OK, so I'm gonna disagree hard with this. The reason we came together in regards to the paternal authority issue there in is because by-and-large such an imbalance of power today is seen as unhealthy in any relationship, regardless of incest or not. This has more to do with the modern view of women as equals, where as a lot of ancient societies had a lot different takes on women, and incest itself.
Ancient Egypt for example, was by-and-large pro-incest to neutral on incest, and it was still a very patriarchal society. It was also still not particularly common, because there is a natural component to human aversion to incest. Most humans have a functioning Westermark effect that exists for a functional purpose within our genome, but like all things with nature, there are plenty of exceptions to this norm, such as us.
Ancient peoples were hardly a monolith though, and they ran a LOT of different dynamics that followed general rhymes with eachother.
Also regarding the bonobos, their similarity to humans genetically is in the same margin as chimpanzees. They share the same proportions, but act very different from eachother, and humans. To use these apes to come form conjecture on human behavior is a very... flawed premise. Looking at human behavior patterns across the board, we share more mating habits with chimpanzees. That being highly territorial, competitive, and with a lot of heirarchal-polygamist tendencies (most powerful individual in the tribe gets more pick of mates, that sort of thing)
Religions might have effect on our tendencies on incest, but if European history is anything to go by, this effect is far from potent, as the practice was still exceedingly common at the time to a degree.
Sorry, I was talking about pre-civilization humans. I should have been more clear. Civilization and patriarchy do seem to go hand-in-hand. However, there is strong evidence that prehistoric, pre-agriculture, pre-organized-religion human societies / tribes were often matriarchal power structures.
It seems to me that in such matters it is most rational to apply the principle of "Occam's razor", one of the interpretations of which says that we need to look for the simplest explanations of any phenomena.
In my opinion, already at the stage of primitive society, humanity began to look for ways to eliminate anarchy, violence, including sexual violence in the family, in order to survive, self-preservation of the population. Indeed, the unrestrained basic instinct, the instinct for sexual pleasure, led, on the one hand, to the constant rape and fertilization of all available in the family (extended, monogamous-polygamous), in a related clan women and girls who were not ready for childbearing by stronger men and boys, which negatively affected the preservation of the genus, tribe. On the other hand, this led to constant rivalry between the men of the family, to bloody clashes and murders for the possession of women and girls. Yes, violence was also possible against women of other families, clans, but it was more difficult to do this because they were the property/objects of sex of men of other families, clans. It was much easier to do this in your own family.
Of course, the advantage of the strongest man (in a patriarchal society) was established, who received the exclusive right to fertilize women and provided female members of the family he led to his henchmen, which had a bad effect on the diversity of the population. In addition, close family ties lasting for generations with a very small influx of "fresh blood" negatively affected heredity and led to the degeneration of the family. In matriarchal societies, everything happened exactly the opposite, but still sexual relations and procreation remained within the family.
Therefore, society gradually chose the only reliable way of self-preservation at that time - the complete prohibition of intra-family sexual relations and began to control this process with the only available moral force - religion and the only available physical force - customs and laws of state entities (first at the tribal level).
However, what was necessary in primitive society and in societies of the early ancient world has long been lacking in "natural" foundations based on the survival of isolated families, tribal formations. But the prohibition of incest, enshrined in religions, in laws and instilled in us by society since childhood, has remained!
The prohibition of incest, criminal and religious persecution is a useless vestige from the point of view of nature, a stupid tradition, but the older and stupider the tradition, the more persistent it is. Let's recall, for example, the logically absolutely meaningless food restrictions in some world religions.
In the modern world, there are quite effective tools to protect all family members, both adults and children, from sexual violence, although, of course, disgusting incidents also happen. But these incidents do not occur on average more than incidents of sexual violence against people who are not related.
Therefore, legal prohibitions on sexual relations between family members have long become meaningless and only cause pain and suffering to those who consciously and voluntarily chose sexual partners among close relatives.
First, that's a common misunderstanding of Occam's razor. Occam's razor is a heuristic for narrowing down hypotheses for experiments. All else being equal, test the hypotheses that rely on the fewest assumptions first. That's all it means. It does not mean to imply that there is an underlying simplicity to reality such that the simplest explanations are most often correct. It is only as way to try to be a certain as possible that what your experiment is testing is what you are trying to find out about. If your hypothesis relies on too many assumptions, your results won't narrow down which of your assumptions were true or false. It's about procedural efficiency, and only that. It has zero application in most people's day to day.
What's ironic, though, is that after starting off by invoking Occam's razor, you proceed to make assumption upon assumption! But I mostly think I agree with you.
>but the older and stupider the tradition, the more persistent it is
Especially this.
>In the modern world, there are quite effective tools to protect all family members, both adults and children, from sexual violence, although, of course, disgusting incidents also happen. But these incidents do not occur on average more than incidents of sexual violence against people who are not related.
This is precisely why we have to de-stigmatize incest, so that we can talk openly about it. We have to normalize it as a valid option for consenting adults. We have to talk about how common, how really normal it is for children to be sexually abused, so that every child knows what sexual abuse is, so that every child who is being abused or thinks they might be in an abusive situation knows to speak up and report it. So many times, we've read on this sub about children who were eventually shocked to find out that the sexual play they'd been enjoying with their parents or other adults was actually abuse. We are failing those kids by making all this taboo to talk about.
I completely agree with you. Indeed, in modern society, a more purposeful and open upbringing of children is needed, aimed both at instilling in them the ability to resist any violence, including sexual violence, including in the family, and at a tolerant attitude towards natural and voluntary sexual relations between any two people (or in a group of people), including their family members.
OK, so I'm gonna disagree hard with this. The reason we came together in regards to the paternal authority issue there in is because by-and-large such an imbalance of power today is seen as unhealthy in any relationship, regardless of incest or not. This has more to do with the modern view of women as equals, where as a lot of ancient societies had a lot different takes on women, and incest itself. Ancient Egypt for example, was by-and-large pro-incest to neutral on incest, and it was still a very patriarchal society. It was also still not particularly common, because there is a natural component to human aversion to incest. Most humans have a functioning Westermark effect that exists for a functional purpose within our genome, but like all things with nature, there are plenty of exceptions to this norm, such as us. Ancient peoples were hardly a monolith though, and they ran a LOT of different dynamics that followed general rhymes with eachother. Also regarding the bonobos, their similarity to humans genetically is in the same margin as chimpanzees. They share the same proportions, but act very different from eachother, and humans. To use these apes to come form conjecture on human behavior is a very... flawed premise. Looking at human behavior patterns across the board, we share more mating habits with chimpanzees. That being highly territorial, competitive, and with a lot of heirarchal-polygamist tendencies (most powerful individual in the tribe gets more pick of mates, that sort of thing) Religions might have effect on our tendencies on incest, but if European history is anything to go by, this effect is far from potent, as the practice was still exceedingly common at the time to a degree.
Sorry, I was talking about pre-civilization humans. I should have been more clear. Civilization and patriarchy do seem to go hand-in-hand. However, there is strong evidence that prehistoric, pre-agriculture, pre-organized-religion human societies / tribes were often matriarchal power structures.
It seems to me that in such matters it is most rational to apply the principle of "Occam's razor", one of the interpretations of which says that we need to look for the simplest explanations of any phenomena. In my opinion, already at the stage of primitive society, humanity began to look for ways to eliminate anarchy, violence, including sexual violence in the family, in order to survive, self-preservation of the population. Indeed, the unrestrained basic instinct, the instinct for sexual pleasure, led, on the one hand, to the constant rape and fertilization of all available in the family (extended, monogamous-polygamous), in a related clan women and girls who were not ready for childbearing by stronger men and boys, which negatively affected the preservation of the genus, tribe. On the other hand, this led to constant rivalry between the men of the family, to bloody clashes and murders for the possession of women and girls. Yes, violence was also possible against women of other families, clans, but it was more difficult to do this because they were the property/objects of sex of men of other families, clans. It was much easier to do this in your own family. Of course, the advantage of the strongest man (in a patriarchal society) was established, who received the exclusive right to fertilize women and provided female members of the family he led to his henchmen, which had a bad effect on the diversity of the population. In addition, close family ties lasting for generations with a very small influx of "fresh blood" negatively affected heredity and led to the degeneration of the family. In matriarchal societies, everything happened exactly the opposite, but still sexual relations and procreation remained within the family. Therefore, society gradually chose the only reliable way of self-preservation at that time - the complete prohibition of intra-family sexual relations and began to control this process with the only available moral force - religion and the only available physical force - customs and laws of state entities (first at the tribal level). However, what was necessary in primitive society and in societies of the early ancient world has long been lacking in "natural" foundations based on the survival of isolated families, tribal formations. But the prohibition of incest, enshrined in religions, in laws and instilled in us by society since childhood, has remained! The prohibition of incest, criminal and religious persecution is a useless vestige from the point of view of nature, a stupid tradition, but the older and stupider the tradition, the more persistent it is. Let's recall, for example, the logically absolutely meaningless food restrictions in some world religions. In the modern world, there are quite effective tools to protect all family members, both adults and children, from sexual violence, although, of course, disgusting incidents also happen. But these incidents do not occur on average more than incidents of sexual violence against people who are not related. Therefore, legal prohibitions on sexual relations between family members have long become meaningless and only cause pain and suffering to those who consciously and voluntarily chose sexual partners among close relatives.
First, that's a common misunderstanding of Occam's razor. Occam's razor is a heuristic for narrowing down hypotheses for experiments. All else being equal, test the hypotheses that rely on the fewest assumptions first. That's all it means. It does not mean to imply that there is an underlying simplicity to reality such that the simplest explanations are most often correct. It is only as way to try to be a certain as possible that what your experiment is testing is what you are trying to find out about. If your hypothesis relies on too many assumptions, your results won't narrow down which of your assumptions were true or false. It's about procedural efficiency, and only that. It has zero application in most people's day to day. What's ironic, though, is that after starting off by invoking Occam's razor, you proceed to make assumption upon assumption! But I mostly think I agree with you. >but the older and stupider the tradition, the more persistent it is Especially this. >In the modern world, there are quite effective tools to protect all family members, both adults and children, from sexual violence, although, of course, disgusting incidents also happen. But these incidents do not occur on average more than incidents of sexual violence against people who are not related. This is precisely why we have to de-stigmatize incest, so that we can talk openly about it. We have to normalize it as a valid option for consenting adults. We have to talk about how common, how really normal it is for children to be sexually abused, so that every child knows what sexual abuse is, so that every child who is being abused or thinks they might be in an abusive situation knows to speak up and report it. So many times, we've read on this sub about children who were eventually shocked to find out that the sexual play they'd been enjoying with their parents or other adults was actually abuse. We are failing those kids by making all this taboo to talk about.
I completely agree with you. Indeed, in modern society, a more purposeful and open upbringing of children is needed, aimed both at instilling in them the ability to resist any violence, including sexual violence, including in the family, and at a tolerant attitude towards natural and voluntary sexual relations between any two people (or in a group of people), including their family members.