Truth be told, Marsha is very often the “thought”fulness behind these weekly offerings. Today is no exception. Her editing skills are keen and make the difference in how well these thoughts are expressed. So I’m dedicating this post to Marsha, without whom there would be no —
Just A Thought
💐
Recently at breakfast, Marsha, having just finished an Atlantic article, looked up at me and asked “Where did all this toxic masculinity come from?”
I stared blankly back, thought for a moment, and responded, “ I dunno.” Later I got to thinking, where did it all come from, because we damn sure are swimming in a sea of it right now.
So I set out to find some answers.
After some digging I came upon a study published in the journal Genome Research by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press titled:
“A Recent Bottleneck of Y Chromosome Diversity Coincides With a Global Change in Culture.” (Karmin et al., 2015)
The study revealed that from 5,000 BCE through 3,000 BCE there occurred a catastrophic collapse of the Y chromosome, the chromosome that gets passed down from father to son.
Where did the men go?
The scope of the collapse was worldwide — Africa, Europe and Asia.
It’s as if the male population in most clans simply disappeared. What happened here? What was the cause?
Let’s start by looking what at was going on during that time period.
First, agriculture was replacing hunting as the primary means of human survival.
With the rise of an agricultural economy two things happened simultaneously:
- People stopped roaming and settled on a plot of arable land with blood relatives, and
- Because arable land was limited by proximity to water, these settlements were close to one another.
This meant for the first time in human history people of different clans were forced to share the same space.
This proved, in a word, catastrophic.
One clan looked at what another clan had and thought, “I want that.”
Clan wars erupted everywhere.
Here’s the thing — these were “winner take all” kinds of wars. A victorious clan gained total dominance —
- over the land
- over the livestock
- over the women
Defeat meant death to all the males, and the complete obliteration of the male genetic identity of the losing clan.
As a consequence of killing all males in so many clans over two millennia —
95% of all distinct male lineages on earth were erased.
No speculation here.
Studies of the Neolithic bottleneck of Y chromosomes clearly reflect virtually all the unique male bloodlines that had survived the Ice Age were wiped off the face of the Earth in these clan wars so that only one man was left to pass on his DNA for every 17 women.
So it can be said every single man alive on Earth today is descendant from the winners of those clan wars.
Obviously, our story doesn’t end here. A counter revolution of sorts happened around 3,000 BCE where different ideas flourished, blood feuds abated and clans began assimilating.
Centralized nation states were constituted.
- governing laws took hold,
- trading practices were initiated,
- new economies developed.
A new attitude toward others emerged that dictated a new maxim:
Don’t Kill Your Customers.
Or — why kill men when you could put them to work?
This new way of coexisting allowed male genetic diversity to stabilize and recover.
In addition, new belief systems were adopted, marking a transition to structured religion.
This had the effect of expanding the notion of kinship.
Religion shifted things from “my family vs. your family” to a shared spiritual identity. It created a tool for coming up with new codes of conduct.
We need look no further than the Ten Commandments to learn how a religious tradition laid order upon disorder and tempered toxic masculinity.
Think of it this way: It’s not your neighbor telling you to stop lying, stealing, killing, coveting —
It’s God Almighty telling you.
Belief in a Higher Authority had the effect of curtailing the instinctual nature that took form when we started settling in communities.
Over time, we developed civil law and governing structures to keep things in check.
We’re still here, after all.
But clearly those toxic masculine instincts remain. What do we do about it? Well, that’s a thought for another day.
Just a thought…
Pat
P.S. Thank you, Marsha, for all you do each week. 🙏