For Us, The Living

VIII

These exercises in realistic thinking continued in various ways. Perry found himself unable to distinguish between activities which were a part of his treatment, events simply intended to entertain and thereby keep him happy in his environment, and activities which he had selected for his own edification or fulfillment. Early in his stay he had expressed a desire to continue with his study of modern mathematics. He was given every facility to do so, but in time lost interest in the face of other activities and, especially, his rapidly growing friendship with Olga. He was surprised to receive a call from Hedrick who urged him to pursue his mathematical studies to the limit and, if possible, to develop some new aspect of the art. Perry inquired if this were standard psychiatric procedure. Hedrick hastened to reassure him, "Not at all, not at all, but if a person under treatment has a mathematical pre-disposition the development of that bent may be used very handily to clear up his particular difficulty. Yours is a case in point. You think very admirably in the field of physics in which your terms are almost entirely mathematical. You are able to make useful predictions and are able to avoid fallacious identification of terms. You are able to appreciate and even invent little mathematical jokes based on a deliberate confusion of terms. You can 'prove' to me that one plus one equals one or air cars won't fly, for our mutual amusement. This does you no harm because you have deliberately confused certain terms and used them with different meanings in the same problem in order to achieve a willfully ludicrous result. When your thinking in social relationships reaches the same order of development, you will no longer be tortured by the emotional upsets that impelled you to consult us."

"Is that all that insanity amounts to, a confusion of terms?"

"Oh my, no. Even in your own case confusion in terms is not the only problem. You not only confuse the various meanings of some terms, but you also fail in certain respects to perceive the pattern of your structural relationship to your environment. This produces trouble which may be likened to that experienced by a thirsty traveler who believes that a heat mirage is a lake. Your trouble is not of that simple order of perception of physical phenomena, but in a much higher order of abstraction. Yet it is as difficult for me to explain to you the exact nature of your trouble as it would be for you to explain a mirage to an ignorant savage. Your only hope of getting the savage to understand a mirage in the fashion in which you understand it would lie in giving him a long course of basic instruction in modern science, having first—and this is very important—un-taught him a thousand superstitions and false identifications with which his mind is crowded. You are now in the process of unlearning your errors and superstitions. At the same time you are beginning to teach yourself a more satisfactory concept of the cosmos. But I haven't answered your question. You are not insane, any more than our savage. You are simply confused, as the savage was. In each case the confusion can be eliminated by proper training. Yours might well have taken place in a children's development center had you been of the proper age. Moreover, because of the maturity and exceptional ability of your mind we can enable you to re-train yourself in a fraction of the time necessary to train a child.

"With respect to other methods of treatment, naturally if a person is truly insane, suffering from physical lesions, whether congenital, traumatic, or pathological, we treat by physical means, surgery, chemical therapy, physical therapy, and so forth. Frequently there is little we can do other than care for them, keep them from harming themselves, or others, and prevent them from reproducing. But in any case in which the brain and nervous structure are not injured, we have not yet failed to achieve a satisfactory re-training into a state of full sanity. Yours is not even a difficult case, my boy. I feel sure that both of us will be satisfied with the result."

Perry stirred uneasily in his seat. "What you say may be true and I would hesitate to contradict you in your own field. Certainly I have acquired a lot of new ideas and new concepts and new ways of thinking about things in the past weeks. Nevertheless, I don't feel any different about the thing that landed me in this mess. I'm still in love with Diana, and I'm jealous as hell of her. I enjoyed taking a poke at that guy Bernard and would enjoy doing it again. I don't want any man to lay a finger on her. In spite of my inability to define human nature, I think you know what I mean by the term, and I think its in human nature that I should feel as I do, and I don't see how you can change human nature, mine or anybody else's."

Hedrick smiled and put the tips of his fingers together carefully, cocked his head on one side and replied, "You are right, my dear boy, entirely right, except about the immutability of human nature, in which you are partially wrong. I am quite prepared to believe that you are physically jealous of your woman in an acutely emotional manner. It is true that this emotion results from your own 'human nature' and that it is potentially present in all males and also in females, although it arises in females from a different source of more recent origin and less deep seated in character. The jealousy of the male for the female may be observed in animal life, in the battling of torn cats, the duels to death of stag deer, and the fighting cock bird. It is present in all animals, human and otherwise, and is both a necessary consequence and a determining cause of the survival of all bisexual life. It is very simple. The male who was unwilling to fight other males for the privilege of sexual intercourse did not reproduce; his line died out. Each generation, by and large, was descended from males who would fight for the females. Any factor in human nature which is necessary or helpful to the continuance and propagation of life may be termed a 'survival factor' and each generation will exhibit by necessity these factors; sexual urge, belly hunger, group loyalty, heliotropism, whatever they may be. You may term, if you wish, the resulting complicated manifold of instincts, desires, reflexes, emotions, and so forth, 'human nature', 'animal nature', or the 'nature of life'. But you must remember that these are complex terms, implying many factors, and arising from myriad environmental circumstances in the history of the race. And you must remember that environments change. Now, a factor in 'human nature' remains a survival factor only as long as the environment continues to make it so. For example on a dairy farm sexual jealousy is no longer a survival factor for bulls; on the contrary a bull is not allowed to fight; his major survival factor is his ability to breed daughters who are big milk producers. It is useless to argue that he is in an artificial environment; the distinction is a specious one. A man-made environment is as 'natural' as that of the jungle, unless you insist on a purely verbal distinction that divorces 'Man' from the rest of nature.

"Perry, you now find yourself in an environment in which the factor of physical sexual jealousy is no longer a survival factor. On the contrary it decreases your chances to survive. Yet the factor still exists in your 'nature'. You say 'that is that' and that nothing can be done about it, which would be true if you were a bull, but you are not a bull and there is an essential difference between modern man and other animals. Men are able consciously to examine their motives, emotions, and so forth, and by a conscious process to inhibit or divert a reaction, reflex, and so forth. He can control his emotions or modify them by conscious application, and thereby change 'human nature'. You think not? Let us consider the case of another survival factor, the fear of falling from a height. You ride in air cars. Are you afraid of the height? Does it cause you any nervousness? Does it upset your digestion, prevent you from sleeping nights, cause you to wake screaming from nightmares? Today the fear of heights is potentially present in that inherited matrix you call 'human nature'. It's nearly as old as the sex urge."

"Say," put in Perry, "you're right. I've had such dreams lately as a result of a fall. But I'm not bothered anymore—not in the least."

"Let's take another case, belly hunger. It is the oldest factor of all reaching back past the origin of bisexual life. If 'human nature' is not subject to change it should be the strongest of all and uncontrollable. Do you drool and slobber at a display of food? Do you fall on it like a wild animal? Do you snatch it from the plate of another? Do you sit up nights worrying about it? Yet it is there and basic. A change in environment would develop it to the point where men would fight for it, claw crusts of bread from dust bins, steal, rob, kill. You can supply many examples from experience and history. Do you begin to see that the active exercise of the factor of sex jealousy is today as stupid, as silly, as uncouth, and as unnecessary as the feeding habits of the jungle?"

Perry nodded soberly. "I begin to see, rationally at least. I'm afraid my emotions won't change quite so readily."

"Don't let that worry you. Proper emotional habits may be acquired like other habits—by conscious exercise over a period of time. If you control your acts along the pattern you desire, and exercise your will, your emotions will change. That may seem unlikely but I assure that it is a report of observed fact. Analogy in the cases of other primitive urges may make it credible to you.

"Before we go further, I would like to point out to you that the factor of sex jealousy as present in you and as exercised in the environment in which you matured was not always present in the same way in all times, places, and culture. Polygamy is, of course, well known to you, if not through experience, at least by report. It is a matter of reported fact that women in polygamous cultures were not made unhappy by the practice. The early Mormon culture is a case in point. Polyandry is less well known but was common in Tibet for a long period and worked very satisfactorily. In certain parts of Asia in recent times it was a common practice for a host to loan his wife or daughter to a guest for the night. It would have been bad form to refuse. Among certain of the Eskimo tribes it was the accepted practice in very recent times to exchange wives for considerable periods usually for reasons of domestic economy. To have disputed the practice or stirred up a fuss about it would have been thought barbaric, not to say immoral. Among certain of the Polynesian tribes promiscuity before marriage was the accepted rule. On the other hand among the Zulus as late as the twentieth century, a maid ready for marriage was examined by a committee of elder women. If they did not pronounce her a virgo intacta, she was beheaded. In contrast to this, among many people prostitution was a religious rite, reaching the extreme point in at least one highly developed culture wherein a woman could not marry until she had passed at least one night as a public prostitute. The illustrations from anthropology are endless. I have cited enough to show you that the manifestations of male sex jealousy occurring in the culture in which you were reared are not the result of an inflexible law.

"The case of female sex jealousy of the male differs greatly from that of the male. Female sex jealousy is primarily economic in origin, that of the male is primarily biological. The desire for sexual intercourse is not an important survival factor in the female. She may be impregnated without it, or even in the face of a strong contra-desire, as in rape. The dominant survival factor for the female is the need for protection and support during gestation and while caring for infant children. This will take the form of possessive sexual jealousy in any environment which requires her to capture the full attention of one man to achieve the end. It is not necessary that she be consciously aware of this. It is automatic. By and large, in such an environment, only the females who function in that pattern are able to reproduce. Many environments do not lay this requirement on the female. Yours did, to a marked degree, if the literature and records of your period are correct.

"From all I can gather the competition among women for the exclusive attention of one man must have been as fierce and ruthless as any jungle battle. It appears from history that the women of your period and before were able to freeze into law and creed that a man must take one woman and support her and her children to the exclusion of any other interest. A woman who connived with a man to break this stringent code of battle, as in adultery, was destroyed by her sisters as completely as they were able.

"Nevertheless, even in your day, the signs of environmental change and consequent changes in your 'immutable' human nature were in evidence so far as women were concerned. They were gaining greater economic freedom and consequent greater sexual independence. They no longer needed to the same extent the economic support of husbands. It was even possible for a woman of foresight and ability to bear and rear children without the economic support of a male. With increased knowledge and use of practical convenient methods of controlling conception women were liberated somewhat from the pressing necessity for capturing a man and holding him. With the advent of the New Economic Regime women no longer required the services of a man to support herself or her offspring. For the first time in history women reached the dignity of social equality with men. Up to that time any equality with men granted to them was spurious, a mere verbalism, having no real foundation in fact.

"The social consequences were of enormous importance both to women and to men. For the first time in history men and women could mate as equals without fear of concealed motives. Life was enormously enriched thereby. Love between the sexes could develop aesthetically in a way never before possible. Freed of the twin vices of masqued rape and masqued prostitution, it developed a beauty, a variety, and a richness limited only by the imagination and sensitivity of the individuals concerned. Not only did it glorify the love between man and woman but it made possible a deeper, less antagonistic, relation between man and his brother, woman and her sister, for the primary causes of rivalry were gone. Gone for men as well as for women. Why?

"You recall that the primary cause of sex jealousy in men was the desire for intercourse. In former cultures other men might lure away a desired woman with economic bait or capture her bodily. Now that the woman is no longer subject to coercion but is a free agent, the competition between males for a woman's charms is necessarily by gentler means. Excesses of jealousy are likely to defeat their own ends and lose a woman completely. You are lucky that your chosen woman was sufficiently primitive in her emotion and loyal in her intellect that she decided to stick by you. Many women would have told you to go to the devil and taken up with a less selfish man."

Perry was startled to hear himself called selfish. He started to speak, then thought better of it and held his tongue, his face a study in mixed emotions. Hedrick continued.

"As a matter of practice a man usually finds that he has lost nothing at all by ceasing to respond to the emotion of jealousy. Strictly from a biological point of view there is much data to prove that potential capacity for sexual indulgence is much greater in most women than it is in most men, so much so, that an average woman could be the mistress of, let us say, two or three average men without loss to the men. On the spiritual side there is enough of the 'Mother of All Living' principle in the nature of any woman to permit her, if she chooses, to be the source of spiritual refreshment to many men. Any man who believes the contrary is a fool who judges the soul of woman by the paucity of his own. He need only look at the mother of any large brood to know that the capacity of a woman to replenish the soul with her love is limited only by the scope of her field.

"I speak now of the ordinary run of men and women. In some cases a man may be a sufficient companion in every way for more than one woman, in which case the situation is reversed but is otherwise similar."

"Do you mean to say that such combinations as you have described are the usual order today?"

"Not at all. Not at all. We Americans in 2086 remain, by and large, monogamous. If for no other reasons, the approximate fifty-fifty balance of the sexes, habit, and convenience would make it so. In addition to that, it takes time for a rich love to mature and one does not lightly throw away such a possession. You think that you are in love with Diana today, my boy, but if you are still with her ten years from now, you will wonder why you graced so thin and feeble an emotion with that name! No, we pair off and stay paired on the average, but that does not preclude the formation of other associations either more temporary, or less deep, or both. No one partner in life can supply all the possible richnesses of living to another. I speak now not only of physical sexual associations, but also of associations mental and spiritual, such as I observe that you are forming—You'll pardon me saying so—with our good friend Olga."

Perry blushed to his hair roots.

"No, no, son. No cause for embarrassment. I invaded your private sphere because I am your physician and have occasion to. Olga is a fine woman, finer than you now imagine. Your association with her is bound to do you good in every way. I am happy to see it." Master Hedrick yawned and glanced at the chronometer. "If I don't turn in fairly soon I shall need a stimulant in the morning to attend properly to my duties. I've just one more thing to say; I want you to make a list of the things you expected to protect or obtain by driving this other young buck away from Diana. Be as explicit as possible and mind how you use your terms. Take as long as necessary and let me see the result. By the way, when do you expect her back?"

"Tomorrow, probably. She just ran up to Chicago for a special broadcast."

"That's good. There's a rather interesting job over in surgery tomorrow that she would like to see. Diana's mother is coming here to perform a dexter cerebrectomy. You might drop in too, if such things interest you. Accident case. Very sad. Young rocket pilot."

"Thank you, sir. I think I will if Diana is back."

Hedrick arose and knocked out his pipe.

"Just a minute, sir. Doesn't anyone maintain a lifetime monogamy anymore?"

Hedrick desisted from tickling Captain Kidd's belly and considered this. "Very possibly. There are a lot of possibilities in a hundred and ninety million people. Seems unlikely though. You might try your hand at working out the equation of probability involved, if it amuses you. I think you'll find enough data on file over in the Archives to give it a try. Well, good night."

"Good night, sir."