Hard Wired: Bonus Scientific Paper.

David Foster asked if the researchers investigating insula activation in women in the previous post looked at whether or not similar circuitry existed in men. Well, those particular researchers didn't but following paper demonstrated similar neural networks in men.

From, Distinguishing specific sexual and general emotional effects in fMRI—Subcortical and cortical arousal during erotic picture viewing, the authors state;

No differences were found in these effects when comparing females and males. Our findings demonstrate for the first time neural differentiation between emotional and sexual components in the neural network underlying sexual arousal.

Alpha Circuitry.

A while ago I put up a series of posts on the subject of female mate selection based upon my clinical and real life observations. It was my contention that in order for attraction to develop a man must stimulate certain "receptors" in a woman's brain in order to elicit reciprocal attraction. Now a "receptor" was a mental construct of mine meant to have some sort of analogy with a neuro-biological mechanism of the mind. To recap, I posited the existence of an alpha receptor--that is a mechanism which responds to stimuli signifying male sexuality, and beta receptor which responds to friendship and commitment like stimuli. It appears that science now has the data to back me up and analogous neuro-biological "circuity" actually exists in female brains.

From, Correlation of Insula Activation and Self-Reported Quality of Orgasm in Women; the authors, after analysing functional MRI data, conclude:

Neuroimaging data expanded these behavioral results by demonstrating the involvement of a specific left-lateralized insula focus of neural activity correlating with orgasm scores, irrespective of dimension (frequency, ease, satisfaction). In contrast, intensity of being in love was correlated with a network involving the angular gyrus.

These findings strongly suggest that intimate and sexual relationships are sustained by partly different mechanisms, even if they share some emotional-related mechanisms  [Ed]. The critical correlation between self-reports of orgasm quality and activation of the left anterior insula, a part of the partner-related neural network known to play a pivotal role in somatic processes, suggests the importance of somatic information in the integration of sexual experience. On the other hand, the correlation between activation of the angular gyrus and love intensity reinforces the assumption that the representation of love calls for higher order cognitive levels, such as those related to the generation of abstract concepts.

It would appear that when it comes to neural networks there appears a sexual network and a romantic network. But here is the real kicker from the study;

However, no relationship was found between intensity of love and partnered orgasm frequency.

What about the flowers, the roses, the dinners??

Clearly then, if romantic love does not necessarily fuel the sexual fire what does? Another study, however, did find something which modulated women's orgasm frequency. From, Men's masculinity and attractiveness predict their female partners' reported orgasm frequency and timing. The authors conclude:

We found that women reported more frequent and earlier-timed orgasms when mated to masculine and dominant men—those with high scores on a principal component characterized by high objectively-measured facial masculinity, observer-rated facial masculinity, partner-rated masculinity, and partner-rated dominance.

This was an interesting study since it demonstrated that orgasm frequency was contingent upon a male possessing objectively ascertainable characteristics. The relationship quality was an uncorrelated variable.

This fascinating study (abstract only) was able to decouple women's assessment of male facial attractiveness into sexual and non-sexual assessments (two separate circuits):

In the present study, while nonsexual judgments best explained facial attraction in whole-face images, a reversal occurred for split-face images such that sexual judgments best explained facial attraction, but only for mate-relevant faces (i.e., other-sex). These findings indicate that disrupting holistic processing can decouple sexual from nonsexual judgments of facial attraction, thereby establishing the presence of a dual-process.

And this study (abstract only) demonstrated that sexual arousal seems to activated by different set of of neurotransmitters when compared to romantic love:

The sexual arousal responses of women in the Lust group, but not in the Romantic group, were positively and significantly associated with elevated NE and DA. It is feasible that, when women are seeking a partner (Lust), NE and DA may facilitate attention toward sexually relevant stimuli

All in all, the research seems to point towards the existence of two separate neurological circuits. An alpha network; which is concerned with sexual desire, the activation of which is contingent upon men having certain objectively determined characteristics, and and a beta circuit concerned with asexual aspects of male/ female relationships.

Lemmings.

One of the hardest tasks I find, when dealing with my patients, is trying to "get inside their heads". Frequently, seemingly inexplicable actions are logically explained when you take the patient's "point of view" with regard to things. This does not mean that the patient was correct in what they said or did, rather, their actions were understandable with regard to forces and reasons operating in their head.

The inability to get into the opposite sex's heads, I think, is a real problem amongst many of the commentators in the manosphere, who seem to have a very hard time trying to understand female logic and motivations. Many men assume that women think like they do, and in trying to understand female action project male "logic" onto female minds. Unfortunately, this is wrong. The mounting evidence from neuroscience clearly demonstrates that men and women have different cognitive processes. I think that it is important to come to grasp with these differences in order to understand how we got into the current predicament and how to best combat it.

I have a lot of respect with regard to commentator Dalrock, and his rebuttal to me in the last post was intelligent and thought out. Still I think he errs in his understanding of female motivations.

This goes against what we know, both from a biological perspective and what the PUAs are telling us. Having sex makes babies, and it stands to reason that there is a strong biological drive to have sex with men the woman perceives (psychologically) as the fittest genetic donor. This is core to your (correct) point that it isn't reasonable for unattractive betas to demand that women become attracted to them. This is in fact what they are doing (having sex with the most attractive men they can get), and also what they tell you they are doing. Yet when these women have sex based on exactly these constraints, you attribute it to peer pressure. Biologically they should want to have sex with these men*, yet you are convinced that they really don't. 

Firstly, I'm not a big believer in evolutionary explanations of human behaviour. (No, I'm not a Creationist). The evolutionary crowd attribute too much to the genetic imperative and not enough to cognitive, social or emotional reasons.  David Buss recently wrote a book on women's sexual motivations and found a multitude of reasons why women have sex.  The take home message is that women's sexual motivations are complex and simple "genetic" imperatives are a worthless guide to understanding female motivations

The first mistake many in the androsphere make is in attributing male thought processes onto female minds--it just doesn't work that way: When you enter into a woman's brain it's a totally different world where different forces are at play. For example, it was often assumed in the earlier days of sexual research that female desire was a weaker version of the male type. However, recent psychological research backed up with functional MRI data has showed that this assumption is wrong.  Take this fascinating study by Laan.  She was able to demonstrate that women seem to be "less connected" to their genitals than men are. Whilst women were able to perceive a sexual stimulus they were less likely to be aware of it.  Likewise, compared to men, visual erotic stimuli are processed differently.

Gender is not a social construct but a biological reality resulting in a differential information processing system.   To use a crude analogy, men and women don't just differ in processors but in operating systems as well. 

Secondly,  manosphere commentators need to grasp the importance of social factors in influencing female thought and motivation. Numerous psychological studies have shown that women are more conformist than men. (Google Scholar it). It's not just that women consciously choose to conform, it's that their cognitive processes actually biases their thinking to conform.  Female cognitive processes are wired to make exclusion from the "in group" a stressful experience. When men want to punish they physically hurt, when women want to punish they exclude; the pain comes from the effect of group exclusion.

When the fat lard-arses whine about being pressured to conform to social expectation they are simply  illustrating this fact. All women want to be pretty and the constant display of beautiful women in the media makes every woman regularly aware of he deficiency with respect to the group ideal. The "pressure" thus felt is generated by her own neurobiology which recognises her "outgroup" status and attempts motivate her toward in-goup behaviours and ideals. Men too, feel this pressure but not to the degree that women do. Men might be horny all the time but women are always trying to stick with the herd.

It is this phenomenon which helps understand the phenomenon of "Erotic Plasticity". Roy Baumeister was the first to introduce the concept. While I think Roy Baumiester's current opinion piece is poorly argued, his papers on "erotic plasticity" are simply superb. Women's sexuality seems "plastic" to a degree that it just isn't in men. And as Baumeister hints in his papers, it is the social milleu in which females operate that strongly molds their erotic desires. From his 2000 paper;

Over half (55%) of women who had coital experience had peer groups who encouraged sexual activity, whereas almost none(3%) of the virgin women associated with such groups.

I would consider that statistically significant. But it would be a mistake to think that this social weighting to their cognition only applies to sexual domain. Fashion, for example, exerts a greater influence on women than men. And it need to be remembered that women frequently dress with regard to the opinion of other women in mind. Romantic trajectories, mothering styles, school and suburb choice are strongly influenced by the in group social script.

Not only is there a pressure to conform, but there seems to be some sort of cognitive mechanism which punishes the women for asserting their individuality. Women will frequently assert that there is something wrong with them if they find dissonance between group sanctioned behaviour and personal displeasure.  In Victorian ages, where sexuality purity was idealised, women thought there was something "wrong" with them if they enjoyed sex. Now they wonder if there is something wrong with them if they don't. The whole cognitive mechanism is weighted to bias the group above the individual. It's the cognition of individual subordination. 

What this means practically is, when compared to men, women suffer from more cognitive pressure to conform to group norms, and it is this mechanism that explains erotic plasticity. Women can literally be reprogrammed to whatever you want them to be. The secret is not to make it explicit or one on one but rather to highlight a woman's deviancy from the norm. If you want women to engage in any type of deviant sexual practice, then what you have to do is show that all of the girls, especially the popular ones are doing it, and its only the weird one's or the fundies that aren't. Once she has accepted that it is part of  "in group" practice, her own biology and cognitive processes will impel her toward the practice even though she might find it personally objectionable. But so strong is this imperative that she will question her own "normalcy" if she doesn't find practice enjoyable.

This is why Sex in the City and Cosmo are far greater moral solvents than hardcore porn. Porn has to appeal to the individual directly, whereas shows like SITC only have to give the appearance of upholding an "in-group" norm to influence female behaviour. In societies where rape is punishable, it is women who are the sexual gatekeepers and the level at which sexually permissibility is set is determined by group norms.

It's this propensity not to override their social imperative, even in the face of obvious self-interest, which I find so interesting in women.   Now,  I agree that women possess moral agency, and can override their emotions, but it appears that,when it comes to in-group norms, they have a far harder time doing it than men do. It's why I have some sympathy for their predicament. Dammed if they slut, dammed if they don't.

I'm not trying to excuse women for their behaviour, rather I'm trying to get a better understanding of what the motivating factors are. It really is hard for a woman to be good these days, given the current social climate which makes sexual restraint as an "out group" behaviour. Society is really rigged against the good girl.

Cigstachio

Firstly, I want to thank all the commentators to the previous posts, even those who disagreed with me I'm sorry I wasn't able to reply to everyone, but as usual, it's been a busy week.

My contention that the the success of women in contemporary society may be due to their superior character traits (at least when it comes to work and self organisation) seems to have struck a raw nerve with many commentators. Many commentators seem to want to explain away the phenomenon either as a product of affirmative action or as a result of deliberate discrimination against men.
Personally, I don't buy it.

One of the advantages of family medicine is that you get to see families dynamics in action over an extended period of time. Initial impressions are either refuted or strengthened by repeated observation and after a while you become a good judge of people's character.

Whilst I agree that the world has become progressively populated with feminist harridans, it has also become more populated with less masculine men. As far as I'm concerned, whilst many women may have unrealistic expectations of future mates, in my opinion, there is a degree of legitimacy to the claim that there is a dearth of good men.

Simon Grey disagreed with some bits of my previous post but I've got to agree with him when he says:

Here, I think, is the most important part:  most men simply do not deserve good wives, and thus good marriages.  Most men are not attractive.  And not simply in the looks department.  Most of the men I have met are weak, back-biting, narrow-minded losers.  Many of the young men I know have no goals or direction in life; they seem content with dead-end jobs, Xbox and porn.  I sincerely hope they avoid marriage.

Many of the older men I know are not much better.  A good number of them are gossipy, narrow-minded old fools who would rather engage in petty power struggles than work together in the best interest of others.  They seem like a bunch of bitter old bitches.

Even a good number of middle-aged guys that I know can be characterized as losers.  They are overly deferential to their wives, they don’t act as fathers to their children, they allow themselves to be disrespected by everyone.  They are losers, through and through.

And so, while I agree with the MRA crowd that most women would make for terrible wives, I also agree with Slumlord that most men make for terrible husbands.  Quite simply, most people in this world are self-absorbed cowards, too afraid to live up to their potential, and too weak to suppress their self-destructive tendencies.  No wonder their marriages and relationships turn cancerous.

Testify brother!

Simon is reporting from America what I see here in Australia.

Now, there seems to be this notion in the manosphere that women today are too choosy, and perhaps they are; but there never seems to be the recognition that a lot of men are no-damn-good. And perhaps, just perhaps, the reason why women are passing them over is simply because they are too repulsive to commit to.

The question I want to pose to the manosphere is, what constitutes a good man?  I mean, is a man deficient in sex appeal a good man? Is a man with sex appeal but no work ethic a good man? Is a cultureless man a good man?

Let's conduct an interesting thought experiment.

Take a look a Cigstache. (Hat tip Roissy)

Let us suppose that:

Cigstache is fertile.

She is committed to having a family.

She rejects feminism.

She goes to Church and believes in God.

She is a virgin.

She wants to be a stay at home mother.

She knows how to cook, clean and mend.

She is not a spendthrift.

She is happy to put out whenever.

She clearly possess all the moral virtues of a good wife. Would we consider any man that refuses to commit to her too choosy? Is Cigstache a good woman who has been passed over?

The problem is that many betas don't recognise that they are the male equivalent of Cigstache. Sure, they may posses many moral virtues and provider capability but what they lack is sex appeal. Is such a man a good man?

I suppose what I'm asking is what constitutes the minimum standard of masculinity; the point at which female rejection is justified. When does a man become a loser?

As if on cue.

Amongst some in the manosphere, there seems to be this prevailing notion that the problems between the sexes can be boiled down to the notion that men are good, women bad. I personally do not subscribe to this view as I believe that while Feminism has corrupted the average woman, modern masculinity is nothing to write home about.  In my previous post, I argued that in my experience women seem to have more "balls" than men, and that given their hypergamous nature this makes many men unattractive to them. A patient came in the other day who illustrated this phenomenon quite clearly.

(I've changed the details of the patient and her story to protect her privacy but the details are true to the best of my recollection.)

Patient:  Doctor, I wonder if I could see someone because I'm suffering from quite a bit of anxiety.
Me: Can I ask what is going on?
P: I'm stressed.
M: What is causing you stress?
P: I'm having problems with my boyfriend.
M: What sort of problems?
P: We argue all the time, over everything.
M: What do you argue about?
P: Money mainly. He can't seem to hold down a job and whatever job he does get he seems to be exploited by his employer. I mean he is never able to save any money and he works incredible hours but he spends all his money on alcohol and trinkets and I still end up having to give him money for his lunch.
M: His lunch?
P: He rings me up from work stating that he has nothing to eat. I'm mean, can't he pack a sandwich or just buy something? He rings me up complaining that he is so thirsty from work yet he won't take a water bottle with him.  He complains all the time about stupid little things and seems to want me to tell him how to fix them. It's like he is a little kid and I have to pack his school lunch.
M: Does he help around the house?
P: He leaves his stuff laying around. He won't wash the dishes. If he is at home during the day he won't lift a finger and I have to do everything.  I have to nag him to do anything and I'm beginning to sound like my mother and I hate it. I don't want to be a nag.
M: Do you work?
P: Yes, I do. I work as (uncredentialed clerical work) and work long hours as well.  But I'm trying to pay off a house. I bought a property before I met him and put tenants in it. They can help me pay it off.  It annoys me that my partner is not contributing. All I want is for him to be able to put some money away so that when we get married we can have some furniture and a stable financial future together, but he just seems to blow all his money and it's like I'm supporting him.
M: It's tough out there in the job market.
P: Yeah, I know. But he turns up late for work and can't seem to organise himself while he is over there. (She lists a litany of examples of manifest imbecility.)
M: Do you sleep at night?
P: I have a very broken sleep. I used to sleep very well but lately I wake up at two in the morning and can't fall back asleep. I lay awake in bed thinking of our future. I don't want to be poor and struggling for the rest of my life.
M: Are you intimate with your partner?
P: No, and that's weird, because I've always had a high sex drive. I just don't feel like doing it anymore. He gets angry about it.  Then we end up in a big shouting match. It's like I'm shouting with another girl. He's always making excuses and blames me for everything.
M: Blames you?
P: Yes, he says that I want too much. That I'm too demanding. Look, he was working in sales and his boss was exploiting him. I told him to find another job which he did. When he lost that job he blamed me saying that he should have stayed in his first job. Everything is my fault and he never takes responsibility for anything.
M: (I'd been "reading" the patient whilst she was talking. She was clearly a naturally intelligent aspirational woman who was tough). Perhaps you are being too tough on him. I reckon your pretty strong willed and can be demanding.
P: (Looks surprised!) Maybe, but I only want what my mother has. My father was always able to keep down a job. He's always fixing things up around the house and helps my mum. He never argues like a woman with my mother. When my mother starts yelling at him he tells her to shut up and walks away. When my mother cools down then he will talk to her.
M: What does your father think of your boyfriend?
P: He doesn't like him. He thinks he is a loser.
M: What do you think is the main problem then in your relationship?
P: Look doctor, I'm sick of being the man in the relationship. It's like I'm wearing the pants and I don't like it. It may sound old-fashioned but I want a man who can carry me to bed. Not the other way around.
M: It looks like your relationship is in serious trouble, why are you staying?
P: Guilt. He blames me for everything, he blames all his failures on me and perhaps I'm doing something wrong.  I want to speak to someone to see if I need to change or if something can be done.
M: I see. Look, I only have your version of events and not his,  and it may be that you really are quite  a demanding woman but it does appear that your relationship is in serious trouble and that you are quite stressed. I'll refer you to Dr X for some counseling, I think you should not make any major decisions until you've seen Dr X. He might be able to speak to both of you.
P: Do you think there is something wrong with me Doctor? Do you think I'm too demanding?
M: Like I said, I only have your version of events. But based upon my brief impression of you and your history I think you're tough but I don't think your demands are unreasonable. Your obviously stressed because you're in an unhappy relationship. Your looking for a man to look after you and challenge you and if necessary put you in your place and your current man isn't doing that.
P: Yes, Yes!
M: Look, I'm a bit of a sexist pig and believe that man needs to know how to manage his woman and not tolerate any disrespect. It's not that I want dominate women or think that they're inferior, it's just that when a woman is able to dominate her man she becomes profoundly unhappy.(Starts staring at me with puppy dog eyes)  Once again, I only have your version of events but you seem to be self disciplined and have got your act together; your man doesn't. I'd still want to hear your partner's side of the story and I don't think you should make any decisions till you see Dr X. But that's my personal opinion.
P: (Puppy dog eyes) Are you married Doctor?
M: Unfortunately for you, yes.
P: (Smiles)

I have these type of consultations roughly twice a week.  The theme is the same. Competent woman, loser man, unhappy relationship.

Many in the manosphere would view this woman as a demanding bitch. I don't. She would be a good modern fit for Proverbs 31:10-31. She has independently, on a low income, saved money and bought herself a house, put tenants in it and has a long term plan for the future. She is keeping down a job and has been able to organise her own affairs. She wants a stable future and does not want to live in poverty. By the way, I'd estimate her BMI at about 22. Such a woman is percieved as a threat to Western Civilisation by the manosphere. Facepalm.

On the other hand, her boyfriend, who can't keep down a job, is poorly organised and pathetic and relies on his wife for everything is paraded as some form of victim of modern Western Civilisation by the manosphere. Houston, I think we have a problem.

Now, it may be my opinion doesn't really matter here, but what I think is most telling is the opinion of her father, who seems to have his shit together. He thinks his potential son-in-law is a failure as well. I feel that the father's opinion may have some validity.

The manosphere has quite rightly denounced the corruption of women by feminism but what it has been unable see is the failure in modern masculinity. Roosh and Roissy may get lots of lays but they would have hardly been though of examples of masculinity either in Roman, Greek or Victorian times. Hedonism was always the "soft" option of manhood. And the reality today is that many men are soft. Not so much physically as in character. Women are far "harder" today and more self disciplined. Making women "softer" may restore some of their femininity but it no way guarantees the masculinity of men.  Taking away a woman's rights does not give a man alpha qualities.

Hypergamic Affirmative Action.

The aeroplane is like a woman. To get the best out of her you have to seduce, not rape her.

(Attributed to a Polish pilot in WW2)

Over at Alpha Game, Vox noted the recent developments in Iran on the subject of gender relations. The Ayatollahs have begun to implement a social policy designed to push women out of the engineering professions. Incidentally, it's a very similar approach that has been advocated by many traditionalist bloggers in the manosphere. Vox writes:

Of course, the Iranian action presents a potentially effective means of solving the hypergamy problem presently beginning to affect college-educated women in the West. Only one-third of women in college today can reasonably expect to marry a man who is as well-educated as they are. History and present marital trends indicate that most of the remaining two-thirds will not marry rather than marry down. So, by refusing to permit women to pursue higher education, Iran is ensuring that the genes of two-thirds of its most genetically gifted women will survive in its gene pool.

Now, I have quite a lot of respect for Vox but I think he is totally wrong on this one. Hypergamy simply can't be socially engineered away, and the approach taken by the Ayatollahs and advocated by many in the manosphere i.e handicapping women in order to make second rate men look better is simply an affirmative action program for beta males.

The social, sexual and economic liberation of women in the latter half of the 20th Century has meant that for the first time women were able to compete with men in society without restriction. The result has been spectacular if not particularly beneficial to the happiness of women. Whilst not all degrees are created equal (men still overwhelming dominate the "hard" fields of knowledge) the fact that there are now more degree credentialed women than men is simply astonishing. As income is broadly correlated with economic well being,  its safe to assume that women have been able to achieve a economic parity with men. The manosphere may not like this result but the fact is that women have been able to effectively compete with men when the shackles of social convention have been removed.

In my experience, women today seem to have more "balls" than men do.  They seem more driven, more ambitious and can make stuff happen. They seem to cope better with adversity than many of my male patients.  With most women, life goes on. The kids need to be fed, the uniforms washed and the bills paid. Many men flounder. My readers may not like this but they are my objective observations.

I'm not applauding this phenomenon or deriding it but simply stating the fact of it. The fact is that there are many women of great ability and intelligence. Now its true that this ability can impaired by failing to educate a woman or denying her a role in the economic system, but the innate ability and potential remains. All of us know individuals who, through the hardships of life, were denied an education but are yet wise, prudent and industrious. We also know others who have gone to the best schools but remain eternal morons. In the real world educated morons are no match for the street wise.

Now, suppose we take a bright girl and deliberately hamper her education and deny her economic liberty in order to make her dependent on a man. Now, suppose we introduce her to some buffoon who has finished at Harvard. Does his artificial status enhancement satisfy her hypergamic desires?
I mean, after getting to know him she recognises that he has some social status but in real life can't manage his own affairs, make a decision or have an opinion. Is such a man attractive to her? Ponder this last point.

Sure, she may marry such a man because of her limited options, economic necessity or social convention but she is doing it for other reasons besides being attracted to him. Any marriage where the partners are there for  mutual convenience instead of mutual attraction soon becomes a prison to one or both.  Modern divorce laws are perhaps the most destructive solvent in the West today but it would be a mistake to think all was well with the institution of marriage prior to their introduction. Traditionalists fail to explain the surge in divorce once it became liberalised. Happy marriages don't fail; its the unhappy ones that do, and its quite obvious that there were a lot of unhappy (and sexless) marriages in the good ol' days .

Happy marriages are marriages of mutual desire. It's not a prison when you want to be there it's only a prison when you don't.  In order for a woman to be attracted to her partner (and therefore want to have sex with)  he has to satisfy her hypergamic imperative. The problem with female hypergamy is that is is relative to the woman's own ability and status. A dumb woman has an deep ocean of suitable suitors, a smart woman a far smaller pond. Sure, some women may have an overinflated opinion of their own capability (they are easily cut down to size) but a naturally superior woman has a real problem. She may marry a man because of her economic disability, she may stay with him for the love of God but there is no way in hell that she'll want to screw her husband's brains out if she is not sexually attracted to him. Sexual attraction is an animal instinct not a rational calculation and it is conditional on the satisfaction of her hypergamic desires. He has to be smarter, wiser, and more challenging than the woman. Socially disadvantaging women in no way fixes this problem. For if a man hath no alpha then his woman hath no desire. Alpha here does not mean straight out sexual allure, but things such as masculine virtue and intelligence. Taking away a woman's rights in no way gives a man alpha qualities. There's the problem.

The manosphere rightly criticises women for their diminishing femininity, but what the manosphere does not do so well is criticise the increasing infantisation of men.  When Roosh and his followers point out that quality women are only to be found outside the U.S. he is giving the masculine version of the modern feminist lament that there are no good men at home. What many manosphere commentators fail to recognise is that the nice computer nerd is the male equivalent of the nice fat chick. The manosphere demands thinness  but criticises women for wanting its feminine equivalent. Mote, beam, eye. It's all a bit of hypocrisy.

Calls to take away the rights of women are really nothing more than an affirmative action program for weak and beta men. Desirable men don't have a problem getting married.

How to Screen the Good Girls from the Bad.

It's not foolproof but a pretty good rule of thumb. Roughly 3% of women with 0-1 sexual partners have a tattoo. From this study.

It called a tramp stamp for good reason.

(Hat tip, Roosh V)

Glad to see my Australian colleagues doing their share of the heavy lifting.

More Promiscuity Data.

Back in 2010 Anthony Paik published a study which received widespread media attention at the time. The findings were "spun" in such a way to show that casual hookups could lead to successful long term relationships. Susan Walsh had a look at it and found that the media reporting was quite biased, but this is to be expected, as selective reading of the findings were supportive of the liberal social script.

He did manage to get another study published in 2011, however, the findings in this one could not be spun so easily and hence the media gave it only a nominal amount of  coverage.

Titled, Adolescent Sexuality and The Risk of Marital Dissolution, the study attempted to find out whether adolescent sex was a risk factor working against long term marital stability, and if it was, whether the effect was causal or selective. The paper is available from here. (You can get the .pdf at the site)

The science of Slutology is still in its infant stages and Paik acknowledges that there have been very few studies done.  He lists the previous work in the area and some of the mentioned papers have been presented on this blog previously.

Only four nationally representative studies have examined whether premarital sexual experiences are linked to divorce (Heaton, 2002; Kahn & London, 1991; Laumann et al., 1994; Teachman, 2003). Nevertheless, the core finding—the association between premarital sex and increased risks of divorce—is robust[Ed]. Teachman (2003) found that women who had sex only with their future husbands did not have higher risks of marital dissolution, which suggests that the premarital-sex effect on divorce is related primarily to having sex with multiple partners

Now the question that Paik wanted to answer is whether premarital sex made a good woman risk or whether risky women engaged in premarital sex.

Despite the many contributions of prior research, there is a need for an approach that distinguishes between selection and causation explanations and that focuses attention on whether the timing and unwantedness of adolescent sexuality are linked to divorce.

He looked at the sexual histories of approximately 3,800 women taken from the 2002 U.S. National Survey of Family Growth and crunched the numbers. You can read about the methodology in the paper but the important findings are as follows:

• Women who had unwanted first sex were at increased risk of divorce.
• Women who had sex prior to 16 years of age were at increased risk of divorce, regardless of whether the sex was wanted or not.
• Women who had sex after 16 were not at greater risk of divorce if they had only ever slept with one man. Once they had slept with more than one they were at increased risk of divorce.
• He was able to pretty much replicate Teachman's findings that the increased rate of divorce amongst co-habitors is due to their multiple partner count. Note: He also replicated guest commentator Intrepid's finding that virgin brides are the safest bet of all.
• Finally, his findings support the hypothesis that having multiple partners exerts some sort of effect on a woman that increases her risk of divorce.  Women who are prone to divorce are not born but are made that way:

My results support the argument that observed linkages between adolescent sexual debut and marital disruption is one not of selectivity but of changes in beliefs and attitudes about marriage and relationships that result directly and indirectly from these [Ed: Multiple Sexual]experiences.

and

I have argued that these formative sexual experiences directly change attitudes toward marriage and sex or lead to these changes indirectly through later life-course transitions, such as the accumulation of sexual histories or
experiencing premarital fertility.

Now Paik cautiously advocates that this is only a tentative conclusion and that more work needs to be done. I personally think that Paik wasn't too happy with the findings either. Throughout the work there appears to be a grudging acknowledgment of the effect of multiple sexual partners on divorce risk. Most sociology professors are liberal but he is to be commended on letting the chips fall where they may.

No one, of course, has yet been able to explain the rock solid association between premarital virginity and decreased risk of divorce.  These women, either through partner choice or personal quality have "something" which protects them against life's vicissitudes. No "scientific" explanation is yet forthcoming. Yet for the non-virginal, the bulk of data available seems to indicate a positive correlation between partner count and divorce. I can't but help but think of GBFM, and wonder if promiscuity is a mechanism of desoulment . It's a good an explanation as any.

Note. I can hear the bleating of Left already.

I know that correlation is not causation but the whole point of looking for correlations is that there is a likelihood of finding causation as well. For years the risk of smoking was only correlated to the risk of lung cancer. Tobacco companies for years denied the link and it was only in the late 1990's that a direct mechanism was demonstrated.  Feminists and Leftists will, with same logic of tobacco company lawyers, attempt to do the same. I am not attempting to convince them. Logic and empirical evidence are no use to people who practice cognitive dissonance as a voluntary habit.

Brendan, Dalrock and Sluts. (NSFW)

Commentator Brendan is one of the more thoughtful commentators on the internet and I have a great deal of respect for him.  Over at Dalrock's, there has been a discussion going on with regard to what constitutes sluthood and Brendan chimed in with his thoughts on the matter:

On the “what is a slut” issue, the question really isn’t about a numerical cutoff, which is why that’s generally an unfruitful way of looking at the question. A slut is someone who has an instrumental view of sexuality — that is, one who views sex in a hedonistic way for the most part. A person with this mentality towards sex will not link sex with marriage exclusively, because the view of sex is distorted and based on hedonic elements which we all know can well occur outside of marriage as well. That is, sex is about two (or more) human beings collaborating physically to bring each other sexual pleasure, and this is a “good” in and of itself as long as ‘enthusiastic consent’ is present. That is an instrumental/hedonist view of sexuality, and is the sine qua non of being a slut.

While I personally agree with a lot of Brendan's views, I disagree with his reasoning on this one. Now, I do think the number of previous partners does matter, and to be fair to Brendan, he does counsel that men avoid women who have high numbers, but the executive summary of his view seems to be that number does not mater as much as "women who think sex can occur justifiably outside of marriage". I think that this is good practical advice but the problem occurs when we get to the woman who's view of sex has changed and the the real problem is how to deal with the "reformed slut". It's a bit like the reformed alcoholic or drug addict, despite their protestations how do we know they aren't going to lapse into their former ways? Real life experience shows that many do.

The whole "my previous number doesn't matter" argument frequently touted by feminists is premised on the assumption that sexual continence is easy and its just a matter of being a simple choice.

It isn't.

The pleasures of the flesh, like the bottle, are source of temptation to many people. Lot's of good Christian people, who live in fear of the Lord, go to Church regularly and believe that sex is exclusively reserved for marriage, have been caught up in affairs. It's a stock staple for atheists to snicker when some Christian Pastor is caught In flagrante delicto, and attribute to hypocrisy what is in reality an act of weakness.   When it comes to the practice of virtue, philosophy is less important than habit.

This is what I think is the weak point in Brendan's argument, sluthood becomes a philosophical position instead of moniker of actual promiscuity. I mean, take the example of feminist who has only ever slept with one man. Is she is a slut? Her view of sex may be instrumental but common sense would say no. The other problem with Brendan's approach is that is that it tends to de-emphasis the importance of the actual number count, which this blog has shown before to be a far better predictor of both divorce and infidelity.

Now, it is a well known fact that co-habiting couples have higher rates of both infidelity and divorce  should they eventually decided to marry. For years the conventional wisdom was that this fact was attributable to the more liberal philosophy of the co-habitors.  A study done by Teachman, which I have linked to previously, dispelled that theory;

The results presented in this article replicate findings from previous research: Women who cohabit prior to marriage or who have premarital sex have an increased likelihood of marital disruption. Considering the joint effects of premarital cohabitation and premarital sex, as well as histories of premarital relationships, extends previous research. The most salient finding from this analysis is that women whose intimate premarital relationships are limited to their husbands—either premarital sex alone or premarital cohabitation—do not experience an increased risk of divorce. It is only women who have more than one intimate premarital relationship who have an elevated risk of marital disruption. This effect is strongest for women who have multiple premarital coresidental unions. These findings are consistent with the notion that premarital sex and cohabitation have become part of the normal courtship pattern in the United States. They do not indicate selectivity on characteristics linked to the risk of divorce and do not provide couples with experiences that lessen the stability of marriage.

In other words, the risk of divorce did not depend on a person's sexual philosophy, rather, what mattered is the actual number of partners they had. Teachman showed that liberal women who were not slutty were good bets.

Now, common sense would dictate that a woman who embraces a hedonistic philosophy is probably going to be a bad bet compared to woman with a more overtly Christian approach. But this graph below will show you just how little comfort you can take from that line of reasoning.

The data was taken from this paper, The Benefits of Religious Worship, by the Marriage and Religion Research Institute. They didn't do a breakdown of the different denominations in this paper, and so I imagine the conservative Christians are lumped together with the liberal ones. Frankly, I'm surprised that 4.33 is the average for weekly attenders as I thought it would be much less (I imagine the pious divorcees distort the figure). But there you go. Viva La Sexual Revolution!

Having a Christian philosophy helps but it is no guarantee against carousel riding, and even your apparently averagely pious Christian girl has gone for a quick spin. But what is evident though, is the more seriously she takes the faith the lower the partner count.  But Philosophy doesn't matter nearly as much as practice, because the greater the number of partners the greater the risk of divorce. All the studies show that a zero previous partner count is the safest bet. N matters.

The other problem with the "philosophical approach" to the definition of a slut is that it supports the bad theology of what commentator at Darock's blog called "sloppy seconds agape." The idea here is that once a woman professes her love for Jesus and repudiates her wicked past she suddenly becomes a good catch. The "theology" can be briefly summed up as "Because Jesus forgave sinners you should marry them even if they don't appeal to you". Any quite prudent reservations with regard to her marriage worthiness are dismissed as a lack of charity or too much judgement(with all the negative Christian connotations that it brings). The philosophy of Sloppy Seconds Agape conflates forgiveness with imprudence and thrives in the church's where goodness is equated with niceness. The well meaning but naive Christian young man is a sheep amongst wolves in this crowd. All forms of psychological pressure and dubious theological argument will be put on him to "man up". He will be made to feel guilty for having sensible reservations. Scripture will be quoted to make him feel bad. Appeals will be made to his chivalry.

Six years later he'll be paying alimony and seeing the kids every two weeks.

As a Christian, I do realise people change. God's grace is transformative and I don't want to write off men and women who are honestly trying to make a change. I've known many women who have had torrid pasts and did their best to try and escape it by living good lives and being stable partners. I know players who realise that the lifestyle was damaging them and have opted out. People do change. But the habit of virtue is more important than the philosophy of it.  Before a man (or woman) invests their future, and their children's future in a spouse, a degree of prudence  and common sense is required. Actions speak louder than words.

Once again, I've got the highest respect for Brendan but I disagree with him on this one.

A reply to Jason.

I felt that a comment from Jason in my previous post deserved an extended reply.

Anyway, as far as your essay is concerned, it seems to me that Mencken (and you) are really inquiring into the issue of intelligence and how it relates to citizenship. 

Not so much citizenship as governance.  A say in the governance of a country is not a conditional property of citizenship. A man may be a citizen of a country yet still not have any voting rights. This is an important distinction as we are so conditioned to conflate the two. Governance is about running the country properly, citizenship is about the possession of rights which are peculiar to that country. A man who does not have the right to vote can still be a citizen.

Since the Greeks it has been known that democracies cannot survive in places where there are peoples who lack good citizenship; also since the Greeks, it has been understood that good citizenship is inseparable from the habitual practice of virtue – if citizens don’t have good families, good work habits, a certain civic knowledge of politics and history, and so on, then eventually their republics, constitutional monarchies, or whatever are eventually going to disintegrate and fall. 

I think the term virtue needs to be clarified. The virtues, with respect to politics, can be divided into two types. The moral virtues and the civic virtues. Each has its particular role to play in a community. Morality governs our relationships with each other, whilst civic virtue is directly concerned with how the state is organised. The important point to remember is that to a certain degree, each can exist without the other.

The elephant in the room that many do not want to face though – on both the right and left - is the relationship between intelligence and the ability to be virtuous.

I don't think that it's the elephant in the room. Firstly, with regard to virtue and intelligence, I really don't think it is much of a problem. From a classical perspective, it is a problem though. The ancients all thought that a man had to be at least a bit "philosophical" in order to live a good life. This in turn implied intelligence which, if lacking, condemned the stupid man to a life of misery. Christianity solved this problem by giving a man the "Ten Commandments".  It didn't ask a man to think through the problems of life, it just told him how to live. No thinking required. The fantastic thing about this approach is that by insisting on rules instead of reason it lifted a lot of stupid people up from the swamp. With the decline in morality however, the stupid are sliding back into the mire.

The real problem, especially amongst religious conservatives, is the conflation of moral goodness with political virtue which is a serious misconception. Let me explain what I mean. Jimmy Carter was by all accounts a morally better man than Richard Nixon, but he was a far worse president. His moral goodness did not translate into good political action. For all his faults, Nixon governed the country better than Carter with all his good intentions.

Civic virtue, in my opinion is only loosely related to moral virtue. Moral virtue deals with perfections of the person. Civic virtue deals with the optimal organisation and running of the state: two different things. 

Now to be sure, people with low or average intelligence can certainly act with virtue (e.g. many lesser intelligent individuals have fought very bravely in wars), yet are they always equipped to make good political decisions? A dense but nonetheless very good and devout Hispanic Catholic American, for example, might be a good family man and do good deeds in his community, yet be totally single-minded as far as the issues of ethnicity and illegal immigration are concerned. The idea that the sovereignty of the U.S. and the rule of law might be more important than identification with his ethnic and religious brethren might simply be beyond him, and not due to malice or willful obtuseness but simply to lack of cognition. In plain English, he just doesn’t know any better. Yet multiply such Hispanic Americans by millions, those who simply cannot comprehend why other native Americans might term illegal immigrants as actually being “illegal” rather than “undocumented” or other Orwellian terms, and you have a real problem on your hands.  For the ability to make thoughtful political decisions in a democracy where the people are sovereign does require a certain capacity for abstract thinking, namely the ability to weigh competing values (e.g. sympathy for immigrants vs. the capacity of nations to absorb such immigrants). Needless to say, a capacity for such abstraction is unequally allocated in the population – hence the perennial danger of tyranny of the majority or of various minorities.

Agreed.

In his Notes on Democray, Mencken quotes William Hartpole Lecky.  Lecky was an Irish Jurist who was opposed to universal suffrage and wrote a two volume book arguing against the notion. The books can be found online here.  I was reading the first chapter of the book when I was struck by the extraordinary similarity between your comment and passage from the book.

The men who vote through such motives are often most useful members of the community. They are sober, honest, industrious labourers; excellent fathers and husbands; capable of becoming, if need be, admirable soldiers. They are also often men who, within the narrow circle of their own ideas, surroundings, and immediate interests, exhibit no small shrewdness of judgment; but they are as ignorant as children of the great questions of foreign, or Indian, or Irish, or colonial policy, of the complicated and far-reaching consequences of the constitutional changes, or the great questions relating to commercial or financial policy, on which a general election frequently turns. If they are asked to vote on these issues, all that can be safely predicted is that their decision will not represent
either settled conviction or real knowledge. 

The book was written in the end of the at the end of the 19th Century and is remarkably prophetical with regard to the social effects of democratic government. He was really harsh on the U.S. I'll finish today's post with this last quote.

Yet, surely nothing in ancient alchemy was more irrational than the notion that increased ignorance in the elective body will be converted into increased capacity for good government in the representative body; that the best way to improve the world and secure rational progress is to place government more and more under the control of the least enlightened classes.

Mencken on IQ Tests and Liberals.

Menken here writes on his opinion of IQ tests and liberals. I've highlighted what I think are the important points.

Here, of course, I flirt with the so-called intelligence tests, and so bring down upon my head that acrid bile which they have set to flowing. My plea in avoidance is that I have surely done my share of damning them: they aroused, when they were first heard of, my most brutish passions, for pedagogues had them in hand. But I can only say that time and experience have won me to them, for the evidence in favor of them slowly piles up, pedagogues or no pedagogues. In other words, they actually work. What they teach is borne out by immense accumulations of empiric corroboration. It is safe, nine times out of ten, to give them credence, and so it seems to me to be safe to generalize from them. Is it only a coincidence that their most frantic critics are the Liberals, which is to say, the only surviving honest believers in democracy? I think not. These Liberals, whatever their defects otherwise, are themselves capable of learning, and so they quickly mastered the fact that MM. Simon and Binet offered the most dangerous menace to their vapourings ever heard of since the collapse of the Holy Alliance. Their dudgeon followed. In two ways the tests give aid and comfort to their enemies. First, they provide a more or less scientific means of demonstrating the difference in natural intelligence between man and man-a difference noted ages ago by common observation, and held to be real by all men save democrats, at all times and everywhere. Second, they provide a rational scale for measuring it and a rational explanation of it. Intelligence is reduced to levels, and so given a reasonable precision of meaning. An intelligent man is one who is capable of taking in knowledge until the natural limits of the species are reached. A stupid man is one whose progress is arrested at some specific time and place before then. There thus appears in psychology and the next instant in politics-the concept of the unteachable. Some men can learn almost indefinitely; their capacity goes on increasing until their bodies begin to wear out. Others stop in childhood, even in infancy. They reach, say, the mental age of ten or twelve, and then they develop no more. Physically, they become men, and sprout beards, political delusions, and the desire to propagate their kind. But mentally they remain on the level of schoolboys.

The fact here is challenged sharply by the democrats aforesaid, but certainly not with evidence. Their objection to it is rather of a metaphysical character, and involves gratuitous, transcendental assumptions as to what ought and what ought not to be true. They echo also, of course, the caveats of other and less romantic critics, some of them very ingenious; but always, when hard pressed, they fall back pathetically upon the argument that believing such things would be in contempt of the dignity of man, made in God's image. Is this argument sound? Is it, indeed, new? I seem to have heard it long ago, from the gentlemen of the sacred faculty. Don't they defend the rubbish of Genesis on the theory that rejecting it would leave the rabble without faith, and that without faith it would be one with the brutes, and very unhappy, and, what is worse, Immoral? I leave such contentions to the frequenters of Little Bethel and pause only to observe that if the progress of the human race had depended upon them we'd all believe in witches, ectoplasms and madstones today. Democracy, alas, is also a form of theology, and shows all the immemorial stigmata. Confronted by uncomfortable facts, it invariably tries to dispose of them by appeals to the highest sentiments of the human heart. An anti-democrat is not merely mistaken; he is also wicked, and the more plausible he is the more wicked he becomes. As I have said, the earliest of modern democrats were full of Christian juices. Their successors never get very far from Genesis 1, 27. They are Fundamentalists by instinct, however much they may pretend to a mellow scepticism.

One undoubted fact gives them a certain left-handed support, though they are far too discreet to make use of it. I allude to the fact that man on the lower levels, though he quickly reaches the limit of his capacity for taking in actual knowledge, remains capable for a long time thereafter of absorbing delusions. What is true daunts him, but what is not true finds lodgement in his cranium with so little resistance that there is only a trifling emission of heat. I shall go back to this singular and beautiful phenomenon later on. It lies at the heart of what is called religion, and at the heart of all democratic politics no less. The thinking of what Charles Richet calls Homo stultus' is almost entirely in terms of palpable nonsense. He has a dreadful capacity for embracing and cherishing impostures. His history since the first records is a history of successive victimizations-by priests, by politicians, by all sorts and conditions of quacks. His heroes are always frauds. In all ages he has hated bitterly the men who were labouring most honestly and effectively for the progress of the race. What such men teach is beyond his grasp. He believes in consequence that it is unsound, immoral and of the devil.

 Commentary:

Mencken here notes the fundamental opposition between democratic ideology and metrics which demonstrate the falsity of the ideal. Mencken is also quite astute in recognising that when confronted with empirical confirmation of the falsity of democratic equality, the democrat will argue against the finding on non-empircal grounds.  Democracy is not just a method of government, it is a religion, especially amongst liberals. But if you think about it a bit more, radical democracy with its profound insistence on egalitarianism, is front loaded with moral relativism. Superiority of any kind is profoundly undemocratic, so in a democratic society there will be a relentless underlying pressure to "level" everything. Radical libertarianism complements this state of affairs, since the libertarian with his desire to "damn well what he pleases" frustrates any attempt at collective action which will result in a superior outcome for the common good. The problem really isn't with the intelligent libertarian, who can be persuaded with logical argument and factual evidence towards a course of action which clearly superior. But what if the libertarian is a democrat or an idiot? What then?  Unfortunately, libertarian ideology also seems to  assume that all men are created equal. They aren't.

The two ideologies feed each other.

Mencken also realises that empiricism and rationality are the enemies of universal Democracy which totally refute its underlying assumptions. This strain of thought goes against a large body of "romantic conservative opinion" which see's rationality as the enemy of conservatism.  Liberalism is founded on irrationality, conservatism is empiric, and conservatives who diss intelligence are sawing away at their own branch.

Unlike most of the HBD crowd, Mencken still seems to harbor some reservations with regard to IQ tests.  Whilst he recognises their validity, he seems to hint that there are limits to their usefulness. Mencken recognises that the problem with the liberal ideology is not stupidity but fantasy. The liberal prefers the world to be a certain way and ignores evidence which is contrary to his ideal. The liberal pathology does not rest on a deficiency of data processing but a deficiency of data recognition.  A philosophy which rests on ignoring data would appear to be manifestly stupid, but lots of people who embrace this ideology seem to do quite well these days and wield and inordinate amount of influence. 

It's obvious most people that flying a plane by democratic vote is stupid, but moronic input into the running of the state is percieved as being benign.  The reason for this is that the consequence of bad decsion making in the air is immediate and usual fatal. The average mind is therefore able to appreciate the dangers. But when the danger is gradual and far away the danger is dismissed. It is the phenomenon of stenosophism at work.

Modern democratic ideology is profoundly hostile the conservative notion of the good running of a society. This does not mean that the alternative is to embrace a conservative dictatorship, rather, conservatives need to embrace a political ideology which limits the power of the moronic proles and yet protects the proles against the maliciousness and exploitative nature of the mainstream elites.

The Conservative Noble Savage.

DEMOCRACY CAME INTO THE WESTERN WORLD TO THE TUNE of sweet, soft music. There was, at the start, no harsh bawling from below; there was only a dulcet twittering from above. Democratic man thus began as an ideal being, full of ineffable virtues and romantic wrongs-in brief, as Rousseau's noble savage, in smock and jerkin, brought out of the tropical wilds to shame the lords and masters of the civilized lands. The fact continues to have important consequences to this day. It remains impossible, as it was in the Eighteenth Century, to separate the democratic idea from the theory that there is a mystical merit, an esoteric and ineradicable rectitude, in the man at the bottom of the scale-that inferiority, by some strange magic, becomes a sort of superiority-nay, the superiority of superiorities. Everywhere on earth, save where the enlightenment of the modern age is confessedly in transient eclipse, the movement is toward the completer and more enamoured enfranchisement of the lower orders. Down there, one hears, lies a deep, illimitable reservoir of righteousness and wisdom, unpolluted by the corruption of privilege. What baffles statesmen is to be solved by the people, instantly and by a sort of seraphic intuition. Their yearnings are pure; they alone are capable of a perfect patriotism; in them is the only hope of peace and happiness on this lugubrious ball. The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

This notion, as I hint, originated in the poetic fancy of gentlemen on the upper levels-sentimentalists who, observing to their distress that the ass was over-laden, proposed to reform transport by putting him into the cart. A stale Christian bilge ran through their veins, though many of them, as it happened, toyed with what is now called Modernism. They were the direct ancestors of the more saccharine Liberals of to-day, who yet mouth their tattered phrases and dream their preposterous dreams. I can find no record that these phrases, in the beginning, made much impression upon the actual objects of their rhetoric. Early democratic man seems to have given little thought to the democratic ideal, and less veneration. What he wanted was something concrete and highly materialistic-more to eat, less work, higher wages, lower taxes. He had no apparent belief in the acroamatic virtue of his own class, and certainly none in its capacity to rule. His aim was not to exterminate the baron, but simply to bring the baron back to a proper discharge of baronial business. When, by the wild shooting that naturally accompanies all mob movements, the former end was accidentally accomplished, and men out of the mob began to take on baronial airs, the mob itself quickly showed its opinion of them by butchering them deliberately and in earnest. Once the pikes were out, indeed, it was a great deal more dangerous to be a tribune of the people than to be an ornament of the old order. The more copiously the blood gushed, the nearer that old order came to resurrection. The Paris proletariat, having been misled into killing its King in 1793, devoted the next two years to killing those who had misled it, and by the middle of 1796 it had another King in fact, and in three years more he was King dejure, with an attendant herd of barons, counts, marquises and dukes, some of them new but most of them old, to guard, symbolize and execute his sovereignty. And he and they were immensely popular-so popular that half France leaped to suicide that their glory might blind the world.

Meanwhile, of course, there had been a certain seeping down of democratic theory from the metaphysicians to the mob-obscured by the uproar, hut still going on. Rhetoric, like a stealthy plague, was doing its immemorial work. Where men were confronted by the harsh, exigent realities of battle and pillage, as they were everywhere on the Continent, it got into their veins only slowly, but where they had time to listen to oratory, as in England and, above all, in America, it fetched them more quickly. Eventually, as the world grew exhausted and the wars passed, it began to make its effects fell everywhere. Democratic man, contemplating himself, was suddenly warmed by the spectacle. His condition had plainly improved. Once a slave, he was now only a serf. Once condemned to silence, he was now free to criticize his masters, and even to flout them, and the ordinances of God with them. As he gained skill and fluency at that sombre and fascinating art, he began to heave in wonder at his own merit. He was not only, it appeared, free to praise and damn, challenge and remonstrate; he was also gifted with a peculiar rectitude of thought and will, and a high talent for ideas, particularly on the political plane. So his wishes, in his mind, began to take on the dignity of legal rights, and after a while, of intrinsic and natural rights, and by the same token the wishes of his masters sank to the level of mere ignominious lusts. By 1828 in America and by 1848 in Europe the doctrine had arisen that all moral excellence, and with it all pure and unfettered sagacity, resided in the inferior four-fifths of mankind. In 1867 a philosopher out of the gutter [Ed:Marx] pushed that doctrine to its logical conclusion. He taught that the superior minority had no virtues at all, and hence no rights at all-that the world belonged exclusively and absolutely to those who hewed its wood and drew its water. In less than half a century he had more followers in the world, open and covert, than any other sophist since the age of the Apostles.

(H.L Mencken. Notes on Democracy)

I'm still suffering from a degree of writer's block and whilst I have quite a few ideas in my head, putting them down seems to be quite difficult.  In the mean time, I thought I would put up some passages from H.L. Mencken's, Notes on Democracy.

A good writer, trying to get his message across,  faces a special danger. Should he be a brilliant wordsmith, his polemic is more likely to be appreciated as literature rather than message; the message being lost in the delight of the writing style. Chesterton is one of those that comes to mind. Mencken is another. His mocking irreverent writing style is so pleasantly enjoyable that one tends to forget that there is some seriousness to his work. Mencken's professional occupation, like Chesterton's, was that of a journalist. He received little formal education but was one of those individuals whom one can consider a natural scholar. But unlike a typical scholar, cloistered away amongst his books in his study, Menken's reportage and journalism bought him into direct contact with object of much of his contempt: Democratic man.

People misunderstand Mencken. He was one of the first populisers of Nietzsche in the English language and assume by this association that he shared his philosophy. This view is incorrect. Mencken was more the empiricist than the Nietzschean and it was his strict empiricism that led him to views which were in accordance with Nietzsche.  Mencken believed in the untermensch not through the influence of philosophy, but through the day-to-day experience of his journalism and contact with the American Public.

In Mencken's world, there was a clear graduation in both ability and character amongst men. Mencken also recognised that the harder the task, the fewer the men fit to undertake it. Good governance he felt, was a balancing act of competing demands which required both extensive study and experience, something which the bovine masses lacked.  He saw that the average man was both stenosophistic in his intellect and local in his prejudices, and therefore he would work in the long run for personal advantage over the common good. His polemic against democracy was not so much against democracy as against universal suffrage. He realised that giving power to a fool allowed the malevolent to exploit him.  As such, he defined democracy as the worship of jackals by jackasses.

Mencken saw that with each iteration of the democratic cycle the stupid mass guided by the malevolent would conspire against the good. Moral relativism and defacto socialism would become entrenched as democracy pushed its militant egalitarianism. The mob's desire for security would triumph over their love for liberty. Bribery and corruption would become entrenched. Eventually the system would crash to ruins.

Mencken's concept of superiority did not mean the man from the "upper class" of society, blue blood or even "elite" as commonly understood. Mencken regarded many of what we would consider the "elite" as nothing more than proles that had climbed the social ladder. His concept of superior man was that of a civilised, intelligent, learned man of character. It is to these men, Mencken thought, that the fate of the country should be entrusted. The proles needed to be protected from themselves.

He particularly railed against the idea that the "little man" by being of low birth, was somehow intrinsically superior to all others.  It's an idea that was supported by two of the most diametrically opposed streams of thought. The Enlightenment, with it's idea of the noble savage, and a perverted Christianity which mistook the brotherhood of men as implicitly meaning the equality of all. Christianity's railing against the rich (whom were frequently the most obviously vile) supported this idea, but it needs to remembered that it was the common mob that shouted "give us Barabbas." It was the jackals and jackasses working together against the good.

And yet, this liberal idea of democratic man, has been adopted hook like and sinker by modern Conservatism. It is perhaps why conservatism withers under sustained liberal attack, because it is a house built on liberal sand. The rain comes and slowly it washes away.

The ideal of the Gentleman.

John Henry Newman was an academic and Church of England priest who eventually ended up being a Catholic Cardinal. His importance in today's post is in this passage from his work The Idea of a University. The passage is important because it probably best illustrates Victorian England's ideal of a gentleman. I've underlined some of the important bits.

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast; — all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make every one at their ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets every thing for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blunder. [From The Idea of a University, 1852]

Newman's idea of a gentleman has lost the power of self assertion, he simply rolls over when challenged and never dreams of challenging.  How does such a man respond to a challenge?

Some men are born beta by temperament, but others are educated into betahood. The cultural meme which facilitates this transformation is the Idea of the Gentleman. Victorian England, and its ideals, still exert a powerful influence on Anglo/Nordic culture, particularly the culture of the middle class. Now, by middle class, I don't mean economic middle class, but cultural middle class; the strata of society from which most of the thinking is done in the Anglo/Nordic world. In order to be admitted to this class, to be "one of us", a man has to adopt the habits and behaviours of such a gentleman in order to be classed as a full member. It's true that the modern gentleman is not as calm and effacing as perhaps Newman illustrates, but the emphasis on getting along and being non-offensive is still of pre-eminent importance.

It pretty obvious what happens when a shrieking harpie collides with a polite middle class man or woman. The shrieking harpie wins.

Always.

The problem with the cultural ideal of gentlemanly behaviour is that it is especially vulnerable to the "offended victim" attack. The attack is particularly devious in its effectiveness as it relies on a three prong psychological approach to destroy its opponent. Firstly, if he is of genuine good will, he will be horrified that he has caused offence and genuinely be contrite for his actions, self-censoring himself for the indiscretion. Effectively, though policing himself.  Secondly, the Gentleman victim of the attack is made to feel as if he has acted as in culturally inferior sort of way, marking him out as one of the declasse, especially if there is a strong "redneck like" like association with his gaffe.  His efforts to maintain social standing lead him to immediately apologise. Should the victim doubt his sincerity he will redouble his efforts just to maintain social standing. Thirdly,with most modern left wing social causes are on the nose with the proles, their support of our hapless gentleman will further prove his prole associations.  Support of the NRA does not win you approval with the SWPL crowd.

Traditionalists take note.

Now, with regard to the proles, their simplicity and lack of "gentlemanly manners" gives them a certain forthrightness which conservative commentators mistake as some form "native goodness" which it isn't. It also leads to some conservatives having suspicions of the refined and cultured life; seeing high culture as a corruption of simplistic rustic goodness. However, the conservatives with prole sympathies seem to forget that the aversion to gay perversion is not moral but aesthetic. Their psychological revulsion to homosexuality is as animalistic as their embrace of heterosexual promiscuity. Their innate morality is biologically utilitarian and their support or opposition to any cause is in proportion to its agreement with their biological desire. Joe average is not necessarily the Conservative's friend.

Politeness

Simon Grey is one of the bloggers I like to visit and it's quite a mystery to me why he does not get more of comments on his blog. He writes well, can maintain a consistent line of thought and unlike a lot of bloggers in this bit cyberspace is not a one trick pony. He put up a rather good post a week ago, which I think touches on one of the motive forces of political correctness. From his post:

This pathology, it seems to me, extends beyond just emotional directness.  We lie to people about everything, for fear of offending them[ED].  I cannot even begin to count the number of times where I pretended to agree with someone just so they wouldn’t get angry.  I know that there are many people who tell me only what they think I want to hear just so that I will feel good about myself.  It is almost impossible for me to find anyone who is able and willing to give me constructive criticism about anything because most of the people I know are simply too afraid to say anything that might even begin to appear to be ever-so-slightly confrontational.

and

This modern American society, then, is founded upon a culture of lies.  The fact that we cannot be honest with how we feel about one another is but one microcosm of all the big lies we have bought into.  Dishonesty permeates every aspect of our culture, and so we hide behind irony, false insincerity, and false bravado.  Nothing is serious, even when it ought to be.

I'll disagree with Simon here. It's still my impression, especially amongst the SWPL crowd, that Americans have a degree of cultural insecurity and when they want to appear cultured they traditionally aped the habits of the Europeans,  particularly the middle to upper English. As a result, modern mainstream American culture is founded upon the high Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition.

Now, My upbringing was essentially continental European whilst I living in an Anglo-Saxon culture. I've now realised that this has put me in the privileged position  of being able to see both the strengths and weaknesses of both cultures. It's a common complaint amongst lots of Europeans that you can't trust the English. Perfide Albion and its variants are a common theme throughout Continental Europe, but I think the Europeans are wrong in attributing to the English outright dishonesty. It's my opinion that the English place a much higher value on politeness than the Europeans do. They are concerned with not giving offence and are hence more diplomatic or circumspect than your average German or Italian. The European, of course, interprets this as the Englishman lying whereas in reality he is trying not be offensive.

The Germans, on the other hand. are pretty forthright at what they want to do. For this they are considered coarse and brutal. Yet, to the German he is being forthright and "honest". Unlike the Anglosphere politicians. The Germans are quite frank about what Europe needs to do to balance its books and are less likely to speak in euphemisms like "quantative easing". i.e printing money. They're direct.

It's my opinion that one of the big weak spots in Anglo-Saxon culture is the cult of politeness which America has inherited as a consequence of historical circumstances. I imagine that that this cult has it's origins in the ideals of upper class behaviour; in the ideal of behaving in such a way to never cause offense. This ideal manifests in many ways; in always being considerate of the other, in not talking about "taboo subjects" and in being deferential to others. To put it simply, Americans are too polite to tell the truth.

I imagine that the reason that politeness is so entrenched in Anglosphere is because it is necessary pre-condition of a tolerant society. For a society to work,  people need to get along, and it's obvious that deliberately rubbing people the wrong way is going to lead to societal dysfunction. The ideal of politeness relegated contentious points of difference to the private sphere whilst the common good was freely discussed.

The problem with this ideal though, is that the private actions and beliefs can't be compartmentalised; private beliefs have public consequences. For example, the belief in the permissibility of divorce is a private matter but the familial dysfunction and societal consequences thereof are a public effect. What the cult of politeness does is stop us from dealing with common good problems which stem from private choice. Particularly, the problems of the social effects of personal morality.

But this cult of politeness also generates a far more insidious problem; that of self-censorship. The polite man does not want to cause offence, but what that means he is constantly trying to gauge what is offensive, and hence the level of public discourse is limited by "sensitivity" of his audience. A very "sensitive" audience can shut down discussion on a subject entirely by being offended or feigning offence. In days of old a man could be censured for lying but all he has to do now is be offensive, say something the mob doesn't want to hear, for him to be punished. This is why "hate speech" legislation is so insidious, it purports to do a good whilst in fact furthering an evil.

It is the shrieking violets in our society which now control the public debate. There are large areas of that are simply off limits to discussion simply because polite society finds the truth offensive, not factually wrong. It's this cult of politeness that makes a man a public enemy for speaking the truth.

Success in Anglosphere society is not only predicated on one's objective achievements but upon the social conventions that one assumes. Admission into this society, the society which still effectively governs and wields power, comes with the adoption of its habits and behaviours. Having the right attitude is just as important as one's achievements. Just ask Nobel Laureates James Watson or William Shockley. ( I don't personally support their views but their treatment at expressing them is a cause of serious concern). Politeness then becomes a mechanism that suppresses the truth and excludes it from the governing  Anglo-Saxon(High Protestant) cultured class. It's also why business is a big enforcer of political correctness. The boss's company is a refection of himself and if his employees are openly spouting certain positions on Middle East policy, Racial IQ or Game, he is going to look bad amongst his golfing buddies or the hot secretary he is trying to bed. He wants to be part of the club. Social pressure keeps him toeing the line.

The solution to this problem is not the elimination of politeness as an ideal, but the recognition that excessive "sensitivity" or offense to the truth is a vice and that pandering to these people is evil. It needs to be recognised that Politeness has its limits though Redneck Primitivism is no solution to corrupt Haute Bourgeois Socialism i.e SWPL (though the Rednecks have time on their side as reality always triumphs in the end.) The solution, of course, is the polite man who unafraid to speak truth to social convention. In the end, the good man can't engage in pretty lies of omission just to keep the peace or look good amongst his friends.

One of the things that I noticed on my recent trip to the U.S. was that Americans were very, very polite.