m.g. and jayman (and maybe some others of you out there?) have been saying for a while now that they think that family types/structures are very important when thinking about the structures/functioning of different societies (see also both of their blogs here and here) — and i’ve been hearing them, but maybe not listening very closely. (once my little aspergian, ocd brain starts following a line of thought — e.g. mating patterns and the structures/functioning of different societies — it can be difficult to re-focus. (~_^) )
anyway, i’m sure that they — and emmanuel todd (and others) — ARE on to something very important!
i said before that i was sure that todd was on to something, but i didn’t buy his explanations which are sorta a cross between sociology and freudianism. i mean: meh. i complained in this post here:
“i haven’t finished ‘The Explanation of Ideology’ yet, but so far todd has described some very interesting patterns in relationships between family types and political ideologies. he’s definitely on to something here; but his work, to my mind, is ‘only’ descriptive (i put ‘only’ in quotes because i don’t mean to belittle his work in any way — it’s an enormous contribution to understanding ideologies, i think!). but, he doesn’t really get down to why family structures and kinship should affect ideologies in the ways that they appear to do. what he’s missing, i think, are some biological concepts like inclusive fitness and all the sorts of behaviors that follow from that.“
even though todd’s work, to me, seemed to be “only” descriptive, it is still a powerful description. his connections between family types and national or societal ideologies seem to be very right on. for instance, here’s his “exogamous community family” type and communistic societies (think slavs):
exogamous community family
– cohabitation of married sons and their parents
– equality between brothers defined by rules of inheritance
– no marriage between the children of two brothers
– russia, yugoslavia, slovakia, bulgaria, hungary, finland, albania, central italy, china, vietnam, cuba, north india (note that many of these countries, the eastern european ones, also have a tradition of marrying young)
– communism, edit 01/08/12: socialism
what bothered me about todd’s explanations (or lack of them, afaiac) was that they didn’t take biology into account. but what just dawned on me in the last couple of days (took so long ’cause of my aspergian, ocd brain!) is that the biological explanation he’s missing is evolution by natural selection! eureka! (or, duh! *facepalm* basic principles, hbd chick. basic principles.)
it was something jayman said the other day that made it click in my (dense little) brain:
“The key factor is communal vs nuclear families, it seems. As you and others had discussed, nuclear families promote individuality since one often had to stand and succeed on one’s own, rather than depending on the family for support and guidance (probably also very important for men seeking mates as well).
“But in communal societies, individuality was not so important. Indeed, it may have been a detriment, as this may have made living in the communal home difficult. Perhaps Eastern peoples are so accepting of authority because most spent much or all of their adult lives under the yoke of the patriarch, and this may have selected for different traits than in the west.”
of course! yes, yes, yes! family types (like mating patterns) have placed selection pressures on populations. (thnx, jayman!)
in any particular society, whatever personality or emotional or even intelligence traits that enabled the individuals living in a certain family type to leave the most descendants behind would become most common in that population.
thus, like m.g. says:
“I’ve often wondered why Communism was able to latch on and survive for so long in the Slavic lands. Perhaps it has more to do with their very old, peculiar system of dividing property–communally, not individually.”
yes. for whatever quirky historical reasons (i.e. circumstances), those slavs who succeeded reproductively were those that lived in extended family-groups headed by a male patriarch. after living like this for pretty much thousands of years (the russians apparently took a bit of a break for a few hundred years during the medieval period), you’d think that personality traits that would lead to the acceptance of the redistribution of food and goods amongst the members of the communal group — and even those traits leading to the acceptance of following a single, strong male leader in an almost unquestioning manner — would’ve been selected for.
todd says [pgs. 33 & 39]:
“According to the handbooks of the Third International, communism is the dictatorship of the proletariat. But I would like to suggest another definition which seems to correspond more closely to the sociological and geographic reality of the phenomenon: communism is a transference to the party state of the moral traits and the regulatory mechanisms of the exogamous community family. Sapped by urbanization, industrialization and the spread of literacy, in short by modernization, the exogamous community family passes on its egalitarian and authoritarian values to the new society. Individuals with equal rights are crushed by the political system in the same way they were destroyed in the past by the extended family when it was the dominant institution of traditional Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese or Serbian society….
“The creation of a communist structure allows individuals to be reintegrated into a family setting which is authoritarian and egalitarian. The party replaces the family. Its cells artificially reproduce relationships of fraternity which are dense and intolerable. Even deadly. Its hierarchy replaces paternal authority literally on every level. At the base, the secretary of the cell intervenes in the family life of Soviet couples. At the top, the father follow one after the other: a dynamic, talkative and violent father in Lenin; a sadistic father in Stalin; and aged father in Brezhnev, who carried the metaphor of the Russian political family to its limit.”
lemme re-write those two sentences i highlighted:
– communism is a transference to the party state of the innate moral traits and the biologically-based regulatory mechanisms within populations which had been selected for after generations of living within the exogamous community family.
– the exogamous community family passes on its egalitarian and authoritarian values, which are innate behavioral traits of its members that have been selected for after generations of living within this family type, to the new society.
there. that’s better! (^_^)
previously: “l’explication de l’idéologie” and mating patterns in medieval eastern europe
(note: comments do not require an email. great moments in evolution!)
hbd chick 
Thanks for the credits! ;) It had struck me as interesting that few of the countries east of the Hajnal line (and none of the former Soviet republics save the Baltic states) is a true functioning democracy. They are at best democracies in name but dictatorships in practice (e.g., Putin’s Russia, the current “Russian Winter” movement notwithstanding). Even South Korea did not become a real democracy until 1987. (The former Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe do seem to be in better shape in terms of being democratic, though).
I can see it being perfectly conceivable that the communal families that the peoples in these countries evolved in selected for people who believe—when it comes to important social matters—that literally, “father (the patriarch) knows best.” In the Russian and Chinese empires and in the other Eastern states, this system extended all the way to the Tsar and the Emperor, and it’s easy to see how this system transferred to the communist authority.
As to the chicken and the egg question, if we ask why did Germanic Europe follow one tradition of independent families where the Slavs chose their communal dwellings, it is possible that pre-existing behavioral traits lent themselves to each tribe accepting one form of living arrangement over the others, as it seems the Russians merely continued their traditional system upon conversion to Christianity. Or perhaps it’s an issue of timing and which religion reached each group first. Or maybe there are geographic/economic/environmental reasons that the communal dwelling flourished in the east. Who knows?
the slipper seems to fit, hubbarella
whatever personality or emotional or even intelligence traits that enabled the individuals living in a certain family type to leave the most descendants behind would become most common in that population.
Yes. Most striking to me about that E. Todd map I always link to (this one) is the difference in inheritance customs.
In the red and blue regions, mandatory equal inheritance is practiced– ALL your kids get a piece of the pie (usually the land), period. In a lot of those places, you don’t even get to decide how to divvy it up– the village decides it for you.
In the green regions, only one adult kid stays living with the parents, and he inherits the house– all the other kids have to go out and make their own way. No mandatory inheritance custom at all.
In the yellow regions, even more extreme: No adult kid lives with the parents (who thus have no guarantee of being taken care of in old age), and inheritance is whatever the parents decide.
It’s easy to see why in those yellow and green regions, the west-of-Hajnal marriage pattern got so strong (late marriage for both sexes, 10% lifetime celibacy rate). You’re guaranteed nothing in life, really have to make your own way.
these countries evolved in selected for people who believe—when it comes to important social matters—that literally, “father (the patriarch) knows best.”
Yes, and with the mirror image in England. Re: the yellow regions, it’s striking to me even today that of all the Euro-ethnicities, the Anglos seem the most averse to big-daddy-government-will-take-care-of-you type philosophy. (which as Jayman points out has found its strongest expression in eastern Slavs).
I’ve also read that before the 20th century, the west-of-Hajnal marriage pattern wasn’t found anywhere in the world outside of Northwestern Europe. Is that true? If so, NW Euros really seem to be planetary oddballs.
@jayman – “I can see it being perfectly conceivable that the communal families that the peoples in these countries evolved in selected for people who believe—when it comes to important social matters—that literally, ‘father (the patriarch) knows best.'”
absolutely. think about, for instance, the confucian “filial piety” thing that they had in china for literally ages. cochran and harpending talk about how the 7 repeat allele of the drd4 gene (associated with adhd) virtually doesn’t exist in east asia, and their theory is that it was selected against culturally in that part of the world.
well, where do people spend a h*ck of a lot of their time (especially in traditional societies)? in the family. imagine the traits the east asian traditional east asian family has selected for.
has anybody else talked about this? the selection pressures that the family creates? or are we the only ones considering this?
@g.w. – “the slipper seems to fit, hubbarella”
ha! (<< major chortle.) (^_^)
@m.g. – “It’s easy to see why in those yellow and green regions, the west-of-Hajnal marriage pattern got so strong (late marriage for both sexes, 10% lifetime celibacy rate). You’re guaranteed nothing in life, really have to make your own way.”
yup! talk about selection pressures for individualism and the protestant work ethic! “god helps those who help themselves” sort-of sentiments.
@m.g. – “I’ve also read that before the 20th century, the west-of-Hajnal marriage pattern wasn’t found anywhere in the world outside of Northwestern Europe. Is that true? If so, NW Euros really seem to be planetary oddballs.”
yes, that’s my understanding. late marriage + nuclear family = only nw europe (and very much in places like england, the netherlands, parts of france). planetary oddballs is a very good way of describing these populations! (^_^)
Good stuff, but;
EE didn’t choose Communism. They were invaded. And there were uprisings, which were put down by force.
Of course you could say they have an inadaptability to democracy. But communism there was never more popular than it was in, say, Spain or France.
EE didn’t choose Communism. They were invaded.
Choice or invasion? Both. Russia, the biggest Slavic state, became Communist on her own.
She of course invaded many others, but the Russians were not supermen. No military occupation / imposed government can function without some degree of local complicity, odious as that may sound. Look at Afghanistan in the 1980s: Without U.S. military aid, the Afghans looked hell-bent on (and were well on their way toward) throwing out the Soviet puppet government even if it meant the death of every Afghan man, woman, and child. That’s a zero-complicity population. (Not that I’m applauding their approach.)
In E. Europe, countries besides Russia became Communist other than by invasion. Look at Yugoslavia. The home-grown Communists there fought off the Nazis in WWII, then after the war when Stalin came knocking, they told him to pound sand. Got them kicked out of Cominform in 1948. They nevertheless stayed a Communist country until the Wall fell.
But communism there was never more popular than it was in, say, Spain or France.
True, Communism was quite popular among the Mediterraneans. (Here’s a map showing Communist voting patterns in W. Europe in the mid-1970s.) But a critical mass of the population never accepted it, and that was enough to tip the balance the other way all throughout the post-WWII period. Note the similarities to the red and blue areas on E. Todd’s map of W. Europe. The correspondence is not perfect, but it is visible.
And the most atomized-nuclear-family (yellow) parts on the map were always, and continue to be, the most hostile towards Communism.
Of course you could say they have an inadaptability to democracy.
English-style liberal democracy was invented by the English, and as such looks different when it is adopted by different peoples across the globe. This is not a surprise. JayMan was referring to countries east of the Hajnal Line, and if you look closely at those Slavic countries falling entirely east of the line, it’s true that they vary considerably in their resemblance to ‘English-style democracy,’ from relatively free Slovakia to quite authoritarian Belarus and Russia.
I think it’s critical to not take these observations in a spirit of a moral judgement. Our cultural values, our behaviors, the governments we create and perpetuate, all of this stems in greater or lesser degree from the blind vagaries of natural selection. It is we who come after and attach moral labels to them. I find this muddies the spirit of scientific inquiry.
“has anybody else talked about this? the selection pressures that the family creates? or are we the only ones considering this?”
it’s funny how obvious it is when you think about it. if you accept cultural selection then family is at the centre. for most of history family was vital for survival and reproductive success so adapting to family structure would be vital too.
.
“Choice or invasion? Both. Russia, the biggest Slavic state, became Communist on her own.”
I think you’re overstating the Communist angle. I think you’re probably right in terms of an inclination to a more autocratic, “big man” type of government but tens of millions were murdered trying to impose communism and i don’t see how you can call anything that requires that much killing a choice.
Now it might be true that in one set of populations the percentage of communists might never go beyond 10%, in another set 20% and a third set 30% and 30% might be the tipping point for imposing communism by force under the right circumstances but i still can’t see that as a choice. Putin doesn’t need gulags. The communists did.
Someone like Putin or Tito yes – a big man who decides all the big stuff but doesn’t interfere too much in the little stuff – but communism was imposed by force and collapsed back to the natural state (big man autocrat) as soon as the people who imposed it had been replaced by others who couldn’t stomach all the killing.
nb There were initially multiple resistance groups in Yugoslavia but the communists betrayed the others to the Gestapo so they ended up the only one. As they were the only one left they got all the allied weapons which is how they imposed communism by force after the war.
nb Afghanistan and Yugoslavia have mountains. Lithuania and Poland not so much.
“Yes, and with the mirror image in England. Re: the yellow regions, it’s striking to me even today that of all the Euro-ethnicities, the Anglos seem the most averse to big-daddy-government-will-take-care-of-you type philosophy. (which as Jayman points out has found its strongest expression in eastern Slavs).”
The big-daddy-government-will-take-care-of-you type philosophy is most prominent in Anglo countries, then Scandiavia, then western continental Europe and at the end has found the weakest expression in eastern Slavs.
All these nanny states and welfare states are Anglo and Scandinavian inventions.
The Slavs have chosen Patriarchal Father government philosophy.
Can you imagine a patriarch checking if all the 20 grand(grand)children have eaten the supper, washed the teeth, said a prayer, and went sleep at 20:00.
No, he would loose all the authority at once The patriarch sets the frames and checks that the general rules are not broken.
But micromanagement is typical for nuclear family. So these family types emanated into politics.
Big daddy government in Anglo countries and Scandinavia that controls every aspect of life.
Patriarchic government in Slavic countries that has rather macro view and is not at all interested in details.
If Big daddy government in Anglo countries and Scandinavia sets the rules and you fail than you are rewarded with help (housing benefits, unemployment money etc).
If Patriarchic government in Slavic countries sets the rules and you fail than you are punished.
You can it even visualize:
Typical Anglo and Scandinavian Big Daddy leader:
http://thebikeshow.net/norman-baker-politicians-bicycle-helmets/
Typical Slavic Patriarchic leader:
http://wiadomosci.wp.pl/gid,13735745,gpage,2,img,13735831,title,Premier-na-motorze,galeria.html
BTW, the Schaff is german
@m.g. – “I think it’s critical to not take these observations in a spirit of a moral judgement. Our cultural values, our behaviors, the governments we create and perpetuate, all of this stems in greater or lesser degree from the blind vagaries of natural selection. It is we who come after and attach moral labels to them. I find this muddies the spirit of scientific inquiry.
hear, hear! (^_^)
@g.w. – “Now it might be true that in one set of populations the percentage of communists might never go beyond 10%, in another set 20% and a third set 30% and 30% might be the tipping point for imposing communism by force under the right circumstances but i still can’t see that as a choice. Putin doesn’t need gulags. The communists did.”
emmanuel todd addresses this in The Explanation of Ideology [pgs. 53-4]:
“Anthropology serves to explain communism but does not legitimize it. Nowhere in the electoral history of the world has a communist party succeeded in winning 50 per cent of the vote, neither in Russia nor in China, nor in Vietnam, Cuba or Yugoslavia. Marxism-Leninism always comes to power through an act of violence and immediately supresses — as a matter of principle — the very concepts of political liberty and free expression of opinion.
“Even in Emilia the Italian Communist Party cannot exceed a maximum of 47 per cent of the vote. In the exogamous family areas of central France, Finland, and southern Portugal, there is always a majority of 60 to 75 per cent of the electorate who refuse the collectivist option and who do not conform to anthropological determinism. This is a reassuring observation, but it is not enough. Three communists acting in unison will always be stronger than three liberals who are free to express their differences. The very idea of communism involves a superior organizational ability which arises from the abolition of individual will and from the imposition of discipline. There is a threshold beyond which a substantial communist minority takes control, if there is no outside intervention, and suppresses the electoral process. A system where the communist party wins over 40 per cent of the vote is soon lost; a communist state will be formed there and will oppress 60 per cent of the population. The Tuscans and the Emilians are spared this disaster only by the overall balance of forces in Italy which neutralize the locally irresistable power of the Italian Communist Party.
“This critical threshold is never reached in coutries where the exogamous community family is not clearly dominant….”
@m.g. – “Russia, the biggest Slavic state, became Communist on her own.”
wrt russia, it should also be remembered that there was a substantial jewish involvement in the communist movement/revolution in russia, so that whole thing wasn’t just a slavic affair.
but that’s a whole other kettle of fish….
@germanschaffficker – “If Big daddy government in Anglo countries and Scandinavia sets the rules and you fail than you are rewarded with help (housing benefits, unemployment money etc).
If Patriarchic government in Slavic countries sets the rules and you fail than you are punished.”
interesting observation. that does sound rather right.
@germanschaffficker – “BTW, the Schaff is german”
heh. gotcha! (^_^)
The big-daddy-government-will-take-care-of-you type philosophy is most prominent in Anglo countries, then Scandiavia, then western continental Europe and at the end has found the weakest expression in eastern Slavs.
No government in W. Europe has ever put in place a system whereby the entire means of production of the economy is appropriated by the government, pricing and distribution of all goods and services are decided on high, and each citizen is guaranteed a job and a lodging. Big-S Socialism. That’s “taking care of you.” I’m talking about the economy here.
Unemployment pay-outs, food stamps, subsidized housing for the poor (social programs) as well as restrictive labor law, protectionist tariffs, etc. (govt. intervention in the economy)… can all be found all over W. Europe (and all over the world). Little-s socialism. Not the same thing. It seems most developed in Scandinavia, pretty well developed in Med. countries, but I strongly disagree that it’s most developed in Anglo countries. On the contrary, of all the Euro-ethnies, relatively speaking, Anglo countries take the most hands-off approach to both their social benefit pay-outs and their intervention in the economy, be it in U.K., Australia, NZ, Canada or (especially) the U.S.
Running around telling people what to name their kids or where they can and can’t smoke cigarettes is an entirely separate (and scary) issue, not linked to economic means of production, and not the “taking care of you” to which I was referring. The current nanny-state explosion I liken to an immune system in a too-clean environment– it runs amok and starts to fight against harmless things. Western governments have gone so far in solving real problems that they’ve now started trying to solve problems that aren’t there. It seems the natural and unhappy trajectory of an uber-feminized modern wealthy state, and I agree fully that its most bizarre over-reaching can currently be found in both U.K. and Scandinavia. Sadly, I think these trends will spread. But I see them as entirely separate from the state commandeering the means of economic production, the type of “taking care of you” of which I was speaking and which did indeed find its earliest and strongest expression in eastern Slavs.
At M.G.
Yes, I agree except the names. I would never call Slavic type of government Big Daddy.
Rather Oppressive Father – organizes life, helps in unlucky accidents and punishes for breaking rules.
Big Daddy is daddy that is always around, is always nice, has some presents for everybody and helps if you got in troubles by your own fault. That is Scandinavian type government.
hbdchick
“This critical threshold is never reached in coutries where the exogamous community family is not clearly dominant.”
I think the basic idea is sound. I just don’t see it as a choice.
.
schafficker
“The big-daddy-government-will-take-care-of-you type philosophy is most prominent in Anglo countries, then Scandiavia, then western continental Europe and at the end has found the weakest expression in eastern Slavs.”
It’s the stealth form of communism. The natural northwest-type form of government was great personal freedom combined with collective decision-making on policy and law reaching its peak around the 1920s. As communists couldn’t get above 10% in those countries they went stealth, slipped into mainstream political parties and worked to build up an authoritarian state piece by piece mostly using empathy manipulation e.g. “no child left behind” to achieve each step.
It’s a different way of achieving the same goal which indirectly provides more evidence for the general thesis.
@g.w. – “The natural northwest-type form of government was great personal freedom….”
i think that this really characterizes the english, the dutch, maybe some of the northern french — but not so much the germans. and definitely not the scandinavians. they are not into great personal freedom. it’s more conformity and consensus up there (see anything written by ibsen). (might’ve been different back in viking & other pre-christian days.)
@m.g. – “Unemployment pay-outs, food stamps, subsidized housing for the poor (social programs) as well as restrictive labor law, protectionist tariffs, etc. (govt. intervention in the economy)… can all be found all over W. Europe (and all over the world). Little-s socialism. Not the same thing.”
i maybe have contributed to the confusion here in my summary of todd’s exogamous family community both in this post and in my previous post on his The Explanation of Ideology. i said that he said that exogamous family community societies (slavs, chinese) are characterized by communism or socialism. that is NOT correct. he said they are just characterized by communism. my bad! sorry. (i’ve made corrections.)
in fact, todd says that socialism or social democracy or bureaucratic socialism is mostly found in authoritarian family societies…
authoritarian family
– cohabitation of the married heir with this parents
– inequality of brothers laid down by inheritance rules, transfer of an unbroken patrimony to one of the sons
– little or no marriage between the children of two brothers
– germany, austria, sweden, norway, belgium, bohemia, scotland, ireland, peripheral regions of france, northern spain, northern portugal, japan, korea, jews, romany gypsies
– socialism/bureaucratic socialism or social democracy, catholicism. fascism sometimes, various separatist and autonomous (anti-universalist) movements (think german federalism)
… OR in egalitarian nuclear family societies …
egalitarian nuclear family
– no cohabitation of married children with their parents
– equality of brothers laid down by inheritance rules
– no marriage between the children of brothers.
– northern france, northern italy, central and southern spain, central portugal, greece, romania, poland, latin america, ethiopia
– christianity (catholicism); the “liberte, egalite, fraternite” form of liberalism
he also seems to distinguish in general between northern european socialist societies (“non-totalitarian” socialism) and southern european socialist societies (“more libertarian, revolutionary and impotent”) and a third, english socialism [pgs. 78-79]:
“The more libertarian, revolutionary and impotent socialist organizations of southern Europe — central and southern distinct from their more bureaucratic and efficient social-democratic brothers and enemies. The anthropological key to understanding these political differences can pin down and explain this division which since the beginning has rent the Second International, setting sullen Germanic bureaucrats against libertarian Latins in a pathetic dialogue. Until now interpretations of this dichotomy, inexplicable in terms of Marxist economic categories, have been based on impalpable cultural characteristics — Germanic or Latin — the division itself being treated as a subsidiary concern, a regrettable theoretical imperfection.
“Once bureaucratic socialism and the authoritarian family are brought together the problem is easily resolved. Libertarian socialism corresponds to egalitarian nuclear family areas which seek equality between brothers, but not paternal authority. The anthropological distinction coincides only imperfectly with linguistic categories: in northern Spain — Galicia, Catalonia, — and in the south-west of France — Acquitaine — there lies a vast zone which is Latin in its language but authoritarian in its family structure, and is dominated by a bureaucratic socialism. The south-west of France supports the state and furnishes a good number of its employees.
“However, because Western Europe contains three family types and not two, the Second Internaitonal embraces three forms of socialism. The English Labor Party cannot be classified either as bureaucratic or as libertarian socialism. Unlike social democracy it does not control its trade unions and has a strong anarchistic streak. Unlike revolutionary socialism it is calm, strong and has a vocation to govern. The source of these characteristics is of course the absolute nuclear family…..”
i gotta sit down and read the book more fully/carefully. (*^_^*)
Science, capitalism, democracy, Marxism, libertarianism, Darwinism, historicism, you name it, is there a single body of influential ideas which did not originate in nuclear-family-based societies?
At Luke Lea
First of all:
– Monotheistic religions that originated in Middle East area: Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity generally, and specifically Catholicism (half of Church Fathers were from Middle East), Judaism and plethora of strange monotheistic sects.
And regional ideas that are not so popular in Europe but have influence on more people then live in all Western Europe including offspring countries.
– Jihad (war in the name of religion was supposedly unknown in Europe till contact with Muslims)
– Confucianism
– Russian autocratism (really very specific style of life). The Russian world for it means self rule
– Oriental despotism
– reincarnation, karma, yoga, yin and yang, and all these strange Asiatic ideas ( reincarnation was present also in some European cultures but became best developed on subcontinent)
Many of non European ideas have not been classified and codified. But it does not mean they do not exist.
All these names: Science, capitalism, democracy, Marxism, libertarianism, Darwinism, historicism are repeated all the time in WestEuropean countries but the truth is that 5/6 of world population does not care at all about them.
Or non WEuropean population is even totally hostile.
African organization Boko Haram is en vogue just now. They just express violently what majority of non-Europeans think.
[…] did a long post about Emmanuel Todd, a French anthropologist who wrote a book, The Explanation of Ideology, about […]
“i think that this really characterizes the english, the dutch, maybe some of the northern french — but not so much the germans. and definitely not the scandinavians”
Yes you’re right. More boxes – and the most northwest is probably the least representative.
@luke – “Science, capitalism, democracy, Marxism, libertarianism, Darwinism, historicism, you name it, is there a single body of influential ideas which did not originate in nuclear-family-based societies?”
i think we can give credit for marxism as an ideology to karl, who was (despite what wikipedia says – “Karl Heinrich Marx [5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883] was a German philosopher….”) jewish.
todd characterizes jews (i think he’s talking about ashkenazi jews mostly — european jews, anyway) as having authoritarian families (see my comment above), not nuclear-families.
the rest? yeah — all stem pretty much from nuclear-family-based societies. (not 100% sure about science. need to think about that one some more.)
You guys might like this paper by Peter Frost:
137.140.1.71/jsec/articles/volume2/issue4/NEEPSfrost.pdf
He hypothesizes that different ecological/subsistence pressures have influenced the direction and magnitude of sexual selection thus driving the evolution of genetic differences between populations. It’s not about family systems per se, but it’s easy to see them being incorporated into this kind of analysis eventually. Pretty interesting stuff…
@man de novo – thnx, man! i’ll definitely have to check it out. (^_^)
[…] system that was vastly different than that of westerners, as hbd* chick discusses here. This caused Easterners to go down a considerably different social and political trajectory than did Weste…, and the system found in Eastern Europe was common in the rest of Eurasia going as far east as […]
[…] way the family was organized, and, more importantly, the way this caused other aspects of society to be organized had very important implications for ideology, as explained here. The differences between the […]
I would like to see some sources on 10% lifetime celibac y rates.
@anonymous – “I would like to see some sources on 10% lifetime celibacy rates.”
well, properly put it’s a 10-20% non-marriage rate (see john hajnal). of course that might not have meant total celibacy/failure to reproduce (although in many places there were strong pressures to make sure that the two went together).
[…] https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/family-types-and-the-evolution-of-behavioral-traits/ […]
[…] https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/family-types-and-the-evolution-of-behavioral-traits/ […]