687. Cultural Influences Or Overwhelming Animality?
In entry 686 I presented Camus and Sartre as two sad cases of men with the habit of irresponsibly and inconsiderately copulating like alley dogs, for whom women in spite of a few exceptions were principally as insignificant as toilets for their body waste.
Interestingly enough, the attitude guiding these two abusers' behavior was the same, even though they grew up under very disparate cultural influences.
Sartre grew up in France, in a culture, in which monogamy and fidelity were and still are the official social and legal norm for men as much as for women.
Camus grew up in Algeria, where in spite of French occupation and colonization the culture was derived from the islamic depreciation of women. Whatever a male muslim does, it is not defined as cheating or as a transgression, because according to the koran, a man is allowed and even encouraged to have up to four wives and an unlimited number of concubines. But a cheating wife risks to be stoned to death.
There were two men from two cultures, one of which forbidding the abuse of women, the other encouraging it, but nevertheless both men practiced the same abuse.
In entry 686 I presented Camus and Sartre as two sad cases of men with the habit of irresponsibly and inconsiderately copulating like alley dogs, for whom women in spite of a few exceptions were principally as insignificant as toilets for their body waste.
Interestingly enough, the attitude guiding these two abusers' behavior was the same, even though they grew up under very disparate cultural influences.
Sartre grew up in France, in a culture, in which monogamy and fidelity were and still are the official social and legal norm for men as much as for women.
Camus grew up in Algeria, where in spite of French occupation and colonization the culture was derived from the islamic depreciation of women. Whatever a male muslim does, it is not defined as cheating or as a transgression, because according to the koran, a man is allowed and even encouraged to have up to four wives and an unlimited number of concubines. But a cheating wife risks to be stoned to death.
There were two men from two cultures, one of which forbidding the abuse of women, the other encouraging it, but nevertheless both men practiced the same abuse.
There of course is the possibility of many other contributing factors and it is the example of only two men. But it may notwithstanding be an indication for the disheartening assumption, that some men's instinctive urges to abuse are much stronger than any restricting cultural influences towards impeding harm to women.
