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A friend passed me this ScienceDaily press release, American liberals and conservatives think as if from different cultures. I suspected that Jon Haidt was on the paper, and I was right, Liberals Think More Analytically (More “WEIRD”) Than Conservatives. Reading the paper the major finding seems to be that Western social liberals, and especially libertarians, exhibit the tendencies which have been defined as “WEIRD”: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. In contrast, social conservatives in the West are less WEIRD, and tend to resemble non-Western cultures in cognitive style.
The way that this paper dichotomizes the classes is that the WEIRD tends to be more “analytic” and non-WEIRD more “holistic.” The terminology here is often freighted, and I’be cautious about overemphasizing that aspect. Rather, the key here is that in terms of traits you see a pattern where Western liberals are to a great extent the tail of a particular distribution of mental styles. To illustrate the analytic style of reasoning Joshua Greene, the author of Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, has argued that incest taboos are based on disgust and reflex, rather than reason (or, the reasons are rationalizations). And, that this is clearly from his perspective not a good thing. That is the classic WEIRD tendency; to decompose the broader issue into its parts, and reach logical conclusions, even if they seem absurd or repulsive, and embrace them. Brian Williams is also WEIRD. Very WEIRD.
In the above paper they use samples of college students at University of Virginia, those who participated in the moral foundations survey, and a few thousand Chinese students, to test their model. Though the correlations in most cases were modest (e.g., on the order of 0.2 to 0.4), it seems clear from their data that a left-right social orientation can map mapped onto differences in analytic vs. holistic thinking across cultures, and also reflect differences between cultures. Chinese college students raised in urban areas were more analytic if socially liberal. Western college students were more holistic if socially conservative.
I don’t think any of this is going to shock or surprise anyone. Rather, the interesting part to me is how easily it maps onto pattern discerned by the psychological Richard Nisbett, and reported in his book The Geographic of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why. Nisbett reported a pattern which in today’s language would have a continuum of WEIRDness like so: Anglosphere & Norden > Continental Europe > rest of the world. These data in that framework suggests that even within the Anglosphere, which is dominated by WEIRD thought, there are a large reservoir of people who reject that paradigm in their daily life. In addition, the correlation with length of time post-industrial, as well as the fact that the tendencies toward WEIRDness are now cropping up in East Asia as well, suggest that in some ways a Whiggish model is broadly correct. Nisbett and Haidt’s group both report that it isn’t particularly difficult to prime individuals to switch from one mode of cognitive style to another.
Finally, many social liberals look at social conservatives as being backward, and in need of being “educated” and “ignorant.” There’s some descriptive truth in this, insofar as there’s a fair amount of evidence that social conservatism is negatively correlated with intelligence and education. But, one can also look at social conservatives as a different culture, as simply not WEIRD. This puts modern social liberals in somewhat of a bind if they are multicultural, because perhaps they are now enjoined to extend their tolerance of other cultures to social conservatives? OK, forget about that.
I think that there is a rising liberal critique of “multiculturalism”, led primarily by “new atheists”. Multiculturalism has always seemed to me to be a vague concept, mostly referenced to by conservatives as a dis to the left. Liberals I think, have always thought of it as just meaning tolerance. However liberals must not confuse being tolerant of different peoples and lifestyles with being politically correct in not asserting the superiority of modern western values. This is what Bill Maher has basically been arguing. With respect to social conservatives yes, liberals believe they are backwards given that most social conservatives draw their beliefs from a book which is full of bullshit and was written 2,000 years ago. Muslims are obviously even more backwards, but until the west stops fleecing the region taking away any possibility of economic development, Muslim fundamentalism will remain a powerful ideology in the region. Sadly this ideology does make Muslims a potential threat anywhere they’re settled. Regardless of how progressive a particular Muslim community might be, there are powerful, well resourced, global terrorist organizations that are ready to prey on outcast young Muslim men.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-856617
most social conservatives draw their beliefs from a book which is full of bullshit and was written 2,000 years ago.
they justify their beliefs in the USA with their religion. but that is not the root cause of social conservatism. east asian nations are quite socially conservative in many ways, but the most secular in regards to supernaturalism. confusing this issue is simplifying to the point of missing the point of this post. don’t do so again.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-856640
Is it fair to say that Western Liberals are the last traditional-humanlike population on the planet?
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-856675
Sorry, meant to say *least* traditional humanlike population. As in on a vector of traits they are farthest away from a traditional average.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-856681
So socially conservative people are less intelligent?
Shouldn’t we read that the other way round? Less intelligent people are more conservative (because that works better for them); more intelligent people can risk to try a change without losing sight of their own interests.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-856709
Are the mechanics of transition from “holistic” to “analytic” thinking independent of that from “farmer morality” to “forager morality”?
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-856792
I think modern western values would gain more cachet in traditional (conservative) societies around the world if they were disassociated from the word “western”. I think of these values as being universal liberal values that happened to be adopted first by people in Western Europe and their colonial cousins. Notwithstanding what people like Peter Frost say, there is no reason to believe that some people/races are more congenitally predisposed to adopting these values than others.
The problem with propagating these values in traditional societies, which will undoubtedly benefit them materially and spiritually by becoming more liberal, is that historically such values have been associated with Western colonizers and missionary Christianity. Contrary to romantic ideas some Westerners have, colonialism was mostly about grabbing raw resources and having a ready market to dump goods (and undesirables) on. There was undeniable exploitation, even though the colonized people experienced some positive side effects. Today, though, people in these traditional societies who try to propagate liberal values are tainted with the “western” moniker, and can be easily labeled as traitors. So not calling such values as “western” would be in everybody’s best interest.
Doubtful. Modern western consumer products, media, etc. have plenty of "cachet" in more traditional societies. Your notion that people in non-western societies are highly skeptical of anything perceived as "western" because of their bitterness over western interference/hegemony doesn't seem to have much basis in fact.
To give an amusing anecdote, I recall watching a documentary some time ago in which a radical Islamist, in the midst of explaining his ideology, sends his son down to the store to purchase some Coke. There was a question about his patronage of an American corporation, and he said something along the lines of "I must admit, the infidels do know how to make a good product." Then he carried on explaining why the Great Satan must be destroyed.
I think of these values as being universal liberal values that happened to be adopted first by people in Western Europe and their colonial cousins.
There are no such things as universal values.
Notwithstanding what people like Peter Frost say, there is no reason to believe that some people/races are more congenitally predisposed to adopting these values than others.
The very fact that some populations have adopted them and other (genetically distinct) populations have not is reason to suspect that. Of course, that is by no means proof, or even very compelling evidence, but it does justify seriously entertaining the idea.
When people with different genes and different cultures, facing different ecological and economic conditions, differ in their behavior/thinking, it's quite difficult to disentangle all of those factors and get at the root cause (which, in the end, may be an interplay of all of the above). Just because we know cultures can change substantially, we should not rule out genetics as a source of cross-cultural differences.
To be clear, when I talk about genetic causes here, I mean statistical differences between populations in the distributions of various alleles, leading to statistical differences in the predisposition to embrace this or that worldview or value system; as opposed to some kind of cartoon in which there is a gene for liberalism, or whatever, that some groups possess and others do not. Hopefully that clarification is superfluous.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-856926
One of the problems with that way of thinking is that after knocking down the original publicly accepted reason / rationalization for a thing they don’t consider that there may be a reason why that rationalization developed e.g.
option 1) wash your hand before meals cos God says so -> don’t wash your hands
option 2) wash your hand before meals cos God says so -> wash your hand before meals cos germs
or
option 1) incest taboos cos God -> no incest taboos
option 2) incest taboos cos God -> incest taboos cos x, y, z
They think knocking down the rationalizations is the end point whereas the end point is *why* those rationalizations arose in the first place.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857014
Finally, there’s a study that proves what I’ve always suspected. To me, many of the socially conservative regions of America (the South, Texas, maybe Utah) remind me more of traditionalist, clannish places like the Middle East and northern India rather than Northwestern Europe. The devotion to extended family, public professions of religion, culture of honor and retributive violence, etc. Within Europe, the South seems to be most like Russia, with its historical and present-day militarism and rising Christian, “traditional values” identity. Whereas the liberal Northeast and parts of the Pacific coast is, in essence, more stereotypically “Western”.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857030
I think modern western values would gain more cachet in traditional (conservative) societies around the world if they were disassociated from the word “western”.
Doubtful. Modern western consumer products, media, etc. have plenty of “cachet” in more traditional societies. Your notion that people in non-western societies are highly skeptical of anything perceived as “western” because of their bitterness over western interference/hegemony doesn’t seem to have much basis in fact.
To give an amusing anecdote, I recall watching a documentary some time ago in which a radical Islamist, in the midst of explaining his ideology, sends his son down to the store to purchase some Coke. There was a question about his patronage of an American corporation, and he said something along the lines of “I must admit, the infidels do know how to make a good product.” Then he carried on explaining why the Great Satan must be destroyed.
I think of these values as being universal liberal values that happened to be adopted first by people in Western Europe and their colonial cousins.
There are no such things as universal values.
Notwithstanding what people like Peter Frost say, there is no reason to believe that some people/races are more congenitally predisposed to adopting these values than others.
The very fact that some populations have adopted them and other (genetically distinct) populations have not is reason to suspect that. Of course, that is by no means proof, or even very compelling evidence, but it does justify seriously entertaining the idea.
When people with different genes and different cultures, facing different ecological and economic conditions, differ in their behavior/thinking, it’s quite difficult to disentangle all of those factors and get at the root cause (which, in the end, may be an interplay of all of the above). Just because we know cultures can change substantially, we should not rule out genetics as a source of cross-cultural differences.
To be clear, when I talk about genetic causes here, I mean statistical differences between populations in the distributions of various alleles, leading to statistical differences in the predisposition to embrace this or that worldview or value system; as opposed to some kind of cartoon in which there is a gene for liberalism, or whatever, that some groups possess and others do not. Hopefully that clarification is superfluous.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857102
There is a great deal of diversity both within the left and the right. Each of those has it’s social dimension and it’s economic dimension. Razib addresses the social side and concludes liberals are brighter. Maybe so. But, mix in the economic side, and you’ll see low IQ moochers on the left and on the right see those who make the jobs, engineers, businessmen, and farmers. Farmers today live in a competitive world where few survive long without plenty mental horsepower.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857137
There are no such things as universal values.
that’s a stupid assertion. you should qualify. all societies abhor matricide (even when justified as in the case of orestes it is frowned upon). it’s probably a pretty straightforward human adaptation. there are plenty of other “human universals.” many so trivial as barely worth enumerating, but certain refuting your assertion.
The very fact that some populations have adopted them and other (genetically distinct) populations have not is reason to suspect that
this is one thing that jumps out at this particular categorization. western europeans (french/germans) are between anglos and non-westerners. but genetically on a worldwide scale they’re almost indistinguishable from the anglo-british group. whether only nw europeans can be liberal in the classical sense, it is obvious that they are not necessarily so.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857148
Contrary to romantic ideas some Westerners have, colonialism was mostly about grabbing raw resources and having a ready market to dump goods (and undesirables) on.
more recent colonial enterprises, say from 1800 on, can also be thought of as a transfer of resources from the middle/lower elements of the metrepole, to the upper elements. it’s people like cecil rhodes who benefited from colonialism, or civil servants and officers, as well as aristocratic settlers in kenya. the french west african adventure was due to some extent because of wounded pride in the wake of the franco-prussian war. this is not to say that materialist explanations were not justifications. but looking below the surface it’s not clear that in most cases colonialism was a net loss (some have argued that only india of the numerous british colonies actually was a credit to the imperial fisc over the long term).
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857150
I am not convinced that either Western Liberals or East Asians are as free from the religious impulse as they would like to believe.
Western Liberals deride rednecks for denying evolution. As a geologist, I agree with them on this, but when you apply evolution to people, they suddenly become believers in magic. I once attended a seminar about New Zealand bird evolution and drew a parallel between what the lecturer had said and human populations. Big mistake!
East Asians tend not to be very religious, but they can be amazingly superstitious. I lived on Japan for several years and their capacity for believing in silly superstitions often surprised me. I once lay down to sleep in a mountain cabin, but my fellow climbers would not led me sleep with my head facing north. ‘Kitamakura’ is apparently highly inauspicious. The birthrate crashes during inauspicious years.
Most of us our guided by our prejudices most of the time. It is simply too tiring and time-consuming to think through the pros and cons of every problem that confronts us. Liberal and Asian prejudices never strike me as being that rational.
yes.
also, you need to not confuse religion with superstition or ideological movements and such. that's comment problem in these threads. when i say 'religion' i'm talking about institutional religion mostly, so perhaps in the future i should quality. east asia has historically, and still is, defined as the region of the world where confessional and institutional religion is notably weak. it's cultural elites, from the mandarins of the sung to the literati of the tokugawa exhibited a sort of secular humanist ethos in comparison to the elites of other societies.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857236
they justify their beliefs in the USA with their religion. but that is not the root cause of social conservatism. east asian nations are quite socially conservative in many ways, but the most secular in regards to supernaturalism. confusing this issue is simplifying to the point of missing the point of this post. don't do so again.
I got you, but then should we not be more sympathetic towards Muslims? It seems that a horrible mix of a deficit in cognitive ability and a lack of economic development (largely due to western imperialism) to close the gap are what’s producing their dangerous culture. Also, could we infer that democracy is an inevitable outcome of advanced societies? China transitioning to a democracy then looks like a guarantee.
western imperialism is producing the religious autocracy in saudi arabia? i don't think so. before we talk about norms, we need to get a good descriptive account of the facts and i'm not convinced you have that.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857239
The point of the study is quite accurate: liberals and liberal-minded people think quite differently from the vast majority of humanity.
And yes, that difference is primarily concentrated in one group of people (i.e. non-Celtic NW Europeans). Among that group, some standout more than others (English, Nordics).
That said, I don’t like this particular study. For while I suspect the point is correct, all across sample sizes were small. They used college students, which may or may not be acceptable in this case. But they mention absolutely no checking for racial confounds, which (as Peter Frost previously discussed) is highly important in these types of studies.
Whenever you do studies of political differences, it’s usually helpful to have your sample be as ethnically homogenous as possible. For while your findings may still technically be correct, the source may be a population-based difference.
That they found the results in Chinese as well is interesting (assuming, hopefully, they were all ethnic Han), but not too surprising.
(Caps seem to have been added by edit, not my intention).
so speaking as a population geneticist, i will tell you that if you model just the english, they come out as about 25% germanic, and 75% like the people of the "celtic fringe." culturally though the eradication of the brythonic celtic substrate was pretty extreme (xtianity was extirpated).
also, i am curious if the english are more liberal than the welsh or scottish, or whether the anglian regions of scotland are more liberal than the celtic ones.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857279
This reminds me a lot of HBD Chick’s theories on clannishness and outbreeding, as well as the fact that blacks, Asians, white proles and Hispanics teamed up to fight same sex marriage in California in 2008.
asians and hispanics did not form part of the team. i checked the exit polls. don't know about white proles. blacks, to some extent yes.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857292
This is a good documentary on the cognitive differences between West and East based on Richard Nisbett’s work. Nisbett is interviewed in the documentary:
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857305
If you want a good example of WEIRDnedd at work, take a look at Joshua Greene’s dissertation The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Truth About Morality and What To Do About It ( http://scholar.harvard.edu/joshuagreene/files/dissertation.pdf ). Greene writes, first acknowledging the practical problems of utilitarianism and then recommending it (pages 331-334):
““Utilitarian: one who believes that the morally right action is the one with the best consequences, so far as the distribution of happiness is concerned; a creature generally believed to be endowed with the propensity to ignore their [sic] own drowning children in order to push buttons which will cause mild sexual gratification in a warehouse full of rabbits””
“To a connoisseur of normative moral theories, nothing says “outmoded and ridiculous” quite like utilitarianism. This view is so widely reviled because it ha something for everyone to hate. If you love honesty, you can hate utilitarianism for telling you to lie. If you think that life is sacred, you can hate utilitarianism for telling you to kill the dying, the sick, the unborn, and even the newborn, and on top of that you can hate it for telling you in the same breath that you may not be allowed to eat meat (Singer, 1979). If you think it reasonable to provide a nice life for yourself and your family, you can hate utilitarianism for telling you to give up nearly everything you’ve got to provide for total strangers (Singer, 1972; Unger, 1996), including your own life, should a peculiar monster with a taste for human flesh have a sufficiently strong desire to eat you (Nozick, 1974). If you hate doing awful things to people, you can hate utilitarianism for telling you to kidnap people and steal their organs (Thomson, 1986). If you see the attainment of a high quality of life for all of humanity as a reasonable goal, you can hate utilitarianism for suggesting that a world full people whose lives are barely worth living may be an even better goal (Parfit, 1984). If you love equality, you can hate utilitarianism for making the downtrodden worse off in order to make the well off even better off (Rawls, 1971). If it’s important to you that your experiences be genuine, you can hate utilitarianism for telling you that no matter how good your life is, you would be better off with your brain hooked up to a machine that gives you unnaturally pleasant artificial experiences. No matter what you value most, your values will eventually conflict with the utilitarian’s principle of greatest good and, if he has his way, be crushed by it. Utilitarianism is a philosophy that only… well, only a utilitarian could love.”
“With some trepidation, and like many who have come before me, I will defend a utilitarian approach to morality, but in a non-standard way. I do not claim that utilitarianism is true or correct. Nor do I claim that it is somehow built into or presupposed by our moral concepts or language (Hare, 1981). (In other words I reject both the realist-cognitivist and expressivist versions of utilitarianism.) Nor do I recommend a utilitarian approach to every domain of moral life. Instead, I modestly recommend utilitarianism as a public standard for evaluating actions and policies, as a meta-policy that is likely to meet the needs of people who have come to terms with the metaphysical, psychological, sociological, and evolutionary truth about morality. Utilitarianism, I claim, follows not logically from the truth about morality, but psychologically. It’s what you’re likely to want once you know the truth. This, of course, is an empirical claim, but given the dearth of psychologically and metaphysically informed moral thinkers to serve as subjects, my speculations will have to suffice for now.”
Any attempt to reduce morality to a cost-benefit analysis is going to wind up looking like utilitarianism and that’s why it’s going to fail. Greene explained that emotion is what makes moral decisions distinct from other decisions pretty well for an article in Discover Magazine ( http://discovermagazine.com/2004/apr/whose-life-would-you-save ) so I’m surprised he fails to see the importance of emotion in making truly moral decisions. But the problem goes even deeper than that. It seems as if emotions are critical to humans making any decision at all ( http://www.smh.com.au/national/feeling-our-way-to-decision-20090227-8k8v.html ). Further, psychopaths (for whom the emotional voice of a conscience is absent) display less moral behavior, not more moral behavior ( http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html ). And we also have the interesting case of a woman pointing out to a psychopath that his way of thinking seems to represent the Buddhist ideal (in this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/life-as-a-nonviolent-psychopath/282271/ ). I think it’s also no mistake that Buddhism is popular with Western WEIRD folks. One can see the same cold detachment play out in Existentialism, as well.
At the end of the day, the WEIRD folks seem to believe that the idea is cold detached rational thought free from emotion or preconception, yet the very real examples we have of people who achieve that ideal through brain damage or birth and who are detached from the conventional emotional attachments used to make decisions represent not an ideal but a horror and evilness, and it has nothing to do with intelligence. The Elliot that couldn’t make decisions in the article above retained a high IQ and many psychopaths are quite intelligent, yet they make horrible decisions without irrational emotions governing or swaying them. Without emotion, there is no morality because the root of morality is caring. Without caring, anything and everything becomes thinkable.
As to the idea that there are not universal values, that’s false. The research by Greene and others suggests that there is a strong common foundation that makes certain ideas uncomfortable to consider that’s common across most humans who are not psychopaths (I would argue that narcissists represent a more mild type of psychopathic thinking). What makes morality more flexible across culture is the way we categorize the factors and frame the issues, which influences how we feel about them. We care more about the people we know and love than about strangers, so dehumanizing one’s opponents makes horrific behavior against them more thinkable and acceptable because the emotional revulsion to treating them badly is suppressed, and that’s where the left is on to something with their idea of “the other”. By making people “the other”, we can treat them more like inanimate objects than family. On the flip side one who cares about strangers as much as their family can abandon their family to help strangers (e.g., see Machine Gun Preacher) and one who cares about animals as deeply as humans may feel compelled to become a vegetarian or even a vegan. And this is why the left, empathizing with victims and opponents during times of war often sound like they care more about the bad guys than the good guys, because perhaps they really do. It’s not that their underlying morality is fundamentally different, but the moral distance they apply to the various elements is significantly different.
And that’s where I think the academic left’s ideal of emotional detachment and moral flatness is so potentially dangerous. Emotional detachment allows a person to treat others like chess pieces, which is essentially what a psychopath does. And a flat moral landscape, where a parent cares as much about a faceless stranger in a far off land as their own child is not going to function properly as a parent. We can see this played out in fiction. The Kodoss the Executioner in the classic Star Trek made a coldly utilitarian decision that he considered right until the end. Last night the NBC show Constantine dealt with a character that neglected his family to help the title character save strangers. There are endless movies including The Forbin Project that depict artificial intelligence without emotions as being coldly calculating. And in the graphic novel and movie Watchmen (spoiler alert), we have the hyper-intelligent leftist character deciding to deceptively murder millions to bring about world piece while the uncompromising right-wing character remains determined to reveal the deception even if that means undoing the peace it achieved. In the real world, we can see the left’s emotionally detached ends rather than means oriented thinking leading again and again to things like The Reign of Terror, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, gulags, and The Killing Fields. If you just put the right smart people in charge and kill off the emotionally driven resisters who are in the way, Utopia is just around the corner.
So count me as being wholly in favor of emotion-driven morality. Seeing what the alternative means, it’s not something anyone should welcome. Not even a psychopath, since they rely on the ability to prey on normal moral people advance (you can get a glimpse of a high density of psychopaths manipulating each other at the school mentioned in this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 ).
The inability to distinguish between sensation - non voluntary bodily responses to externally experience or administered stimulii i.e. feelings and emotion - what those
feelings mean - is, in my view why psychopaths dont progress from mere consciousness to conscience. The first
merely gives information - eg a pain experience wildest the latter gives intelligence - if I have this experience, then so can others. This requires an imaginal facility that psycho
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857333
How accurate is the “non-Celtic” qualification? Isn’t the UK/Anglosphere more “Celtic” than Continental Europe?
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857354
Further on the lack of religiosity of East Asians, it is worth bearing in mind that it may be a fairly recent phenomenon.
Also, today, there are numerous “new religions” in Japan. The largest (Soka Gakkai) has its own political party. Some are pretty weird. Millions belong to them.
In the medieval era, Japan went through a profound Buddhist revival with new sects such as Jodo Shinshu becoming popular movements in the way that the old monastic orders had never managed. One offshoot of this, the Jodo Shinshu became a major military power in its own right and its peasant armies were noted for their fanatical bravery. At the same time, Christianity arrived in Japan and picked up tens of thousands of converts.
When Japan was reunified under Hideyoshi, he moved to outlaw Christianity because it made the lower orders to uppity. A Christian rebellion on the Shimabara Peninsula led him to fear the fanatical zeal with which it imbued many of its followers. As many as 100,000 chose crucifixion rather than abandoning their faith. Others went underground and retained their religion until Japan rescinded the ban on Christianity in the middle of the nineteenth century. Hideyoshi also banned a number of the more militant Buddhist sects for the same reason.
Hideyoshi then made the secular philosophy of Confucianism the state creed and actively discouraged Buddhism. Neoconfucianism was in vogue for the next two hundred and fifty years because it taught that the highest good was obedience to authority. Two hundred and fifty years is a long time.
I normally think population differences are genetic, but on this occasion I suspect the lack of religiosity on the part of Far Easterners is more a cultural phenomenon.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857399
Also millions took part in mass spontaneous pilgrimages in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries despite all attempts to discourage this.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857402
I don’t think Brian Williams is that “WEIRD”. You don’t hear a lot of complaints from parents when actress daughters do nude/sex scenes, and not all of those parents are WEIRD – Jon Voight (Angelina Jolie’s father) is a straight-up conservative.
@Anon
In incest’s case, the obvious reason is a combination of the Westermarck Effect plus the risks of bad recessive congenital birth defects coming into play with inbreeding. Of course, you don’t really have that rationale if the incestuous couple grew up apart (no Westermarck Effect) and are either both sterile or use contraception consistently.
There’s some value in that type of analytical outlook. It underpins stuff like libertarianism, and helps to challenge transmitted beliefs and practices that don’t really have any purpose (or have a horrible purpose) but carry on simply because people were raised to believe in them and pass them on.
@Razib Khan
Question. Can you trust that these are actually universals that emerged in all of these societies? Especially considering that there’s been a gigantic amount of trade and interaction among virtually all societies in the world in the past 500 years, and before that there was thousands of years of cultural and material exchange via trade and warfare.
The post-1800 Imperialism didn’t provide much to Great Britain or any of the imperial powers outside of India. I can’t find the paper, but it estimated that excluding India and countries like Canada/Australia/New Zealand, the rest of the empire represented single-digit percentage points of British GDP, and throughout the 19th century the British traded much more with other European countries and with the free Latin American nations than they did with their colonies.
Of course, we didn’t need Great Britain to prove you don’t need colonies to industrialize (although you do probably need the New World food crops). Germany and Belgium effectively industrialized before ever getting empires.
http://nypost.com/1999/11/30/questions-for-brian-williams/Irish Catholic families from New Jersey traditionally are socially conservative.
I think Razib's point about how both Nisbett and Haidt note that it isn't very difficult to prime people to switch cognitive styles would apply here. Williams has had a long career in the media and holds one of the most traditionally prestigious positions in the mainstream liberal media.
don't interpolate what you think my point was. i should have made it explicit. the WEIRD thing is actually watching your daughter getting her ass eaten (simulated). re: jolie, jon voight was pretty pissed about her making out with her brother actually.
Can you trust that these are actually universals that emerged in all of these societies? Especially considering that there’s been a gigantic amount of trade and interaction among virtually all societies in the world in the past 500 years, and before that there was thousands of years of cultural and material exchange via trade and warfare.
that's why people focus on 'small scale societies.'
Germany and Belgium effectively industrialized before ever getting empires.
to some extent bismarck seems to have encouraged stupid french colonial ventures to keep them occupied, while avoiding getting involved himself. silesia was surely worth all of africa.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857420
Western Liberals deride rednecks for denying evolution. As a geologist, I agree with them on this, but when you apply evolution to people, they suddenly become believers in magic. I once attended a seminar about New Zealand bird evolution and drew a parallel between what the lecturer had said and human populations. Big mistake!
East Asians tend not to be very religious, but they can be amazingly superstitious. I lived on Japan for several years and their capacity for believing in silly superstitions often surprised me. I once lay down to sleep in a mountain cabin, but my fellow climbers would not led me sleep with my head facing north. 'Kitamakura' is apparently highly inauspicious. The birthrate crashes during inauspicious years.
Most of us our guided by our prejudices most of the time. It is simply too tiring and time-consuming to think through the pros and cons of every problem that confronts us. Liberal and Asian prejudices never strike me as being that rational.
Most of us our guided by our prejudices most of the time.
yes.
also, you need to not confuse religion with superstition or ideological movements and such. that’s comment problem in these threads. when i say ‘religion’ i’m talking about institutional religion mostly, so perhaps in the future i should quality. east asia has historically, and still is, defined as the region of the world where confessional and institutional religion is notably weak. it’s cultural elites, from the mandarins of the sung to the literati of the tokugawa exhibited a sort of secular humanist ethos in comparison to the elites of other societies.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857441
@AnonIn incest's case, the obvious reason is a combination of the Westermarck Effect plus the risks of bad recessive congenital birth defects coming into play with inbreeding. Of course, you don't really have that rationale if the incestuous couple grew up apart (no Westermarck Effect) and are either both sterile or use contraception consistently.
There's some value in that type of analytical outlook. It underpins stuff like libertarianism, and helps to challenge transmitted beliefs and practices that don't really have any purpose (or have a horrible purpose) but carry on simply because people were raised to believe in them and pass them on.
@Razib KhanQuestion. Can you trust that these are actually universals that emerged in all of these societies? Especially considering that there's been a gigantic amount of trade and interaction among virtually all societies in the world in the past 500 years, and before that there was thousands of years of cultural and material exchange via trade and warfare.The post-1800 Imperialism didn't provide much to Great Britain or any of the imperial powers outside of India. I can't find the paper, but it estimated that excluding India and countries like Canada/Australia/New Zealand, the rest of the empire represented single-digit percentage points of British GDP, and throughout the 19th century the British traded much more with other European countries and with the free Latin American nations than they did with their colonies.
Of course, we didn't need Great Britain to prove you don't need colonies to industrialize (although you do probably need the New World food crops). Germany and Belgium effectively industrialized before ever getting empires.
Brian Williams is actually Irish Catholic:
http://nypost.com/1999/11/30/questions-for-brian-williams/
Irish Catholic families from New Jersey traditionally are socially conservative.
I think Razib’s point about how both Nisbett and Haidt note that it isn’t very difficult to prime people to switch cognitive styles would apply here. Williams has had a long career in the media and holds one of the most traditionally prestigious positions in the mainstream liberal media.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857443
It seems that a horrible mix of a deficit in cognitive ability and a lack of economic development (largely due to western imperialism) to close the gap are what’s producing their dangerous culture.
western imperialism is producing the religious autocracy in saudi arabia? i don’t think so. before we talk about norms, we need to get a good descriptive account of the facts and i’m not convinced you have that.
No, western imperialism did not give birth to the religious autocracy in Saudi Arabia. However, if such a regime (which produced the 911 hijackers) did not play along with western corporate interests you can bet that serious attempts to oust it would be made. The Saudi royals use religious fundamentalism to control their population as they and their western allies rob it blind. We have the perfect evidence of this at the present time. Defying OPEC the Saudis refuse to lower production despite weakening demand thus causing the drastic drop in oil prices recently. How does the significant drop in government revenue this entails benefit the Saudis? What makes Saudi Arabia so different from say Russia (another country heavily dependent on oil revenue) that it would go against its own interest and make itself less wealthy? The answer is that Russia is actually an independent actor in the geopolitical world stage, it either sinks or swims alone. Saudi Arabia on the other hand is partners with the US and acts in correspondence with US interests. You may call it a conspiracy theory, but what other explanation makes sense? The Saudis are foregoing billions in revenue, and are damaging relations within OPEC for what reason?
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857445
And yes, that difference is primarily concentrated in one group of people (i.e. non-Celtic NW Europeans). Among that group, some standout more than others (English, Nordics).
so speaking as a population geneticist, i will tell you that if you model just the english, they come out as about 25% germanic, and 75% like the people of the “celtic fringe.” culturally though the eradication of the brythonic celtic substrate was pretty extreme (xtianity was extirpated).
also, i am curious if the english are more liberal than the welsh or scottish, or whether the anglian regions of scotland are more liberal than the celtic ones.
There are not really any stereotypes to that effect - if there is a difference, no one has noticed it.
I would say the divide is between the Southern or South Eastern English, and everyone else. The SE English seem more Liberal/WEIRD. Whereas there is not an appreciable difference between Edinburgh and Oban or Inverness, or between Cardiff and Conwy. The dividing line does not seem to lie between historically-Celtic and historically-Saxon/Germanic regions. Areas of the old Danelaw are not particularly Liberal. The divide seems to fit closely to HBD Chick's early-Manorialism thesis, though.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857447
Further on the lack of religiosity of East Asians, it is worth bearing in mind that it may be a fairly recent phenomenon.
this is false. depending on how you define “religion”. i define in the context of this post religion as organized and institutional religion. obviously organized religions have long existed in east asia. but confessionalization in a western sense was always a weaker restricted phenomenon. the tang destruction of the power of buddhist orders, the joson driving of the monasteries to the hills, and oda nobunaga’s breaking of the power of military monks all attest to the repeated subordination of religion to temporal powers. east asian potentates were all henry the viii, very rarely did they have to pay penance as at canossa. you can look at south korea today to see that in fact the post world war 2 period has been one massive confessionalization. to some extent something similar happened by fiat in tokugawa japan, where families were enrolled in buddhist temples, but mostly as a means toward extirpating catholicism.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857459
@AnonIn incest's case, the obvious reason is a combination of the Westermarck Effect plus the risks of bad recessive congenital birth defects coming into play with inbreeding. Of course, you don't really have that rationale if the incestuous couple grew up apart (no Westermarck Effect) and are either both sterile or use contraception consistently.
There's some value in that type of analytical outlook. It underpins stuff like libertarianism, and helps to challenge transmitted beliefs and practices that don't really have any purpose (or have a horrible purpose) but carry on simply because people were raised to believe in them and pass them on.
@Razib KhanQuestion. Can you trust that these are actually universals that emerged in all of these societies? Especially considering that there's been a gigantic amount of trade and interaction among virtually all societies in the world in the past 500 years, and before that there was thousands of years of cultural and material exchange via trade and warfare.The post-1800 Imperialism didn't provide much to Great Britain or any of the imperial powers outside of India. I can't find the paper, but it estimated that excluding India and countries like Canada/Australia/New Zealand, the rest of the empire represented single-digit percentage points of British GDP, and throughout the 19th century the British traded much more with other European countries and with the free Latin American nations than they did with their colonies.
Of course, we didn't need Great Britain to prove you don't need colonies to industrialize (although you do probably need the New World food crops). Germany and Belgium effectively industrialized before ever getting empires.
You don’t hear a lot of complaints from parents when actress daughters do nude/sex scenes,
don’t interpolate what you think my point was. i should have made it explicit. the WEIRD thing is actually watching your daughter getting her ass eaten (simulated). re: jolie, jon voight was pretty pissed about her making out with her brother actually.
Can you trust that these are actually universals that emerged in all of these societies? Especially considering that there’s been a gigantic amount of trade and interaction among virtually all societies in the world in the past 500 years, and before that there was thousands of years of cultural and material exchange via trade and warfare.
that’s why people focus on ‘small scale societies.’
Germany and Belgium effectively industrialized before ever getting empires.
to some extent bismarck seems to have encouraged stupid french colonial ventures to keep them occupied, while avoiding getting involved himself. silesia was surely worth all of africa.
"Your map of Africa is very nice, but my map of Africa is in Europe. Here is Russia and here is France, and we are in the middle. That is my map of Africa."
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857460
@Razib Khan
Doesn’t change my point. The small societies got impacted hard by this too.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857466
if you want to say that ANY contact is equivalent to differing degrees of contact, sure, you have an awesome point. but i think it’s kind of a retarded point. if human universals are due to cultural diffusion they should be more uniform across cosmopolitan societies. don’t know the literature to know if this is true, but last i checked the list of universals it didn’t seem like they would be.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857472
don't interpolate what you think my point was. i should have made it explicit. the WEIRD thing is actually watching your daughter getting her ass eaten (simulated). re: jolie, jon voight was pretty pissed about her making out with her brother actually.
Can you trust that these are actually universals that emerged in all of these societies? Especially considering that there’s been a gigantic amount of trade and interaction among virtually all societies in the world in the past 500 years, and before that there was thousands of years of cultural and material exchange via trade and warfare.
that's why people focus on 'small scale societies.'
Germany and Belgium effectively industrialized before ever getting empires.
to some extent bismarck seems to have encouraged stupid french colonial ventures to keep them occupied, while avoiding getting involved himself. silesia was surely worth all of africa.
to some extent bismarck seems to have encouraged stupid french colonial ventures to keep them occupied, while avoiding getting involved himself. silesia was surely worth all of africa.
“Your map of Africa is very nice, but my map of Africa is in Europe. Here is Russia and here is France, and we are in the middle. That is my map of Africa.”
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857485
western imperialism is producing the religious autocracy in saudi arabia? i don't think so. before we talk about norms, we need to get a good descriptive account of the facts and i'm not convinced you have that.
Well, didn’t the US decide to destroy a less than perfect, but still functioning country with a secular government in Iraq, (which was economically and socially progressive enough to have Shiites and Sunnis live side by side in relative peace and which also contained terrorism relatively well) while at the same time it turned a blind eye to the very worst actor in the region Saudi Arabia?
No, western imperialism did not give birth to the religious autocracy in Saudi Arabia. However, if such a regime (which produced the 911 hijackers) did not play along with western corporate interests you can bet that serious attempts to oust it would be made. The Saudi royals use religious fundamentalism to control their population as they and their western allies rob it blind. We have the perfect evidence of this at the present time. Defying OPEC the Saudis refuse to lower production despite weakening demand thus causing the drastic drop in oil prices recently. How does the significant drop in government revenue this entails benefit the Saudis? What makes Saudi Arabia so different from say Russia (another country heavily dependent on oil revenue) that it would go against its own interest and make itself less wealthy? The answer is that Russia is actually an independent actor in the geopolitical world stage, it either sinks or swims alone. Saudi Arabia on the other hand is partners with the US and acts in correspondence with US interests. You may call it a conspiracy theory, but what other explanation makes sense? The Saudis are foregoing billions in revenue, and are damaging relations within OPEC for what reason?
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857488
No, western imperialism did not give birth to the religious autocracy in Saudi Arabia.
so you agreed with the point.
i don’t have much to say to the rest since i agree with it. i just ask you not reduce muslim actions to purely reactions to western actions. that’s ignorant of the history (i.e., the salafi reform movements began in the 18th century in arabia and south asia in the wake of the decline of the islamic ‘gunpowder’ states, western imperialism being not a major issue). though western imperialism can explain a lot of the behavior/action in the short term, there are deeper fundamental issues which are also the root of islamic fundamentalism (obvious since the political-religious violence goes back to the beginning, with movements like the kharijites).
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857515
blacks, Asians, white proles and Hispanics
asians and hispanics did not form part of the team. i checked the exit polls. don’t know about white proles. blacks, to some extent yes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/22sftam.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=3495
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857519
Asians actually voted against Prop 8 slightly at 51%, but yeah, blacks and Latinos have a combination of machismo and greater religiosity that caused them to support Prop 8, similar to the white “proles”.
http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=CAI01p1
whites yes, 49
blacks yes, 70
latino yes, 53
asian, 49
basically latinos aren't really any different from whites or asians. which would make sense since latinos support gay marriage at the same clip as whites, while blacks do not
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States#By_race
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857539
oh for fuck’s sake, is it too hard to actually check this sort of shit?
http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=CAI01p1
whites yes, 49
blacks yes, 70
latino yes, 53
asian, 49
basically latinos aren’t really any different from whites or asians. which would make sense since latinos support gay marriage at the same clip as whites, while blacks do not
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States#By_race
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857546
so speaking as a population geneticist, i will tell you that if you model just the english, they come out as about 25% germanic, and 75% like the people of the "celtic fringe." culturally though the eradication of the brythonic celtic substrate was pretty extreme (xtianity was extirpated).
also, i am curious if the english are more liberal than the welsh or scottish, or whether the anglian regions of scotland are more liberal than the celtic ones.
“also, i am curious if the english are more liberal than the welsh or scottish, or whether the anglian regions of scotland are more liberal than the celtic ones.”
There are not really any stereotypes to that effect – if there is a difference, no one has noticed it.
I would say the divide is between the Southern or South Eastern English, and everyone else. The SE English seem more Liberal/WEIRD. Whereas there is not an appreciable difference between Edinburgh and Oban or Inverness, or between Cardiff and Conwy. The dividing line does not seem to lie between historically-Celtic and historically-Saxon/Germanic regions. Areas of the old Danelaw are not particularly Liberal. The divide seems to fit closely to HBD Chick’s early-Manorialism thesis, though.
Support for UKIP today also seems to be highest in the Puritan heartlands of SE England:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/11/14/ukip-is-strongest-in-englands-puritan-heartlands-but-it-is-growing-among-catholics-how-will-the-church-respond/
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857584
Part of the reason of the differences between in thinking between two or three sets of people is that we take different short cuts to reach our goals . Different short cut provides different geographical,historical,and intellectual ousts or signs . We then live in that perspective and use the language to justify everything we do in that space.
One related activity would be the attempts people make in achieving power,money,status in societies. The means and the mechanisms are different in US ,in India,in Finland,in Pakistan or in Uganda . Even the dreams ate different . Corruption,lobbying,connection,and money play a big part in US,none in Finland,all possibly in Pakistan and Uganda and to certain extent in India . Within the sub section,connection and attitudes ( discrimination in job against Muslim in India or Shia against Pakistan ) are shaped by thought that was invented to bolster the attitude . But now the thought shapes or maintains the attitude even when emotion may not be obvious and even largely gone . A new subliminal belief system is created on the wrong premises . This system then perpetuates the original wrongdoings in a formal institutional level with no pangs of conscience .
Similarly a particular way of managing day to day life can influence how we end up showing biases in scientific reasoning or preferences . How we manage our lives also depend on the climate,weather,geographical contours ,vegetation,land mass and the presence of ” foreigners” . There is a reason Sri Lanka didnot become England despite having Chinese type of religious upbringing and England type of separation from the continent or Africa didnot give rise to the civilization that Europe gave despite linguistic and religious diversities and practices. IQ was spent for right reason in both places . It was costly in Africa. Same dollar doesn’t buy same stuff in different places in same amount .
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857671
There are not really any stereotypes to that effect - if there is a difference, no one has noticed it.
I would say the divide is between the Southern or South Eastern English, and everyone else. The SE English seem more Liberal/WEIRD. Whereas there is not an appreciable difference between Edinburgh and Oban or Inverness, or between Cardiff and Conwy. The dividing line does not seem to lie between historically-Celtic and historically-Saxon/Germanic regions. Areas of the old Danelaw are not particularly Liberal. The divide seems to fit closely to HBD Chick's early-Manorialism thesis, though.
The divide could be artifact. The leaders are more in synch with the rest in Scotland and not well respected or promoted by the media . The elite in England are not in harmony with the rest but that’s all the English have to vote for – thanks to the media.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857689
There are not really any stereotypes to that effect - if there is a difference, no one has noticed it.
I would say the divide is between the Southern or South Eastern English, and everyone else. The SE English seem more Liberal/WEIRD. Whereas there is not an appreciable difference between Edinburgh and Oban or Inverness, or between Cardiff and Conwy. The dividing line does not seem to lie between historically-Celtic and historically-Saxon/Germanic regions. Areas of the old Danelaw are not particularly Liberal. The divide seems to fit closely to HBD Chick's early-Manorialism thesis, though.
Not an Englishman–is SE England basically the British equivalent of the Northeast–liberal, urban, etc.?
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857694
Great post – you’ve totally nailed it!
The inability to distinguish between sensation – non voluntary bodily responses to externally experience or administered stimulii i.e. feelings and emotion – what those
feelings mean – is, in my view why psychopaths dont progress from mere consciousness to conscience. The first
merely gives information – eg a pain experience wildest the latter gives intelligence – if I have this experience, then so can others. This requires an imaginal facility that psycho
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857723
My edit didn’t work ..apologies.
That should have read that psychopaths lack .
Pretty reductive I know, but utilitarians are uni-dimensionall thinkers – best not bewilder them .
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857728
“One such test asks participants to choose two of three items to categorize together, such as a mitten, a scarf, and a hand. Analytic thinkers usually match the scarf and mitten because they belong to the same abstract category — items of winter clothing. Holistic thinkers usually match the mitten and hand because the hand wears a mitten. When Talhelm and his colleagues matched thought styles with political leanings of participants, they found that the liberals tended to be analytic thinkers and the conservatives holistic thinkers” Science Daily
I was trying to imagine a situation where mitten and hand wont be togther at all- at shops and closet when not serving any fucntion . May be this is the way current crop of the liberals deny the necessary responses to an urgent situation or prevent a solution . Mal juxtaposition of resources .
Next psychological step would be to look into the way liberal handle and frame the economic and social crises the world has been facing for last 20 years .
I think it sums up the difference neatly that holistic thinkers are basically 'why' people - ie functional thinkers while analytic thinkers are 'what' thin.kers ie categorical.
For the analytic thinker it is enough to identify the mittens as belonging to a particular category which has primary status over function. Whereas the holistic knows that the category would not have emerged unless it fulfillment a primary function. Nor do holistic thinkers stop there - they are also much more likely to imagine alternative uses for the object
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857738
asians and hispanics did not form part of the team. i checked the exit polls. don't know about white proles. blacks, to some extent yes.
Asians in California have a strong degree of SWPLization due to being born in the US, but the non-SWPLized ones voted like blacks. AFAIK there was a Chinese language ad comparing Prop 8 to pedophilia
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/22sftam.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=3495
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857745
There are not really any stereotypes to that effect - if there is a difference, no one has noticed it.
I would say the divide is between the Southern or South Eastern English, and everyone else. The SE English seem more Liberal/WEIRD. Whereas there is not an appreciable difference between Edinburgh and Oban or Inverness, or between Cardiff and Conwy. The dividing line does not seem to lie between historically-Celtic and historically-Saxon/Germanic regions. Areas of the old Danelaw are not particularly Liberal. The divide seems to fit closely to HBD Chick's early-Manorialism thesis, though.
Weren’t the SE English until relatively recently socially conservative Puritans?
Support for UKIP today also seems to be highest in the Puritan heartlands of SE England:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/11/14/ukip-is-strongest-in-englands-puritan-heartlands-but-it-is-growing-among-catholics-how-will-the-church-respond/
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857777
The more Celtic areas of the British Isles (and by extension, Brittany and a few other areas on the continent) stand out against the other more Germanic areas (which is primarily where these interesting traits are concentrated, and more or less, who we’re really talking about).
Regarding Brittany, support for Marine Le Pen in the 2012 presidential election was among the lowest there, while support for her was among the strongest in the more "Germanic" northeastern France, parts of which like Alsace-Lorraine that have a Germanic identity and were actually part of Germany not too long ago:
https://i.imgur.com/3Pew8Jm.jpg
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857790
so speaking as a population geneticist, i will tell you that if you model just the english, they come out as about 25% germanic, and 75% like the people of the "celtic fringe." culturally though the eradication of the brythonic celtic substrate was pretty extreme (xtianity was extirpated).
also, i am curious if the english are more liberal than the welsh or scottish, or whether the anglian regions of scotland are more liberal than the celtic ones.
Thank you for that! I linked to a tweeted showing Y-chromosomal DNA mapping, which is of course very limited, but that’s a better picture.
Though in any case, while I personally think initial ancestry (Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, etc.) likely plays a small role, I think selection since the fall of Rome makes the lion share of the difference we see across Europe today.
You do see a distinct political divide across Britain (and indeed, the rest of Europe) that correlates with ancestry and historical group (at least as far as the post-Roman era) divides:
Now, judging whether or not the English are more liberal than the Celtic fringe is hard from this, because the more clannish areas tend to vote for the “liberal” parties for self-interested economic reasons (redistribution from the more productive areas to themselves – much as the case with various minorities in the U.S. and the Democrats).
Anecdotally, the English do seem more liberal.
Nevermind, I see Simon’s comment.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857795
I was trying to imagine a situation where mitten and hand wont be togther at all- at shops and closet when not serving any fucntion . May be this is the way current crop of the liberals deny the necessary responses to an urgent situation or prevent a solution . Mal juxtaposition of resources .
Next psychological step would be to look into the way liberal handle and frame the economic and social crises the world has been facing for last 20 years .
That’s really interesting.
I think it sums up the difference neatly that holistic thinkers are basically ‘why’ people – ie functional thinkers while analytic thinkers are ‘what’ thin.kers ie categorical.
For the analytic thinker it is enough to identify the mittens as belonging to a particular category which has primary status over function. Whereas the holistic knows that the category would not have emerged unless it fulfillment a primary function. Nor do holistic thinkers stop there – they are also much more likely to imagine alternative uses for the object
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857807
I’m not sure I follow your point. Yes, the more “Celtic” areas of the British Isles can be distinguished from more “Germanic” areas. But I believe it’s still the case that the UK is both more “Celtic” and WEIRDer than Continental Europe. Also as far as “paternal lineages” go, I believe R1b predominates in England as it does elsewhere in the British Isles.
Regarding Brittany, support for Marine Le Pen in the 2012 presidential election was among the lowest there, while support for her was among the strongest in the more “Germanic” northeastern France, parts of which like Alsace-Lorraine that have a Germanic identity and were actually part of Germany not too long ago:
I'm not saying that being Celtic is the thing that does the trick (for one, the question becomes why are those areas less Germanic than England today, even if England itself is mostly Celtic by ancestry). It's just that those areas today happen to map to areas that have existed under different selective pressures than did England proper.The presence of non-natives is lower there too? Indeed, support for Le Pen seems to correlate perfectly with this measure of the immigrant share of the population (save Paris itself).
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857822
a note: MODERN CATEGORIES OF LIBERAL/CONSERVATIVE MAY NOT MAP WELL ONTO DIFFERENT CONTEXTS/TIMES. e.g., puritan/low church protestantism made the biggest progress among ‘forward’ or ‘advanced’ segments of the population, like the gentry and urban middle class. this is why i’m cagey about the terminology used by people like haidt or nisbett. the categories/patterns of differentiation are robust. what they mean substantively are much more difficult to pin down.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857830
yes.
also, you need to not confuse religion with superstition or ideological movements and such. that's comment problem in these threads. when i say 'religion' i'm talking about institutional religion mostly, so perhaps in the future i should quality. east asia has historically, and still is, defined as the region of the world where confessional and institutional religion is notably weak. it's cultural elites, from the mandarins of the sung to the literati of the tokugawa exhibited a sort of secular humanist ethos in comparison to the elites of other societies.
I will bear your definition of religion in mind in future. To me religiosity does not necessarily refer to organised religion. It refers to the human urge to seek solace and understanding in magic and mysticism. That urge is alive and kicking in Japan. The new religions in Japan indicate that it is as strong there as in the Bible Belt. The fact that powerful religious movements were defeated by secular forces does not mean that the religious impulse is any less strong than among non-WEIRD Westerners. If the Buddhist sects had been a single organised force like the Catholic Church Japan’s history might have been very different.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857854
japan is still way more secular than the USA, for example, new religions notwithstanding. pretty obvious if you look at the survey data. i do agree that east asian weakness in the domain of organized religion MAY be historically contingent. but it isn’t as if organized religions don’t have a long history in the area. xtianity, islam, buddhism, manichaeanism, zoroastrianism, and the homegrown daoism, & neoconfucianism, have all given it a go. it may be something to do with sinic culture. organized religion seems somewhat weaker in vietnam than in cambodia/laos/thailand.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857866
as for what religion is, definitions are key in terms of establishing what we’re talking about. i agree that the chasm between psychological religiosity in east asia and the west may pretty much be zero.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857867
Regarding Brittany, support for Marine Le Pen in the 2012 presidential election was among the lowest there, while support for her was among the strongest in the more "Germanic" northeastern France, parts of which like Alsace-Lorraine that have a Germanic identity and were actually part of Germany not too long ago:
https://i.imgur.com/3Pew8Jm.jpg
The more Celtic parts of the UK are less WEIRD than the rest (specifically, the more you get away from England, particularly the SE)? Make sense?
I’m not saying that being Celtic is the thing that does the trick (for one, the question becomes why are those areas less Germanic than England today, even if England itself is mostly Celtic by ancestry). It’s just that those areas today happen to map to areas that have existed under different selective pressures than did England proper.
The presence of non-natives is lower there too? Indeed, support for Le Pen seems to correlate perfectly with this measure of the immigrant share of the population (save Paris itself).
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857893
I'm not saying that being Celtic is the thing that does the trick (for one, the question becomes why are those areas less Germanic than England today, even if England itself is mostly Celtic by ancestry). It's just that those areas today happen to map to areas that have existed under different selective pressures than did England proper.The presence of non-natives is lower there too? Indeed, support for Le Pen seems to correlate perfectly with this measure of the immigrant share of the population (save Paris itself).
That’s why I asked if “Celtic” and “non-Celtic” were accurate qualifications. If it’s these different selective pressures, rather than ethnicity, that’s relevant, then it seems that they should be specified and cited, rather than ethnicity as such.
Presumably this would suggest that environmental effects influence political variation, whereas I believe you’re trying to emphasize the opposite.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857921
I have some doubts about this idea upthread, that Southern English are evolving separately towards this Liberal WEIRD personality type, because of reasons including the following
- the LD FineStructure cluster structures found in the UK by POBI tend to split the UK into a main England region, including and various smaller populations at the fringes. Whereas like Simon says, within the UK the main real perception of political divides are between London and the regions around it and the rest of the country (which seems like a clear London effect to me) and the South and everyone else (as a separate issue). I don’t think there is much room for separate evolving populations on the island, really, and the fact is that to the extent there is, the divide does not actually map to them.
- on political divisions again in the UK, it is the Tory South and Labour North, Celtic and London – that doesn’t really fit, to me, the idea of a Liberal South and socially Conservative North, although admittedly the parties in the UK are not clearcut in their associations with social Liberalism and Conservatism. If Labour voting = Liberalism = WEIRDer, then it should be the Celtic regions that are WEIRDest of all.
- the most Conservative (and least WEIRD) regions of the US are the peaks in British ancestry, among Whites / Euro Americans, and I don’t believe that the South shows a huge degree of LD with one another to indicate a recent strong founder effect (in the manner of French Canadians) that would allow much differentiation from the mother country.
More generally (and perhaps usefull) on the topic I’d also say that
- Traditional World Values surveys tend to place the Anglosphere definitely closer to the Traditional Values end of the spectrum as opposed to the Secular Rational Values more prominent in a range of nations. Sec Rat is “Secular-rational values have the opposite preferences to the traditional values. These societies place less emphasis on religion, traditional family values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as relatively acceptable” That’s odd to me if we’re allowing Sec Rat to be conflated with WEIRDness and with Americans as the WEIRDest of all, then the rest of the Anglosphere, then the rest of the world. The USA is particularly Trad and un Sec Rat compared with almost any Western nation, certainly any nation of comparable development.
Similarly we see large differentiation between many non-Western nations on Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions, so I’d have some skepticism any suggestions that the main moral intuition divide in the world is really Western vs non-Western, when looking from a neutral frame.
- re: analytic vs holistic thought – herders tend to score more analytic on these tests (as a reproduced result), yet at the same time they tend to be picked out (perhaps unfairly) as the archetypal highly unWERID honor and family based cultures. which may be interesting.
American Nations Series | JayMan's Blog
Strictly speaking, you don't have to be able to pick out a population through current population genetic means for there to be key differences in sub-areas across the region.
The Amish in America have become their own population with respect to the people around them. Would you be able to pick that up with current population genetic methods?See a few comments up. Blacks in the U.S. are more socially conservative than Whites on average, yet the former are far more loyal to the Democrats for redistribution reasons.
To answer Anonymous's point, you vote according to the situation. Primary (temperamental) goals are more or less fixed – how you go about achieving these depends on the landscape of the day.See my post "More Maps of the American Nations" at the above link. The reason is simply because immigrants avoided the "conservative" areas (i.e., the Dixie nations). So those areas are more British today, despite the liberal-conservative divide stemming (or at least originating) from the differences in the founding British stock.Well, no. I'll reveal something from an upcoming post:
WVS axes (opens image).
The Anglosphere (well, the Celtic world) clusters together as being a bit more religious than similarly outbred peoples. However, overall, they are clearly shifted towards the liberal corner of the map.Founder effects. See above.You sure about that? The WEIRD countries clearly cluster together, and apart from the rest of the world.
On the WVS map, the NW Euro countries clearly form a cluster apart from the rest humanity, with, predictably, the Celts and Southern Europeans coming closer to the rest. You see the same thing in Hofstede's data.Is that true?
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-857935
- the LD FineStructure cluster structures found in the UK by POBI tend to split the UK into a main England region, including and various smaller populations at the fringes. Whereas like Simon says, within the UK the main real perception of political divides are between London and the regions around it and the rest of the country (which seems like a clear London effect to me) and the South and everyone else (as a separate issue). I don't think there is much room for separate evolving populations on the island, really, and the fact is that to the extent there is, the divide does not actually map to them.
- on political divisions again in the UK, it is the Tory South and Labour North, Celtic and London - that doesn't really fit, to me, the idea of a Liberal South and socially Conservative North, although admittedly the parties in the UK are not clearcut in their associations with social Liberalism and Conservatism. If Labour voting = Liberalism = WEIRDer, then it should be the Celtic regions that are WEIRDest of all.
- the most Conservative (and least WEIRD) regions of the US are the peaks in British ancestry, among Whites / Euro Americans, and I don't believe that the South shows a huge degree of LD with one another to indicate a recent strong founder effect (in the manner of French Canadians) that would allow much differentiation from the mother country.
More generally (and perhaps usefull) on the topic I'd also say that
- Traditional World Values surveys tend to place the Anglosphere definitely closer to the Traditional Values end of the spectrum as opposed to the Secular Rational Values more prominent in a range of nations. Sec Rat is "Secular-rational values have the opposite preferences to the traditional values. These societies place less emphasis on religion, traditional family values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as relatively acceptable" That's odd to me if we're allowing Sec Rat to be conflated with WEIRDness and with Americans as the WEIRDest of all, then the rest of the Anglosphere, then the rest of the world. The USA is particularly Trad and un Sec Rat compared with almost any Western nation, certainly any nation of comparable development.
Similarly we see large differentiation between many non-Western nations on Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions, so I'd have some skepticism any suggestions that the main moral intuition divide in the world is really Western vs non-Western, when looking from a neutral frame.
- re: analytic vs holistic thought - herders tend to score more analytic on these tests (as a reproduced result), yet at the same time they tend to be picked out (perhaps unfairly) as the archetypal highly unWERID honor and family based cultures. which may be interesting.
And yet they were (at least in relevant respects):
American Nations Series | JayMan’s Blog
Strictly speaking, you don’t have to be able to pick out a population through current population genetic means for there to be key differences in sub-areas across the region.
The Amish in America have become their own population with respect to the people around them. Would you be able to pick that up with current population genetic methods?
See a few comments up. Blacks in the U.S. are more socially conservative than Whites on average, yet the former are far more loyal to the Democrats for redistribution reasons.
To answer Anonymous’s point, you vote according to the situation. Primary (temperamental) goals are more or less fixed – how you go about achieving these depends on the landscape of the day.
See my post “More Maps of the American Nations” at the above link. The reason is simply because immigrants avoided the “conservative” areas (i.e., the Dixie nations). So those areas are more British today, despite the liberal-conservative divide stemming (or at least originating) from the differences in the founding British stock.
Well, no. I’ll reveal something from an upcoming post:
WVS axes (opens image).
The Anglosphere (well, the Celtic world) clusters together as being a bit more religious than similarly outbred peoples. However, overall, they are clearly shifted towards the liberal corner of the map.
Founder effects. See above.
You sure about that? The WEIRD countries clearly cluster together, and apart from the rest of the world.
On the WVS map, the NW Euro countries clearly form a cluster apart from the rest humanity, with, predictably, the Celts and Southern Europeans coming closer to the rest. You see the same thing in Hofstede’s data.
Is that true?
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-858091
If you think that liberals think more analytically, try asking one what is good about Obamacare. I have yet to hear an analytical (affirmative) answer to that question.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-858196
@Jayman: The Amish in America have become their own population with respect to the people around them. Would you be able to pick that up with current population genetic methods?
With the LD based methods used to find substructure in the UK by the POBI (rather than genotype frequencies, which are more dicey) absolutely you should. Massive demographic expansion, small number of founders, seems like a sure thing. There’s also absolutely no comparable demographic bleed off between Southerners and Northerners to the extent of Amish and non-Amish (relative size of communities, number of founders).
“In humans, founder effects can arise from cultural isolation, and inevitably, endogamy. For example, the Amish populations in the United States exhibit founder effects. This is because they have grown from a very few founders, have not recruited newcomers, and tend to marry within the community. Though still rare, phenomena such as polydactyly (extra fingers and toes, a symptom of Ellis-van Creveld syndrome) are more common in Amish communities than in the American population at large.” No one has ever reported anything similar about Southerners in the USA, I don’t think.
Plus, even the Amish, a pointedly extreme case where genetic change is particularly possible, seem unlikely to get even the main fraction of their differentiation from genetics (if you tested this via adoption).
See a few comments up. Blacks in the U.S. are more socially conservative than Whites on average, yet the former are far more loyal to the Democrats for redistribution reasons.
Economic interest is served by both Labour and Conservative parties through different means and to different constituents (rigged house price inflations for some, etc). Southern working class vote Tory and Northern Middle Class tend to vote Labour.
You could always contact Haidt as he should have a lot of data from the YourMorals organisation, but I don’t seriously think that the UK is stuffed with people from the South of England who score low on his purity, authority and ingroup factors and yet vote Conservative, and Northern people score high on purity, authority and ingroup factors and vote for Labour. Haidt’s stance is very much When working-class people vote conservative, as most do in the US, they are not voting against their self-interest; they are voting for their moral interest. They are voting for the party that serves to them a more satisfying moral cuisine. The left in the UK and USA should think hard about their recipe for success in the 21st century.
is that true?
Of course – http://www.pnas.org/content/105/25/8552.full – “As predicted, members of farming and fishing communities, which emphasize harmonious social interdependence, exhibited greater holistic tendencies than members of herding communities, which emphasize individual decision making and foster social independence. Our findings have implications for how ecocultural factors may have lasting consequences on important aspects of cognition.” You can google for more results – I believe similar results were forthcoming in China as well IIRC.
But what we want to know is could you pick out the Puritan-descended Americans from the Cavalier-descended Americans via population genetics? I'm not sure you can (23andMe and Ancestry.com don't seem to have), and problem is complicated by admixture with other groups, especially for the former.You do know what behavioral genetic studies actually find, right?Drilling down into the fine details might be interesting, but the overall pattern (clannish groups voting for self-interest, regardless of who provides it) appears clear.
I have more data that I will feature in a future post. The U.S. has been more complicated than the U.K. thanks to the former's greater diversity.Interesting, but that's just one set of these people from one country. We have many other groups around the world to look at.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-858391
With the LD based methods used to find substructure in the UK by the POBI (rather than genotype frequencies, which are more dicey) absolutely you should. Massive demographic expansion, small number of founders, seems like a sure thing. There's also absolutely no comparable demographic bleed off between Southerners and Northerners to the extent of Amish and non-Amish (relative size of communities, number of founders).
"In humans, founder effects can arise from cultural isolation, and inevitably, endogamy. For example, the Amish populations in the United States exhibit founder effects. This is because they have grown from a very few founders, have not recruited newcomers, and tend to marry within the community. Though still rare, phenomena such as polydactyly (extra fingers and toes, a symptom of Ellis-van Creveld syndrome) are more common in Amish communities than in the American population at large." No one has ever reported anything similar about Southerners in the USA, I don't think.
Plus, even the Amish, a pointedly extreme case where genetic change is particularly possible, seem unlikely to get even the main fraction of their differentiation from genetics (if you tested this via adoption).
See a few comments up. Blacks in the U.S. are more socially conservative than Whites on average, yet the former are far more loyal to the Democrats for redistribution reasons.
Economic interest is served by both Labour and Conservative parties through different means and to different constituents (rigged house price inflations for some, etc). Southern working class vote Tory and Northern Middle Class tend to vote Labour.
You could always contact Haidt as he should have a lot of data from the YourMorals organisation, but I don't seriously think that the UK is stuffed with people from the South of England who score low on his purity, authority and ingroup factors and yet vote Conservative, and Northern people score high on purity, authority and ingroup factors and vote for Labour. Haidt's stance is very much When working-class people vote conservative, as most do in the US, they are not voting against their self-interest; they are voting for their moral interest. They are voting for the party that serves to them a more satisfying moral cuisine. The left in the UK and USA should think hard about their recipe for success in the 21st century.
is that true?
Of course - http://www.pnas.org/content/105/25/8552.full - "As predicted, members of farming and fishing communities, which emphasize harmonious social interdependence, exhibited greater holistic tendencies than members of herding communities, which emphasize individual decision making and foster social independence. Our findings have implications for how ecocultural factors may have lasting consequences on important aspects of cognition." You can google for more results - I believe similar results were forthcoming in China as well IIRC.
There’s two levels of differentiation with today’s Amish. The first was the initial migration of Amish to America. The second was subsequent selection for “Amishness” since that time. In the case of the differences between different (British) Americans, the first process was more important (David Hackett Fischer’s four folkways). But assortative migration (founder effects) have continued to be important in America, as we see with the “second generation” nations (the Left Coast, the Far West) and well as Amish-type selection (the Great Plains).
But what we want to know is could you pick out the Puritan-descended Americans from the Cavalier-descended Americans via population genetics? I’m not sure you can (23andMe and Ancestry.com don’t seem to have), and problem is complicated by admixture with other groups, especially for the former.
You do know what behavioral genetic studies actually find, right?
Drilling down into the fine details might be interesting, but the overall pattern (clannish groups voting for self-interest, regardless of who provides it) appears clear.
I have more data that I will feature in a future post. The U.S. has been more complicated than the U.K. thanks to the former’s greater diversity.
Interesting, but that’s just one set of these people from one country. We have many other groups around the world to look at.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-858583
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http://www.unz.com/gnxp/western-liberals-are-the-weirdist/#comment-858635