There but for the grace of geography?

I’ve been fascinated for decades on why we are the way we are (as a species). We have evolved. Literally. We walk upright because our distant ancestors found such “movement” advantageous for survival. We mate and relate the way we do because such behaviors and relationships furthered generational genetic success.

I find our species an amazing amalgam of qualities. We are curious, resourceful, imaginative and innovative. We are tough, tenacious and adaptive. We are social and communicative. We are expressive, creative and artistic. We can be nurturing, empathetic, loyal and supportive. That said, we are a pox upon the planet.

The issue of whether or not Mother Earth can sustain a growing human population is not the topic of today’s column. “No” would be my answer to that question. No, I’m curious as to why men, as in male, are specifically the way we are.

First, I do not entirely give women a bye on this one. Our species is the way it is because human offspring require DNA from both sexes to reproduce. Out of a woman’s body come babies (males specifically) who just a few years later willingly participate in genocides, who use nationwide rape as a weapon of terrorism (see: Democratic Republic of Congo) and who will indiscriminately kill innocence (children, noncombatants, elderly and women). Women bore these monsters-in-the-making. Women are not as aggressive as men but they are tough times seven. Yet, as a species, all violent men are from women born.

My lens, however, is focused on what separates say, me, from any of the five men who brutally raped a woman for hours on a bus in New Delhi, India. The woman subsequently died from her rape wounds. Could I have willingly participated in such violence? Could I have been a guard at Auschwitz? Could I have been a “Yes, Sir” American soldier who marched thousands of Cherokee women and children to their death along the Trail of Tears in 1831? One-third of Congolese men polled in a 2012 report admitted to sexual assaults. One-third. Is that me but for the grace of geography?

How much of male mayhem and violence is man’s nature, and how much is nurture? Are all men born little more than ticking time bombs that only acculturation defuses? That is a relevant question. Acculturation is defined as the absorption of culture. If, as one example, the Congo “culture” produces an environment that creates rapists, how culpable—really—are the young men of that nation? If the child is bent right out of the womb to marginalize women, how surprised should we therefore be that violence against women is common or acceptable?

Even before Hitler arrived, Germans had been—since the time of Martin Luther—culturally/religiously indoctrinated to despise Jews. Fertile ground for the subsequent Holocaust.

If we live in a culture that at all marginalizes any group (of individuals), woe be to those people.

We (males) are the way we are because of our inherent (genetically formed) aggressive nature. It is society, however, that puts any humanity in man. Absent that and you have Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz whispering, “The horror! The horror!”

Social scientists are beginning to argue that morality is a human quality. That within human genes is a code for our inherently distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Perhaps. Absent, however, any strong societal mores codifying acceptable male behavior, and you lamentably find more beast than gentleman in the sex.

Jepson is a 24-year resident of Florida. He’s fiscally conservative, socially liberal, likes art and embraces diversity of opinion. Reach him at [email protected]