Comments on The Belmont Club "Anything I own"

Every day at what laughably I can call work I see the relentless socializing of the 20 somethings. Their focus is completely on exchanging networking connections for future benefit via the exchange of opinions regarding sports or music or clothes or sex or drugs or at the shallowest level politics. Note that at the same time they can be displaying an appearance, unshaven, funny shoes, possibly offensive graphics on their T shirts, that show no interest or focus on how the real customer will perceive them. This is genetic. There is some evolutionary benefit in having the species go through an adolescent phase in which this sort of grooming builds community and supports pair bonding. Perhaps at the level of neurology there is some connection between the sense of affirmation the adolescent receives from approval, in the form of dopamine, and the vulnerability to substance abuse that we explored in previous threads.

What is happening in the case of Paglia is an inability to move on and individualize her existence. This may relate to the declining rate of stable monogamous bonding in our society. The pair bond empowers the individual and permits it a greater space in which to maneuver separate from the collective.

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RWE,
The bracing shock of reality that Victor Bolenko experienced when he saw the aircraft carrier is one reason that I believe in 6 months of universal basic military service. The professional officer corps hates the idea but I think it would help many cross the great divide between childhood and being an adult.

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presbypoet,
Democrats give you what you want, and think it’s what you need.
Republicans give you what you need, and think it’s what you want.

And you can't always get what you want,
Honey, you can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime, yeah,
You just might find you get what you need!

- M. Jagger & K. Richards

wretchard,
(who quoted Harry the King on leadership and group bonding)
May I claim dibs on all quotes from Henry V?

Conservatives do believe in group bonding and social dynamics. Anybody who does not believe that has not been in the military. What is annoying about the social networking of the Left is the shallowness of it. What would they do if one day Obama was revealed to be as wizened a fraud in a wig as Michael Jackson was? Would they destroy Jack Kennedy because he had Addison's disease? Would they accept an FDR today? Is there a narrower and less tolerant community anywhere then leadership of the Democratic Party? They make the Chinese Politburo look inclusive and broadminded by comparison.

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PA Cat,
(who pointed out you cannot be an Alpha to a cat)
One of life’s mysteries is that women tend to prefer cats and men tend to prefer dogs. There are no firm rules on this and I for one appreciate both but as a general principle there is something to the proposition. Yet cats are far less communitarian then dogs are. Dogs live for the pack. They are nature’s stakhanovites. If anything cats are a distillation of the selfish indeed purely narcissist carnivore that uses and abuses women.

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mac,
(who quoted Yaacov Ben Moshe)
"Virtue" was what inspired Robespierre the Incorruptible. His sincere minions were intending to replace God with Reason or The Supreme Being. In the name of Virtue anything is possible. The virtuous man, like Conrad's Kurtz in Heart of Darkness has no restraints at all.

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RCM,
(who pointed out how rural life encourages responsibility and community)
Concur, note you can't concat.

The literature on small group cohesion was based on studies of the German Army IIRC.
It was considered a correction to the myth that Prussian militarism and the spirit of Fredrick the Great was behind the German successes in both world wars. What the research results emphasized was the importance of good front line leadership, that is to say the sergeants. It also helps to remember that the nazis were not a Prussian /lutheran/ aristocratic outfit. They were at heart Austrian and Bavarian /catholic and petit bourgeoisie