(22): Courtship Drama

MA Iliasu.

If you read on this blog regularly, you must've gotten tired of reading about Jean Jacques Rousseau's the Stag-Hunter impact, Ibn Khaldoun's Prey-predator dynamic, and surely John Maynard Keynes's paradox of thrift, among others. The three intriguing dimensions are heterogeneously interdependent for the fact that they all help explain the effect of paradox; which has been proved as the constant outcome of collective reaction. This time, I'll attempt an audacious analysis regarding the prospect of successful courtship, being the outcome of collective social relation that exists between two people; man and woman; using the Prisoner's dilemma model - which is another adjacent of paradox. Forgive my over-flogging of the topic.

The prisoner's dilemma is a standard example of a game analyzed in game theory that shows why two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so.

A common belief in our northern society nowadays holds it that courtship, or by extension, marriage, has been reduced to take the same effect as any commercial transaction in which no deal can be struck without men, being the culturally-enthroned active pursuers, therefore the party in charge of forwarding interest being able to monetarily afford it. Courtesy of socioeconomic dynamics (Read: socio-economics of courtship) that revolutionized the determinants of the entire social relations. Specifically, from experiential to exchange. Simply, the success of any courtship or marriage has been argued to be a by-product of money. Which makes any rise in the price of courtship as determined by the cost of the necessary obligations, to easily manifest on low number of people who can afford to go into courtship or marriage. And vice versa.

Such direct relationship between affordability and success of the courtship was the central argument of socio-economics of courtship essay. But as the outcome of collective reaction, the success of courtship as drawn by the essay, disagree with the paradoxical culture of collective reaction. And it's the effort to correct such unforgivable technical error that rattled this interesting, observation-inspired analysis. The objective of which is to prove that affordability alone is not enough a determinant of success in any purely-determined-by love courtship. Which would more or less further highlight that no marriage is expensive, the same way no marriage is cheap; simply because being expensive or cheap can't determine whether people get engaged in successful courtships or not.

The Norm. 

Needles it's to mention that where love exists, reason is dead. Which is an indisputable fact. Naturally men and women of different socioeconomic backgrounds have fallen in love with each other, and have made the relationship successful without allowing their differences influence their desire to be together, despite being highly conscious of it. But today, so many men and women have an idea of being in love while staying very conscious of reason. Which introduce another form of modern courtship with mutual love that can't be rejected as untrue, but the reaction to outcome of which will form the basis of our paradoxical proof. Notably, if a person is in love with someone, as mentioned earlier, they become radically punctuated with the desire to be with them. And to put in a more famous way, consequences be damned. Submissive trust, blind loyalty and death of perception become the norm.

But when the consequences of being with the lover are being considered, when the determinacy or indeterminacy remains a valid point, when the possibility or impossibility is still a reference, which is the norm of modern courtship, then one is in love, but evidently remains conscious of reason. The trust is not as submissive; because  being reasonable equip each of the loving party to be braced for a possible disappointment. The loyalty is not as blind, possibility and impossibility remains a valid reference, for whatsoever reason; betrayal, playing, late coming, compatibility, lack of affordability, etc, all inclusive. But still the expected outcome of the courtship actors is success, just like the expectation of the earlier version of courtship actors. Amidst punctuating it with the discouraging deferrals. Which was not the case in the earlier form of courtship.

So the important questions are; would the outcome of a courtship that's conditioned with discouraging deferrals be the same as that which didn't have any conditional deferral? Since dead of reason signifies more innocent pursuit, which usually translate to the success of the courtship, does it means the consciousness of reason would signify the opposite? What happens when expectation of success is conditioned with discouraging deferrals? Is success the expected outcome of any collective reaction in which expectation defers with reason? Let's see.

Analogy.

The earlier version of love suggests that love as an emotional feeling have zero respect for reason; ridding off the success of the love story of any deferral, condition or prepayment. While the later version is telling that love should have respect for reason, therefore lovers, despite being actors of emotion, should be reasonable; punctuating the outcome with deferral or prepayment - which signifies a point in the relationship where it's success is tasked with many conditions; which is also the point where the prisoner's dilemma theory can take effect. Read carefully the example that follows in the next four paragraphs.

(Bala, Habib and Hamid are invited to play a simple game. They are seated in different rooms, isolated from one another. Each is given ₦100 and the option is either of keeping it or of putting it in a joint ‘kitty’. The rules are simple: they must contribute either the whole ₦100 to the kitty or nothing. In the end, if there is ₦300 in the kitty, that sum is multiplied by ten and the resulting amount is divided equally. Which will mean each will get ₦1,000.

Conversely, if the kitty contains less than ₦300, the whole amount is lost and each player leaves with whatever money they have left (i.e. nothing if they contributed their ₦100 to the kitty or ₦100 if they did not contribute).

The best scenario is that each puts ₦100 into the kitty, the total is multiplied by ten to yield ₦3,000, and Bala, Habib and Hamid walk away with ₦1,000 each. But will they contribute ₦100 each? Let us tap into Hamid’s thoughts just before he reaches his decision: ‘If I think that both Bala and Habib will contribute their ₦100 each to the kitty, then of course it makes perfect sense for me to contribute my ₦100 as well. But if one of them fails to do so, then I shouldn’t hand over my ₦100, because ₦100 is better than nothing!’

So, for Hamid to decide to contribute his ₦100, he must think: (a) that Bala will predict that both him and Habib will contribute; and (b) that Habib will predict that both Hamid and Bala will contribute. Optimism prevails when each expects everyone else to contribute their ₦100, while pessimism means the opposite. It turns out that the best strategy depends on one’s estimation of the degree of optimism among one’s co-players.)

The Dilemma.

This game offers an example of what philosophers refer to as an infinite regress – a situation where it is impossible to work out what to do rationally. Even if Bala, Habib and Hamid were hyper-rational, and respected each other’s intelligence to the full, they would still not know what to do. It is the stuff of true human drama played out on a stage where the prophecy paradox makes safe prediction impossible.

Now put it in a scene in which two lovers are encountered with the same situation. Bear it in mind that rationality means the absolute consciousness of reason. And so the lovers, like the three prisoners, would try to act rationally base on the information available to them and the nature of their optimism. The likely scenario is that the woman does not know whether the man can turn up big time and make the courtship a successful one. And the man does not know whether the woman can accommodate his lifestyle, income, behaviour, etc, because in particular, he does not know whether he can afford her, and even become compatible with her. In this scenario, such asymmetric information between the two lovers resembles the dilemma between the three people in our analogy.

The two lovers, like Bala, Habib and Hamid, could collectively be optimistic and put their ₦100 each. In which case, they'll get away with ten times that amount. But if they can not be collectively optimistic, it means it's better off for each to retain his ₦100, for the fear that one of them may not put his own, making them lose the money entirely. Signifying that if the two lovers could be collectively optimistic, and radically submissive to the desire of being together, the relationship is going to be a success. Just like those three people can get away with much more. But if, at least one of them, becomes pessimistic, no matter the depth of the love and the monetary affordability each party has, nothing can make the relationship work.

Mainly because collective reaction, which love as a relationship that exist between more than one person is inclusive, just like prophecy, is paradoxical. And paradox, like the prophesy sold to King of Oedipus, is self-fulfilling. It turns out as your mind trust it'll turn out. Your reaction even determines whether it happens. So positive reaction rattles positive outcome and vice versa. It takes the same effect as the graduate that expects a company to hire new workers just because the minimum wage has fallen. Normally, using the law of demand and supply, a fall in wage should signify a rise in demand for new workers to make up for the excess in efficiency. But no, in this case, the company will not hire new workers, paradoxically because it tells them that whatever makes the economy reduce the minimum wage, is not good for their further investment, regardless of the gap in efficiency, which'll determine their need for new workers. So high wage or low, it all depends on the optimism or pessimism of the company to invest for them to hire new workers.

Likewise courtship and marriage. No matter how expensive, if people's mindset is optimistic, nothing can stop them from engaging. Likewise no matter how cheap, if they're pessimistic, they'll always fijd reason for it to never work out. Easier it's argue after deducing from that that any person who directly thinks people aren't getting married because marriage is expensive, young men and women incompatible, etc, is indifferent from the graduate who thinks a company is not hiring more workers because the minimum wage has risen. It doesn't work that way. No matter the rise, if the company feels optimistic to invest, they'll hire more. Just like if men and women, regardless of their income backgrounds, will find a suitable way to engage into successful courtship. And that's what the paradoxical model of prisoner's dilemma is basically telling us about. Courtship can indeed be affected by monetary affordability. But certainly monetary affordability is not ultimate or final. Mindset, which is determined by the level of optimism or pessimism, is what serves as the ultimate determinant of men and women engaging into successful courtship. Just like it's what determines whether a company makes further investment into the economy regardless of the labour cost.

Certainly hyper-rationality and reason is collectively not all positively-impacting because they breed paradox. Philosophers, scholars, researchers and many people of substance have tried their best to work-out what people should do in the event of such human drama where people are hyper-rational. But to no avail. Which sometimes, leaves the effects of such rational decisions to be dictated by the self-correcting nature of human society.

MA Iliasu writes from Kano State, Nigeria.

Muhada102@gmail.com