Thursday, October 30, 2008

Love? Marriage? Children? Don’t Think So.

On my post about “race” and the race, Avery Bullard said:

Culture evolves genetically. Race and culture go together.

To which I had planned to reply, “your point, sir?” before moving on.

The Ranting ManBut then I was invaded by the Ranting Alien once again, and here we are.

Mr. Bullard, the fact that culture evolves genetically is self-evident. One has only to read about a few invasions in an old history book to see the genetics in action. Or you could examine the DNA of Iceland to discover the cultural history it demonstrates.

Culture, even when invaded by new DNA, evolves over the long term; it is not a revolution at all unless there is governmental interference (as in the growth of entitlements = the growth of illegitimacy in the population that entitlements are set up to serve). Left to their own devices, cultures change slowly.

Just as an example, let’s take the culture of “courting” or “dating” in the U.S. (to keep it simple, we’ll stick to heterosexual middle class people for this discussion) and how it evolved within the limits of a particular time frame.

1. The arrival of the car is my arbitrary starting point. I could have gone back earlier, but the invention of the automobile is easy to see as the cause of massive change in many aspects of our culture.

Courting was deeply affected by the advent of the car. Automobiles permitted a level of privacy to young people not available previously. This new venue for intimacy, fueled by alcohol and the lack of supervision by adults, really got going in the 1920s, but it was short-lived.

2. The severe economic constraints of the 1930s reined in much of that hedonism. Besides not being able to afford a car, not many families could afford more mouths to feed. Marriage began to be put off. For families who needed their youngsters to stay home and support their kin by going to work (when they could find it), it was a disadvantage to have them considering marriage.

In addition, going away to college became again an experience for the elites - at least those not ruined by the Depression. There were also a few determined souls who accepted their second class status as working students in order to gain an education.

3. Then came the universal draft which lasted from the 1940s till after Vietnam. Swarms of strange young men, now in the employ of Uncle Sam, descended on to towns located near military bases. Being of the age where reproductive hormones are at their highest, these military boys proceeded to impregnate as many of the local females as possible. Because of the mores of the time, they often “did the honorable thing” and married their prey, each carrying her off to the next duty station and then back to either his or her hometown.

By the way, many of these marriages proved enduring. The less fortunate girls, abandoned by their cruel soldier or sailor, often went off for a while to “visit Aunt Matilda” returning home sadder but wiser. These stories - both kinds - were a regular feature of the 1940s and ‘50s.

In addition, higher education became universal also as the government, in the form of the GI Bill, grew colleges at a fast pace. In the beginning, it was men who benefitted from this growth in higher education. Women had to wait until the government, pressured by Big Business disguised as Academe, started passing out grants and loans to both men and women before they could compete and then surpass, men.
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3. By then the birth control pill of the 1960s, in addition to the influx of women onto college campuses, really loosened things up. Sexually transmitted diseases increased a hundredfold. Pregnancies sometimes occurred anyway, but the bond between men and women began to slip as men felt less responsible for “accidents” and women felt abandoned to their own devices when things went wrong. The eternal war between the sexes became somewhat radioactive at that point.

[To make this easy, I’m omitting the hippies and flower children from this discussion, along with the concurrent Civil Rights events, though this is where they’d fit in. However, that population bulge always distorts any discussion]

4. Abortion on demand after Roe v. Wade ended in a lost generation of about 47,000,000 children who might have lived otherwise. However, a. on d. also increased promiscuity because it became an alternate form of birth control, so perhaps not that many conceptions would have occurred had it not been for a. on d. as a handy back-up for the month after the alcohol fueled Brief Encounter. Hard to say…

This legal development further loosened the bond between men and women. If the former were not permitted any say in the subsequent birth or elimination of conceptions, then they protected themselves by becoming even more distant in order to survive emotionally. The Geiger counter that sits between the sexes clicked ever louder and faster.

The above enumerations are the Cliff Notes version of the cultural changes and some of the genetic rearrangements in courtship patterns over several generations in the United States.

Other factors influenced courtship during that span, including (but not limited to) this list:

- after the 1960s, women were expected to work after marriage;

- the introduction of “no-fault” divorce laws in the 1970s impoverished the women who had left the work force to have children. The words in the marriage vows remained the same, but the expectations of each side in the gender wars became increasingly different. During this time divorce rose 250 per cent.

- Trophy wives became common in the 1980s and this behavior among alpha males was no longer viewed as dishonorable (except by the abandoned, graying first wife),

- “blended” families and single parents became more and more the norm,

- latch-key children gave way to kids raised in daycare,

- which in turn gave way to the ascendancy of increasingly aggressive children,

- leading to ever higher levels of pediatric mood-altering medication.

Bullying has become a commonplace amongst children now; “mean girls” are casually cruel since no one else is real for a narcissist. And no better way exists to create a narcissist than to stick a six-week old in day care and keep him there until he’s old enough for the schools to take over his social maintenance.

These young people are now reaching the age of courtship and mating. Their narcissistic use of one another is astonishing to behold. The rudiments of attachment are the best they can hope for. Anomie? It doesn’t begin to describe the mutual feelings of emptiness, betrayal, and hatred that have become the radioactive minefield in which young people “play” with their romance games.

Thus the rituals of courting shifted, evolved, and moved on to new terrain. In that time also, women topped men in higher education, they grew more disdainful of men in general, and they proceeded to have themselves impregnated sans an actual male presence.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but what road is paved with the unintended consequences of our current mating rituals and family patterns? Where does this path lead? Heaven only knows.

One thing is for sure: genetic changes have certainly affected the cultural ones, and vice versa. Rather than a confluent arrangement that meets mutual needs what we have now appears to be an interference pattern.

I feel sorry for both sides - life is hard enough without this twisted loneliness that modernity has wrought for the current generation of mating-age adults.

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I have simplified this by leaving out race. Black families have risen into the middle class in such large numbers that their presence is no longer remarkable. As members of the middle class, their mating rituals are the same as those of the majority whites. In fact, this similarity is largely responsible for the increase in interracial marriages and mixed race children.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting post, thanks.

PRCalDude said...

Black families have risen into the middle class in such large numbers that their presence is no longer remarkable. As members of the middle class, their mating rituals are the same as those of the majority whites. In fact, this similarity is largely responsible for the increase in interracial marriages and mixed race children.

Could you provide a link for this? The most recent data I've seen is that blacks have a 75% illegitimacy rate and HIV infection rates rivaling the worst African countries. If only 25% are born "in wedlock," how can there be a large amount of black families moving into the middle class? Black families don't even make up a large percentage of the black population, unless we're counting single mother families, which are usually correlated with poverty and crime.

Also, with regards to your previous post, how can you say the race is not about "race" given that Obama wrote an autobiography outlining his racialism in 1995? For him, it seems, everything IS about race. Steve Sailer's new book might be a worthwhile read for you.

Avery Bullard said...

As members of the middle class, their mating rituals are the same as those of the majority whites. In fact, this similarity is largely responsible for the increase in interracial marriages and mixed race children.

So can we expect those blacks and mixed race people to vote along the same lines as those of whites? Polling would show that not to be the case. Obama himself is an example of of an interacial marriage yet he seems just as, if not more, obsessed with 'white privilege' as any other black American.

What about crime rates? What about watching the same programmes and movies and listening to the same music? And why are American neighbourhoods so segregated? How come white governed areas of the US have always resembled Canadian, Australian and northern European polities more than black-run Detroit which bears more of a resemblance to Africa in its governance than to white areas a few miles down the road?

There is virtually zero evidence to show that black and white Americans share the same culture. Sure, there are a few things they have in common with each other that neither has in common with their racial kin in other countries. (Although even within those - football, basketball - there are constant racial misunderstandings and conflicts). I'm not claiming everything is genetic. Environment matters to. But so do numbers. As America becomes less white the pressure to conform to traditional white American cultural norms will gradually disappear and be replaced by norms and impulses of other genotypes.

Dymphna said...

Avery Bullard -

There is virtually zero evidence to show that black and white Americans share the same culture.

I disagree, but I have neither the time nor inclination to go rooting through google to make my case.

I could make it anecdotally in my own county, where blacks and whites share just about everything but spaces for religious worship. But that is about kin, not culture. The various black or white churches are populated with members whose families have "always" attended those churches, so they do, too. A white Methodist in one section of the county is unlikely to venture to a Methodist church in another section. It just doesn't feel like "home". Same goes for black churches.

Is there racial tension here? Sure. Is it noticeable? Not particularly. I did see it in action when an elderly black neighbor asked me to deal with the sheriff's office for her -- even though The Man was an integrated force and had been for a long time.

Y'all have race on the brain, just like your counterparts on the other side. They make a career of aggrieved attention to all the perceived slights they might encounter, while y'all continue to focus on your bad news about declining white populations.

So how come if a minority population -- black, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, etc., -- can maintain its culture even though they are a small part of the mosaic...how come the majority white culture is in such mortal danger from them?

I guess that if all you have is a hammer...bang away. You remind me of the MSM in that all incoming information is filtered through your center of concern. And your center seems to be Skin Color.

What are you afraid of? Cultures change, and they change complexion, too. The Irish didn't get their redheads from the leprechauns.

Speaking of useful tools, Obie is certainly that for all the white men (and women) behind him, the honkey who are really pulling the strings attached to this piece of fluff. They have to use strings with weights just to keep him from wafting away. The man has neither the gravitas or understanding to work the levers himself.

BTW, the precinct captain for the Ob. campaign in our largely black area is a middle-aged white man who thinks conservatives are "stupid". He invited us over to watch the Dem convention at his house (presumied we were in his camp), but I declined. Explained I had to stay home and listen to my Nat King Cole records...

...ooops. Can't do that. Have to stick to listening to the white musicians, right?

Shoot. There goes my plan for having some corn rows in my hair.

There are lots of places that black and white cultures continue to collide. But in their mating rituals they divide along socio-economic ones, not color.

I spent 1,400 words discussing the evolution of the dating culture in this country, with one small addition explaining why I didn't divide it into racial groups. And what did you do? Zero in on Race.

Raceraceraceraceraceraceraceraceracerace, etc., ad infinitum ad nauseam.

Find another song to sing or go sing this one somewhere else.

PRCalDude said...

Y'all have race on the brain, just like your counterparts on the other side. They make a career of aggrieved attention to all the perceived slights they might encounter, while y'all continue to focus on your bad news about declining white populations.

Do you expect to be taken seriously with statements like this? This isn't my view at all.

The cultural factors you identified apply to all of the races living in the United States, except that there are decidedly different outcomes in terms of crime, illegitimacy, HIV incidence, and abortion rates. I doubt these differences are due to genetic factors, to be honest with you. Nevertheless, they are there. Your response is to stick your fingers in both ears and start some incoherent ramble.

Did you read El Ingles' piece that was on your very blog a couple of days ago?

dienw said...

some comments:

after the 1960s, women were expected to work after marriage;

The Womens' Liberation dramatically increased peer pressure to force women into the workplace; then the tax code changed to make it difficult for women to opt out unless hubbyhad well paying job; during this time prices for housing increased to reflect double income families: the to income household was cemented in place.

Trophy wives became common in the 1980s and this behavior among alpha males was no longer viewed as dishonorable (except by the abandoned, graying first wife),

I suspect the trophy wife has always been around.

This behavior was accomodated by the increasingly obvious mating standards of the American female: a preference for the bad boy and the higher income/status male: the male whose intelligence and character were in service to his wallet and/or his dick: women were happiest when they could find a bad boy with money: for some reason these pos become known as "alpha males" having been in previous times been called cads and bounders.

Those males who foolishly maintained their characters were considered by women to be undesirable: finally becoming derisively refered to as "beta males". So too have any males who for what ever reason are not earning upper incomes.

The increasing ability of the western female to freely select her own mate has led to the dominance of the cad and bounder. If a male wants to be chosen - not settled for or to settle - then he must meet these statndards.

I haven't looked at the comments yet but I suspect Whiskey would have plenty to say about this.

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You have left out the Womens' Liberation movement and the gramscian pressure against the family.

No one I have ever read mentions the possibility of a abortion survivor mentality amongst children born after 1973 similar to the holocaust survivor mentality. Nor has anyone written about how a child might feel subconsciously about being allowed to live because it was convenient. The prevalancy of abortion has cheapened life in the mind of these children.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but what road is paved with the unintended consequences of our current mating rituals and family patterns? Where does this path lead? Heaven only knows.

Reason and wisdom can tell one fairly clearly the consequences of ideas and behavior. It is time to realize that this road to hell was paved by a wicked ideology.

dienw said...

Nor has anyone written about how a child might feel subconsciously about being allowed to live because it was convenient.

I should also add: who in their right mind would attach themselves to a pro-abortion woman who viewed another life in terms of convenience.

Unknown said...

I was very surprised to find out a little while ago that despite the fact that Soviet Union was cut off from the western world, the sexual revolusion occured there as well if not more so then in the west.

The main reason given for that is a huge loss of male population during the war, and very large number of single women, who then onwards had to work to support their families, and fight with other females for those little few of males remaining.

Dymphna said...

russiky--

were you surprised to find we had taken on the Soviet ideal of children raised by the state?

____

njartist said --

I suspect the trophy wife has always been around.

Yes, of course. But now there is no price to be paid for such dishonorable behavior.

Any more than there is a price to be paid for casual abortions...except in the latter, where the sequelae of frequent abortions is beginning to show up in later life. Nature is a harsh judge.