| Are you ‘Tele'?... and other thoughts in evolutionary psychology |
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On a Radio 4 programme the other day dealing with the development of the English language, I learned that, amongst youngsters, someone who is ‘tele' is someone who is ‘fit' i.e. good - looking. Why? Because mostly only good-looking people appear on the tele. Cool. We know from research that, consciously or otherwise, people rate themselves in terms of overall attractiveness - intelligence, social and financial status, sex-appeal etc - and will try to find a prospective mate who is similarly attractive. Aim too high and you will be rejected. Aim too low and I assume you will succeed, but be dissatisfied. But is a person's rating of himself something which changes with time and circumstances? Will the new divorcee at a speed-dating meeting be looking for the same level of person as when he was first on the trail - before becoming a successful middle manager - or will he raise his sights because of his Ford Mondeo? And should he? Certain evolutionary psychologists take the view that the way the brain works currently is a reflection of the requirements of daily life millions of years ago. After all, they say, evolution is a slow process and so it is not to be expected that modern life will have had time to make its mark on how we react to things. Presumably then, we should be rating each other in terms of who can best hunt sabre-toothed tigers or make flint axes. The abstract concept of money should be difficult for us to grasp as it had not then been invented. Neither had the tele. The alternative view is that the brain is so successful precisely because it can work with whatever material it has to hand and with whatever are the requirements of the life being lived. It has the flexibility to live in the present. Indeed, how else to explain the fact that people who have no obvious talent and certainly none which could have helped them in the dark ages, suddenly become famous and therefore have a higher overall attractiveness rating for having been in Big Brother? And thinking about Jade Goody, what is the stone-age equivalent of a chav? How else can we explain the Bernie Ecclestone phenomenon - the short unattractive-looking elderly billionaire owner of Formula 1 with a young, 6 ft tall former model for a wife. Is he the modern equivalent of a slayer of mammoths? Or did someone really organise Formula Mammoth races in those days? Me? No I'm not jealous in the least. |