A very long time ago in my search for validation of my growing belief that God was a rather implausible and fanciful idea, I remember coming across a piece in some foreign journal that expressed astonishment at the disconnect between the professional lives and religious lives of Los Alamos nuclear scientists. Apparently some Godless European was incredulous at this greater insolvable problem than the mystery of splitting the atom. How could Ph.Ds spend their days dissecting the toughest theoretical and practical problems of the molecular world and their nights believing in mythological tales of creation and some sentient, eternal being in the sky and not suffer some mental break?
Richard Dawkins expressed this paradox by way of explanation. He said in his book, The God Delusion, that religion must have served some purpose for uniting mutually dependent bands of people in allegiance, identity and hope that ensured the survival of the species -- or at least the bands that took up such beliefs. His conclusion in light of the great suffering and destruction done in the name of religion, particularly Abrahamic religions, is that it is time to retire the meme of religious belief. Perhaps he is correct. But surely some other destructive force will fill the void as people in the main still need some tie to bind them to one another -- and means with an element of destruction and sacrifice seem to be the most effective so far.
To many, male circumcision represents a great hope to humanity. It is a hope that correlates with the great hope that crystallized in the coincidence of some animal or human sacrifice and the lucky salvation of the people who practiced it. (Think Pavlov ...) In those rituals, nothing real was achieved outside of the minds of the practitioners. In reality, a net loss was realized in the loss of the person or the animal. But the sacrifices lasted many multiples of time longer than people have enjoyed the modern era.
The data is pretty clear that circumcision damages the sexual lives of the men who suffer it. This is a truism that has been poorly studied, but amply anecdotally expressed in the internet age. It is done largely without consent, imposed by cultural authority on subordinates, and varies widely in its physical and destructive form. Yet its value remains in the minds of those who have suffered it, and in those who see salvation in it because they are so desperate or so forsaken.
The following article makes the case that HIV/AIDS is a "Darwinian event." A vaccine may never come. The virus works its destruction too slowly to ever "burn itself out" of existence. Except for the rare "elite controllers" and individuals with some mysterious immunity, no biological adaptation is possible for the great majority of individuals. Instead, it will be cultural adaptation that contains HIV.**
In the developed world, people will defeat the disease by learning to avoid and prevent it. Condoms used in more and more intimate settings are an adaptation. Serial monogamy is an existing adaptation in most of the world and one that will be adopted in sub-Saharan Africa where it is rare. Rapid and frequent testing is an adaptation. The article lumps male circumcision in with the others as an adaptation. Of course, male circumcision is not a protection. But it fills the human need for lucky sacrifice to ensure success.
Therefore, as condoms and monogamy take hold, education and testing seeps into the consciousness and routine of individuals, and as some populations are persuaded to embrace male circumcision, the poorer African communities that have been targeted won't really know what's containing the virus. But they will leave nothing to chance and continue to embrace it all.
Meanwhile, people outside Africa will likely use their own adaptations, condoms and testing, to contain the virus. They won't need male circumcision because they already know success without it -- and they aren't dependent on the United States or as dominated by it. The levels of infection have leveled off long ago and begun to decline in most of the world. The great epidemics in China, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, predicted in the first decades of the disease will likely remain predictions. But the reality will be something different. America and Africa will be alone in their dogma of destructive sacrifice for success.
**This is probably not true. However, in our fortunate age of advanced medicine and instantaneous communication, the biological processes required over generations to develop an innate immunity will likely never get the chance to occur.
Enjoy the Globe & Mail article below the fold.
