STEPHEN VAN ECK
A lot of us who are annoyed by Rightists have wondered, “What IS it about them? Why are they the way they are? Can they ever change?
The relatively new field of Evolutionary Psychology may provide some insight. Rejecting the Standard Social Model that deems a person a tabula rasa (blank slate), Evolutionary Psychology maintains that certain tendencies have been hotwired into the brain through eons of evolution.
This hardwiring became set during the Hunter-Gather phase, and pretty much came to a stop with the development of Agriculture and civilization. Both enabled more to survive, and insulate us from the harsh forces of nature that serve to weed out the maladaptive. There is therefore almost no natural mechanism to select for psychological adaptations more suited for modern civilization. So although we have 10,000 years of subsequent development in technology and society, we ourselves retain inclinations and instincts of ancient Hunter-Gathers. But biology need not be destiny.
I have concluded that a Rightist is someone who acts out of these ancient instincts, and who stoutly resists anything that goes against them. A Rightist is inclined to go with his gut, preferring kneejerk reaction, and is inherently anti-intellectual, since intellect so often violates his gut instincts.
This theory explains why Rightists are paranoid. Why Rightists are xenophobic. Why Rightists are staunchly religious. Why Rightists have irrational anarchistic sentiment, vigilante tendencies, and favor ruthless competition. Why Rightists believe in male domination and female subjection. All of these served some survival purpose and were wired into us during the Hunter-Gatherer phase. Rightists choose to remain there, ten thousand years in the past, rather than ignore their gut and cultivate the intellect. Rightists are atavistic.
Because it’s a choice, Rightists can choose to move on, and to let the intellect take priority over gut instincts. But the prospect frightens them, and the work involved is too daunting. So there they stay. The rest of us have chosen to apply the intellect, and have overcome our innate tendencies toward paranoia, xenophobia, sexism and religion. For this we earn the resentment of threatened Rightists, who deride us as “pointy-headed intellectuals” and “Elitists”, as if there’s something wrong with continuing to evolve. Or that hoary all-purpose slur, “Commie”.
The demands of civilization frustrate and confuse the Rightist, making them potentially dangerous. We cannot let those who are trapped by, and dominated by, primitive thinking and fear drag society backwards, let alone stall its development. Opposing and exposing Rightism is not merely a moral duty, it is self-defense, an ancient impulse a Rightist can readily grasp.
If evolutionary psychology, formerly called sociobiology, is a legitimate contribution to human knowledge, then anthropology, biology, genetics, history, paleontology, zoology, and practically all other sciences are incompetent hogwash. Sociobiology is Lysenkoism carried to its logical extreme.
E. O. Wilson, who invented this “relatively new field” of masturbation fantasies, is as much an antihuman humbug as the inventors of psychoanalysis, phrenology, parapsychology, homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, UFOlogy, and the pretend-religion of scientology.
Note that, while Richard Dawkins has not openly repudiated the Wilsonistic pseudoscience that gave him his start, he has backed far away from it and declared that the concept of a “selfish gene” was interpreted far more literally than he had ever intended.
Your comments were on Evolutionary Psychology, not really on my explanation of why Rightists are the way they are. If you have an alternate explanation, we need to see it. “Because they are” is the default alternative, and somehow that won’t do.
I have no dispute about the maint points of your article. I merely wanted to point out that citing a pseudoscience as a basis for an otherwise valid argument tends to undercut your credibility and should be avoided.
I see. I was thrown off by your opening sentence, which was astonishingly broad. I have not attempted to refute any of these other fields, and I very much doubt that the leaders of Evolutionary Psychology do, either. I think they would all be interdisciplinary, and would like to note that EP supports Evolution, something our opponents do not. Indeed, the tabula rasa notion plays well with the inclinations of the anti-Evolution crowd. God can hardly judge us as comprehensively if we have evolved psychological adaptations. The tabula rasa fits into their theological doctrine of absolute accountability for “sin”. I do not see how anyone who accepts Evolution can reject the idea that we have evolved psychological adaptations or tendencies as a result of Natural Selection. This, not merely socialization, may be the root of the maladaptive weakness for religion that seems to be a Universal.
Let me start by saying that there is nothing wrong with Mr Van Eck’s logic. But in case anyone gets the idea that sociobiology/ evolutionary psychology has any validity whatsoever, let me cite its most imbecilic conclusions.
Sociobiologists assert that, when humans mated by rear mounting, the sight of rounded buttocks was a sexual turn-on. With the development of the missionary position, women were obliged to evolve breasts as an alternative stimulant. That could only have happened if men were so turned on by emerging breasts, that significant numbers refused to mate (and thereby breed) with women who remained flat-chested. While flat-chested women today receive less mating offers than Playboy foldouts, they observably do not have to remain celibate. The sociobabblers also think that giraffes were able to recognize the need for long necks in order to reach the tops of trees, and were able to will themselves into evolving the necessary long necks. The explanation of biologists is that, since giraffe food grew on tall trees, those giraffes that already had longer-than-average necks had a significant survival quality. With each generation, those with the longest necks produced offspring with the same mutation, so that eventually all giraffes had long necks.
So the sociobiologists recognize that evolution happened. A stopped clock is also right twice a day.