"You can take away the 17th-century rules of sexual conduct, but you still end up with Puritanical insistence on moral conformity."
The failure here is he doesn't see there's two types of moral systems. One is natalist, the other anti-natalist. It may take time, but it will resolve in only one way.
I made that comment on his post and it was well received. Changing fertility patterns, and specifically the low and delayed overall fertility of high IQ progressive women, is present in the entire developed world and the big driver of the culture war. Women are the drivers.
This pattern maps onto density because bigger families settle in less dense areas.
And it pattern matches onto high/low vs middle coalition because the rich/low fertility can buy their way out of dysfunction, while the low either are the dysfunction themselves or can only stay afloat via welfare. The middle, by contrast, need public goods to work and the only way to make that happen is to move away from dysfunction to family friendly areas.
I didn't think of those and they are all important observations, thanks.
We can resolve the civil war they're trying to herd us into by migrating to areas that have majorities that reflect their values, and making those areas hostile to those that don't (and helping them relocate to where their values are reflected).
If you're in a hostile area, MOVE. NOW. It's only going to get worse.
One blind spot in Hanania’s analysis, noted partially by Arnold, is the absence of any comment on the religious side of the culture wars. Could part of the divide be explained by Christianity’s decline first and fastest among the elites and academics, with the non-elites holding to Christianity and resenting the top-down dismantling of religion in society? Maybe it’s secondary to other factors, not sure.
"The Puritans of The Scarlet Letter could never have imagined their descendants proudly taking their children to the library for Drag Queen Story Hour, but the continuity is there"
No, it really isn't. The descendants of the Puritans have consistently been one of the most right-wing segments of the population since that concept really became coherent in the US. This is a Moldbuggian myth.
Though I understand your position on beliefs I think Richard's theory works equally well if you accept that the differences are genuine. He acknowledges that differences between both assortative and natural human groupings are always going to exist. It's more what gets picked to be a marker of status than the differences are invented. What today are considered almost reactionary beliefs used to be considered a marker of high status, though one can point out that putting those beliefs into actual practice is still often viewed favorably.
A stealth selfishness theory permeates SO much of conservative discourse. Jeffrey Friedman's thinking has had little impact, apparently. But I know Arnold appreciates it.
Many ideas by Hanania: >>the three exogenous forces that create the modern culture war: increasing wealth, women playing a larger role in intellectual life, and modern communications technology.<<
1) Throughout history, there are numerous stories of spoiled rich kids, brats like spoiled Hunter Biden (or Chelsea Clinton? ). The success of limited government Liberal Democracy - Christian morality and Free Market trading (inducing specialization!) leading to economic growth, has led to a reality of so many rich and near-rich status-seeking "Valley Girls" (see Moon Unit Zappa) & liberal boys who throw temper tantrums.
Wealth insulates the wealthy from suffering due to normal inconveniences - many now demand an end to any "oppressive" reality they don't like.
2) Women dominating college life has increased the identification of problems, especially issues where people FEEL bad -- but far fewer solutions, tho often including policy recommendations that don't solve the problem (like BLM increasing, rather than decreasing, the number of Blacks dying young from murder or driving has gone up). More study of male-female differences has increased the scientific evidence for many differences - yet the complaints about different results have become more hysterical.
The dominance of Feelings over Facts has been led by feminists. Many of whom become more bitter and angry as their bio-clock times out on having children and they realize they've been working for rich folk rather than for their own family - with a large number childless.
The refusal to address Black IQ differences is related to this denial of facts, and increases racism rather than reducing it. >>the idea that poor people are poor because of their genes sounds too unpleasant to acknowledge. <<
(2b-Missing from Hanania) Elite college discrimination against Republican professors is related to the feminist demonization of all who are pro-life. A Republican controlled Congress should revoke tax-exempt status for all such colleges who have been discriminating.
3) The modern comm revolution has made the "peer" group that gives or withholds status far more on-line than merely local. The ability to on-line mob those who's speech is undesired has been supported by "liberals" / Democrats as long as the protests are against Republicans or Christians or males or Whites or straights.
>>A technological society can have no traditions ... virtues aren’t merely moral ideas: They are materially and socially rewarded, and their opposing vices are punished. ... A technological society is incompatible with a blithe conservatism, but not with the furtherance of human flourishing and the transformation of wilderness into garden. <<
As compared to Haidt, the difficulty "conservatives" have with technology is more clearly explicit here.
Albion's Seed does not have the explanatory nor predictive power so often presumed here. Insistence on moral purity abounds in non-Yankee American cultures, even if it doesn't touch your personal experience and interests as often. Your beer example is also wrong: it's *constantly* a trend among hipsters in urban areas to make another cheap "low class" beer the thing to drink. If anything, it was Budweiser that tried explicitly to make it taboo to drink microbrews and I know plenty of non-Yankee folks who would never drink them. Albion's Seed functions here as a hermeneutical tool to justify what you want to believe and weave anecdotes around them rather than a true evidentiary one.
Albion's Seed provides a starting point for explaining cultural patterns / stereotypes. The two cultures that persist are those sustained by deep cultural ties. New England puritanism/ moral superiority is sustained by the Ivy league and the priority given to higher education and professional achievement. The leave me alone attitude of Appalachia persists because people who want to be left alone will choose a rural homestead.
The vast "middle" of Americans are conflicted on what they want. They simultaneously value and despise the elitism of the Ivy league and they find the lifestyle of their rustic back countrymen both romantic and revolting. And this is why American presidential elections are so polarizing and the political outcomes so dramatic. From Bush to Obama and from Trump to Biden we have 180 degree shifts in policies. This is not healthy! And yet compromise is impossible because the divide is much more about cultural identity / ideology than it is about policy outcomes.
Things may not work out as cleanly as you imply here and elsewhere.
My Puritan-descended grandmother was an only child (born 1915), and her mother was an only child. That side of the family also used to have reunions (a very wealthy family member would host them) that brought together a lot of distant cousins. Based on jokes and conversations with that side of the family, everyone voted Republican as of ~2012.
Has anyone done a study looking at genealogical descendants of Puritans and how they vote? Again, my prior is that most vote Republican. All the big intellectual names in Gender Studies and its related fields are not of Puritan descent... Who brings their kids to these events? I do not know, but at the moment you have not convinced me that you know either.
It's strange for Richard to say that politics don't matter, when they have never mattered more in my lifetime.
I will even skip over COVID, I think Richard is already well aware of the huge difference between right and left on COVID.
I will also skip over the fact the Dem COVID spending caused by Dem lockdowns, much of which they passed on a party line vote, create the current surge in inflation.
Let's take a simple example, a family we know that moved to Dallas. I will pretend they moved from Los Angelos where Richard lives.
First, they save on income taxes. Say 10% in CA versus 0% in Texas. They both have good professional jobs and are in their 30s. I know 200k a year isn't very typical for US households, but it might even be low for them.
$200k * 10% = $20k a year
Let's just say 30 years of paying taxes (also lines up with mortgage, makes my life easier).
$20k * 30 = $600k
Houses in Dallas cost $325k and in LA cost $966k. I understand there are multiple causes of this, but there are pretty big differences in building policy as well. And anyway, with four kids, my friends need a big house.
In Dallas their monthly payment is $2,000 or so. In LA it's about $6,000.
So let's say $4,000 * 12 = $44,000 a year.
$44k * 30 = $1,320k
They have four kids. I'm going to credit them $7,000 in value per kid per year for K-12 either because Texas might pass an Arizona style voucher after the election or because they are more satisfied with their new conservative school district. I've said myself that school voucher reform is the litmus test for the New Rights legitimacy.
That's $7,000 * 13 * 4 = $364k.
I won't even get into college costs.
So by moving from LA to Dallas they saved $600K + $1,320k + $364k = $2,284,000
Yeah, politics don't matter. It's all culture war nonsense!
What does that matter with respect to explaining why people believe or vote as they do? That’s the sense in which it doesn’t matter. You mention spending and inflation. The last Republican administration ran massive budget deficits at the top of the business cycle. Politics doesn’t matter. How good a sports team is doesn’t matter in the same sense that it has little to do with which one you root for; it’s mostly just which city you live in.
Voting for one side results in policies that makes peoples lives substantially better, as shown above. As such, they care.
The entire deficit of the Trump administration is a minuscule fraction of COVID spending. Biden deficits going forward project to be dramatically higher.
Have some perspective. Do the math. There are correct answers to who is better and who is worse, you just don't want to hear them because it would require taking a stand.
"You can take away the 17th-century rules of sexual conduct, but you still end up with Puritanical insistence on moral conformity."
The failure here is he doesn't see there's two types of moral systems. One is natalist, the other anti-natalist. It may take time, but it will resolve in only one way.
I made that comment on his post and it was well received. Changing fertility patterns, and specifically the low and delayed overall fertility of high IQ progressive women, is present in the entire developed world and the big driver of the culture war. Women are the drivers.
Sam and Diane just can't get along anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_and_Diane
This pattern maps onto density because bigger families settle in less dense areas.
And it pattern matches onto high/low vs middle coalition because the rich/low fertility can buy their way out of dysfunction, while the low either are the dysfunction themselves or can only stay afloat via welfare. The middle, by contrast, need public goods to work and the only way to make that happen is to move away from dysfunction to family friendly areas.
I didn't think of those and they are all important observations, thanks.
We can resolve the civil war they're trying to herd us into by migrating to areas that have majorities that reflect their values, and making those areas hostile to those that don't (and helping them relocate to where their values are reflected).
If you're in a hostile area, MOVE. NOW. It's only going to get worse.
One blind spot in Hanania’s analysis, noted partially by Arnold, is the absence of any comment on the religious side of the culture wars. Could part of the divide be explained by Christianity’s decline first and fastest among the elites and academics, with the non-elites holding to Christianity and resenting the top-down dismantling of religion in society? Maybe it’s secondary to other factors, not sure.
Married college graduates in the Midwest and South have the highest rates of church membership.
"The Puritans of The Scarlet Letter could never have imagined their descendants proudly taking their children to the library for Drag Queen Story Hour, but the continuity is there"
No, it really isn't. The descendants of the Puritans have consistently been one of the most right-wing segments of the population since that concept really became coherent in the US. This is a Moldbuggian myth.
Though I understand your position on beliefs I think Richard's theory works equally well if you accept that the differences are genuine. He acknowledges that differences between both assortative and natural human groupings are always going to exist. It's more what gets picked to be a marker of status than the differences are invented. What today are considered almost reactionary beliefs used to be considered a marker of high status, though one can point out that putting those beliefs into actual practice is still often viewed favorably.
it's not really complicated
the ever increasing managerial class needs a justifying ideology
A stealth selfishness theory permeates SO much of conservative discourse. Jeffrey Friedman's thinking has had little impact, apparently. But I know Arnold appreciates it.
Many ideas by Hanania: >>the three exogenous forces that create the modern culture war: increasing wealth, women playing a larger role in intellectual life, and modern communications technology.<<
1) Throughout history, there are numerous stories of spoiled rich kids, brats like spoiled Hunter Biden (or Chelsea Clinton? ). The success of limited government Liberal Democracy - Christian morality and Free Market trading (inducing specialization!) leading to economic growth, has led to a reality of so many rich and near-rich status-seeking "Valley Girls" (see Moon Unit Zappa) & liberal boys who throw temper tantrums.
Wealth insulates the wealthy from suffering due to normal inconveniences - many now demand an end to any "oppressive" reality they don't like.
2) Women dominating college life has increased the identification of problems, especially issues where people FEEL bad -- but far fewer solutions, tho often including policy recommendations that don't solve the problem (like BLM increasing, rather than decreasing, the number of Blacks dying young from murder or driving has gone up). More study of male-female differences has increased the scientific evidence for many differences - yet the complaints about different results have become more hysterical.
The dominance of Feelings over Facts has been led by feminists. Many of whom become more bitter and angry as their bio-clock times out on having children and they realize they've been working for rich folk rather than for their own family - with a large number childless.
The refusal to address Black IQ differences is related to this denial of facts, and increases racism rather than reducing it. >>the idea that poor people are poor because of their genes sounds too unpleasant to acknowledge. <<
(2b-Missing from Hanania) Elite college discrimination against Republican professors is related to the feminist demonization of all who are pro-life. A Republican controlled Congress should revoke tax-exempt status for all such colleges who have been discriminating.
3) The modern comm revolution has made the "peer" group that gives or withholds status far more on-line than merely local. The ability to on-line mob those who's speech is undesired has been supported by "liberals" / Democrats as long as the protests are against Republicans or Christians or males or Whites or straights.
(HT Hanania) https://compactmag.com/article/why-conservatism-failed Jon Askonas
>>A technological society can have no traditions ... virtues aren’t merely moral ideas: They are materially and socially rewarded, and their opposing vices are punished. ... A technological society is incompatible with a blithe conservatism, but not with the furtherance of human flourishing and the transformation of wilderness into garden. <<
As compared to Haidt, the difficulty "conservatives" have with technology is more clearly explicit here.
Albion's Seed does not have the explanatory nor predictive power so often presumed here. Insistence on moral purity abounds in non-Yankee American cultures, even if it doesn't touch your personal experience and interests as often. Your beer example is also wrong: it's *constantly* a trend among hipsters in urban areas to make another cheap "low class" beer the thing to drink. If anything, it was Budweiser that tried explicitly to make it taboo to drink microbrews and I know plenty of non-Yankee folks who would never drink them. Albion's Seed functions here as a hermeneutical tool to justify what you want to believe and weave anecdotes around them rather than a true evidentiary one.
Albion's Seed provides a starting point for explaining cultural patterns / stereotypes. The two cultures that persist are those sustained by deep cultural ties. New England puritanism/ moral superiority is sustained by the Ivy league and the priority given to higher education and professional achievement. The leave me alone attitude of Appalachia persists because people who want to be left alone will choose a rural homestead.
The vast "middle" of Americans are conflicted on what they want. They simultaneously value and despise the elitism of the Ivy league and they find the lifestyle of their rustic back countrymen both romantic and revolting. And this is why American presidential elections are so polarizing and the political outcomes so dramatic. From Bush to Obama and from Trump to Biden we have 180 degree shifts in policies. This is not healthy! And yet compromise is impossible because the divide is much more about cultural identity / ideology than it is about policy outcomes.
Things may not work out as cleanly as you imply here and elsewhere.
My Puritan-descended grandmother was an only child (born 1915), and her mother was an only child. That side of the family also used to have reunions (a very wealthy family member would host them) that brought together a lot of distant cousins. Based on jokes and conversations with that side of the family, everyone voted Republican as of ~2012.
Has anyone done a study looking at genealogical descendants of Puritans and how they vote? Again, my prior is that most vote Republican. All the big intellectual names in Gender Studies and its related fields are not of Puritan descent... Who brings their kids to these events? I do not know, but at the moment you have not convinced me that you know either.
Hence the Great Awokening.
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18259865/great-awokening-white-liberals-race-polling-trump-2020
It's strange for Richard to say that politics don't matter, when they have never mattered more in my lifetime.
I will even skip over COVID, I think Richard is already well aware of the huge difference between right and left on COVID.
I will also skip over the fact the Dem COVID spending caused by Dem lockdowns, much of which they passed on a party line vote, create the current surge in inflation.
Let's take a simple example, a family we know that moved to Dallas. I will pretend they moved from Los Angelos where Richard lives.
First, they save on income taxes. Say 10% in CA versus 0% in Texas. They both have good professional jobs and are in their 30s. I know 200k a year isn't very typical for US households, but it might even be low for them.
$200k * 10% = $20k a year
Let's just say 30 years of paying taxes (also lines up with mortgage, makes my life easier).
$20k * 30 = $600k
Houses in Dallas cost $325k and in LA cost $966k. I understand there are multiple causes of this, but there are pretty big differences in building policy as well. And anyway, with four kids, my friends need a big house.
In Dallas their monthly payment is $2,000 or so. In LA it's about $6,000.
So let's say $4,000 * 12 = $44,000 a year.
$44k * 30 = $1,320k
They have four kids. I'm going to credit them $7,000 in value per kid per year for K-12 either because Texas might pass an Arizona style voucher after the election or because they are more satisfied with their new conservative school district. I've said myself that school voucher reform is the litmus test for the New Rights legitimacy.
That's $7,000 * 13 * 4 = $364k.
I won't even get into college costs.
So by moving from LA to Dallas they saved $600K + $1,320k + $364k = $2,284,000
Yeah, politics don't matter. It's all culture war nonsense!
What does that matter with respect to explaining why people believe or vote as they do? That’s the sense in which it doesn’t matter. You mention spending and inflation. The last Republican administration ran massive budget deficits at the top of the business cycle. Politics doesn’t matter. How good a sports team is doesn’t matter in the same sense that it has little to do with which one you root for; it’s mostly just which city you live in.
Voting for one side results in policies that makes peoples lives substantially better, as shown above. As such, they care.
The entire deficit of the Trump administration is a minuscule fraction of COVID spending. Biden deficits going forward project to be dramatically higher.
Have some perspective. Do the math. There are correct answers to who is better and who is worse, you just don't want to hear them because it would require taking a stand.
*which city, not west