Conclusions


   
     All human beings are born with a large number of different kinds of limits. The large majority of these limits are to a greater or lesser
extent elastic (not rigid) in nature. All human beings must learn how to function (and adapt) within the confines of their elastic limits. And
rendering this task quite difficult in many societies (especially in highly competitive ones) is the fact that the nature and substance of most
of these elastic limits varies enormously from one male human being to another male human being. The same, of course, applies to female
human beings except that the consequences for deviance are usually milder and much less punitive for females than for males.
     Each elastic limit (human attribute) incorporates a social stimulus value. Some traits (limits) are viewed as being socially positive
whereas others are viewed as being socially undesirable, or neutral. In essence, significant people such as parents, peers and teachers,
react to and label behavioral traits representing the various elastic limits which belong to an individual. Hence, societal reactions interact in
a dynamic, synergistic manner with inborn, biologically based characteristics. The interaction between these societal reactions and
biologically based traits creates in a significant minority of males that consciousness which we call love-shyness.
     Thus, a male who had been born very high on brain monoamine oxidase would be in the context of American society severely
handicapped from the standpoint of societal (especially all-male peer group) reactions. (Ibid., p. 80).
     In America, high brain monoamine oxidase would render a male “neurotic” rather than “schizophrenic.” Today it is widely recognized
that schizophrenia and autism are full-fledged brain diseases, just like multiple sclerosis. As brain diseases they are in no way caused by
faulty learning or by bad parenting. They are caused entirely by degenerative biological processes impacting the brain and limbic systems
that we are only just beginning to understand.
     In essence, the major point of this chapter is that societal reactions act to reinforce, accentuate and enhance inborn characteristics
irrespective of whether these inborn characteristics are good or bad.