> “What about places like Saudia Arabia? They’re rich and not liberal!”
I’ve mentioned the Saudis within Biofoundationalist framing before on a podcast; they’re not a counterexample, in fact they’re another illustration of it happening.
even in religiously strict, ultra-conservative places like Saudia Arabia, this abundance-style liberalizing phenomena is occurring.
Saudi Arabia is vastly more liberal than it *comparatively* was a couple decades ago (I’ll break this down in a future essay, there are many examples). the comparisons to see the liberalizing effects with wealth are to be made to a country’s *current* values and *past* values (expressed through the political), and then compare the environment over that timeline.
SA is way more liberal than it once was and is only getting moreso. the liberalizing effect is seen within the context of *the same nation over time*; not by making some arbitrary comparison to say Sweden-style social policies then saying “look it’s still conservative compared to Scandinavia so it’s not liberal!”. that’s not the point, it is getting much more liberal relative to what it once was, and abundance has every bit to do with it.
> "The parties move around over time and don't have fixed values. This refutes the dyad claims behind Biofoundationalism"
remarks to past Biofoundationalism essays have mentioned how political parties shift and don't espouse the same values over time. republicans today don't believe the same thing as republicans of yesteryear. the tories aren't really "conservative" anymore, etc.. yes, very true!
and this is precisely my point: political platforms have become more left/liberal over time in an environment where you should expect them to do so (this includes leftwing parties, which are also more liberal). this is why conservatism is described as "the speed limit of liberalism in wealthy environments" in Part IV. you need to look at these trends over 10-15+ year timelines, not 1-2. we are discussing deep macro behavioral patterns, not the past couple elections.
you'll note I use the terms 'conservative/liberal' and not 'republican/democrat' or other political branding.
--> when you point out how rightwing parties have different values compared to yesteryear, you are not observing conservatism changing, you are simply observing "the degree that rightwing parties can actually be conservative is diminishing in an increasingly decadent environment". this is entirely consistent with Biofoundationalism, in fact it's one of the core points of Part IV. <--
this is why I don't discuss these concepts on political party grounds. parties can call themselves whatever they want, what matters is the morality they're selling and the degree to which they can sell it.
the parties are prone to shifting over time, and the more instability/hardship an environment has, the less liberal the "liberal" parties will be. the richer/safer the country, the less conservative the "conservative" parties will be! again, over ~10-year timelines. this will be deconstructed more methodically with examples in Part V.
at macro scale: in times of hardship both parties will veer right; in sustained decadence both will creep left. we colloquially refer to this as the Overton Window. the long-term trend is a function of the utility that a certain morality offers in a given environment.
the country’s governance has to be reasonably democratic/non-tyrannical for this to occur. if the population is physically disallowed from expressing their temperamental morality (voting)…. well then yeah, they can’t express it. violence can suppress a hell of a lot of things. that doesn’t refute anything Biofoundationalism is saying.
Biofoundationalism properly understood should totally recalibrate how you understand political designations and disagreements. keep in mind I am speaking of these concepts on *genetic grounds from a gene-environment interaction lens*; not nominal party affiliation and PolySci narrative storytelling.
WHEN I SAY 'CONSERVATIVE': I mean the morality that primarily experiences a disgust response in the insula and has a larger, more activated amygdala. this is a masculine moral genotype, producing a conservative political phenotype.
WHEN I SAY 'LIBERAL': I mean the morality that primarily experiences a sympathy/empathy response in the insula and has a larger ACC. this is a feminine moral genotype, producing a liberal political phenotype.
there is a consistent, measurable, dyad-like split between these two groups politically and morally, and it is demonstrably genetically rooted. however the *degree* that they can express their morality/values depends on the environment. this process will be elaborated on in Biofoundationalism Part V.
You were very well to put to words something that has been percolating in me for some months, that this is all rooted in biology and that moderate “feminism” is resultant from prosperity. Very lucid writing, well done.
Well said. I learned all of this a while ago but you laid it out so concisely and succinctly.
Mostly unrelated, but this essay is a good way to explain to secularists why Catholic and Orthodox priesthood is a male-only vocation. In fact, built-in masculine order is arguably why both traditions have weathered feminine entropy far better than many Protestant churches that, by rejecting church hierarchy, are weaker to secular social pressures like ordination of female clergy. Next thing you know, God is a they/them, your confessor is a nonbinary priest named Bingo, and marriageable men are MIA seeking masculine guidance from podcasts.
Also, with the rise of popularism, the rise of younger men in particular converting to, or at least being curious, about theologically orthodox Christian traditions.
But I'm not sure that these things are true dichotomies, or even that 'conservatism' and 'liberalism' are opposites. A principal component analysis of all the varied beliefs out there will likely lump both of those closer together than many of the other philosophies. Instead, I think we prefer duality and have trouble comprehending higher order variables.
They don't have to be "true dichotomies" (nothing social is). It's enough to be different clustering of beliefs in a conservative vs liberal person, regardless of some overlap.
PCA might put 'conservatism' and 'liberalism' closer than other beliefs, but what matters is how apart they are when confined to prevalent belief systems, not when compared to much rarer ideologies.
So zooming in on the map of "actually popular / widespread tendencies" as opposed to the larger map of "every possible belief/tendency", we could very well see that those seemingly "close together" beliefs are quite apart, compared to zooming out, and that their size (people mapping well into them) is substantially bigger than the ones far away.
My husband told me once about a liberal white girl who got on a flight to a violent African country and ended up raped and beheaded. He thinks it is a tragedy of the feminine assuming that if the men of her society made it possible to easily fly there without any checks or people telling her differently, it must have been already made safe. It’s easy to make fun of people like that but it does make you think. Is it right and good and a sign of success of the masculine order that she does not even realize the world could be dangerous? And is it a failure of the masculine order that apparently a liberal white woman can simply… get on a plane to a place where liberal white women could be violently assaulted and beheaded?
Militaries are the apex form of human hierarchy; hierarchy is essentially an antonym of egalitarianism. And meritocracy is not synonymous or interchangeable with egalitarianism. Meritocracy is inequality-by-performance, egalitarianism is equality-by-principle.
The only meritocratic/egalitarian overlap is in equality of opportunity: everyone should have the chance to prove their competence. This is the sole point where the two converge, and afterwards go in wildly different directions: one produces hierarchy, the other flattens it.
Meritocracy means individuals rise or fall according to demonstrated ability and performance; by its very nature it has unequal outcomes and doesn't treat everyone as the same. By contrast, egalitarianism holds that all humans are equal in fundamental worth/status and views equal outcomes as a measure of justice/fairness. The two are fundamentally opposed in practice: one sorts, the other levels.
You can, and often do, ascend in military rank via merit, but they never pretend nor treat everyone as the same in their operation: whereas this presumption is the bulwark of egalitarianism.
A general and a private are not equals in authority, responsibility, worth, or consequence to an army. War is built on strict stratification, where life-and-death decisions cascade downward from unquestionable command. These are not egalitarian practices; they are hierarchical. Meritocracy is incorporated insofar as it sharpens competence within the hierarchy; but hierarchy always remains the spine.
I'm not sure I agree with your framing of the conservative/liberal dyad. While I can agree that such a dyad is natural, the content of each side of the political split changes radically over time. Modern "conservatives" are hardly conservative, as modern "liberals" are hardly liberal. To say that each side of the dyad represents a fixed value seems hopelessly reductionistic.
Moreover, there are serious counterexamples to the idea that scarcity breeds conservatism, while abundance produces liberalism. Out of the great depression were borne powerful communist movements in North America; or, look at how the extravagant and oil rich Arabic states are still socially conservative kingdoms.
That being said, I do gain a lot of insights from your writing and I am enjoying the series.
tyvm for reading and I'm really glad you're enjoying it. answered respectively:
the nature and morals of conservative and liberal are fixed: their political manifestations, party names, etc. are not.
I can understand how you could interpret this as me saying the parties are static, but nowhere did I say that, because they most certainly are not. you will not find a mention of any political party name at all so far in this series.
the values (morals) of conservative/liberal are fundamental and fixed (see the moral foundations chart, and also see the research in Part II), but the *degree* that they're able to be expressed via political party are fluid and shift based on environment; this is why I don't use political party terminology, it's a moving target.
Part IV only establishes the utility framework for the moral foundations, and the next essay in this series (Part V) will deconstruct how the parties shift over time and how certain foundations diminish/amplify in these scenarios; this will speak directly to what you're pointing out (which I agree with). this is touched on more in my comment here: https://thedosagemakesitso.substack.com/p/biofoundationalism-iv-masculine-because/comment/112678925
on the communist movement comments: this is framing things at too small a scale, think more macro. there are always pockets of radical responses to major events, eg Occupy Wall St post 2008. they did not consume the nation's governance. the US parties did not adopt communism. the national political platforms did not sell actual communism to the polity. we are discussing the human collective (nation) as a whole and the political path it takes, not radical fringes that reliably spring up on either side after any major event.
also it's worth noting that the Great Depression ultimately elicited a deeply feminine response (The New Deal) that was entirely motivated by care/harm morality and many feminine-style protective regulations came out of it; eg Social Security, the FDIC, and the securities act of '34, creating the SEC to protect investors.
the US was still wealthy, it underwent a purely economic event (meaning it wasn't violently destabilizing) and upon stabilization the nation swam left in a very emphatic way using fairness/cheating and care/harm morality to address it structurally. I find this entirely consistent with Biofoundationalism and the liberal/feminine path in affluence.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. These are fair points. I look forward to reading part 5. I'm sure a lot of things will be cleared up.
I can't necessarily speak to the U.S. experience, but in Canada, during the great depression, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation arose as a prominent socialist political party at the federal level and was poised to win a great deal of public support before the Liberal party pretty well took their entire platform and ran on it. The product was a radical expansion of social welfare in Canada (which was at that time a far more conservative nation than the U.S.), mirroring what happened in the U.S. with the New Deal. In this way I still contend that a time of hardship produced not government austerity and conservatism, but an ultimately liberal (feminine) response. So it seems a bit simplistic to simply say circumstance A elicits phenotypical response B.
At least in this essay I didn't get the sense that the framework of Biofoundationalism is nuanced enough to accommodate such examples as I raised but I hope I am proven wrong in the subsequent parts.
religious affiliation and religious prevalence explains basically all of this; women had higher rates of religious dedication and influence during this time, it's pretty well documented. the pivot happened in the late 70s as religion fades in the US and women start noticeably voting more democrat. it has been radically more along gender lines ever since with strong women/liberal men/conservative directions.
also I mentioned explicitly the moral genotype is not a sole, or even direct, product of sex. it plays a role, not the whole role.
no that is not at all the takeaway. the essay provides ample studies that show female moral emphasis when left to their own devices. interest in people, an ethic of care, all consistently observable and measurable. when they have an externally controlling force (men/religion) then they cannot express their innate morality.
they are demonstrably, empirically more concerned with care/harm more than men. and they are genetically hardwired for empathy to a greater degree (research provided at the end), which informs this moral framework.
that doesn't refute anything being said here. you're completely ignoring the studies in favor of narrow, motivated anecdotes. and the empathy statement is resoundingly wrong.
this is a systems-style analysis about moral frameworks and how they manifest. if you're entire ethos is "male side good female side bad" then this series is not for you.
> If that were the case, then lesbians would not lead the pack in domestic violence.
And they don't (any statistics to the contrary are bullshit). They're just more likely to report minor transgressions against each other (which will then get piled in stats of "domestic violence" along with severe male to female beatings, as if it's one and the same).
And of course note that those lesbians are precisely (and largely genetically) male-coded women. So this is not the argument against "women's caring nature" it seemed to be. It would be more like "women who have male gender tendencies are more violent than other women".
> “What about places like Saudia Arabia? They’re rich and not liberal!”
I’ve mentioned the Saudis within Biofoundationalist framing before on a podcast; they’re not a counterexample, in fact they’re another illustration of it happening.
even in religiously strict, ultra-conservative places like Saudia Arabia, this abundance-style liberalizing phenomena is occurring.
Saudi Arabia is vastly more liberal than it *comparatively* was a couple decades ago (I’ll break this down in a future essay, there are many examples). the comparisons to see the liberalizing effects with wealth are to be made to a country’s *current* values and *past* values (expressed through the political), and then compare the environment over that timeline.
SA is way more liberal than it once was and is only getting moreso. the liberalizing effect is seen within the context of *the same nation over time*; not by making some arbitrary comparison to say Sweden-style social policies then saying “look it’s still conservative compared to Scandinavia so it’s not liberal!”. that’s not the point, it is getting much more liberal relative to what it once was, and abundance has every bit to do with it.
a series of clarifying comments:
> "The parties move around over time and don't have fixed values. This refutes the dyad claims behind Biofoundationalism"
remarks to past Biofoundationalism essays have mentioned how political parties shift and don't espouse the same values over time. republicans today don't believe the same thing as republicans of yesteryear. the tories aren't really "conservative" anymore, etc.. yes, very true!
and this is precisely my point: political platforms have become more left/liberal over time in an environment where you should expect them to do so (this includes leftwing parties, which are also more liberal). this is why conservatism is described as "the speed limit of liberalism in wealthy environments" in Part IV. you need to look at these trends over 10-15+ year timelines, not 1-2. we are discussing deep macro behavioral patterns, not the past couple elections.
you'll note I use the terms 'conservative/liberal' and not 'republican/democrat' or other political branding.
--> when you point out how rightwing parties have different values compared to yesteryear, you are not observing conservatism changing, you are simply observing "the degree that rightwing parties can actually be conservative is diminishing in an increasingly decadent environment". this is entirely consistent with Biofoundationalism, in fact it's one of the core points of Part IV. <--
this is why I don't discuss these concepts on political party grounds. parties can call themselves whatever they want, what matters is the morality they're selling and the degree to which they can sell it.
the parties are prone to shifting over time, and the more instability/hardship an environment has, the less liberal the "liberal" parties will be. the richer/safer the country, the less conservative the "conservative" parties will be! again, over ~10-year timelines. this will be deconstructed more methodically with examples in Part V.
at macro scale: in times of hardship both parties will veer right; in sustained decadence both will creep left. we colloquially refer to this as the Overton Window. the long-term trend is a function of the utility that a certain morality offers in a given environment.
the country’s governance has to be reasonably democratic/non-tyrannical for this to occur. if the population is physically disallowed from expressing their temperamental morality (voting)…. well then yeah, they can’t express it. violence can suppress a hell of a lot of things. that doesn’t refute anything Biofoundationalism is saying.
additional clarifying comments:
TERMS:
Biofoundationalism properly understood should totally recalibrate how you understand political designations and disagreements. keep in mind I am speaking of these concepts on *genetic grounds from a gene-environment interaction lens*; not nominal party affiliation and PolySci narrative storytelling.
WHEN I SAY 'CONSERVATIVE': I mean the morality that primarily experiences a disgust response in the insula and has a larger, more activated amygdala. this is a masculine moral genotype, producing a conservative political phenotype.
WHEN I SAY 'LIBERAL': I mean the morality that primarily experiences a sympathy/empathy response in the insula and has a larger ACC. this is a feminine moral genotype, producing a liberal political phenotype.
there is a consistent, measurable, dyad-like split between these two groups politically and morally, and it is demonstrably genetically rooted. however the *degree* that they can express their morality/values depends on the environment. this process will be elaborated on in Biofoundationalism Part V.
Part II covers my genetic morality claims. I'll publish more research reinforcing this in other parts of the series too: https://thedosagemakesitso.substack.com/p/biofoundationalism-ii-the-moral-genotype
You were very well to put to words something that has been percolating in me for some months, that this is all rooted in biology and that moderate “feminism” is resultant from prosperity. Very lucid writing, well done.
Sincerely, ¡¿RUCRES?! x O!TPYG x Get@Me.Bro
thank you kindly
Well said. I learned all of this a while ago but you laid it out so concisely and succinctly.
Mostly unrelated, but this essay is a good way to explain to secularists why Catholic and Orthodox priesthood is a male-only vocation. In fact, built-in masculine order is arguably why both traditions have weathered feminine entropy far better than many Protestant churches that, by rejecting church hierarchy, are weaker to secular social pressures like ordination of female clergy. Next thing you know, God is a they/them, your confessor is a nonbinary priest named Bingo, and marriageable men are MIA seeking masculine guidance from podcasts.
Also, with the rise of popularism, the rise of younger men in particular converting to, or at least being curious, about theologically orthodox Christian traditions.
I think the 'bottom-up' view is excellent.
But I'm not sure that these things are true dichotomies, or even that 'conservatism' and 'liberalism' are opposites. A principal component analysis of all the varied beliefs out there will likely lump both of those closer together than many of the other philosophies. Instead, I think we prefer duality and have trouble comprehending higher order variables.
They don't have to be "true dichotomies" (nothing social is). It's enough to be different clustering of beliefs in a conservative vs liberal person, regardless of some overlap.
I propose that PCA will put them closer than many other beliefs. We're wired for A/B testing.
How prevalent are those other beliefs though?
PCA might put 'conservatism' and 'liberalism' closer than other beliefs, but what matters is how apart they are when confined to prevalent belief systems, not when compared to much rarer ideologies.
So zooming in on the map of "actually popular / widespread tendencies" as opposed to the larger map of "every possible belief/tendency", we could very well see that those seemingly "close together" beliefs are quite apart, compared to zooming out, and that their size (people mapping well into them) is substantially bigger than the ones far away.
My husband told me once about a liberal white girl who got on a flight to a violent African country and ended up raped and beheaded. He thinks it is a tragedy of the feminine assuming that if the men of her society made it possible to easily fly there without any checks or people telling her differently, it must have been already made safe. It’s easy to make fun of people like that but it does make you think. Is it right and good and a sign of success of the masculine order that she does not even realize the world could be dangerous? And is it a failure of the masculine order that apparently a liberal white woman can simply… get on a plane to a place where liberal white women could be violently assaulted and beheaded?
Envision adopting egalitarian fairness politics while at war; you will perish under the weight of your own delusions.
Meritocracy in militaries can work well enough.
Militaries are the apex form of human hierarchy; hierarchy is essentially an antonym of egalitarianism. And meritocracy is not synonymous or interchangeable with egalitarianism. Meritocracy is inequality-by-performance, egalitarianism is equality-by-principle.
The only meritocratic/egalitarian overlap is in equality of opportunity: everyone should have the chance to prove their competence. This is the sole point where the two converge, and afterwards go in wildly different directions: one produces hierarchy, the other flattens it.
Meritocracy means individuals rise or fall according to demonstrated ability and performance; by its very nature it has unequal outcomes and doesn't treat everyone as the same. By contrast, egalitarianism holds that all humans are equal in fundamental worth/status and views equal outcomes as a measure of justice/fairness. The two are fundamentally opposed in practice: one sorts, the other levels.
You can, and often do, ascend in military rank via merit, but they never pretend nor treat everyone as the same in their operation: whereas this presumption is the bulwark of egalitarianism.
A general and a private are not equals in authority, responsibility, worth, or consequence to an army. War is built on strict stratification, where life-and-death decisions cascade downward from unquestionable command. These are not egalitarian practices; they are hierarchical. Meritocracy is incorporated insofar as it sharpens competence within the hierarchy; but hierarchy always remains the spine.
I'm not sure I agree with your framing of the conservative/liberal dyad. While I can agree that such a dyad is natural, the content of each side of the political split changes radically over time. Modern "conservatives" are hardly conservative, as modern "liberals" are hardly liberal. To say that each side of the dyad represents a fixed value seems hopelessly reductionistic.
Moreover, there are serious counterexamples to the idea that scarcity breeds conservatism, while abundance produces liberalism. Out of the great depression were borne powerful communist movements in North America; or, look at how the extravagant and oil rich Arabic states are still socially conservative kingdoms.
That being said, I do gain a lot of insights from your writing and I am enjoying the series.
tyvm for reading and I'm really glad you're enjoying it. answered respectively:
the nature and morals of conservative and liberal are fixed: their political manifestations, party names, etc. are not.
I can understand how you could interpret this as me saying the parties are static, but nowhere did I say that, because they most certainly are not. you will not find a mention of any political party name at all so far in this series.
the values (morals) of conservative/liberal are fundamental and fixed (see the moral foundations chart, and also see the research in Part II), but the *degree* that they're able to be expressed via political party are fluid and shift based on environment; this is why I don't use political party terminology, it's a moving target.
Part IV only establishes the utility framework for the moral foundations, and the next essay in this series (Part V) will deconstruct how the parties shift over time and how certain foundations diminish/amplify in these scenarios; this will speak directly to what you're pointing out (which I agree with). this is touched on more in my comment here: https://thedosagemakesitso.substack.com/p/biofoundationalism-iv-masculine-because/comment/112678925
On the Saudis: this is actually illustrative of what I'm saying regarding abundance and liberalism, not a counterexample. Saudia Arabia will be an explicit example used in Part V, and I touch on this lightly in my comment here: https://thedosagemakesitso.substack.com/p/biofoundationalism-iv-masculine-because/comment/112678925
on the communist movement comments: this is framing things at too small a scale, think more macro. there are always pockets of radical responses to major events, eg Occupy Wall St post 2008. they did not consume the nation's governance. the US parties did not adopt communism. the national political platforms did not sell actual communism to the polity. we are discussing the human collective (nation) as a whole and the political path it takes, not radical fringes that reliably spring up on either side after any major event.
also it's worth noting that the Great Depression ultimately elicited a deeply feminine response (The New Deal) that was entirely motivated by care/harm morality and many feminine-style protective regulations came out of it; eg Social Security, the FDIC, and the securities act of '34, creating the SEC to protect investors.
the US was still wealthy, it underwent a purely economic event (meaning it wasn't violently destabilizing) and upon stabilization the nation swam left in a very emphatic way using fairness/cheating and care/harm morality to address it structurally. I find this entirely consistent with Biofoundationalism and the liberal/feminine path in affluence.
and lastly, when I say conservative/liberal, this is what I mean. it's not some Karl Popper terminology, it's defined by moral foundation emphasis: https://thedosagemakesitso.substack.com/p/biofoundationalism-iv-masculine-because/comment/112679705
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. These are fair points. I look forward to reading part 5. I'm sure a lot of things will be cleared up.
I can't necessarily speak to the U.S. experience, but in Canada, during the great depression, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation arose as a prominent socialist political party at the federal level and was poised to win a great deal of public support before the Liberal party pretty well took their entire platform and ran on it. The product was a radical expansion of social welfare in Canada (which was at that time a far more conservative nation than the U.S.), mirroring what happened in the U.S. with the New Deal. In this way I still contend that a time of hardship produced not government austerity and conservatism, but an ultimately liberal (feminine) response. So it seems a bit simplistic to simply say circumstance A elicits phenotypical response B.
At least in this essay I didn't get the sense that the framework of Biofoundationalism is nuanced enough to accommodate such examples as I raised but I hope I am proven wrong in the subsequent parts.
religious affiliation and religious prevalence explains basically all of this; women had higher rates of religious dedication and influence during this time, it's pretty well documented. the pivot happened in the late 70s as religion fades in the US and women start noticeably voting more democrat. it has been radically more along gender lines ever since with strong women/liberal men/conservative directions.
also I mentioned explicitly the moral genotype is not a sole, or even direct, product of sex. it plays a role, not the whole role.
no that is not at all the takeaway. the essay provides ample studies that show female moral emphasis when left to their own devices. interest in people, an ethic of care, all consistently observable and measurable. when they have an externally controlling force (men/religion) then they cannot express their innate morality.
they are demonstrably, empirically more concerned with care/harm more than men. and they are genetically hardwired for empathy to a greater degree (research provided at the end), which informs this moral framework.
that doesn't refute anything being said here. you're completely ignoring the studies in favor of narrow, motivated anecdotes. and the empathy statement is resoundingly wrong.
this is a systems-style analysis about moral frameworks and how they manifest. if you're entire ethos is "male side good female side bad" then this series is not for you.
> If that were the case, then lesbians would not lead the pack in domestic violence.
And they don't (any statistics to the contrary are bullshit). They're just more likely to report minor transgressions against each other (which will then get piled in stats of "domestic violence" along with severe male to female beatings, as if it's one and the same).
And of course note that those lesbians are precisely (and largely genetically) male-coded women. So this is not the argument against "women's caring nature" it seemed to be. It would be more like "women who have male gender tendencies are more violent than other women".
yes. well put.
classic and evergreen