Chapter 9.                                       Part J 

  

        Whether future societies will see a profound and enduring redesigning of gender roles and child-rearing practices, and a concomitant redesigning of the roles of worker-citizens that will make women equal partners with men, remains unclear. Moves toward gender equity, in work and citizenship, and real change in the everyday life experiences of women and men have been suggested and tried (to varying degree) before, and have faded away before. But the trends in the West, especially at the start of the twenty-first century, look widespread and strong. The question to be answered will be whether or not societies that contain a higher degree of gender equity will outperform those which do not. That question will eventually be answered, but the evidence proving the answer, one way or the other, will only emerge gradually over the next hundred years or so.

                     

         To sum up this digression, and in an attempt to be crystal clear, let me re-iterate here that the point of illustrating the socio-cultural model of human evolution with some example morés that we are familiar with, and can imagine being revised, is to emphasize the point that our morés and values are programmable. We can, at least in theory, come to a point where we re-write them for the betterment of the whole of our society by processes of rational discussion and debate, processes that are based on reasoning, evidence, and compromise. We'll see what needs updating, and we'll teach the kids to accommodate the updates, or rather, to be the updates. Difficult, yes, but preferable to the blind, trudging, painful, recursive way of doing social change that we have been using for centuries.

               

         Time for reason to take over. The hazards of continuing on in the old ways of prejudice, revolution, and war are too large. We have to find another way, one that rights gender injustices, and so many others, without resorting to the horror of war. And, if we can find a way to base our values on our best models of physical reality, ones we can all see the sense of, it can be done. Difficult. Not impossible.   

               

            Now let's return to our main argument, in spite of digressions that beckon. 

               

          It is clear that individual human behaviors and the internal running of the more complex, but vital, principles and values programs (which are mental meta-behaviors) almost all originate in the programming that the individual is given by his or her society. (The parts of human behavior that are genetically acquired are now largely understood, and not within the scope of this book, in any case.) Furthermore, values get established in a given society when they direct citizens of that society toward patterns of behavior that enable the citizens to survive, reproduce, and expand the society's territory with ever-growing success.

               

         By now some readers are probably inferring a profound insight about the higher order mental constructs that we call “values”. Clearly, the deepest principles which must underlie and guide all of our value systems – in big choices for the tribe and small ones for the individual – must be designed in such a way as to enable us to respond effectively to the largest general principles of the physical universe itself. That universe is the one in which survival happens or does not happen. Values systems must have designs underlying them that complement, and respond to, the designs inherent in matter, space, and time.

         What are these principles? For impatient readers, I can only say that I am coming to them – by small steps and gradual degrees. But we have to discuss the network of ideas at the base of the new moral system thoroughly before we try to build the middle and upper levels. Proceeding with precision and care will maximize the chances that we will see that a universal moral code is possible for us to devise - in theory - and that such a code, if we can implement it, will offer the only path into the future that entails our species' surviving - in practice.             

Notes  

1. http://www.learnstuff.com/feral-children/

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enculturation

3.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocultural_evolution        
   #Contemporary_discourse_about_sociocultural_evolution

4.http://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/        
   hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0205949509.pdf; p. 17 

5.http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/02/

   when-taking-multiple-husbands-makes-sense/272726/

6.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

   Piaget's_theory_of_cognitive_development   

7.http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?        
   doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DCrito%3Apage%3D50

8.http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2009/07/more-on-the-male-    female-sat-math-test-gap/

9.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2067887/

   Women-doctors-soon-outnumber-men-numbers-medical-school-fold.html