. . . Or ar you just happy to see me?

First, I'm not sure that history shows that human society inevitably gets better. While this pattern shows up a number of times and places, there are often some serious relapses along the way.

Yes, indeed, and I do account for those. As with nature, there are always upheavals in society that may appear regressive or running counter to the overall evolutionary process. I used the examples of a volcano and a forest fire, both of which are incredibly destructive but necessary to the process of the planet's continued existence. Forest fires clear away old deadwood forests and cleanse the earth, supplying new fertilizer when much of the old has been leached from the ground by the overpopulation of trees in a certain area. Volcanoes are a kind of pressure valve for the incredible build-up of energies beneath the earth's surface.

In human terms, we can consider regressive moves toward traditionalism as similar to these, though you must look at it from the bigger view of nature rather than nature as it applies to us humans, since such things are generally viewed only in the negative light of the damage they do. Still, the damage must be accounted for, my point being that we shouldn't look at traditionalist regression as negative in and of itself--its often necessary to process of cultural evolution--but we should account for the damage it does and repair the damage, which is what sites like this one are doing.

I believe there are several different scales on which these things take place. The Dark Ages and all the sex-negative stuff is taking place on a very large scale, but within that, you have other smaller processes, most of them positive/progressive with a few being negative/regressive, generally a reaction to outside threats (like the 9/11 terrorist attacks.) But the largest scale, and thus the overall direction, is apparently one of progressiveness, as Alexis de Tocqueville surmised in his book Democracy in America.

[Note that when I say positive/progressive and negative/regressive, I do not ascribe any political meaning to those terms, although by my definition, it may seem that way to many. I use progressive to mean a move toward cultural peace, tolerance and understanding, so any political, social or religious views which run counter to that definition would be considered negative/regressive, but there are as many politically liberal views which are negative/regressive as there are politically conservative ones, as far as I can see. Tocqueville himself was both a conservative and a social progressive, and he had many good things to say that align well with my concepts here.]

Roman society, for example, made quite a few advances, and over much time gradually corrected most of its major problems . . . but the combination of several factors led to its decline and accompanying unrest. It is interesting that the same Christianity which stopped the practices of gladitorial contests and throwing victims to wild animals for public amusements, went on to produce new horrors of its own. Some might say that the message of love spread by Christianity (and other contemporaneous philosophies and religions) made the Romans less warlike and weakened their resolve, and thus left the empire ready to be conquered by its warlike neighbors, resulting in a reversion to barbarism that lasted over a millenia. On the other hand, given enough time those barbarians did learn from the Roman example, and adopted some of that civilization for themselves.

Ah, yes, but you are making the mistake of looking at a single culture as being self-contained rather than looking at the larger culture of mankind that it fell within. Rome still existed when the Christians took it over and it still exists today. No, it isn't the empire it once was . . . or is it? Certainly, without the help of Rome, Christianity never would've spread to the ends of the earth as it did, uniting many disparate cultures under the banner of one religion. Now, many cultures, subcultures and individuals suffered or died in the name of that religion, but I'll grant that that religion (and all religions) served a major purpose at the time.

But now, religion needs to be (and will be) replaced with mathematics, science and the arts as cultural uniters. The Empire of Religion has outlived its usefulness and will perish, and a new empire, dominated by logic, individual spirituality and shared humanities, will come to replace it. That's cultural evolution.

The conquering of Rome by the barbarians (and their damned elephants :-p) didn't destroy Rome--it changed its structure and make-up, somewhat for the better and somewhat for the worse. But the essential Roman values of democracy, appreciation of the arts, philosophy, etc. are now the norm throuout most the world. I'd say the Greco-Roman tradition never actually declined, even if ancient Rome did. We have to stop looking at it in terms of singular, self-contained cultures and view it from the perspective of the cultural values that managed to survive, most of which fall into the positive/progressive classification.

I understand what you're saying about these societies becoming more civilized, then reverting because of being conquered. My point is that, while that did happen, the conquering of empires has now become largely a thing of the past, and even where conquering does take place (e.g. the U.S. invasion of Iraq), the goals have mostly shifted. Our intention wasn't to enslave Iraq and make it part of the U.S. but "simply" to democratize it. Perhaps the ends do not justify the means, but that goal (if it was the real goal) is certainly more noble than conquering to enslave and usurp.

But you look across the world and you notice some things--women are now thought of as equals in most parts of the world, where they were once viewed as barely human; ditto for other races. Gays are mostly accepted throughout the Western world, even if they still have some rights to gain. At least they aren't being put to death for being gay (in most of the world.) Capital punishment has largely been eliminated in the West and slavery (other than children) has been abolished almost everywhere. Democratic societies are replacing monarchies and totalitarian regimes, giving people more and more of a say in their own lives, and I'd say that, for the most part, these things are here to stay.

Within our own culture we can see continual churn - one problem gets resolved, a new one gets created, over and over and over again. Even if progress is inevitable, it sure is a bumpy ride.

Yes, but those problems are mostly technology-based. Even problems that arise from great ideological differences aren't usually solved with violence any more. Violence is now rightly seen as one of the gravest violations of human rights where it was once practiced routinely and openly throughout the world. I agree heartily with your final sentence there though.

Even in some of your descriptions, I see a potential for more bumps ahead. Your idea that criminals are created by society is familiar from the 1960's - but it was rejected because it turns out it often isn't so. To be sure, some criminals are created by society - especially those "criminals" whose crimes are against themselves or consenting others. Labelling does have a real impact, both for good or for ill. At the same time, we need to remember that the real problem with real criminals is not so often low self esteem as it is high self esteem - that is, they feel that they are entitled to the property of others, or entitled to make others do their will. The other major factor to criminality, at least the common kind, is poor impulse control. Frequently, the only difference between a law-abiding person and a criminal is that when the law-abiding person was so angered that they wanted to kill someone, they had the means to control that impulse. This is partly genetic and is related to intelligence, but also depends a great deal on practice at controlling one's impulses.

I don't believe society is entirely at fault for creating criminals--genetics and opportunity play a major part as well. Nor do I believe society should be held responsible, even if they did influence the criminal. What I am suggesting is that society often times makes the situation worse by labeling criminals or categorizing them in certain ways which leads them down that path because the criminals believe the labels themselves--self-fulfilling prophecy. I have a big gripe, for example, with the labeling of sex offenders as irredeemable. First off, the evidence does not bear this out, and secondly, it may actually contribute to a mindset of surrendering to the desire to rape or molest because the S.O. themselves come to believe they can't help it.

If you change the dialogue, though, then you begin to change the dynamic. If the media stopped pumping out lies about peds, then peds with low self-esteem and a nothing-to-lose mindset, who may be more prone to molest, may begin to see things differently. You see?

I don't know about having too high a self-esteem--perhaps that's true with some, but that could also be tempered with the truth. Really, I'm not convinced self-esteem is the issue with those types of people; the belief that you deserve someone else's property isn't equal to thinking it is right to take it. The real issues are ones of morality and, as you pointed out, impulse control.

Impulse control can be taught, and so can morality to an extent, but there are people who ARE irredeemable, I'll admit. They are sociopathic and manipulative, and, as I stated in my second reply to lbg, I think in a more open culture such people would be far easier to detect and weed out. In a culture where sexual contact between adults and children was the norm and was openly discussed, it could mean the difference between whether such people have one victim or many before they are caught.

At any rate, those with poor impulse control have trouble whether there are laws in place to stop them or not, so that isn't going to change much one way or the other unless such things are taught to them from their earliest days.

In this latter respect, I wonder sometimes if the long practice at impulse control forced by religion does not serve to make the population - at least those who sincerely try to obey its rules - a bit more intelligent. However, I suspect there are better ways to get this practice, and it also has some serious downsides.

I'll agree with that statement, though I will say that a state of balance is again the key. In my college psych class I learned of three types of parenting--permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative. Permissive parents place no limits at all on their children and wind up with kids running wild and doing whatever they like. Authoritarian parents are stern and occasionally even cruel and have so many rules that their children have no freedom at all. Their kids are usually, nervous and have poor self-esteem, and they often rebel as well when they get out from under the parents' thumb. I'd say that most parents actually fluctuate between permissive and authoritarian parenting, which REALLY confuses the kids (the bottom line being that most parents aren't very consistent, but they do try to achieve some sort of balance, even if they do so unconsciously.)

Authoritative parents, otoh, are the best kind. They don't make stupid rules, only ones that are necessary to protect their children; they are consistent with discipline and tend to use reward rather than punishment; they explain the rules and the reasons for them ahead of time and in a way appropriate to the child's comprehension level; finally, when they do punish, they let the punishment fit the crime. These families tend to be well adjusted and have the most well-behaved children.

Your ideas on relationships also seem to come out of the 1960's, and have also been rejected for good reason. In both cases, the pendulum has swung the other way, and is now on the verge of swinging back. If we want to seek that point of balance, we had best learn from the experiences of both extremes. The era of "free love" left many people feeling unloved. While "free love" worked well for some, it worked very poorly for others. This was partly a result of poor execution. For every proponent for whom it worked well, there were many imitators who never really "got" it - who, for example, saw it only as an excuse to have promiscuous sex, or, for personal reasons, never really felt the security that they could feel in a committed relationship. In short, for all its faults, traditional marriage is traditional precisely because it met the needs for most people for so long.

Well, actually I don't think they have been rejected, at least not the model I suggest. Communal living is great for those who want to be there, but the primary problem as I see it is the same one for any living situation--if you're a child, you have no choice. Some children grow up resenting being raised on a commune, though I believe alot of that stems from the same source as the trauma many grown-ups experience from sex as children--they realize, whether they enjoyed it at the time or not, that they participated in something that is largely frowned upon by the larger culture. Where communes are just thought of as odd or silly, sex play is thought of as harmful.

I also believe that communal living conjures up images of dirty, half-naked hippies sittin around in huts smoking weed. What I'm talking about are modern households shared by many people--not unlike an apartment rented by 3 or 4 people today. They may be two married couples, a married couple and 5 single people, a man and 3 kids who aren't his but want to live there, etc. Sex in this culture will be simply another activity, like playing a game or riding in a car. No cultural baggage and with safety precautions where warranted. The arrangements are mutable and determined by shared interests, shared love, or convenience; hopefully all three. The bottom line is, people--even the children--will be there because they want to be.

I agree with your point about learning from both extremes. During the 1960s, many hippies said that there wa an ideal way to live and wanted to impose that on the culture, just as the traditionalists were (and are) doing. But not everyone fits in the box that you fit into. Which is why I say that we should place NO expectations on the concept of a family. If it's ideal for you to live in a traditional home with a traditional marriage, then so be it. If not, then great.

The one absolute I'd establish is that children cannot be forced to reside where they don't want to reside, so if you have kids and they wanna skedaddle but you want them to stay, well, you're outta luck, I'm afraid. They are full human beings and they should have the full rights of human beings. I really don't think this is going to be the problem people think it will be--the majority of children, unless mistreated, will opt to stay, I'm sure.

Now I believe in letting people find their own paths, and finding the path that is best for them. I don't believe that I have the wisdom and understanding necessary to direct the lives of others who are far different from myself. What works for them may harm me, and what works for me may harm them. I believe in supporting them in finding their own solutions. While I reject the idea that a traditional marriage, much less the "nuclear family" that dates from the 1950's, should be for everybody, nonetheless I recognize that for many, probably most people, it is the best solution, and as such I support it for those who want it. Same is true for many other traditional ways of doing things.

Absolutely agree with this, and pretty much everything else you said from that point on, so I'll leave it at that. Thanks for the response. :)