's a really bad guy in a lot of ways. But I'm glad we have confirmed common ground here.

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Tam's avatar

I mostly only have this to offer, but it's a lot: https://xkcd.com/592/

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

This is, I think I told you in chat, my second favorite XKCD ever.

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Tam's avatar

Which one is your favorite? Or will you post something that causes me to link it? :D

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Resident Contrarian's avatar

I don't think I'm writing about jellybeans anytime soon, so you are allowed to know it's the Jellybeans one.

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Tam's avatar

Ahhhhhh.

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Jul 7, 2022
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Resident Contrarian's avatar

Thanks! I'll see you in there whenever the timing works out.

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