Links to Consider, 8/27
John Seel on the cultural inflection point; Nate Silver interviewed; Rob Henderson interviewed; and Henderson on Wrangham and human aggression
The assumptions of the Enlightenment which gave rise to the political ideology of classical liberalism have been rejected by the leadership class. There is a much-debated question whether a democratic society can survive when its underlying assumptions are no longer believed by those who are being governed by it. Social solidarity requires shared social beliefs. When these are abandoned, as is increasingly the case by the political elites, then politics naturally defaults and devolves to the will-to-power in a world where the leadership class believes in nothing.
Nate Silver interviewed by Rufus Griscom. One thing that comes up is a cliche, “Chips on the the shoulder lead to chips in pockets.”
I think that applies to me. I was ticked off at the way I was treated at Freddie Mac, and I set out to prove myself when I started my own business. I did something I have never done before or since: I networked like mad. If you want the full story, you can read my first book. I described some of the book here.
Rob Henderson interviewed by Mikhaila Peterson.
About 300,000 years ago, we split off the evolutionary branch and evolved into Homo sapiens, we became nomadic hunter-gatherers living in relatively small groups. During this period, humans became primarily monogamous. The reason is because, to successfully hunt large animals and be successful in warfare with other groups, the males in a group had to cooperate with one another. If one man monopolizes the women, the other males would gang up and kill him. Other primates aren’t capable of that kind of advanced cooperation, of planned conspiratorial killing of bullies and selfish males. So the implicit agreement among men was like, "Okay, well, we have to hunt animals. We have to defend ourselves from other groups." And this gave rise to a rudimentary form of monogamous pair-bonding, or marriage, where no male could have lots of wives. After the agricultural revolution about 12 thousand years ago, humans established city-states and stationary civilizations. Now men could stockpile resources and amass large armies. This gave rise to kings and pharaohs and emperors who could obtain a lot of wives. Modern humans have existed for about 300,000 years, and of that 300,000 years, humans spent 97% of that time in hunter-gatherer, mostly monogamous, societies. So, when these red-pill guys say, "Polygamy is how things have always been," they are describing a brief blip in human evolutionary history.
I think I watched this podcast, and that is probably where I came across the HEXACO model.
Yeah, on the Big Five, the dark triad is inversely correlated with agreeableness. So, disagreeable people are usually pretty high on the dark triad. But then, the HEXACO model, the honesty-humility factor, is even more strongly inversely correlated. So, if you're very high on honesty and humility, you're low on the dark triad. If you're high on the dark triad, you're low on those two traits—honesty and humility.
Again, I describe my wife and all of my friends as high on honesty-humility. I think I have an instinctive aversion to dark triad types. Politicians tend to trigger this aversion.
Wrangham makes good on explaining the book’s title, The Goodness Paradox.
Throughout the book, he uses the term “coalitionary proactive aggression,” which means a group of individuals who come together to deliberately attack a person or another group.
This type of violence is unique to humans.
As Wrangham puts it:
“Tribalism does not distinguish us, nor does reactive aggression. It is coalitionary proactive aggression that makes our species and societies truly unusual.”
Among humans in hunter-gatherer communities, killing a member of a different group is often considered pleasurable in itself. The aim, in some cases, isn’t to obtain food or mates or resources. Rather, killing the troublemaker or members of the outgroup is a goal in itself.
Coalitionary proactive aggression is common between groups. But it is extremely rare within groups.
…Wrangham states that evolution has made the killing of outsiders pleasurable.
In the ancestral environment, an outsider was typically viewed as a member of a hostile neighboring society, and regarded as nonhuman. Each early human community viewed outsiders from other groups in this way. Eliminating such rivals would reduce their power to inflict harm, and thwart their ability to compete for the same resources.
Henderson’s long, fascinating review essay concludes,
Humans don’t fly off the handle and react with rage at the slightest challenge or provocation the way chimpanzees do.
But chimpanzees don’t coordinate to systematically engage in the mass murder of their fellow species, the way humans do.
Chimps don’t cooperate the way humans do.
The great comparative psychologist Michael Tomasello, an expert on chimpanzee cognition, has stated, “It is inconceivable that you would ever see two chimpanzees carrying a log together.”
The ability to unite for such a simple task explains much—both good and bad—about our species.
substacks referenced above:@
@
@
What's more significant - classically liberal ideals being rejected by the leadership class, or broadly rejected or not even known or cared about by the masses? These forces seem to go hand in hand, and my question is, will the ultimate demise of it all be the result of top-down or bottoms-up emergent order phenomena? It seems to me that both forces must be barreling down the mountain together.
Henderson is flat wrong about humans being the only primates to organize for violence. Chimpanzees absolutely organize to execute attacks on individuals or groups. Goggle “Gombe Chimpanzee War” for instance, and just basic hunting. Other primates are less obvious, but almost all the social ones have intragroup factions that occasionally rise to focused violence against individuals or alliances by a rival coalition.