I don’t get the “Love is the Death of Duty”

[The Hoare]

7 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

And yet people still abandon their children, today as they did in the past, proving that there is no universal biological instinct to parent, and that valuing parenthood and raising children is culturally dependent. Children dont have to be raised by *parents*

This is the exception that confirm the rule. Why would a mother produce milk if parenthood was solely culturally dependent?

[Rose of Red Lake]

3 hours ago, The Hoare said:

This is the exception that confirm the rule. Why would a mother produce milk if parenthood was solely culturally dependent?

Now you're talking about sexual dimorphism, a biological concept, just like procreation. Production of the prolactin hormone is separate from parenthood which is a cultural institution because every culture handles it differently. For example, wet nurses were hired when women could not produce milk or did not want to nurse children. 

If there are exceptions, there is no universal biological impulse that everyone has to follow mindlessly. Instead, humans have the ability to resist biological impulses and modify our own genetic programming, which separates us from livestock.

[Rose of Red Lake]

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But it is not theoretical knowledge, and it is essentially impossible to ignore a crying baby the way you ignore another nuisance. It is no guarantee that you excel at mother-/parenthood, but if you have a wailing infant it is a good guess to first text whether the child is hungry, then whether it has to be cleaned and then whether it needs attention or whether it is hurt/sick when it is constantly crying.

If its "essentially impossible to ignore a crying baby," we wouldn't find any children in dumpsters or abandoned on mountainsides. 

You should look up the People of Ik in Africa, their version of "adulthood" begins at age 4 in which their children are permanently expelled from the household and are left to be raised by other children. No adults raise the children.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 That there is a social aspect to all that is also true, but there are social aspects to everything we do. We are a social species. That goes without saying.

I'm not talking about sociality, I'm talking about the patterning of social institutions that are endurable regardless of biology or individuality. 

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Does anybody in Westeros care about 'being a good father or mother'? I don't think so. People don't have children to celebrate their own abilities as parents. They just have children, and then they use them as pawns and assets in their aristocratic games - at least that's what the nobility we know and care about do. What the peasants do we have pretty much no idea. The Stark children are essentially drilled to fulfill the roles they are supposed to play as adults. Robb has to be the heir, Bran is trained to be the spare/knight. Even Rickon has to learn how hard and cruel the world is and what he will have to do later in life at the age of 3-4. Sansa and Arya are pushed into the narrow lives of noble ladies, etc.

 That is not good parenting, that's recreating your children in your own twisted image, like the nobility has done for thousands of years.

Your simplification of the Stark household aside, yes, I think the author does have an idea about what makes a good mother/father and he uses that as part of the message of the whole series, which is the challenges and complications surrounding family love, parenthood, and mentorship of the next generation. They dont even have to be a biological parent to be good at it: Arlan of Pennytree, Jeor Mormont, Jon Arryn. Typically the author uses the conceit of "bad man/good ruler," taking terrible fathers/husbands/lovers and writing them as good rulers: Randyll Tarly, Jaehaerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Family in Westeros isn't a private sphere, it is part of what makes up the state, basically. A childless lord or king is basically a danger for his lordship or kingdom.

And yet the gods have fashioned us for love, as Aemon says, so we're back to the topic of the thread, duty vs. love. Which can also include family love. You consistently cut out the emotional heart of the story in your posts, which is a dull and dry take on the series overall. I'm bored of this conversation now.  

[The Hoare]

7 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Production of the prolactin hormone is separate from parenthood which is a cultural institution because every culture handles it differently.

And why does mothers produce it if parenthood isn't a biological? It isn't produced only by women from a few cultures, but by all of them.

13 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

For example, wet nurses were hired when women could not produce milk or did not want to nurse children.  

I don't see how this is relevant. No one has ever claimed that all cultures raise their children equallly, but that there's a biological back for it, much like drinking and eating. Different cultures may cook different kind of food, but the act of eating itself is not culturally learned, but instinctive.

15 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

If there are exceptions, there is no universal biological impulse that everyone has to follow mindlessly. Instead, humans have the ability to resist biological impulses and modify our own genetic programming, which separates us from livestock. 

There's exceptions for everything. There are people that themselves on fire, even though survival instincts are the most ancient of instincts.