Moron Links Riots to "Traditional Family Values" BS....
The riots remind us that polygamous societies are naturally violent
As they say in Hackney, when God closes a door he sometimes smashes open a window. The UK riots, bad as they are, may be a turning point for Britain - the shock we needed to change course. We can no longer ignore the existence of people over whom the rest of us have little control, and who fear no figures of authority.
Fathers are, of course, major authority figures, and the issue that was first raised by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1965 may be up for debate once again. As that unlikely moral crusader Guido Fawkes has pointed out (with a hat-tip to Andrew Neil), in areas like Tottenham up to 80 per cent of children are raised without a father. Where there are few other figures of male authority around, that is deeply problematic.
The effect on children is one thing: various studies show fatherlessness to be a serious disadvantage, while others argue that taking aside socio-economic status this makes little difference (and certainly fatherless children raised by highly educated women suffer far fewer drawbacks). But what about the effect on the men themselves?
When we discuss “fatherlessness” in urban areas what we are talking about, effectively, is polygamy. And countless studies have shown that, the more polygamous a society, the more aggressive its males. Polygamous hunter-gather societies are absurdly violent.
Why? Because where male parental investment is low, the qualities that define a good male mate are strength, aggression and status. Where male parental investment is high, the most important quality becomes monogamy - because without it a woman’s children will starve. These qualities are partly hereditary, and on the male side this tendency for deadbeat lotharios to produce unfaithful sons was noted long before science dared to tread its feet into the field of evolutionary psychology. Science still cannot tell us to what degree male monogamy is influenced by nature; “allele 34” may influence vasopressin, the hormone associated with monogamy in male mammals, but then it may not (and even if it influences behaviour, men can still be “trained”).
This is why the traditional good guys in romantic fables, fairy tales, novels and films display the characteristics associated with monogamy and male parental investment; women in romantic comedies always end up marrying the Mark Darcy character rather than the Daniel Cleaver, even if they are attracted to the latter. In contrast the heroes of sagas, epic poems and action films, aimed at male audiences, are alpha male polygamous types; European civilisation begins with Achilles and Agamemnon having a remarkably childish argument over who gets a slave girl.
But what we call civilisation has also been one long struggle to enforce monogamy against polygamy, in Europe’s case aided by the Church. The harsh and often cruel stigma that came to be associated with lone parenthood was part of that drive to create a monogamous society. And the popular hostility towards single mothers may be explained in Darwinian terms by a fear that polygamists are able to spread their genes by letting others do the work of child-raising, a hostility heightened by the existence of a welfare state.
The paradox of feminism is that from an evolutionary point of view it selects for bastards, so to speak. Where monogamy is enforced and illegitimacy stigmatised women are more likely to select for men with those “good guy” characteristics. Where women raise children alone and male parental investment is low or non-existent they tend to look for other qualities, namely those masculine traits possessed by Achilles and Agamemnon.
Male youth culture’s move towards the increasingly aggressive gangsta/pimp ideal in recent decades, and the lawlessness witnessed over the past few days, may not be just an underclass male reaction to feminism and declining economic status, but a natural result of polygamy - a society where good guys finish last.
(Source: Torygraph Blogs)
Just to clarify, my reaction to pretty much anything in bold is a very loud "y'what?". (To bold any more would be to simply highlight the entire article.)
- Looks like this guy has bought into the amateur evolutionary psychologist's caveman fantasy, as if male identity today revolved around how good you are as a "hunter-gatherer".
- He also seems to confuse patriarchy with planned social engineering.
- And since when is arguing over a girl polygamous????
- And he seems to be very confused as to what aspects of human behaviour evolved naturally and which aspects had to be forced on us by the Church. Apparently monogamy had to be forced upon us, but jealousy about other partners did not. Teensy bit inconsistent there.
- Feminism does what????
- "These kids and their rap music..."
The sorts of people who most likely started the violence are much more likely to attack you for "looking at their bird/bloke" than to advocate free love and multiple partners. Still, I find it amusing that anyone was even idiotic enough to write this cr*p and/or crafty enough to get it published.