Psychosocial implications of infertility as a metaphor

Infertility as a Metaphor Heralding Global Collapse (Part #3)

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There are a number of studies of the metaphors through which the personally sensitive infertility can be comprehended (as indicated in the references below). The question here however, as with the movie interpretation of The Children of Men, is how infertility offers a metaphor through which to explore the challenges to hope. Of some value in bridging between "metaphors of infertility" and "infertility as a metaphor" is the study from a Christian religious perspective by Karl A. Schultz (Bearing the Unbearable: coping with infertility and other profound suffering, 2007).

[This] wrestles with two of life's most painful realities, the loss or diminishment of hope and the inability of human beings to fulfill their vocation, potential, and dreams. We will focus on perhaps the most poignant cause of this, infertility, but our discussion will include other major obstacles to fulfillment.... We will integrate western civilization's most famous infertility stories, those from the Bible, and particularly the Old Testament, with contemporary stories and your own.

The language of biological infertility offers multiple lenses and frames through which to explore its psychosocial analogue, as argued otherwise (Flowering of Civilization -- Deflowering of Culture, 2014).

Systematically engendered environmental inhibitors: In addition to the forms of denial indicated above, of particular relevance are the conditions for infertility now engendered in the environment together with their psychosocial implications (Cognitive Implications of Lifestyle Diseases of Rich and Poor: transforming personal entanglement with the natural environment, 2010). These include:

• poisoning from nuclear radiation: as widely documented -- but with the potential long-term implications of other forms of electromagnetic radiation. Most obvious in this respect is that associated with the many conditions of internet access, however controversial the conclusions of the many studies. In this respect it is appropriate to recall the negligence with which the dangers of emissions from automobiles and factories were set aside over the past decades and the deliberate institutional delays in their recognition.
• impact on fertility of endocrine disruptors: These disruptions can cause cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other developmental disorders, including gender change and infertility
• psychic numbing: namely the tendency for individuals or societies to withdraw attention from past experiences that were traumatic, or from future threats that are perceived to have massive consequences but low probability
• "intellectual pollution" and "cognitive pollution": typically used as a description of forms of comprehension that are deprecated from some other perspective (Artificial Intelligence as Socio-Cognitive Pollution, 2016; Neuroscience as Socio-Cognitive Pollution, 2014). Such deprecation would notably feature in perceptions of alternative worldviews, disciplines, religions and ideologies (Alex Krupp, How intellectual pollution has crippled America's children, Sensemaking, June 2009; David H. Ost, Intellectual Pollution). Variants are recognized (Connor Gibson, Academic Pollution: Greenpeace traces Koch money on campus, Greenpeace, 17 September 2014).
• "ideological pollution" and "spiritual pollution": presumably typical of perceptions of opposing political parties, notably as articulated within China (Yue Ping, Preventing Ideological Pollution, Beijing Review, 1983, 47; Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign)

In anticipation of a more fruitful articulation, the following checklist invites reflection on collective infertility -- in the light of the articulation offered by entries in Wikipedia, for example. Further articulation is offered by the distinction made between infertility as the lack of fertility and sterility as the lack of fecundity, namely the actual reproduction rate.

Infertility (Sterility): The obvious distinction between male infertility and female infertility raises the question of the equivalence in the case of psychosocial infertility -- namely between masculine functions and feminine functions and the manner in which their interplay makes for socio-cultural fertility or sterility:

• male infertility: This refers to a male's inability to cause pregnancy in a fertile female. In humans it accounts for 40-50% of infertility. It affects approximately 7% of all men and is commonly due to deficiencies in the semen -- with semen quality being used as a surrogate measure of male fecundity. The inadequacy of functions distinguished as "masculine" in society could be called into question by these factors. They suggest a language through which the incapacity to engage with "feminine" functions and memes in society could be explored -- as a complement to concerns articulated by feminists. A distinction is made between pre-testicular factors (including substance abuse) and testicular factors (including age, impotence, and prostatitis).
  
  
• female infertility: This is caused by many sources, including nutrition, diseases, and other malformations of the uterus. Distinctions are made between acquired factors (age, substance abuse, sexually transmitted infections, body weight, eating disorders, and immune infertility), genetic factors, and physiological factors (glandular, ovarian, tubular, uterine, cervical, vaginal). These suggest a variety of distinctions meriting consideration in the case of psychosocial infertility.
  
  
• combined infertility: This results from situations in which both male and female are infertile -- raising the question as to the nature of social contexts in which both masculine and feminine functions are effectively sterile in nature. Typically caricatured as sterile working environments, bureaucracies might be explored in this light.
  
  
• unexplained infertility: It is now argued that in the USA (for example), up to 20% of infertile couples have unexplained infertility. Again this distinction is helpful as an indication that many instances of psychosocial infertility may be currently inexplicable.

In contrast to the conventional diagnosis of infertility in sexual terms, the nature of psychosocial infertility acquires other dimensions in the case of same-sex partnerships and the particular challenges of sexual variety and transgender people, namely those who have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from the conventions of sexual orientation, possibly to be understood as a third gender. Notable in this respect is the range of gender identities in process of recognition (Chris Jager, The 33 Gender Identities Recognised by the Australian Sex Survey, Lifehacker, 29 July 2016; Rhiannon Williams, Facebook's 71 gender options come to UK users, The Telegraph, 27 June 2014).

Complicating such issues of gender identity are the physical variations of so-called intersex people -- born with any of several variations in sex characteristics that do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies, potentially implying degrees of genital ambiguity. Whether psychological or physical both might be interpreted as framing forms of collective psychosocial fertility and infertility that merit consideration, as discussed separately explored (Global Civilization through Interweaving Polyamory and Polyanimosity? 2018).

Sexually transmitted diseases: Given the manner in which fertility may be undermined by the global phenomenon of sexually transmitted infections, there is every reason to use these as a metphorical framework for exploring analogous cognitive and memetic diseases, as suggested by an earlier exploration (Memetic and Information Diseases in a Knowledge Society: speculations towards the development of cures and preventive measures, 2008).

In the light of the example offered by AIDS/HIV, especially intriguing are the pathological implications of certain forms of promiscuity, as could be characterized by particular social groups and disciplines. Given the associated term "zero positive", this offers the particular irony in the case of groups especially concerned with the "positive" (Barbara Ehrenreich, Smile or Die: how positive thinking fooled America and the world, 2010). The issue is exemplified by the range of diseases identified by the Jewish Genetic Disease Consortium.

Miscarriages: As indicated earlier, psychosocial infertility may be especially characterized by the high failure rate of intentional communities and collective initiatives. This suggestions that the language of "miscarriage" and "stillbirth" -- a metaphor already employed -- may be used to explore the global incidence of the psychosocial analogue. Clearly many international initiatives, notably those inspired by the United Nations, can be so framed and are.

Stillbirth is however typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 to 28 weeks of pregnancy -- resulting in a baby born without sign of life. It may be contrasted with miscarriage, namely where the baby is born alive, even if it dies shortly after.

Birth defects: There is an increasing incidence of birth defects and congenital malformation. This is recognized to be a consequence of increasing levels of environmental pollution's (fetal alcohol exposure, toxic substances, substance abuse, infections, malnutrition, radiation, physical restraint, genetic predisposition). This suggests that the increasing levels of information pollution (as noted above), could be explored as contributing to potentially problematic defects in psychosocial initiatives. Useful distinctions may be derived from any associated physical disability, intellectual disability, or developmental disability.

Especially tragic in the case of the remedial global initiatives (in response to the conditions of society) is evident when their implementation itself results in the unexpected emergence of defects -- as exemplified by the use of thalidomide. This case -- a good idea at the time -- helps to frame the manner in which global initiatives may already be contributing directly to psychosocial infertility.

Questionable enhancements and enabling roles:

• Conceptual aphrodisiacs? The degree of dependence on aphrodisiacs in response to impotence was noted above. This raises the question of what can be usefully recognized as a psychosocial analogue. As a metaphor, occasional examples are already evident (Olympic Legacy: white elephant or economic viagra? BBC News, 13 August 2012; Doubts surface about economic Viagra, MarketWatch, 28 January 2009; Political Viagra, The Economist, 29 November 2001; Fear of foreigners is political Viagra for our limp leaders, The Guardian, 20 October 2016; Fertility Politics as "Social Viagra", American Anthropologist, June 2007). What other forms of aphrodisiac are effectively employed in a desperate response to psychosocial infertility?
  
  
• Cognitive surrogates? Questionable surrogates for psychosocial impotence have been cited above (weapon construction, taller buildings, championships, psychoactive substances, etc). The biological case raises the question of the nature of surrogate parenthood in the case of any collective psychosocial analogue. That inquiry can be extended to the analogues of sperm donation (sperm banks) and in vitro fertilization. Speculation with regard to their psychosocial implications is a theme of science fiction in which the memetic seeds of human culture are carried over light-years to distant exoplanets in order to perpetuate the human race. The question is how the significance of a range of valued social processes is promoted in such a manner as to inhibit any recognition of their unfruitfulness in engendering global psychosocial renewal. It is in this sense that many forms of game-playing can be explored as exercises in cognitive displacement -- whether deliberately or unconsciously.
  
  
• Misleading performance indicators? Considerable attention is given to performance as a primary criterion of effectiveness. Most obviously this includes economic and financial indicators (GDP, Dow Jones, etc). Performance in academia may be rated in terms of numbers of publications and citations, for example. Great value is placed on "performance" in sexual intercourse. As the latter indicates, the question to be asked is whether performance is necessarily fruitful in engendering outcomes of ultimate value -- rather than illusory substitutes. There is potentially great irony to the frequency of reference of "fucking" as an expletive at all levels of society -- possibly to distract from failures of performance. Highly rated performance may well fail to overcome essential infertility -- as those desiring progeny and a memorable legacy may be only too aware. Aspects of the issue can be explored with respect to various indicators (Evaluating the Grossness of Gross Domestic Product, 2016; Uncritical Strategic Dependence on Little-known Metrics: the Gaussian Copula, the Kaya Identity, and what else? 2009; Remedial Capacity Indicators Versus Performance Indicators, 1981).
  
  
• Facilitative roles? In the case of sexual intercourse, recourse may be made to a range of skills to ensure a fruitful outcome. These include gynecology, obstetrics and midwifery -- in addition to those of sexual therapists. Related skills are evident in the case of animal husbandry. Some recall the role of eunuchs in preparing women in harems for intercourse. Analogues enabling psychosocial fertility could be found in the role of mediators and facilitators -- notably with respect to group dynamics and their facilitation. The manner in which social media platforms propose contacts in the light of algorithmic analysis of profiles could be explored in this light. Given the many questionable initiatives in this regard, it could be asked whether the range of issues effectively addressed in the biological case are as effectively framed in the psychosocial case.
  
  
• Questionable genetic improvement: Animal husbandry has long framed and developed a preoccupation with selective breeding and animal breeding, exemplified by choice of stallions and bulls and the related market in semen required for artificial insemination. In the case of humans, the question of "breeding" has long been central to selection of marriage partners and "breeding true", more problematically when the genetic stock is held to be characterized by in-breeding and to require improvement through out-breeding. Whether in the case of animals or humans, breeding may well be recognized through careful attention to some form of authoritative certification -- if only understood as an indication of "provenance". Much controversy has however long been associated with eugenics -- exemplified by the case of the Nazi Lebensborn program. In psychosocial terms, traces of such selectivity and certification are evident in the cultivation of excellence and quality in particular centres -- elite schools, finishing schools, schools for the gifted, and potentially including think tanks. In the light of the crises of society, it is however questionable whether the "memetic improvement" in such contexts addresses the global leadership challenges of psychosocial infertility, as might be claimed by those privileged thereby (Emergence of a Global Misleadership Council: misleading as vital to governance of the future? 2007).
  
  
• Questionable genital improvement: The fundamental psychological significance of genitalia with respect to self-esteem and interpersonal relations, together with the misleading focus on performance with regard to sexual fertility, has resulted in a preoccupation with genital modification / mutilation and genital reconstructive surgery. These processes merit interpretation as metaphors framing the interplay in practice between proposals (projects), targets and "scoring". Such reinterpretation recalls concerns with exploitation of military metaphors (Enhancing Sustainable Development Strategies through Avoidance of Military Metaphors, 1998; "Tank-thoughts" from "Think-tanks": metaphors constraining development of global governance, 2003). As noted above, there is a degree of equivalance to the targeting significance of rockets, missiles and other weaponry and that of the penis (The Coalition of the Willy: musings on the global challenge of penile servitude, 2004). Curiously a corresponding equivalence is to be found between female genitalia and the focusing capacity of receptive technology, such as dish antenna and similar arrays. Such correspondences lend themselves to speculative exploration (Entering Alternative Realities -- Astronautics vs Noonautics: isomorphism between launching aerospace vehicles and launching vehicles of awareness, 2002). Investment in space rocketry and radio telescopes imply an aspiration to "being great again" -- from a universal perspective, if not from a terrestrial one.
  
  The forms of genital "enhancement" can be clustered as follows:
  • Females
    • Clitoridectomy, any surgery to reduce or remove tissue from the clitoris
    • Labiaplasty, plastic surgery to alter the folds of skin surrounding the vulva
    • Vaginoplasty, any type of surgical procedure to the vagina, vulva or related structures
    • Female genital mutilation, the ritual removal of some or all of the external female genitalia
  • Males
    • Foreskin restoration, a process of expanding penile skin to mimic the foreskin
    • Hypospadias, surgery to modify the location of the urinary outlet on a phallus
    • Phalloplasty, the construction or reconstruction of a penis
    • Circumcision, removal of the foreskin from the human penis
  • Intersex:
    • Intersex medical interventions, performed to modify atypical or ambiguous genitalia
    • Sex reassignment surgery, to alter a person's existing sexual characteristics to resemble those of their identified gender
      • Sex reassignment surgery (female-to-male), a variety of procedures for transgender men
      • Sex reassignment surgery (male-to-female), reshaping male genitals into the appearance and function of female genitalia
  
  With respect to facilitating cognitive fertility, these genital interventions merit careful exploration as metaphors. What indeed are the "cognitive genitalia" that serve as vital attractors in the psychosocial reproduction associated with proposals and their targets? However controversial, it would seem that the formulation of attractive projects, and fruitful attention to them, could be explored through such a frame. What questionable efforts are made to modify and/or mutilate them?
  
  The question is whether such metaphors then usefully enable the recognition of cognitive interventions which undermine psychosocial viability through the manner in which they distract from subtler engagement between opposites and complementaries.

Inhibiting constraints and taboos: In addition to factors in the physical environment which undermine fertility globally, of further interest are the psychosocial constraints on sexual behaviour which offer metaphors indicative of constraints inhibiting psychosocial fertility. These might include

• fertile and infertile periods: the constraints on fertility implied by the prepubertal period, as well as those of menstruation and menopause. In cognitive terms this may be recognized with expressions such as "prematurity" or the "time is not right". Metaphorically speaking, it could be asked whether global society has yet to mature through puberty to adulthood -- especially in the light of the many comments regarding its childishness, adolescence and immaturity. More subtle is the sense in which global society may well have some equivalent to a menstrual cycle, metaphorically understood -- with all that this might imply in the light of attitudes to that biological condition. A similar question might be raised with respect to menopause -- in the light of any necessary sense of the progressive aging of global civilization. Could global society be understood as having aged prematurely -- perhaps to be explored in the light of the historical obsessions with the eternal nature of empires and the quest for immortality?
  
  
• incestuous reproduction: much is made of incest taboos in sexual and familial relations. These have been notably evident with respect to aristocracies and royalty -- as originally featured in the Almanach de Gotha. In psychosocial terms metaphorical use is made of "incestuous" to describe questionable relations within peer groups, "old-boy networks", and other self-selected academic and political elites. In particular this may well take the form of citation pacts, whether deliberate or inadvertent (Til Wykes, et al., The h-index, the citation rating, impact factors and the aspiring researcher, Journal of Mental Health, 26 Nov 2013). As with the problematic implications for the gene pool of incestuous relations among the aristocracy, citation pacts (whrther formal or informal) may be variously tolerated despite their implications for the meme pool. Constraints on the meme pool, and any decline in its diversity, are clearly a factor in reinforcing groupthink with all that this may imply for psychosocial infertility (Radical Disaffection Engendered by Elitist Groupthink? 2016; Groupthink: the Search for Archaeoraptor as a Metaphoric Tale, 2002;
  
  
• contraception: the processes of birth control are clearly a matter of great controversy, however they may be framed by family planning. Metaphorically they offer a means of framing creativity and psychosocial innovation. In this sense it may be asked whether there is widespread reliance on "conceptual contraceptives" to provide an illusory freedom from responsibility (as in the biological form). Is there a sense in which the development of a conceptual domain -- as a "family of concepts -- may be subject to "family planning" of some kind, whether to ensure the unchecked multiplication of "progeny" or to constrain that process in some way? Further considerations of relevance to conceptual intercourse are suggested by the use by some species of a mating plug (copulation plug, sperm plug, vaginalplug, sement or sphragis) as argued by Eric Linus Kaplan (Conceptual Vaginal Plugs, Conceptual Anal Plugs, 25 September 2016). Is global infertility being ensured by widespread use of conceptual contraceptives of some kind?
  
  
• abortion: potentially more controversial than contraception, abortion clearly offers a metaphor which is already applied to psychosocial initiatives. A distinction may then be made between initiatives which are deliberately aborted for whatever reason and those which are better understood as miscarriages or still born (as discussed above). As with contraception, the question to be asked is whether there are processes in play which ensure that fruitful initiatives are systematically aborted -- thereby ensuring global infertility..
  
  
• constraining cultural norms: a number cultural norms with respect to sexual and familial relations suggest metaphorical relevance to issues of psychosocial infertility:
  • one-child policies: recall criticism of the prevalence of single-factor explanations and strategies in response to global crises
  • large-family policies: recall criticism of the plethora of uncoordinated explanations and strategies in response to global crises
  • interfaith marriage: recalls the controversies with regard to interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral initiatives -- namely extreme reservations from within a particular discipline critical of the methodology of other disciplines with which cross-fertilization might be appropriate
  • same-sex relationships: raising the question as to the manner in which these contribute to psychosocial fertility or exemplify psychosocial infertility,

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