Similarly, he attributes the progress he’s seen toward a more egalitarian South to the alleviation of the region’s most pernicious health problems. “You still hear people say that the old South will rise again, but I doubt it has a chance unless disease prevalence goes up dramatically,†he says.
Tracing human psychologies, both social and political, to biological germ-avoidance evolutionary response. Fascinating stuff, even if the author falls into the conservative-liberal pigeonholing trap at the end of the article.
Phil Reads
Enjoy the Decline
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both hyperlinks are broken…..
Sorry, fixed it!
I have seen at least two commentators in the alt-right blogosphere in the last few years attempt to reduce all of political thought to a single binary choice, or even evolutionary psychology.
Mencius Moldbug, of “Unqualified Reservations,” reduces the left-right political divide to “formalism,” which he defines as respect for both the letter and the spirit of the law; conservatives have this trait, liberals are horrified by it and “just want to help,” which brings chaos, the return of the Gods of the Copybook Headings, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, adults watching cartoons, dogs and cats living together, and so on.
People like “Anonymous Conservative” and “Raywolf” at the blog “Return of Kings,” speak of all politics as descending from prehuman inheritances. R-type breeding strategies, such as we see in rodents and insects, and in certain human cultures, is based on an instinctual presumption of peace and plenty created by others, and is inherently Leftist. K-type breeding strategies, as we see in certain human cultures, and among large mammalian carnivores, is based upon a presumption of scarcity and an instinctual acceptance of the struggle for survival. This fits neatly into Twentieth Century Western politics, I guess, but ignores the rest of the world and the rest of recorded history.
I think these are fascinating ideas, if not necessarily ready for prime time.
Toxoplasmid gondii (sp?) is a parasite that is transmitted from diseased rats to cats, and from cats to rats (that get away) and to people (cat scratch fever?).
The interesting symptom of this parasite in rats, is that rats become fascinated by the smell of cat urine, making them more likely to be caught and eaten by a cat. Thus infecting yet another cat. Uninfected rats display a fear response to the smell of cat urine, which seems pretty rational for a rat.
In humans, it seems that behavioral symptoms include increased sexual promiscuity, hyper-masculinity in men, hyper-femininity in women. (Anybody ever walked in to a house with seventeen cats living there? Phew – what a stink. Kinda makes you wonder if that little-old-lady is infected). The per-capita infection rate varies from nation to nation, but France is towards the top of the list.
If I was a mythbuster, I would find the general argument that endemic infections can influence large-scale population behavior to be plausible.
Lead paint sales stopped mid-1960s. Give the inner cities of the US about 20 years to paint over pretty much every wall and ceiling, and around 1990 crime rates started dropping. Hmmmm.