Re: [UUPoly-L] Neuroscience, Insanity, and Comprehension

[Fritz Neumann <fritzcat66@yahoo.com>]

Ah - Don't mistake explanation for justification!

I was merely trying to at least give some comprehensible idea of why and how a
trusted loved one could seem to turn so alien and nasty, Jekyll-and-Hyde like,
which is what seemed to be baffling both you and Penna. I've seen it happen
with others. And it's happened to me too, although not to the extreme levels
you guys saw. Heck, I'm sure I've even been guilty of it myself... although,
again, perhaps not to these extremes. But isn't it just a matter of degree?

What is important to recognize, I think, is the raw power that these
reptile-level drives like limerence have over us. They are more ancient than
anything going on in our rational/emotional neocortex, and to think we can
simply brush them aside and ignore them is hubris and denial at its most naive.

Tennov documented many perfectly normal, functional, and rational people - of
all ages - doing absolutely outrageous things in the throes of limerence. There
is good reason we use language like "madly in love" or "crazy about a lover".
The fMRI studies confirm it: it is indeed a form of madness, a temporary
insanity where the organism's normal value system is turned topsy-turvy.

Why? Well, fundamentally in order to bond, mate, and stick around long enough
to get offspring off the ground. The reptile brain doesn't comprehend that you
may be using birth control, whether you identify as poly or mono, or even if
you're sterilized: it's pursuing the ancient agenda of DNA, the agenda of the
gene, to replicate sexually, plain and simple.

I think it's important is for us to fully acknowledge that, as wonderful as
this limerent state can be - inspiring poetry, art, music, encouraging us to be
our very best - its irrational basis can also bring out our worst dark sides as
well, our savage animal natures, in just as extreme a manner: jealous rages,
co-dependence, and in these cases, the irrational and seemingly unnecessary
vilification of an erstwhile lover. They are not "rationalizations" at all - in
fact, their raw irrationality makes them something more like the opposite of
rationalization. It's as if limerence has taken over and said, "This is who you
will be with. You want this more than anything else and NOTHING can get in the
way of this. Now, warp the rest of your reality to fit that fact." And, by and
large, people do!

Don't get me wrong: I am also predisposed to expect everyone to exercise
rational, responsible free will in all things. But the science simply flies in
the face of that. We are not that evolved, nor inherently that rational. I've
heard one anthropologist describe homo sapiens as little more than "super
chimpanzees". During most of our conscious lives, our reptile brain is largely
quiet, since usually its primary concern is self-preservation. But when it
comes to finding a mate, we awaken a sleeping giant - one that is not the least
bit concerned about rationality or justifications, and is used to getting its
way through the sheer influence and power of dopamine, norepinephrine,
oxytocin, vasopressin, and serotonin. It's important to be realistic about
this, to comprehend our own limits. To understand that our hope, our vision for
how we *should* be, is not necessarily the reality we have now.

But we have all largely lived in ignorance about this limerence cycle, or at
best had only naive acceptance of it. Tennov spent a good deal of her time just
trying to convince other academics that the process of "falling in love" was
even something that could ever be studied scientifically, and this was the
1970's, a generation after Kinsey! But now that we *know* we are capable of
such irrational behavior, and can start to understand *why*... I think therein
lies our best hope for positive change. That's what drives me to spread this
information. I think it is especially important for poly people to understand
this about themselves, about their lovers, about this important piece of our
biology that, after all, is one large part of why we're the dominant species on
this planet: because something in us drove us to breed like rabbits - no,
*better* than the rabbits - and fill all corners of the Earth with our progeny.
Sex and mating is the one constant across all human cultures, throughout all
human history.

But that understanding - and more importantly, the willingness to change our
own behavior to the extent possible in light of that understanding - is a
change that must begin from within... and while again this is no justification
for those who follow that path of irrationally promoting the new limerent
object while simultaneously devaluing their previous lover, let's also not just
feel dazed, stunned, stupefied, powerless, and victimized, either. It's not as
incomprehensible as it may seem on the surface, especially once you understand
the deep-rooted mechanisms at work in our own brains.

Instead, I think we should watch, listen, learn, and grow! Realize that we are
all capable of being monsters just as much as we are all capable of being in
love. And that, in fact, the more we elevate the one form of madness, the more
we open ourselves to the other as well. Let's step back a bit from this whole
"falling in love" process and determine if it's really as wonderful as we think
we want it to be. Let's dare to ask Aphrodite the hard questions, the ones
she's not used to being asked: the ones which require her to explain herself.

Can we overcome this? Well, certainly not if we are in denial about its power!
What I have come to respect are those poly people who can acknowledge those
urges towards exclusivity in the face of a new lover and yet somehow find the
willpower to keep them in check, to give their existing partners their due, to
think about their relationships in a larger perspective while still perhaps
enjoying some of the immediate pleasures of limerence. For some this seems to
come naturally - I've certainly heard some folk tell of being simply "born
poly". Bully for them! Yet I find those who struggle infinitely more
interesting, and sympathetic. They are the poly people who stand upon the brink
of madness, risking much. They are the ones Brad Blanton called, "the R&D
department of relationships".

Nietszche said, "Beware hunting monsters lest you become a monster yourself."
Let's not make a monster of these aspects of human behavior, but come to
understand where they come from, so that we may both transcend and include them
into ourselves, instead of becoming the very monster we set out to hunt.

  >*< Fritz


--- Anita Wagner <imapolygirl@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Fritz said:
>  
> > Now Anita, if you had ever been to one of my presentations on neuroscience
> and
> > love, you would have a clearer understanding of why this happens!
> 
> Actually I did, but somehow I hadn't connected the info to that period in my
> life.  And I agree that Tennov and Fisher tell a powerful story.  Together
> they explain a lot of why we do what we do for love.  
> 
> > Well, even though Tennov didn't study it, I think clearly there is a flip
> side
> > to this effect, and that is, as much as the limerent object is being
> elevated,
> > to simultaneously minimize and suppress any "contenders". I think we've all
> > seen this many times - this recent situation on list being a prime example,
> as
> > is your prior experience, Anita.
> 
> <snipped>
> 
> > Even being aware, it can be extremely difficult to struggle against,
> depending
> > on the particular mix of brain chemistry you have. So, perhaps in that
> > knowledge there can also be sympathy for those who seem to suddenly "turn"
> on a
> > longtime lover - they are as much victims of their own brain chemistry as
> > anything... and their rational mind is simply being flooded over by that
> older
> > reptile brain. 
> 
> Sheesh.  You may well be right, but I'm not especially inclined to cut my ex
> much slack on that account - not so much for his falling for another and
> leaving our marriage, but instead for the way he handled it.  It's hard to
> imagine that this intelligent man with an upper crust ivy league education
> just couldn't help himself from making up lies about me in order to justify
> his own actions, though I'll admit that he seemed quite convinced as to the
> "truth" of them, and nothing I could say or do could change his mind.  He
> clearly had no incentive to do so, quite the opposite.  Still, I don't think
> much of people who engage in that sort of self-serving self-delusion.  We
> have higher brain functions for a reason.  .  
> 
> Oddly, when it comes to discussions about genetic
> predisposition/predetermination, in the past I have tended to be irritated by
> those who make this last argument.  We hear it frequently from people who
> think monogamy is the only moral choice and who argue forcefully that we have
> free will and the necessary intelligence to make the "right" choice however
> much we may be genetically predisposed, as Fisher says, to pair bond
> non-exclusively over the long term.  The same argument is often heard against
> the idea of homosexuality being genetically predetermined.  I accept the idea
> that limerence was the force driving my ex's determination to end our
> marriage.  But he had a choice as to whether to villify me and cause me much
> emotional pain.  Choosing that means of exit allowed him to feel OK about it
> at my expense, and he did have a choice.  Nice for him.  I sure didn't have
> one.  
> 
> Societal conditioning says that those who break others' hearts are the bad
> guys, and social opprobrium is a powerful thing.  If your theory is correct,
> it would seem that our societal assumptions about such matters are off base,
> at least to some degree.   I get your point that some of the way many behave
> may be more appropriately attributable to the way we are wired to mate. 
> Still, we live in the here and now.  Call me a dreamer, but I think many of
> us have the capacity to hold ourselves to a higher standard when it comes to
> the ethics of breaking up and moving on.  It does demand a fairly high level
> of intelligence, emotional and otherwise.  
> 
> > The instinct to mate is very deep rooted and pre-rational: while
> > we as a species might be on the verge of wresting some conscious control
> over
> > that process, it's a tenuous advantage at best.
> > 
> > And it's one that I argue we will continue to lose so long as we continue
> to be
> > in love with the idea of being in love.
> 
> Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, talk to the hand ....... (grinning)   I doubt the
> chemical cocktail responsible is ever going to stop running through our
> veins, or that we will ever gain the ability to neutralize it entirely, but I
> agree that an understanding of what limerence is and why it happens gives us
> a useful advantage.  
> 
> Great discussion!
> 
> Anita