scholarly journals From romantic jealousy to sympathetic joy: Monogamy, polyamory, and beyond

This paper explores how the extension of contemplative qualities to intimate relationships can transform human sexual/emotional responses and relationship choices. The paper reviews contemporary findings from the field of evolutionary psychology on the twin origins of jealousy and monogamy, argues for the possibility to transform jealousy into sympathetic joy (or compersion), addresses the common objections against polyamory (or nonmonogamy), and challenges the culturally prevalent belief that the only spiritually correct sexual options are either celibacy or (lifelong or serial) monogamy. To conclude, it is suggested that the cultivation of sympathetic joy in intimate bonds can pave the way to overcome the problematic dichotomy between monogamy and polyamory, grounding individuals in a radical openness to the dynamic unfolding of life that eludes any fixed relational identity or structure.

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-177
Author(s):  
Karen Harding

Ate appearances deceiving? Do objects behave the way they do becauseGod wills it? Ate objects impetmanent and do they only exist becausethey ate continuously created by God? According to a1 Ghazlli, theanswers to all of these questions ate yes. Objects that appear to bepermanent are not. Those relationships commonly tefemed to as causalare a result of God’s habits rather than because one event inevitably leadsto another. God creates everything in the universe continuously; if Heceased to create it, it would no longer exist.These ideas seem oddly naive and unscientific to people living in thetwentieth century. They seem at odds with the common conception of thephysical world. Common sense says that the universe is made of tealobjects that persist in time. Furthermore, the behavior of these objects isreasonable, logical, and predictable. The belief that the univetse is understandablevia logic and reason harkens back to Newton’s mechanical viewof the universe and has provided one of the basic underpinnings ofscience for centuries. Although most people believe that the world is accutatelydescribed by this sort of mechanical model, the appropriatenessof such a model has been called into question by recent scientificadvances, and in particular, by quantum theory. This theory implies thatthe physical world is actually very different from what a mechanicalmodel would predit.Quantum theory seeks to explain the nature of physical entities andthe way that they interact. It atose in the early part of the twentieth centuryin response to new scientific data that could not be incorporated successfullyinto the ptevailing mechanical view of the universe. Due largely ...


2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 740-757 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Hennekam ◽  
Subramaniam Ananthram ◽  
Steve McKenna

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how individuals perceive and react to the involuntary demotion of a co-worker in their organisation. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on 46 semi-structured in-depth interviews (23 dyads) with co-workers of demoted individuals. Findings The findings suggest that an individual’s observation of the demotion of a co-worker has three stages: their perception of fairness, their emotional reaction and their behavioural reaction. The perception of fairness concerned issues of distributive, procedural, interpersonal and informational justice. The emotional responses identified were feelings of disappointment/disillusion, uncertainty, vulnerability and anger. Finally, the behavioural reactions triggered by their emotional responses included expressions of voice, loyalty, exit and adaptation. Originality/value Perceptions of (in)justice perpetrated on others stimulate emotional and behavioural responses, which impacts organisational functioning. Managers should therefore pay attention to the way a demotion is perceived, not only by those directly concerned, but also by co-workers as observers.


2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iver Mysterud ◽  
Dag Viljen Poleszynski

The “mainstream” evolutionary psychology model is currently under criticism from scientists of other persuasions wanting to expand the model or to make it more realistic in various ways. We argue that focusing on the environment as if it consisted only of social (or sociocultural) factors gives too limited a perspective if evolutionary approaches are to understand the behavior of modern humans. Taking the case of violence, we argue that numerous novel environmental factors of nutritional and physical-chemical origin should be considered as relevant proximate factors. The common thesis presented here is that several aspects of the biotic or abiotic environment are able to change brain chemistry, thus predisposing individuals to violence and aggression in given contexts. In the past, aggressive behavior has had a number of useful functions that were of particular importance to our ancestors' survival and reproduction. However, some of the conditions in our novel environment, which either lowered the threshold for aggression or released such behavior in contexts which were adaptive in our evolutionary past, no longer apply. It is high time evolutionary approaches to violence are expanded to include the possibilities that violence may be triggered by nutritionally depleted foods, reactive hypoglycemia caused by habitual intake of foods with a high glycemic index (GI), food allergies/intolerances and exposure to new environmental toxins (heavy metals, synthetic poisons).


Pólemos ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Biet

AbstractTheatre and law are not so different. Generally, researchers work on the art of theatre, the rhetoric of the actors, or the dramaturgy built from law cases or from the questions that the law does not completely resolve. Trials, tragedies, even comedies are close: everybody can see the interpenetration of them on stage and in the courts. We know that, and we know that the dramas are made with/from/of law, we know that the art the actors are developing is not so far from the art of the lawyers, and conversely. In this paper, I would like to have a look at the action of the audience, at the session itself and at the way the spectators are here to evaluate and judge not only the dramatic action, not only the art of the actors, not only the text of the author, but also the other spectators, and themselves too. In particular, I will focus on the “common judgment” of the audience and on its judicial, aesthetic and social relationship. The spectators have been undisciplined, noisy, unruled, during such a long period that theatre still retains some prints of this behaviour, even if nowadays, the social and aesthetic rule is to be silent. But uncertainty, inattention, distraction, contradiction, heterogeneity are the notions which characterise the session, and the judgments of the spectators still depend on them. So, what was and what is the voice of the audience? And with what sort of voice do spectators give their judgments?


2019 ◽  
pp. 129-137
Author(s):  
Judith N. Shklar

In this chapter Shklar identifies the problems that arise with the development of industrial capitalism. She traces the emergence of social obligations to fellow citizens and the new concerns this raised, paying particular attention to the way the English idealist T.H. Green addressed these issues. She discusses the thinking behind the new welfare state and the rising popularity of social norms and obligations, often also expressed in terms of “the common good,” “positive rights,” and “the obligation to be just.”


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-127
Author(s):  
Sonia Montero Gálvez

The present paper addresses the contrast between the definite article (el/la/los/las) and the indefinite article (un/a/os/as) from a cognitive approach that not only poses a single meaning for each kind of article, but also highlights the pragmatic (or contextual) aspects that underlie that meaning and establish the use of one form or another. The article’s meaning is shaped by the way we conceptualize the reference: the definite article implies an inclusive reference characterized by the uniqueness of the referent, while the indefinite article implies an exclusive reference characterized by the lack of uniqueness. The possibility to choose one or other way depends on contextual aspects related to the common knowledge shared by the interlocutors, the communicative context (linguistic and situational) and the space (physical or mental) where the referent is located.


2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (104) ◽  
pp. 148-165
Author(s):  
Frederik Tygstrup ◽  
Isak Winkel Holm

Literature and PoliticsLiterature is political by representing the world. The production of literature is a contribution to a general cultural poetics where images of reality are constructed and circulated. At the same time, the practice of literature is institutionalized in such a way that the form and function of the images of reality it produces are conceived and used in a distinctive way. In this article, we suggest distinguishing between a general cultural poetics and a specific literary poetics by using Ernst Cassirer’s neo-Kantian concept of »symbolic forms«. We argue that according to this view, the political significance of literary representational practices resides in the way they activate a common cultural repertoire of historical symbolic forms while at the same time deviating from the common ways of treating these forms.


1995 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Fulcher

It is curious that the unprecedented agitations in support of the rights of Caroline of Brunswick in 1820–21 have been represented as an “affair.” The word seems first to have been used by G. M. Trevelyan and was promptly seized on by Elie Halevy in his 1923 Histoire du peuple anglais au XIXe siècle. The labeling of this popular ebullience as an “affair” has consequently framed the development of its now not inconsiderable historiography. The episode was initially explained as a diversion from some main line of historical development, be it whiggish or Marxisant. More recently, historians have rescued the agitations from this condescension by showing how the radicals identified the king and the government's treatment of the queen as oppression and corruption at work. Since the common thread running through both whig and Marxisant accounts had been a concentration on the effects of the agitations on reform and radical politics, those attempting to put the episode back fully into their narratives emphasized the same factors. This time, however, it was to show that the agitations were not a diversion from the main line of reform politics. What follows is a further contribution to the process of giving greater attention to the queen's cause when telling the story of mass politics in this period, but one which concentrates on other neglected contexts and phenomena important for the explanation of this popular explosion. In the light of this, it may be necessary to change the way we refer to this episode.


2016 ◽  
pp. 98-101
Author(s):  
Jonathan Leicester

The chapter opens by questioning the role of personality traits in causing behaviour, and decides to work with the common assumption that they have an important role. There is an account of the search for the real units or traits of personality. Some of the traits and dispositions, selected for their particularly direct effect on belief, for example, strong need for closure, are briefly described. There is a comment on the way long-standing occupational roles can sometimes modify personality.


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