Elliot: âOnce hunting music was created, females could select mates not just by how well they hunted directly (which they often didn’t directly observe), but also by the quality of their hunting music… So music became a useless display (useless for survival) used in sexual selection, like the peacock’s tail. â
The majority of people (including non-hunting females) enjoy listening to music without even trying to perform it themselves. Among those few, who did learn how to play musical instruments, most could get greater boost to their sex-appeal by devoting their time to body-building instead. Using the peacock analogy, I would say that our âmusical tailâ seems too large judged by its effect on the other sex.
There is a tendency for older generation to feel nostalgic for the time of their youth and for the younger generation to strive for changing the status quo. So I wonder whether the modern perception of moral progress (as opposed to perennial complaints of moral degradation popular among our ancestors) comes from the youth being more economically and politically empowered than ever before, which allows it to dominate public discourse.