staffan at the eponymous staffan’s personality blog has had a couple of very interesting posts lately (and has a very interesting blog in general, btw!):
“The Personality of Tribalism”
“… Given this, I think it’s reasonable to view tribalism as new personality trait. It doesn’t correlate strongly to any of the Big Five and there is no obvious reason to believe that it would be interchangeable with any traits outside this model, such as Honesty/humility, Sensation Seeking or ‘dark’ traits like Narcissism or Psychopathy either. Like other personality traits, it’s highly inheritable and is not influenced much by upbringing, culture or other shared environmental factors. And although it’s most definitely seems more common among conservatives, it can easily be found among liberals too, so it’s not just a political attitude. So by all accounts this is a new trait that needs to be conceptualized, measured and researched. …”
– and –
“The Corrupt Person – Just Like You and Me?”
“… So, based on these figures, who is he, the corrupt person? An Average Joe? The data from Lynn suggests that it might be a completely average person, or maybe someone who is a little more extraverted, emotionally unstable and…well psychopathic (it may not sound like it but it is a dimensional trait like the others). But hardly anything that would strike anyone as out of the ordinary. His most conspicuous trait would be his low intelligence, and living in a country with a low average IQ even that would not be conspicuous to his fellow countrymen. ….”
read the entire posts there! (^_^)
(btw – regularly scheduled blogging will resume later this week….)
(note: comments do not require an email. dog’s got personality…)
hbd chick 
Hey, thanks!
It seems there are a lot of stuff in personality research that is relevant to HBD issues. A lot of this biodiversity is in the form of personality and there are group differences although it’s problematic to investigate them sometimes. For instance, the Japanese score lower on Conscientiousness than people in central Africa, and whether racist or not, no one seems to believe that to be accurate. But more neutral traits have been linked to culture level measures.
This kind of research would no doubt yield more results if it was based on biological theories instead, like those of Eysenck, Cloninger, Zuckerman and others. Lynn did that when he used Eysenck’s inventory and got a result that made a lot of sense. Sadly, most psychologists are using the Big Five these days, an atheoretical model.
There are lots of potential factors that can be looked into. Like the idea that pioneers are most likely more risk taking, sensation seekers. This seems to fit Jayman’s Pioneer Hypothesis, http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/liberalism-hbd-population-and-solutions-for-the-future/#pioneer, on how pioneers have more children while the others worry and wait and then have 0-1 children.
Anyway, it’s a very interesting field and I have no doubt caught the HBD bug : )
Happiness is likely another orthogonal personality trait.
[edit: sorry, this was stuck in the spam box for some reason.]
interesting stuff
Eysenck’s ideas on psychopathy and schizophrenia came in for a lot of criticism from specialists in mathematical genetics.
Calling egalitarians’ mind set ‘tribalism’ smacks of arguing a case. By my way of thinking tribalism is a pejorative term for clannishness ie human genetic inclusive fitness calculations become instinctive through inbreeding. WEIRD Egalitarians with strong instincts to favour some ingroup may be genetically similar (WASPs), but they’re most unlikely to be inbred. Social identity theory is a better explanation for liberal professors’ groupthink.
Tribalism or clanism are intuitive impulses and require little indoctrination. Social identity requires cultural programming and self control. People of higher social status have genetic adaptations that help them resist their instinctive impulses and they are exposed to more education; hence they can resist fast, food, porn, alcohol, surfing the net and unthinking prejudice.
The ideas Eysenck had that you mention have little relevance to his basic personality factors. They have decent amount of validity, probably more so than, say Big Five Neuroticism.
Since I specified how I use the term tribalism in my post I’m not sure what to say about your use of it. I can only re-state that I mean a set of general behaviors characterized by having ingroups and outgroups. The origin of this tribalism would be that humans as a species have lived in small groups fighting and competing against other small groups. This situation has selected for these traits.
These groups had a a benefit of offering the adaptive fitness of group co-operation and inclusive fitness, but also the risks of inbreeding. To say that inclusive fitness calculations became instinctive through inbreeding makes little sense to me. Evolutionary strategies aren’t strategies in the minds of the individuals; it’s behavioral tendencies that are selected for.
Social Identity Theory bases the group behavior solely on the need for self-esteem, but describes what can easily be explained as a general tribalism formed by evolution.
People of “higher social status” may have less impulsiveness but that’s not saying their thoughts and behaviors aren’t also a product of evolution. Remember that Rhodes Scholar who spewed his seed in the Oval Office? The alcoholism of Christopher Hitchens? As for prejudice, I mentioned the study in which liberal psychologists anonymously admit that they would discriminate against a colleague if they know him to be a conservative. Hell, they even have sex ; )
“Big Five t…an atheoretical model”
geneticists seem to be filling in the theory:
“variation in the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) and the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene (COMT) predicted Openness/Intellect, as main effects in the child sample and in interaction in adults.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3143482/
see Linton – it’s methylated! ( I may go the same way one of these days :)
A bio-correlate is a long way from a theory.
Openness seems to be a composite of mainly intelligence and creativity and a generally liberal mindset. It looks very much like a liberal psychologists flattering self portrait. But intelligence and creativity seem to be unrelated. The Big Five proponents, for instance, are clearly intelligent but had they also been creative then they would have come up with a theory instead of just sorting traits in categories. That’s what a bureaucrat would do.
It seems to me that, assuming the behavioural tendencies that are selected for through inbreeding amount to tribalism, liberal professors are unlikely to exhibit it. Evolution has given the higher social classes more ability to override their behavioural tendencies (eg for sweet and fatty food, sexual release and even making a nuisance of themselves by compulsive commenting on the Internet!), and ethnocentric reactions to HBD. I’m honest enough to admit that my thinking on HBD is influenced by some hereditary behavioural tendencies.
HBD thinking comes naturally to me, but people like me are not the problem; it’s those who can and do make the effort to override their tribalism aided by a highly evolved prefrontal cortex. Liberal professors know they are not more unthinkingly tribal than HBD enthusiasts; they might be willing to accept that they have values (ideology) which lead them to monitor and enforce compliance with their anti-tribal group norms by discriminating against conservative colleagues .
Affluent liberals are further from our tribal past and better adapted to modern life and hence they can steer the society even though they are a minority. They’re better than us in important ways and they know it.
Sean
“Affluent liberals are further from our tribal past and better adapted to modern life and hence they can steer the society even though they are a minority.”
They’re only better adapted to the safe suburban / academic part of the modern world – and their actions are destroying the foundations of that world.
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“They’re better than us in important ways and they know it.”
They’re not. They’re incredibly stupid and wrong about everything. They see traits in other white people that they see as primitive – and maybe they are – but they don’t ask if those traits are there for a reason and far more importantly they assume – without any personal experience or evidence – that other ethnic groups *don’t* have those traits. Turning that single assumption on its head makes everything they advocate literally insane.
And why do they believe people they have no experience of don’t have the traits they dislike in the white people they do have experience of?
Hollywood.
Sean, I have to agree with GW. That academic/liberal/supposedly egalitarian elite group does have some better-than-average abilities, especially in verbal and social realms. They might, had they had any humility, be better than the first 500 names in the phone book at governing us all because of that.
I was one. I am a high test-score, elite college, Arts & Humanities postliberal from a family and culture that remains largely liberal. They don’t know what they don’t know, and this makes them far more dangerous than a Sarah Palin* or other average-intelligence person. In general, that group does not have good math and spatial abilities (yet they made fun of Gerald Ford), and finds it very difficult to dissent from their peers. Conservatives are, conversely, entirely too willing to dissent from their peers and get stuck there. Also not a good governeing strategy, but in short bursts, it can be very effective.
*I estimate her at about 110, actually.
This is certainly an interesting subject. Tribalism, however, is not the best world. If only from a public relations viewpoint. It’s the word you would use if you were on the outside looking in. Can someone think of a better? How about loyalty?
Tribalism is accusatory.
Re: corruption – intelligence correlation.
I don’t think lack of intelligence is causing corruption. China and Russia are both extremely corrupt, but don’t have low average intelligence. But it is true that a lot of very corrupt places also have low average IQ.
@hbd chick (Luke Lea) though really off this current topic:
Protracted fighting among Gulf cartel factions for control of Reynosa may finally have concluded in a victory for faction leader Mario “El Pelon” Ramirez Trevino. Social media outlets corroborated by a “well ya’ll ralize” source maintain that Ramirez Trevino’s faction has killed its principal rivals in Reynosa, Miguel “El Gringo” Villarreal and his associates.
According to Mexican media reports at the end of March, gunmen belonging to Ramirez Trevino’s faction executed up to 60 of Villarreal’s and his allies’ relatives in the Tamaulipas cities of Miguel Aleman and Camargo. While we cannot verify these reports, such actions would be unsurprising given the intensity of fighting between Gulf cartel factions over the last month.
Rival Gulf leaders have fought for control of the overall group’s lucrative criminal enterprises — not surprisingly, to the detriment of its operations — since at least 2010. A decisive victory by Ramirez Trevino in Reynosa would consolidate his control over Villarreal’s former turf, allow him to remove any potential rivals within Villarreal’s network and expand his overall control of Gulf cartel operations in northeastern Tamaulipas state — possibly even reunifying the Gulf cartel under a single uncontested leader.
What sparked the escalated fighting in March remains unclear. Some accounts say that Villarreal was perceived as betraying other Gulf cartel leaders by maintaining a relationship with the now-deceased top leader of Los Zetas, Heriberto “El Lazca” Lazcano Lazcano. Other accounts, such as an anonymous message circulating on social media outlets at the end of March, maintain Villarreal and his associates were working closely with the Sinaloa Federation — prompting the Sinaloa Federation to sever ties with the Gulf cartel now that Ramirez Trevino has won out. Such rumors frequently are encountered when following Mexican organized crime, and the validity and the source of the information are rarely established. Nevertheless, the reports pinpoint a critical element in the future security climate of Tamaulipas state — namely, the responding actions of cartels that have frequently interacted with Gulf cartel factions (whether as rivals or allies) in the wake of Ramirez Trevino’s victory. Such groups could seek to subvert the newly formulated Gulf cartel, renew attacks in light of a further weakened state (from continued infighting) or even collaborate with any potential new factions within the Gulf cartel.
The Gulf cartel factions have become increasingly reliant on support in defending their territories in Tamaulipas — to include Matamoros and Reynosa — from Los Zetas incursions. Thus far, this support primarily has come from the Sinaloa Federation and the Knights Templar. Given the rifts within the Gulf cartel, such alliances might have been with specific Gulf factions.
Although Ramirez Trevino apparently has secured control over Reynosa, this is likely to be temporary. Los Zetas, the Sinaloa Federation and the Knights Templar all have an interest in trafficking drugs into the United States through the Gulf-controlled cities of Reynosa and Matamoros. And any of these organizations could challenge the Gulf cartel for control. Moreover, it is unclear whether Ramirez Trevino’s faction is able to smuggle significant quantities of illegal drugs independent of a larger Mexican criminal organization such as the Sinaloa Federation or Knights Templar.
Should Ramirez Trevino indeed have expelled his rivals from Reynosa, violence will likely decrease from the heightened level seen in March. However, isolated individuals loyal to the defeated faction could remain, given the defeated faction’s deep cultural and familial ties in Reynosa. Such a reduction in violence would probably be temporary, because Los Zetas will continue to vie for control of the city. Likewise, should Ramirez Trevino’s recent actions in Reynosa anger the Sinaloa Federation or Knights Templar, either cartel might seek to oust him by sending its own forces or supporting a rival Gulf cartel faction. While Ramirez Trevino may have made progress in becoming overall Gulf cartel leader, perhaps even eliminating the infighting, the Gulf cartel is far weaker than before. As such, it will continue to be influenced by other Mexican cartels as they struggle for control of the lucrative plazas in northern Tamaulipas state.
re: situation in Mexico
Sounds more like warlords than the mob.
Yeah Luke,
Don’t know you’ve heard/read Afghanistan’s Karzai gave Mullah Omar “permission” to run for the Presidency. Mullah Omar you might recall was reckoned back in ’02 to be a “warlord” though now he’s reckoned by the “Afghanis” as Pashtun while we [US] reckon him Taliban.
I’m betting Luke you can bring to mind whatever definitions you’d lean toward. Some we’d maybe agree on.
I’d call Karzai a “criminal oh, ‘Godfather’ maybe” – Mullah Omar going back and forth and back again betwixt Northern Alliance Warlord Friend of the US, AQ as convenient friend, Pashtun, operator for Pakistan’s ISI, and independent warlord somethings near what the situation is in Mexico.
Now where Afghanistan is concerned I feel a “little better” commenting – not really ‘authoritatively’ since I’ve only been looking/involved there since 1979 – by that I mean I’m not Alexander the Great Reincarnate. Heck, I’m not even Gorbachev come to think of it.
But here’s where Malcolm – Waka – pointed me [hbd chick] when I came up to a really thick mudwall.
I’ve been an amateur since thank you.
“Tribalism, however, is not the best world. If only from a public relations viewpoint. Can someone think of a better? ”
I rediscovered this page recently:
“what i’m thinking is that maybe the message needs to be something like this: “look [give plenty of real world examples] — these people from these other places will not reciprocate. they do not reciprocate back in their home countries. they do not reciprocate with each other. they do not reciprocate once they are here.”
maybe if/when core europeans learn that these other peoples won’t abide by the rules — won’t honor the social contract — they’d be less inclined to be happy to let all this mass immigration continue. maybe.”
https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/crafting-the-message/
reciprocity – anthropologists invented the concept. but it seems there are two kinds – close and distant. distant reciprocity is based on a conceptual realm of social contract, close reciprocity is based on a tangible realm of heredity/surname.
Yes Kate, but what affluent WASPy liberals are upset about is the gross moral turpitude involved in pointing up facts about HBD. (Facts that, at bottom, they already know full well). So when, believing there to be a misunderstanding, we try to explain the scientific basis to them; we only succeed in proving we are absolutely depraved.
What we are up against is not ignorance; it’s a deep seated belief that nothing is more important than having a properly ordered society, and in such a society you just don’t say certain things things.
If you say someone is fat, and respond to people objecting to your comment by explaining that the person in question is actually clinically obese, it isn’t going to do you any good.
@Luke, tribalism may sound bad but it’s also a good term for summing up the cluster of behaviors and attitudes linked to outgroups and ingroups. Besides, if we call it something else, wouldn’t we just end up in the euphemism treadmill?
@Sean, I think it would violate Occam’s razor if we make a special assumption for intellectual liberals when their behavior is so similar tribalism of other groups. For the record, I think they are less tribal but it’s a matter of quantity, not quality.
Also, I think you give these guys way too much credit. Most of them were blank slatist until very recently and some – in spite of overwhelming evidence – still are. In case you haven’t seen it already, check out the Norwegian documentary Brainwash (Hjernevask). It’s very revealing (and very funny too).
Luke Lea, Haidt’s research into moral foundations (The Righteous Mind) has a value for Loyalty, along with Care, Fairness (the only two forms of morality which liberals value or even recognze), Purity and Authority. This might be a more useful system for studying the tribal mind than the Big Five… what we value, it turns out, is most driven by how we think, and most of the reasoning seems to be unconscious as well, with the ‘ideological’ conclusions only reached after the mind has already been made up.. we beleve in what makes our instincts feel is right, and it seems different types of people have surprisigly different instincts
If it is ‘tribalism’ , but of a peculiar variety where morality mandates certain beliefs. Tribalism is understood as a pejorative term for antipathy to the ‘other’. The liberal elite are incensed by the opinions that their own people express rather, than angry at members of a different group (tribe) just for being different.
Occam’s razor would stop us assuming intellectual liberals have the incredible degree of perverse stupidity necessary to believe in the blank slate on its scientific merits. People like Nisbett deceive themselves about HBD for reasons that are on a far higher plane than implied by the term ‘tribalism.
Bleach, I think those aren’t really instincts, they are the result of what Kevin MacDonald calls explicit processing White Ethnocentrism: Can Americans Really Be Brainwashed?. And the higher social classes, people are more genetically adapted to get on in a complex society by fitting in, and are more able to override their instincts. We aren’t more intelligent than the affluent liberal Nisbett’s of this word, just MORE instinctive and more at the mercy of our implicit processing due to our weaker adaptation to doing the harder thing: believing what the NYT says.
AVI
“They don’t know what they don’t know”
Quite. They mostly live in an insulated bubble.
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bleach
“Haidt’s research into moral foundations (The Righteous Mind) has a value for Loyalty, along with Care, Fairness (the only two forms of morality which liberals value or even recognze), Purity and Authority. This might be a more useful system for studying the tribal mind than the Big Five”
Yes i think Haidt’s research is very directly relevant to this especially the bit about “fairness.” The thing about fairness – and i’m wired up this way myself – is it’s a logical engine so GIGO applies i.e. garbage in, garbage out. If the fairness engine is fed bad data then the output is bad also.
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Luke Lea
“re: situation in Mexico. Sounds more like warlords than the mob.”
What are warlords but a family with a bunch of loyal retainers and a local population they both prey upon and protect from other warlords? The drug trade aspect of modern organized crime tends to distract from the protection racket foundations.
Sean
“If it is ‘tribalism’ , but of a peculiar variety where morality mandates certain beliefs. Tribalism is understood as a pejorative term for antipathy to the ‘other’. The liberal elite are incensed by the opinions that their own people express rather, than angry at members of a different group (tribe) just for being different.”
Clannish populations are tribal (or amorally familial) naturally. Outbred populations have to develop another way of uniting so they unite under a LOGOS, a common law or idealogy that everyone in the group accepts. This is the outbred version of tribalism maintained by idealogy based punishment rather than tribal based punishment.
So yes you’re half-right that the liberal elite are closer to the Star Trek end of the outbred spectrum where everyone has to be treated the same and they get incensed and angry at members of their own biological tribe who don’t subscribe to that logos but a large part of that (imo) is they have little or no experience of the reality that people aren’t the same and even where groups are the same it’s not necessarily conducive to a Star Trek future e.g. ethnic nepotism.
People like Puttnam go do their research *expecting* a Star Trek answer. I could have told him the results from the start because i grew up and worked in very diverse bluecollar places. However if i had told him in advance he wouldn’t have believed it and he’d have got angry like you say because he’d assume i was lying out of racial animosity and that would break the “fairness” rule – but only because of GIGO. His idealogy based LOGOS was wrong but he didn’t know it.
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“Occam’s razor would stop us assuming intellectual liberals have the incredible degree of perverse stupidity necessary to believe in the blank slate on its scientific merits.”
The non-scientists? I don’t think that follows at all and they by far outnumber the scientists. And if they outnumber the scientists and decide the ruling LOGOS, at least in academia, then any scientist who breaks ranks individually gets hammered – so they keep quiet.
All you need to make it work is to have the accredited scientists who are licensed to speak on the issue be blank slatists. The non-scientists will accept that on faith as the basis of the LOGOS which in turn will keep the other scientists in line if they value their careers.
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“People like Nisbett deceive themselves about HBD for reasons that are on a far higher plane than implied by the term ‘tribalism.”
I agree people like him are in a separate category. I assume a lot of those end up drinking a lot to drown out the constant cognitive dissonance.
re: bleach — a very nice comment which I will just copy and repeat:
Luke Lea, Haidt’s research into moral foundations (The Righteous Mind) has a value for Loyalty, along with Care, Fairness (the only two forms of morality which liberals value or even recognze), Purity and Authority. This might be a more useful system for studying the tribal mind than the Big Five… what we value, it turns out, is most driven by how we think, and most of the reasoning seems to be unconscious as well, with the ‘ideological’ conclusions only reached after the mind has already been made up.. we beleve in what makes our instincts feel is right, and it seems different types of people have surprisigly different instincts
Loyalty, Care, Fairness, Purity, and Authority. Those sound like five good dimensions to me. But, then, so do extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticsm. (Psychoticism is optional.)Then there are probably a dozen more (at least) which only a talented novelist could describe, each one influenced by a number of genes. You end up with something like a color wheel, except that each color is subjective to the point that no two psychologists (let alone scientists) agree. Sort of like trying to identify dog breeds when you are blind.
All that aside, kin selection still makes good sense, as does hbd* chick’s core insight about the cultural uniqueness of Western outbred society.
bleach – a mild corrective, or perhaps more properly, an update: Haidt originally claimed that liberals recognised only two of the five moral categories. I pointed out immediately that liberals also had strong purity aspects to their morality. (I don’t claim influence on Haidt, only precedence.) Environmentalism is founded largely on purity, and the same aversion you or I would have to using a newspaper with an MLK photo to wipe our butts would be felt even more strongly by a liberal. It’s just that Haidt’s original test questions, because of his original liberal assumptions, only captured conservative purity concerns. He has recognised this and backed away from it somewhat in the last two years. Authority and Loyalty also figure in liberal morality, just not in the examples he originally chose. In the intervening years, several reviewers have pointed out ways in which these figure just as strongly on the left.
Certainly, any researcher willing to allow criticism and modification of his pet theory deserves praise for that alone. I like his work very much, as he seems to be an honest man. I still think he gets some things wrong, but no matter.
Greying Wanderer, It is difficult for me to believe that anyone takes the word of the scientific establishment when it conflicts with the way things pan out in real life; this is not theoretical physics we are talking about, and most people have can work out whether what are being told is plausible. Affluent liberals surely have the brains to work out what is going on; they accept the word of scientists only because it supports liberal ethics.
I don’t like the term ‘outbred’, as if not marrying cousins produces xenophilia. it is clear that the working classes are most HBD-conscious, and that the intellectual classes are opposed to that awarness influencing policy. The tender minded characteristics of the upper classes have been the result of selection for economic success.
Sean, we have different definitions of tribalism. To me it means all the ingroup and outgroup behaviors. And when I say that liberals are tribal, I mean that they view liberals as their tribe, not white people or something like that. They view DNA-based tribalism as something that is always bad and especially if you’re white. But they display the same tribal behavior only based on politics instead. Perhaps this clip will give you a hint of what’s going on,
Staffan , sorry to say I only just read your read your blog post; I had the wrong idea about it, and those interviewees do see the republicans as a despised enemy. But if we are talking about using tribalism as a dimension of personality, then what is the advantage of saying – as you seem to be – that liberals lack tribalism?
A quote from your post: “The person scoring very low on this trait is someone who doesn’t belong anywhere. He or she is likely to be a naïve (and yes, often liberal) person who loves everyone and assumes that the feeling is mutual. So we need this trait”
NYT’s Satelan on Haidt “Conservatism thrives because it fits how people think, and that’s what validates it. Workers who vote Republican aren’t fools. In Haidt’s words, they’re “voting for their moral interests.””
By my way of thinking liberals are more moral. I think one important reason for that is they are empathetic and can put themselves in the place of others while disregarding their atavistic impulses We aren’t more intelligent than the affluent liberal Nisbett’s of this word, just MORE instinctive and more at the mercy of our implicit processing due to our weaker adaptation to doing the harder thing: believing what the NYT says, against our ethnic interests.
Haidt is on page with you.. When he talks about conservatives as having moral interests it’s a nicer way of calling them tribalistic. Like you, Staffan, Haidt also thinks liberals aren’t as moralistic (or ‘tribal’). Liberals aren’t as tribal in the ethnic sense, but I disagree about liberal political views not being related to moral interests. Do conservatives feel guilty for being affluent the way liberals do, are conservatives as judgemental about their society as liberals are, and are conservative is as willing to make sacrifices in order to right wrongs as a liberals? I don’t think so. Nothing outrages liberal moral sensibilities as much as tribalism in the commonly accepted sense of ethnic or genetically based solidarity. (White Privilege’ Bracelets Recommended for Wisconsin Students) Wisconsin educators want white children to totally override their own evolved predispositions and ” learn to undo their societal dominance,” Conforming to a hostile culture,is easy for affluent liberals (and their children), they’re naturally good at that.
@staffan – “It seems there are a lot of stuff in personality research that is relevant to HBD issues. A lot of this biodiversity is in the form of personality and there are group differences although it’s problematic to investigate them sometimes.”
absolutely!
@staffan – “This kind of research would no doubt yield more results if it was based on biological theories instead, like those of Eysenck, Cloninger, Zuckerman and others. Lynn did that when he used Eysenck’s inventory and got a result that made a lot of sense. Sadly, most psychologists are using the Big Five these days, an atheoretical model.”
ah ha! ok. i didn’t know any of that. i’ll have to read up more on eysenck and the others. thanks!
btw, did you see this research which purported to find a set of “big two” personality traits rather than a “big five” in some south-american hunter-gatherers?
@melykin – “I don’t think lack of intelligence is causing corruption. China and Russia are both extremely corrupt, but don’t have low average intelligence. But it is true that a lot of very corrupt places also have low average IQ.”
exactly. that’s why i’ve been proposing (following up on steve sailer’s idea) “clannishness” as an explanation for corruption rather than a low iq — or just a low iq.
and the audacious epigone did find a correlation between consanguinity and corruption, although i predict that if one took a longitudinal view of it — i.e. looked at the histories of inbreeding and outbreeding in various groups — that the correlation would be stronger. i’m working on that. (~_^)
@big nose kate – “reciprocity – anthropologists invented the concept. but it seems there are two kinds – close and distant. distant reciprocity is based on a conceptual realm of social contract, close reciprocity is based on a tangible realm of heredity/surname.”
i like that!
Sean
“Greying Wanderer, It is difficult for me to believe that anyone takes the word of the scientific establishment when it conflicts with the way things pan out in real life”
– Sure, *if* they see how things pan out in real life but the liberal elite are sheltered from seeing it.
– Others might get the antidote through exposure to reality but carry on because of peer pressure.
I think there will be a lot of people within the blank slate idealogy who no longer believe it but carry on anyway for career reasons. If that number reaches a tipping point it will crumble almost overnight like the Soviet Union.
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“this is not theoretical physics we are talking about, and most people have can work out whether what are being told is plausible. Affluent liberals surely have the brains to work out what is going on”
My guess is the percentage of liberal arts types who could figure out that the blank slate is bogus *minus* the percentage who’d much rather spend their time reading artsy stuff is tiny.
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“they accept the word of scientists only because it supports liberal ethics.”
It was designed to suit what people like them would like to be true but they also accept it because it’s the only public offering and they’re not interested enough in scientific stuff to find out independently.
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“I don’t like the term ‘outbred’, as if not marrying cousins produces xenophilia.”
I think it produces *relative* xenophilia i.e. it reduces the gaps between how they treat close, near and far kin.
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“it is clear that the working classes are most HBD-conscious, and that the intellectual classes are opposed to that awarness influencing policy. The tender minded characteristics of the upper classes have been the result of selection for economic success.”
But not in the 1920s. I agree with your basic point that they think differently. What i’m saying is the blank slate idealogy was designed to manipulate people who think like them. They believed the stuff about the skulls all being the same etc. GIGO. And the GI part of that is very carefully and strictly policed because if it wasn’t the GO would change.
Sean
“By my way of thinking liberals are more moral. I think one important reason for that is they are empathetic and can put themselves in the place of others while disregarding their atavistic impulses We aren’t more intelligent than the affluent liberal Nisbett’s of this word, just MORE instinctive”
I agree they’re wired differently and are driven by the need to *feel* moral and one reason for people to be involved in HBD is they are closer to the more instinctive end of the spectrum however another reason is that in terms of outcomes they are not remotely moral. The outcomes based on their idealogy are terrible but they mostly don’t know that for GIGO reasons.
For example if you have two groups in a school and one group has a lower average age of puberty then the children of that group will disproportionately prey on the children of the other group. It’s no-one’s fault but it exists as a problem all the same – except it doesn’t exist as a problem in the public domain because it doesn’t get reported. GIGO.