Kevin MacDonald: Given Ian Jobling’s work (which is decidedly odd for someone who claims to be a race realist and defender of the White race) and the recent interest on this list in ethnic genetic interests and genetic similarity theory (GST), I thought I would briefly lay out my views.
My ideas on GST are spelled out here. The data compiled by Phil Rushton and others are very clear that people assort on the basis of genetic similarity — they like genetically similar people more, are more likely to marry them, etc. Any critic of this theory must show where this rather large amount of data is wrong and provide another explanation for why genetic similarity influences behavior. That has not happened. A recent study that is entirely compatible with GST concludes “assortative mating related to genetic ancestry [not social class] persists in Latino populations to the current day, and has impacted on the genomic structure in these populations.”
Contrary to Jobling, my argument is that GST is not about altruism: “Relationships of marriage, friendship, and ethnic group affiliation fundamentally involve reciprocity, and self-interest is an obvious component of all of these relationships: Assortative mating increases relatedness to children, so that one receives a greater genetic payoff for the same parenting effort. Successful alliances and successful friendships have a greater payoff to self if genetically similar others succeed when you succeed.” There is also a higher threshold for defection.
The same argument can obviously be extended to larger kinship groups. Again, it’s not about altruism but about self-interest. Indeed, as I note, genetic similarity must compete with other interests. For example, in marriage, genetic similarity must compete with the resource value (health, age, beauty, wealth) of a prospective mate. As I also note, GST is not adequate as an underpinning of an evolutionary psychology of groups — of the deep attachment that people often have to their ingroups. Nevertheless, GST mechanisms are doubtless responsible for what I term “implicit Whiteness” — the primal attraction that Whites have for each other in an increasingly multi-racial societies they live in now. Clearly, this has nothing to do with altruism.
Jobling mentions my comment on Jews preferring martyrdom over conversion to Christianity as an example of bad thinking. My argument is not based on GST, but on social identity (SI) and individualism/collectivism mechanisms. In the article referred to above, I provide a number of arguments for why SI mechanisms are an evolutionary adaptation to between-group conflict. These must be answered by any competent critique. I also provide an argument for individual and group differences in social identity processes based on research on individualism/collectivism. Again, it’s not about altruism. The argument is that at the collectivist extreme, people lack an algorithm to calculate the relative benefits of defection versus continued group membership. Any reasonable critique must address my specific argument and provide an alternative explanation of martyrdom. I also argue that in many parts of the world people have lived in group-structured populations for evolutionarily significant periods. This in turn leads into one of the major areas of my thinking briefly discussed in the article— that European peoples are significantly more individualistic than collectivist peoples, prototypically the Jews. European tendencies toward individualism figure in much of my recent writing. (See here and here.)
Finally, I argue that rational choice mechanisms are critical for developing adaptive strategies for humans. For humans, the evolutionary game is played out in conflicts over the construction of culture — hence my book, The Culture of Critique. This argument first appeared in my books on Judaism, since I repeatedly noted that Jews were flexible strategizers, not preprogrammed robots. (Whatever else one might say, an effective lobbying group like AIPAC is using rational mechanisms, not evolved modules in figuring out how to influence US foreign policy.) In the academic journal literature, I presented it here, and I expanded on it here recently.)
It is true that these mechanisms do not have an affective component — they don’t produce an emotional allegiance to one’s race or ethnic group, and they are therefore insufficient to build a mass movement. But rational choice mechanisms do show why it is entirely rational to have allegiance to one’s ethnic group. Implicit Whiteness based on genetic similarity is insufficient as a basis for a successful White movement. I think that ultimately a White mass movement will rely on social identity mechanisms because they do have an emotional component. As Whites become a minority and as the political fault lines are more and more centered on race, these mechanisms will naturally be triggered. This is a recent comment along these lines.
Acting on and strategizing about genetic differences is the very essence of evolution, and there is no doubt that genetic differences between human groups are meaningful and have important effects on behavior. Quite simply, societies composed entirely of sub-Saharan African groups are going to be very different from societies composed entirely of Jews, Chinese, or Europeans.
Humans, like all living things, have genetic interests because we are not clones. People who deny there are genetic differences and behave as if there are no meaningful genetic differences will simply lose the evolutionary game — much like a pacifist male elephant seal who refuses to fight other males in order to be able to mate. Salter’s work is absolutely bedrock sound. Jobling repeats several arguments that have long been refuted (see this paper for a more detailed discussion). As Salter notes no matter what the level of genetic commonality among humans, if this commonality negates the adaptiveness of favoring one’s ethnic group or race, then it must also negate the adaptiveness of parental love. This is absurd, both intuitively and theoretically. But you cannot have it both ways: if preserving genes in your children is adaptive, doing so with any concentration of your genes must be adaptive.
There is no doubt that we have evolved modules that reliably promoted adaptive behavior in past environments, but as humans we are able to make plans and strategies that don’t depend on these modules but are responsive to current contingencies. For example, one idea that has been proposed is to establish a White homeland in the US. Such a proposal should be evaluated by rational choice mechanisms: What are the costs and benefits — genetically, psychologically, financially, economically, and in terms of defensibility, etc.? How exactly would White be defined? These questions can only be answered by rational choice mechanisms — what psychologists term explicit processing.
If we don’t act on our knowledge and understanding of genetic differences we will be like the pacifist elephant seal — a genetic dead end. Our tombstone could read: “Here lies the White race. It went out and conquered the world. It then committed suicide because it decided the game wasn’t worth playing.” This is definitely not an ideology that seems to appeal to others around the world, as in Israel where immigration and marriage are tightly linked to genetic ancestry.
The peoples who appear to be on course to inherit the earth will doubtless enjoy attending museums dedicated to exhibits of this peculiar people. It is perhaps fitting that after the hatred that so many now bear toward Whites for their previous dominance has subsided, our demise would be seen as a mere evolutionary curiosity — the first group to voluntarily exit history.
Facing the Future as a Minority
Was the Immigration Act of 1924 Illiberal?
I’ll be responding to this on White America in a couple of days.
“Jobling repeats several arguments that have long been refuted (see this paper for a more detailed discussion). As Salter notes no matter what the level of genetic commonality among humans, if this commonality negates the adaptiveness of favoring one’s ethnic group or race, then it must also negate the adaptiveness of parental love. This is absurd, both intuitively and theoretically. But you cannot have it both ways: if preserving genes in your children is adaptive, doing so with any concentration of your genes must be adaptive.”
I’ll just comment now that MacDonald seems to have missed the point of my article. I concede that ethnic nepotism can be adaptive, in the sense that it meets the conditions spelled out by Hamilton’s rule. My argument is that instincts for ethnic nepotism could not have evolved because co-ethnics are not the optimal vehicles of kin altruism. Not all adaptive behaviors evolve; only behaviors that outcompete others, and nepotism that confines itself to kin can be expected to outcompete broader forms of nepotism. The paper by Frank Salter that MacDonald links to doesn’t address this argument either.
I await your reply. But for now I’ll just comment that I explicitly state that instincts for ethnic altruism did not evolve and that GST is not sufficient as a theory of ethnic altruism. Indeed, an important point of my post was that none of the mechanisms uncovered by psychology predispose toward altruism–with the possible exception of being extreme on collectivism. That’s why we have to strategize using explicit processing. Altruism has nothing to do with it.
I thought Jobling said he wasn’t going to come back to this site, never mind post.
Dr. MacDonald,
Are you willing to say bluntly that Jewish martyrdom was the maladaptive byproduct of an adaptation for collectivism? Because the way you couch the issue both in your article and in this post, I don’t know whether you mean that or not. You say in your article that willingness to martyr yourself is not a “pan-human psychological adaptation,” which leaves open the possibility that it is specific to Jews and other groups. And in your comment above, you suggest that at least some groups might have evolved to martyr themselves because this behavior was adaptive at the level of the ethnic group. So do you think martyrdom is adaptive or maladaptive? Is it the result of an instinct gone wrong or is it something some groups of people were designed by natural selection to do?
It seems that if you martyred yourself, you’d be dead.
Not a very good strategy to “preserve a race.”
Also, I think it is only Western Europeans that are individualistic. Slavs in particular are collectivist, and specifically Russians. Mediterraneans are also less individualistic.
Dr. Jobling: What I am saying is that individualism/collectivism is an individual differences distribution. People at the extreme end of collectivism may well not be behaving adaptively if they choose martyrdom rather than defection–in fact, I rather doubt that they are. It’s the same for personality distributions: The extremes are maladaptive. (See my 1995 paper on the evolutionary psychology of personality; reference below.) For example, we all have an adaptation for fear, but there are individual differences in fear, and at the maladaptive end you have phobias where people can’t function properly. I am certainly not saying that Jews have a unique adaptation or that they evolved to martyr themselves. Being very high on collectivism obviously has its advantages in terms of group cohesion and commitment. And for the most part, Jews and other highly collectivist groups have not been put in a position where they have had to chose between defection and martyrdom, so the maladaptive behavior of martyrdom would not typically be selected against in the real world, or at least not often enough to really be strongly selected against. Jews were only forced to make such choices sporadically–mostly during the Middle Ages and even then it certainly was not the norm. (The example I discuss is from medieval Germany, but I would be hard pressed to think of another example. Famously, the Sephardic Jews in Spain appeared to defect when given the choice of death or conversion, but then became crypto-Jews, so that doesn’t count as defection.) So in general, they could benefit from being extreme on collectivism without bearing the costs that would ensue if they were forced to choose between martyrdom and group defection.
MacDonald, K. B. (1995). Evolution, the Five Factor Model, and Levels of Personality. Journal of Personality 63, 525-567.
http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/jop1995.pdf
Jobling says there is
“little evidence of kin altruism even among cousins. For example, a study of bequests in wills found that, of beneficiaries who were blood relatives, 85 percent were siblings or children, but only 11 percent were nephews/nieces”
Marriage has been consanguineous (including uncle/niece) in many communities including the Jewish. Europeans are the exception.
IJ says
“After all, humans share 99.9 percent of their genes, so there would be no reason to behave substantially more altruistically towards one person than another—”
But
“First, when genes vary between populations, it’s usually because these populations inhabit different environments with different sets of selection pressures. Genes that differ across this environmental boundary are necessarily genes that make a difference, i.e., that have selective value.
In contrast, when genes vary within a population, despite similar selection pressures, it’s usually because they have little or no selective value”.
Lewontin’s Fallacy? .
Dr. MacDonald,
I have a few questions for you after reading your post.
Do your views on genetic similarity theory and ethnic genetic interests differ from those of Rushton and Salter at all?
Also, you say that “GST is not adequate as an underpinning of an evolutionary psychology of groups — of the deep attachment that people often have to their ingroups.” I always thought that Rushton believed that genetic similarity theory was in fact the reason that people have a deep attachment to their ethnic group. Was I wrong in my interpretation? Is GST merely responsible for the phenomenon of people assorting on the basis of genetic similarity?
The individual is not the atomic unit of human evolution. The tribe is. As I understand it, carrying on about individuals pursuing their individual genetic interests is nearly as erroneous as carrying on about a cell’s cellular genetic interests. The tribal G.E.S., a rapidly evolving memetic superstrate over the biological substrate, assures the survival of its host (the tribe).
Individuals may have their own impulses and inclinations, but history has favored and will continue to favor individuals who subscribe to a G.E.S. While one can get lost in the data (as Jobling has done), it’s evident from an aerial view that participation in a tribal G.E.S. is more adaptive than shrewdly protecting your immediate family interests. Cohanim Jews are perhaps the best example of this. Maintaining a consistent genotype and phenotype over that length of time and throughout that much exposure to alien populations is a phenomenal accomplishment.
For countless Jews throughout history, the immediate interests of the individual and the family was to convert. Those Jews who went with their instincts failed to preserve their genotype while those Jews who inculcated the tribal religion managed to preserve their genotype.
From a tribal perspective, the loss of a soldier, suicide bomber, or kamikaze pilot is an investment in preserving or expanding the tribe’s habitat. While being chosen by the G.E.S. to become the suicide bomber is obviously a bummer for one’s individual interests, the G.E.S. which selects a small subset of its population for martyrdom is probably more secure from invasion than one which does not (all else being equal).
While human evolution has been happening at a very rapid pace, the overwhelming bulk of these new adaptations for coping with the novel habitat of civilization are to be found in the memetic superstrate, the G.E.S., the religion, than in the genome. The debate can carry on, but it’s evident from a cursory review of history that Jobling has taken a wrong turn here. Tribal loyalty is more adaptive than familial loyalty.
Facts on individualism vs. collectivism in different societies:
Figure 2 here:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/10/27/rspb.2009.1650.full
http://www.growing-global.com/detail.asp?ID=23
“3. Individualism applies to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after themselves and their immediate family.
Collectivism applies to societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive groups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.
High Individualism: Identity is based on the individual – Task prevails over relationship
High Collectivism: Identity is based on one’s social grouping – Relationships prevail over task
USA ranked 1 of 39 – High Individualism
UK ranked 3 of 39 – High Individualism
France ranked 11 of 39 – High Individualism
Germany ranked 15 of 39 – Moderate Individualism
Italy ranked 7 of 39 – High Individualism
Netherlands ranked 5 of 39 – High Individualism
Mexico ranked 29 of 39 – Low Individualism”
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-amoralfamilism.html
“In a controversial account of poverty in a village in southern Italy (The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, 1958), Edward C. Banfield argued that the backwardness of the community was to be explained ‘largely but not entirely’ by ‘the inability of the villagers to act together for their common good…”
Now see us rednecks have this here little “problem” licked.
Why, we’re ALL cuzins! :)
Compared to you YANKEES that is.
So race isn’t genes. Or not just genes, anyways. Who cares?
With all due respect to proFESsor macDONald and the folk at the OXiDAYNTal obSERVah, this is a SUR-PRISE to y’all? Y’all need hunnerds a words to DEBATE this shit?! What are y’all, a bunch a Jews?!
Sad, boys, truly sad.
– and what the hell kind of a name is JOBling anyways?
If we don’t act on our knowledge and understanding of genetic differences we will be like the pacifist elephant seal — a genetic dead end. Our tombstone could read: “Here lies the White race. It went out and conquered the world. It then committed suicide because it decided the game wasn’t worth playing.”
Suicide implies a deeply personal, consciously deliberated decision to self-destruct. What’s happening is not fairly described as suicide.
There are other explanations for inaction besides a desire to self-destruct. One is ignorance, reflected in the ubiquitous regurgitations of the regime’s propaganda that “all men are created equal” and “it doesn’t matter what color someone’s skin is”. Another is intimidation, reflected in the understandable desire of individuals to avoid the pain the regime inflicts on heretics. Most people don’t have knowledge or understanding of genetic differences. Those who do know also know they will be punished for acting on this knowledge. If anything this indicates an aversion to self-destruction.
A small group in positions of leadership and responsibility has chosen to actively advocate for massive non-White immigration and state-sanctioned discrimination against Whites in employment, education, and business. They are in positions of power. They know, or should know, that their choices are inflicting disastrous consequences on native Whites. They do so largely without our knowledge and without our consent. If this crime is to be reduced to a single word, then genocide is the word to use.
Tanstaafl wrote:
“A small group in positions of leadership and responsibility has chosen to actively advocate for massive non-White immigration and state-sanctioned discrimination against Whites in employment, education, and business. They are in positions of power.”
I have two questions.
1) Are you talking about Great Britain or America? I read something recently about the Labour Party in England deliberately bringing in a bunch of non-whites to piss of the Conservative Party.
2) Do these people have names?
Here is my response to this post:
http://whiteamerica.us/index.php/blog/blog/kevin_macdonald_is_confused_about_ethnic_altruism/
I maintain that MacDonald is confused on the subject of ethnic altruism. Reciprocity and altruism are not mutually exclusive, so altruism can exist within reciprocal relationships. MacDonald’s theory of ethnicity attributes such altruism within reciprocity to relations among co-ethnics. More broadly speaking, MacDonald’s “An Integrative Evolutionary Perspective on Ethnicity,” the article referenced in this post, is incoherent. Although he denies that ethnic altruism exists in one section, other passages in the article rely on the assumption that ethnic altruism does exist.
Actually, it’s Jobling whose “work” is generally incoherent. Or maybe intentionally inchoate is a better way to describe it. As in being so in order to obfuscate and deceive.
Actually, it’s Jobling whose “work” is generally incoherent. Or maybe intentionally inchoate is a better way to describe it. As in being so in order to obfuscate and deceive.
We heard you the first time, lol.
Good point actually. I think it’s a waste of time to argue with the “antis” – even those who claim to be “pro-white”. They’re not. Since our enemies do not give an inch or actually care what our opinions or concerns are, it’s a waste of time to expend energy in argument. Our energies should be focused on making more of our kin aware of what’s really going on, not arguing with front men, brainwashed radical zionists, Israeli “internet teams” or Hillel House frat boys and JDL lap dogs who are putting in their mandatory internet troll time.
we dont need this hostility and bad feelings between you two.
these types of disagreements and debates within the community are good for the movement, they show that were not just a blind mass nodding our heads at whatever seems to work for us and that were actually pursuing the truth and evolving. this type of competition strengthens us.
if we all agreed and spent our time continually patting each other on the back without embracing opposing perspectives then this movement would be nothing more than intellectual masturbation. this shows that were are reasonable people who pursue the truth honestly.
We don’t need disingenuous statements from people like Ian Jobling. Jobling is not really debating. He’s intentionally presenting false, misleading information. He is not part of any “movement” to benefit whites.
Thank you for talk about this. Great blog posting on your site. I was reading your posting and I have bookmark your blog already.