Theme: Sex Differences

by Eli Harman, James Augustus, and Joel Davis

(worth repeating)

Eli Harman:

I wouldn’t characterize “radical traditionalism” as “reproductive egalitarianism.” It results in a different distribution of reproductive opportunities than unrestrained female hypergamy, but not an equal one, and only a MORE equal one in some, but not all senses.

For example, it does result in a downward redistribution of reproductive opportunity to lower status men. But by enforcing assortative mating, rather than harem building, it also gives higher status men access to more desirable women, because of reduced competition for mates, at the expense of having access to fewer women. And assortative mating under monogamy gives more desirable women access to greater paternal investment in their offspring, by allowing them exclusive access to the resources of high status males. Meanwhile, low desirability women have their access to the genes and resources of high status men diminished.

At least 3 out of 4 quadrants on that chart end up plausibly better off, on net. Only low desirability women (civilization’s most bitter enemies) end up unambiguousely worse off. And that’s why it proved to be such a durable and productive tradeoff for so long.

James Augustus:

I don’t disagree with you.

I considered some form of this argument (though a more legal one) when writing my comment but in the interest of brevity, I decided to exclude it at the expense of having someone point out the positive externalities produced by forcing the lower-middle classes into contractual reproduction (marriage).

But with that being said, I don’t doubt that many ‘traditionalist’ are moral, high status males stating natural law pre-scientifically (morally), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that most of the men in the traditionalist camp aren’t low status males seeking discounts on reproductive access.

Eli Harman

Well, even if so, they are proposing an exchange or a compromise that is mutually beneficial to everyone but feminists and a vanishingly small percentage of the most reproductively desirable males who are also the least cooperative and most present oriented (who would purchase greater short term reproductive success for themselves at the expense of leaving their more numerous offspring a much worse society to live in, and a much smaller inheritance.)

The alternative to overriding those groups’ preferences seems to be rampant dysgenic parasitism that makes everyone else worse off.

James Augustus

Bingo.

I haven’t written a formal argument yet, but I suspect that one of the ‘negative consequences’ of the upper-class’s low fertility rate is that there is less ‘downward flow’ of good genes (as males, are downwardly mobile, especially under Aristocracy due to property being distributed to a single male heir as a means of preserving holdings across generations).

When the upper is reproducing at sufficient numbers the middle has an increased probability of acquiring higher quality genes. This incrementally raises the lower bound.

Following C Murray’s research, I think it is clear that the upper-middle classes still follow a life-long, monogamous reproductive strategy, the middle is incrementally unable to pay the cost of maintaining that strategy, and the lower are incrementally free to do what they’ve always done (externalize the cost of their behavior/reproduction).

Joel Davis:

A tentative argument I have made in favour of monogamy as a group competitive advantage, was focused more on sexual selection itself.

Monogamy forces individuals to select the best possible mates, ergo it forces individuals to have the highest probability of generating the highest quality offspring.

At the very top end of genetic distribution, we have geniuses. And, as a group, our strategy has major reliance upon these geniuses to continuously adapt and improve it.

Our capacity to generate geniuses we can surely state as our capacity to generate maximum genetic quality.

Enforcing quality over quantity in reproduction (monogamy) therefore increases the probability of genius production.

James Augustus:

At the upper-end of the spectrum monogamy is a strategy to defend, maintain and increase holdings (property-en-toto) across generations. It also serves to reduce conflict and it produces decidability in the transfer of that inventory (to the first born son).

Where we see property (bourgeoisie & Aristocracy), we see monogamy, and where we see monogamy, we see that property maintained across a longer time horizon.

Otherwise, for the lower-middle to lower, monogamy isn’t “natural” because in the absence of property there isn’t sufficient incentive to pay the cost of long-term pair bonding (marriage).

Which isn’t to say that we cannot force them into marriage (which essentially would be the case if we reduce their ability to produce negative externalities). We can (and have) accomplish(ed) this via law (masculine) and church (feminine).

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If we look at the historical record of man’s accomplishments, we observe an inverse correlation between ‘genius’ and reproductive fitness. Or our very best don’t busy themselves with the task of producing offspring.