This is certainly the case, everything you mentioned here, though this is just part one of my reply to your piece, and I really want to chase down the causes on both a genetic and historical level to paint a wider picture of what the world would be like outside of the framework of the me culture, which is why I didn’t tag your article in this one — I’ll save that for later.
Basically, it seems that moments of inadequacy and insecurity, even possessiveness are deeply human experiences and universal experiences on the small scale. We all have those weird, quirky moments where we’re suddenly overcome with doubt about our perceived security. This is just human nature and we snap out of it a few moments later. I do this. I doubt myself or the things in my life, then realize how stupid I’m being within about 5 to 10 seconds and get on with my life. There are no doubt-free human beings.
Pathologies, on the other hand, have to be reinforced by society in order to be present and ubiquitous. It’s why we have such a violence problem in the United States that doesn’t show up in other countries, whether it’s gun-toting maniacs or knife-carrying serial killers doesn’t matter, our culture is a violent culture — but violence is also natural. The difference is, in Norway an act of extreme violence takes place every decade or two, and in the United States it happens every hour. Same with jealousy, jealous people in less possessive cultures are extremely odd and unusual, but in our culture it’s a reinforced norm.
If I somehow failed to communicate that, not only do I apologize for coming short in my task, but I’ll say that it’s likely because I got lost in the psychology of it and didn’t quite get around to the history like I’d like to have done. By the time I got to epigenetics I didn’t have much wiggle-room left.
It should be noted, that only 7% of women who ever develop breast cancer carry the active modulation of the breast-cancer gene, the rest of them develop the gene expressions from engaging with their environments. That means that 93% of all cases of breast cancer are cultural/environmental. I figured the mention of epigenetics covered that at least somewhat sufficiently.
As we both know, almost all aspects of the human condition are flexible. Our culture isn’t just a possessive one but a competitive culture as well, which further fosters a sense of entitlement and fear in relationships.
I’ll also add this as a footnote, that compulsive and pathological forms of jealousy, pervasive jealousy, etc., can only rarely happen outside of a culture that fosters them, if at all. A lack of possessiveness in our culture is equally as weird as our violence-obsession is in other cultures.
I also feel like compulsive, possessive jealousy virtually wouldn’t exist if women ruled the world, but sadly, they don’t — yet.
