Red vs. blue explained by white birth rate & Darwinian rational
Explanation of red versus blue states based on white birth rates and Darwinian rational, probably lacking political sensitivity and correctness, but the stats look reasonably convincing—Excerpts from The American Conservative, http://www.amconmag.com/2004_12_06/cover.html, December 20, 2004 issue, The American Conservative, Baby Gap—How birthrates color the electoral map, By Steve Sailer:
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Political thinking and the search for grand unifying theory
Interesting slant, that birth rates influence voting patterns.
With the caveat that I'm not very sophisticated or knowledgeable at political thinking, my general impression is that there are a lot of theorists who have tried to link voting patterns to group identity in some sense, and that the history of this effort has been only partially successful. The Marxists link choice with class identity and economic status. The religious conservatives and "progressives" link it with their particular versions of "values" identity. The racialists link it with race identity. My unqualified suspicion is that while these are sources of leverage we draw on for political power, they may not be the reasons why people vote the way they do. For example, it seems to me that I can vote my "socio-economic class," I can vote my "race," I can vote my "values," and so on. These may lead to different votes. It all depends on how the issues have been framed and what options are open to us. For example, given the choice of two very unappealing candidates this past presidential election, the party leaders and media successfully framed the issues in the way that best polarized and brought dramatic attention to the candidates, even though they were nearly equally conservative in general political terms and each has qualities that to me should have made neither one very attractive compared to a hypothetically optimum candidate. Steve seems to be arguing between the lines that all whites are actually striving for genetic "white power" but that liberals just aren't being honest about it. Their point of contention, he asserts, is that liberals are angry at conservatives for their lack of racial solidarity with them. For example, he argues that gun control is about disarming dangerous urban minorities specifically. In other words, his goal seems to me to be to translate all of politics into issues of racial identity and support it with biological arguments. TO me, that frames these complex issues in a very unrealistic and undesireably narrow way, and in some ways really misses the point. But as I said, I'm not very sophisticated in this area. I agree with him on what I think is a basic underlying assumption that political belief, like much belief, is socially motivated, but I think he is making some oversimplified assumptions about what motivates it and how, in looking for connections to broader biological explanation. A different and compelling argument about the red and blue states, also from statistical evidence, can be found in "Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America." by Morris Fiorina. I posted a review on Amazon with some further thoughts. kind regards, Todd |
Re: Red vs. blue explained by white birth rate & Darwinian rational
Todd: Nice review on Fiorina’s book. I agree that most of us are “moderate.â€
Nevertheless, I’ve observed more passion then I’d have expected between all of us red and blue “moderates,†and the birth rate correlation seems to explain things better than anything else I’ve seen. I’d always boiled things down to saying people vote their pocketbook; in other words their own survival/comfort. Guess I forgot that for most of us with kids, the survival and future of our offspring usually trumps our own survival and comfort. Blame Darwin. Singles and/or those who don’t stay married long tend to be blue. The rest, especially with offspring, tend to be red—family values. That’s why Utah is especially red. (Heavily unionized Michigan is an exception, but that’s probably due to all that industrial pollution.) |
Explaining the passion (vs. explaining red/blue)
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But I don't see how the passion itself could be the result of birth rates. Birth rates didn't suddenly change radically in the past two elections. What did change is the successful political alliance of economic, social, and neoconservatism under a single banner opposed to a common "liberal" enemy (few of whom would even recognize themselves as such!). Essentially, our social stereotypes were effectively manipulated to leverage political power. Our rational fear of attack was sucessfully leveraged to promote politicians who were more successfully marketed as decisive, protective parents instead of untrustworthy, unrealistic, and overpermissive ones. Our observation of the disruption of social fabric and vulnerability to attack was successfully explained for most people in terms of creeping permissiveness and indecisiveness (the flip side of what many of us think of as freedom, caring, and wise reflection). When people talk about "values" as deciding the past presidential election, this seems to me to refer to people feeling in their gut that they are putting their trust in someone disciplined, strict, and supporting a natural moral order. If we all accepted this stereotype, there would be little need for "unexpected passion" against it, it would make perfect sense to nearly all of us. However, we don't all accept this stereotype. The more conservative of the two conservative parties in the US is now marketed as the party of good discipline, parental protection, true families, life, moral authority, and simple, basic values. The less conservative party has yet to come up with their own effective marketing strategy, and has seemingly been forced to accept the way the more conservative party defines things, that they are the party of death, permissiveness, spoiled dependents, and out-of-touch elitists. One cost of this success has been that the nuances of American conservatism have been pretty must lost by being absorbed into the common marketing vision, just as the stereotype of the "liberals" turns them into an impossibly homogeneous population. The actual correlations that might be observed between birth rate and motivated political belief are obscured by the shifting political coalitions and the perceived pragmatic need for the parties to promote themselves as diametrically opposed ideological extremes. Quote:
kind regards, Todd |
Re: family values explained
Todd writes:
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Best I can tell, the birth rate correlation is a fact. Additionally, there’s a very high correlation between red states and the number of years people are married. So it seems to me that people who stay married and have offspring currently tend to perceive that Republicans better reflect their family values—what is best for the survival and future of their offspring. And single people and those who don't stay married long obviously tend to have different family values. |
U.S. politics
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If you're ever interested in the view of the current red and blue from the perspective of the left (and probably the center as well), just for curiosity ... I got the feeling from skimming Tom Frank's book "What's Wrong with Kansas?" that he captures it pretty well. I gather from some of the reviews that a few of his details on Kansas could probably be debated (perhaps he is too close there to see it objectively?) but I think he captures the general flavor. http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=1551 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS.../nationbooks08 Have a Happy New Year ! Todd |
Re: Red vs. blue explained by white birth rate & Darwinian rational
We know that the better off people are, the more the birth rate drops. Industrialized countries have lower birth rates than third world countries, and so forth. And in our country, we see this trend as well. The bettter off you are, the fewer children you have. And the blue states are better off.
I agree that people in red states are think they looking out for their own survival needs, and this might be "darwinian." However, much as I love Darwin, I think the system of evolution by natural selection is one to get away from as fast as we can. It is a terribly tragic, cruel set up, an arms race based on selfishness, competition and greed. It is certainly a dubious criteria for "success". One could almost say that the blue states are trying to help out the red states, (because they care what's best for all Americans, not just their own genetic offspring. And guess what! Because they do better- they have more emotional and financial resources, they end up actually paying for what the blue states don't supply for themselves. (And then get name-called as a result.) Here is a map : Red States feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_b...ates_feed.html As for "caring about values" and stable families and so forth, red states divorce a lot more . Massachusetts, which gets portrayed as having no morals, has nearly twice the number stable marriages of Texas, and that's typical of blue states:) http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS2.shtml So if red state "values" are really about caring about families so much, why are blue states splitting their families twice as much blue states? People who are happier, more emotionally and financially stable are in the position to think about something other than how to feed their baby its next meal. They are able to have a "bigger picture" perspective. They are able to have a less short-sighted, less selfish, and yes, less "Darwinian" approach to life. |
Re: Red vs. blue explained by white birth rate & Darwinian rational
Lizzie:
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There are divorce rate statistics based on per marriage (from CDC data I think), and those stats seem to indicate that there is no red or blue state correlation. On the other hand, when it comes to “splitting their families,†Kerry from Massachusetts did, Bush from Texas didn’t. Also, your use of “Red States feed at Federal Trough†statistics appears to be equally flawed, but I suspect that your beliefs lie in a left leaning blue state direction, so I won’t bore you with contrary data. However, regarding your belief that “the system of evolution by natural selection is one to get away from as fast as we can,†it’s likely that many of my red state brethren would say, "Amen sister!" |
Re: Red vs. blue explained by white birth rate & Darwinian rational
from Fred:
"However, regarding your belief that ?the system of evolution by natural selection is one to get away from as fast as we can,î it?s likely that many of my red state brethren would say, "Amen sister!" " Hahaha! But do you mean they would give me an "Amen" by denying the truth of natural selection, or getting away from it by saying, "yes, it's true, and it's an awful system!" (Sadly I suspect it's the former.) I can appreciate your comments about the flawed data, especially because there's a NY Times article about that very phenomenon that I was just reading (it's in today's Science section: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/he...pagewanted=all It was saying national divorce rates are not the 2 in 1 figure we've been told they are, it's more like 41%. However, I was interested to find some data that again, indicated that the better off we are, the less we divorce. In this case, it "better off" indicator was the education level of the women. "Families with highly educated mothers and families with less educated mothers are clearly moving in opposite directions," Dr. Martin wrote in a paper that has not yet been published but has been presented and widely discussed at scientific meetings.To me, this data supports my earlier point, which is that how well people are doing has a lot to do with the personal choices they make (regarding their families and reproduction) the political choices they make (should we share or keep resources), and the the depth and range of their perspectives (big picture, rationality/ small picture, short term, often emotional responses to immediate problems.). |
Re: Red vs. blue explained by white birth rate & Darwinian rational
Lizzie:
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And regarding your point—“that how well people are doing has a lot to do with the personal choices they make (regarding their families and reproduction) the political choices they make (should we share or keep resources), and the depth and range of their perspectives (big picture, rationality/ small picture, short term, often emotional responses to immediate problems)â€â€”I think that most red state heterosexual couples that stay married and have 1.8 children would say, again, “Amen sister.†|
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