Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity?
Interpretation
The quote questions society's fixation on the idea of monogamous fidelity, suggesting a need to explore its underlying reasons.
Richard Dawkins questions the societal obsession with monogamous relationships, prompting a reflection on why fidelity is held in such high regard. This quote invites discussion about the evolutionary, psychological, and cultural factors that shape our views on monogamy and fidelity, suggesting that it may not be a universal or necessary ideal in all contexts.
In practice
During a lecture on human relationships, this quote can initiate a discussion on the nature of commitment.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
We invented marriage. Couples invented marriage. We also invented divorce,mind you. And we invented infidelity,too, as well as romantic misery. In fact we invented the whole sloppy mess of love and intimacy and aversion and euphoria and failure. But most importantly of all, most subversively of all, most stubbornly of all, we invented privacy.
I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them.
It's round the world I've traveled; it's round the world I've roamed; but I've yet to see an outlaw drive a family from its home
We have a stake in one another...what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart.
The prospect of dating someone in her twenties becomes less appealing as you get older. At some point in your life, your tolerance level goes down and you realize that, with someone much younger, there's nothing really to talk about.
Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee? BEATRICE Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. BENEDICK O, stay but till then! BEATRICE 'Then' is spoken; fare you well now... (Much Ado About Nothing)
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