All you need is love

Another interesting report from NPR. In 1960, a scientist named Harry Harlow set out to prove on CBS that children need love from their parents. Using baby Rhesus monkeys, separated from their mothers, he studied their behavior in response to two types of surrogate mothers - one wire that delivers milk, and another soft cloth that does nothing. The babies preferred the soft embrace of the cloth mothers and huddled next to them for most of the day, returning to the wire mother only when they were hungry.



Prior to this experiment, it was widely believed by psychologists that kissing, hugging or otherwise showing affection to one's children was detrimental to their upbringing. Parents in the fifties were raising children to be good citizens, parents and employees. This attitude is reflected in the family shows of the 1950's like Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best, romanticized versions of the nuclear family where children are well-behaved and advised coolly by their always in-control parents.

Harlow's revelation of children's need (and therefore everyone's need) for love must have been what catapulted America into 1967's Summer of Love and into the epoch of the individual where a person's needs are as important, if not more important, than that of society. It reminded me, once again, how quickly our world changes. It's difficult to even imagine a world in which people doubted the importance of love, just as people once believed the world was flat. It renews my faith in our ability to change - to rapidly and sincerely strive to be better.

The epoch of the individual

A psychologist that I met (one of two brief relationships from my foray into online dating) explained to me that the reason we, "Generation X", were so much more self-aware (or self-absorbed, depending on the person) than our parents is because we're living in "The Epoch of The Individual."

Words of analysis have become part of our culture's vernacular. People commonly diagnose themselves as a neat-freak, controlling, passive aggressive, insecure, commitment-phobic, etc. I thought it was genius and asked him to explain further.

The explanation was brief and I have not been able to find any documentation on this theory but this is how I understood it:

When humans first lived on this earth, we had very little understanding of our world. Natural disasters, disease and death were terrifying and unexplainable. They were attributed to "gods" that for whatever reason were angry at us. As a tribe, we did what we could to appease these gods through sacrifices and rituals. This was the epoch of the tribe. Whatever the tribe demanded of a person, was to be obeyed, there was no individual will. Everything was for the collective survival.

As we gained more control over our survival, by building houses and growing crops, we were liberated from the stranglehold of the tribe. When the Jews wrote the bible and proclaimed that man could speak directly to God, we entered a new level of awareness. We entered the epoch of family. We formed societies of artists and thinkers. We amassed wealth and protected our own. Our actions, worth and sense of self were now determined by our place in a family and that family's place within a society.

With the industrial revolution, masses of people now worked for someone else and bought food instead of growing it themselves. Young people moved to cities, alone, to work and live. We were no longer defined by our family. We questioned our purpose in life, went to universities to engage in higher thinking and embarked on an individual quest. Thus began the the epoch of the individual. (During the 1950's when rock and roll was introduced, the teenager was invented and further prolonged this period of self-exploration.)

We live longer than we used to, so perhaps a longer life delivers that luxury. We don't have the biological need to reproduce as soon as humanly possible. Countries with a higher death toll (from war, disease, or poverty) are not ushering in the epoch of the individual with the same voracity. By necessity, many are still deeply entrenched in their tribal and familial roles.

So what's next in this "evolution" of epochs? For one thing, we're dividing the group into smaller and smaller units. Is there anything smaller than the individual? After all, scientists keep finding smaller units of matter that increasingly defy our known reality.

I'd like to posit some wild guesses as to what epoch is next:
The epoch of the virtual self - Like "Second Life" only better. Really LIVE a virtual life. Question: Would there be an "actual" life?

The epoch of the "ideal" self - We could pinpoint the places in our life where we think we went wrong, and change them. I put ideal in quotes because who knows if life would be better or just different.

The epoch of the present self - Higher reflection would afford us the ability to come to terms with everything in our past and live only in the present.

The epoch of the soul - We become "liberated" from our animal instincts and the primitive parts of our brain and instead live entirely in an enlightened state. We may not even need food or sleep!

The epoch of the collective - With the spread of democracy, more and more people get involved in government and governing policy. In the future, we'll be defined by our contribution to the collective.

The epoch of the other - Those who have had the luxury of choosing who to love, how to live and what to do with life, will have the responsibility to help others achieve the same freedom.

The epoch of earth - The focus is completely off of humans as we become caretakers of the earth as a whole. We are only one organism living on the ball of life, it is our duty to maintain it.

The epoch of life - The sanctity of life becomes more important than anything. Eating an animal is considered as barbaric as eating a person. Wars and executions are a thing of our horrifying past.