Race Differences in Ethnocentrism

by Edward Dutton

  In July 1968, four pairs of house mice — each isolated for the preceding twenty-one days — were introduced into the sixteen-cell ‘mouse universe’. After 104 days (Phase A) the first litter was born, resulting in social turmoil as the mice learned to live together. Following this establishment of territories by the eight colonists, the population rose exponentially, doubling around every fifty-five days until it reached 620. This marked the start of Phase B. At this point, population growth slowed until doubling occurred only every 145 days. Periodically, in Phase B, young born at this point would have their own young, contributing to the growth of population in which mice, unlike in the wild, were able to become elderly in significant numbers. By the end of Phase B, all the desirable space was filled with polygynous social groups controlled by dominant males. The more dominant the male was, the larger and more fertile his social group tended to be. There were fourteen social groups composed of 150 adults. Each group was composed of about ten adults, including a dominant male, associated males and females, and their offspring. There were 470 such offspring and they had all received good maternal care and early socialization. So, there were three times as many younger as older animals, a far greater ratio than would exist in the wild.

  At day 315, Phase C began and population growth slowed markedly. Normally, more mice survive to maturity than can find social niches and so these lower-status mice will tend to emigrate in search of such a niche. As this was prevented, a large number of males — unable to successfully compete for a social niche — simply withdrew physically and psychologically from territorial males and ganged up together. They would occasionally fight each other over tiny issues, such as two males returning from drinking, but they would do little else. Low-status females would withdraw to high nesting boxes but were not aggressive towards each other. However, territorial males were constantly confronted with subordinate males trying to take over their territory and, as there were so many of them, the ability of territorial males to control their territory declined. This left nursing females exposed to nest invasion. The females would then take on the role of the absent male. They would become extremely aggressive and even generalize this aggression to their own young. Young mice would be ejected from the nest too young and abandoned by their mothers during transit to new nest sites. Conception declined while re-absorption of foetuses increased. This behaviour hugely increased mortality and evidenced a societal breakdown. Hereafter, Phase D — the death phase — began. Population increase ceased on day 560. After day 600, no mice survived past weaning. The last conception was documented on day 920. By 1st March 1972, the average age of the colony was 776 days, which was 200 days beyond the average age of mouse menopause. On 22nd June 1972, the population was just 122 — 22 male, 100 female — and by May 1973, 1720 days after colonization, all the mice were dead.

  Calhoun argues that the high population density of the Mouse Utopia meant that mice started life without proper affective bonds with their mothers, could not develop proper bonds as adults due to the constant passage of other mice, and therefore failed to develop complex behaviours such as courtship and appropriate maternal behaviour. However, Calhoun’s study of the mice in Phase C raises an intriguing issue in this regard. Of the females aged 334 days at autopsy, only 18% had ever conceived, whereas in the wild they would each have had five or more successfully reared litters by that age. The male equivalents of these barren females were known as ‘the beautiful ones’. They never sexually approached females and nor did they ever fight other males. They simply ate, drank, and groomed each other. Almost all of the adult mice in phase D were these two types and so the colony died out.

  The experiment is fascinating in terms of understanding the post-Industrial evolution of humans and a possible decline in ethnocentric behaviour. Woodley of Menie et al. (2017), in discussing this very experiment, has made two crucial points. Firstly, we would expect all mutations, both physical and mental, to be interrelated because they broadly reflect the same thing: developmental instability. Indeed, he shows that this is the case with facial asymmetry being weakly negatively associated with intelligence. Secondly, due to the complexity of the brain (84% of our genes are related to the brain), behaviour would be extremely sensitive to mutation accumulation. By extension, in social animals, where behaviour is anyway complex, even small accruals in mutations could lead to pathological forms of behaviour and the rapid breakdown of society. This may be what happened in the Calhoun experiment.

  But, clearly, there are a number of factors that would slow down the decline in humans, though not, perhaps, in a particular ethnic group. If we assume that the mice are English people, not only would there be a small amount of emigration but the humans would have evolved to be more cooperative meaning that there would be lower levels of polygyny and a far smaller section of the society composed of ‘gangs’ of violent low-status males. This would mean that the threat which these gangs posed to the normal functioning of society would be reduced. But what could not be stopped would be mutational meltdown which is likely what can be seen in the rise of ‘the beautiful ones’ as well as in the rise in the females who have no interest in having children. Calhoun puts the pathological behaviour of ‘the beautiful ones’ solely down to the fact that they have not been properly reared as a consequence, ultimately, of over-population. However, this seems rather unlikely as sexuality in humans has been shown to be significantly heritable based on twin studies. For example, the available research on homosexuality indicates that it is significantly genetic: around 0.39 genetic in adult men and 0.19 genetic in adult women (Långström et al., 2010). In much the same way, the non-aggressive personalities of these mice are quite remarkable given that the heritability of personality has already been shown to be around 0.66 in humans (Lynn, 2011a). Similarly, the pathological behaviour of the females, as well as health problems like reabsorbing foetuses, would also be likely to be significantly genetic in origin. Furthermore, the Mouse Utopia did not reach anything like a level that could be said to be ‘over-crowded’ when the reduction in fertility began. This reduction happened after only a few generations; implying that some other factor must have been involved, such as weakened selection for healthy or psychologically normal mice.

  In addition, it is unclear why overcrowding would lead to the complete extinction of the colony. If there was no genetic dimension involved in the collapse, we would expect the last mice to be born to have an instinct to breed and to do so. As such, although we should not play down the environmental impact on behaviour, it is probable that the collapse of Natural Selection significantly explains what happened in the Mouse Utopia. Put simply, there was no longer intense selection for dominant males or for highly maternal females. As such, the percentage of the population comprised of non-dominant males, and their degree of non-dominance, increased to a point where the entire male population were ‘the beautiful ones’. In the same way, there was no longer selection for maternal females and so, eventually, all of the females were disinterested in motherhood. This was due to a combination of genetics (mice carrying genes which made them behave in this way) and environment (these mice undermining the structures through which non-mutant mice learnt adaptive behaviour).

  Accordingly, we might expect a comparable pattern in humans after many generations in an environment marked by dysgenic fertility. We would expect behaviour patterns which had previously ensured the survival of the group — such as ethnocentrism and the consequent motivation to protect the group’s genetic interests — to decline. This is clearly in evidence in Political Correctness, Multiculturalism and other movements, spear-headed by Europeans, which promote the interests of non-Europeans in Europe. To the extent that religion is a group-selected trait, it can also be seen in the rise of atheism which is itself damaging to the group’s levels of ethnocentrism. We would also expect the simple desire to breed to decline as mutations accrued, something which Woodley of Menie et al. (2017) have noted. They refer to
the rise in ‘spiteful mutations’ which cause people to act against their own genetic interests. And if these people influence society, they can persuade even non-carriers of these ‘spiteful’ genes to act in self-destructive ways and they can undermine structures — such as religion — which help to promote group interests. Woodley of Menie et al. call this ‘social epistasis’. As a consequence, modern (liberal) religion and ideology — far from being an indirect means of genetic preservation — would in fact reflect a sick society’s growing desire to destroy itself. An obvious example can be seen in the ideology of Multiculturalism and Political Correctness.

  Nationalism is generally in the genetic interests of the group that advocates it. Marxism can assist in the pursuance of genetic interests in a number of ways. Clearly, it is in the interests of the working class who advocate it. But it can also be in the interests of certain members of the elite. By advocating Marxism, they can engage in competitive altruism, by seeming as though they deeply care about the poor. This attractive quality could help them to gain power and so aid the genetic interests of their family and their associates. They could become the new ruling class. If they were already part of the ruling class, and they destroyed much of this class in order to gain power, then this would potentially damage their genetic interests, but this would depend on the extent to which it benefitted their closer kin.

  Multiculturalism takes this further. It is clearly in the genetic interests of ethnic minorities within a nation to espouse this as it will promote their own genetic interests. Indeed, in this regard, MacDonald (1998) has argued that Jewish people are very prominent among Multiculturalist, and generally anti-traditionalist, thinkers in Western countries. He further argues that these senior figures identified as Jews and regarded the movements in which they were involved as advancing Jewish interests. MacDonald’s research in this area has been heavily criticized. But it is seemingly clear that cultural relativist anthropology was founded by American Franz Boas (1858–1942), which moved the subject away from evolutionary science and towards Leftist advocacy. Psychoanalysis, which does the same, was founded by Freud. Postmodernism is strongly associated with Jacques Derrida (1930–2004). Theodore Adorno (1903–1969) effectively argued that nationalism reflected a pathological ‘authoritarian’ personality. The most prominent critics of Sociobiology (and evidence for race differences in intelligence) have been Ashley Montagu (1905–1999), Stephen J. Gould (1941–2002) and Richard Lewontin, whom we met earlier. MacDonald observes that these researchers are all Jewish and identified as such, and he avers that analyses of their writings indicates that they realized that their research was advancing Jewish interests. However, one of the most prominent books to set out race differences in intelligence to a large audience was The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein (1930–1994; Herrnstein was Jewish) and Charles Murray (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994). So, clearly, not all scholars use their research in this way. MacDonald’s idea is certainly interesting in terms of evolution and future research could look into this in a highly statistical manner.22

  But just as with Marxism, Multiculturalism can be used as a means of competing for moral status, so permitting — for example — a group that is not, or not quite, the elite to displace the elite, using ethnic minorities as part of a coalition force to help them do so. But Multiculturalism differs from Marxism because it inherently involves damaging the genetic interests of the entire native group (including those of the new elite), which is not necessarily the case with Marxism.23 Those who advocate Multiculturalism seem to have lost an important instinct towards group — and thus genetic — preservation. Once a society, as a whole, espouses Multiculturalism as a dominant ideology then the society is acting against its own genetic interests and will ultimately destroy itself. Indeed, MacDonald (2004) has argued that anti-Semitism can be regarded as a European evolutionary strategy. In effect, it is an example of negative ethnocentrism and Multiculturalism acts to suppress all forms of native ethnocentrism.

  Indeed, Multiculturalism will actively invite into Western countries — and promote the welfare of — members of ethnic groups from less industrialized countries. These countries will have been subject to dysgenics for fewer generations so this alone may mean they are more ethnocentric. In a sense, the mass-immigration inspired by Multiculturalism is akin to introducing wild animals into a zoo full of domesticated ones. Accordingly, the wild animals will simply outbreed and come to take over the Western country in question. It seems fairly clear that in the early 2000s this is precisely what is happening in Western countries (see Murray, 2017). The ideology of Multiculturalism allows its European advocates to attain socioeconomic status and so they advocate and enforce it; but they are also often able to insulate themselves from many of its short-term negative effects such as inter-ethnic violence. The failure to consider the long-term implications of such an ideology, in terms of genetic interests, would seem to imply a low level of ethnocentrism. As we have discussed, this may be in part for environmental reasons. Even more extreme, in terms of the damage to genetic interests, than Multiculturalism, would be animal rights activism wherein the interests of the human species were subordinated to that of other species. In line with Woodley of Menie et al.’s (2017) model, we have already noted that atheism is associated with mutant genes, and Multiculturalism and Marxism tend to be atheistic. It is true that Marxism has many aspects of religiosity (see Dutton, 2014) but it does lack belief in god, in a way which is untrue, for example, of Buddhism because Buddha is either worshipped as a god or Buddhism is practiced alongside another religion (see Dutton et al., 2017).

  Indeed, I have looked elsewhere (Dutton, 2018) at clear evidence that the belief in Multiculturalism is a sign, in part, of high mutational load. It has been found that Republican voters are more physically attractive than Democrat voters (Peterson & Palmer, 2017). Berggren et al. (2017) have found that in Europe, the USA and Australia, people rate ‘right-wing’ politicians as more physically attractive than ‘left-wing’ politicians. The authors provide an economic explanation: ‘Politicians on the right look more beautiful in Europe, the United States and Australia. Our explanation is that beautiful people earn more, which makes them less inclined to support redistribution’. The problem with this argument is that there is far more to being a ‘right-wing’ politician than not supporting economic socialism. The current consensus in psychology is that two broad dimensions are necessary to describe sociopolitical attitudes (Duckitt et al. 2002). One of these is ‘resistance to change’ or ‘traditionalism’ and the other is ‘anti-egalitarianism’ or justification of inequality. Bergman et al.’s interpretation does not explain why good-looking politicians are more likely to be traditionalist.

  An alternative explanation to Berggren et al.’s, which is far less question-begging, is that egalitarianism, the questioning of religious tradition and the promotion of Multiculturalism (that is modern Leftist ideas) would have likely been met with horror by populations that lived under the harsh conditions of Natural Selection. Populations which were so low in ethnocentrism to espouse Multiculturalism and reject religion would simply have died out. It therefore follows that the espousal of leftist dogmas would partly reflect mutant genes, just as the espousal of atheism does. This elevated mutational load, associated with Leftists, would be reflected in their bodies as well as their brains. Accordingly, we would expect them to have higher fluctuating asymmetry in face — reflecting mutation — and this is indeed the case.

  It might be averred that this model is problematic because it would be likely that ethnocentrism was selected to an optimum level and thus mutation would cause deviation from this level in either direction, rendering mutational load also associated with extreme positive and negative ethnocentrism. But I do not see this as a problem. Dutton et al. (2017) have shown that under conditions of selection we evolved a very specific kind of religion: the collective worship of moral gods. They show that both atheism and religious deviat
ions from this, such as belief in the paranormal, are associated with markers of mutation. There is a substantial degree to which ‘religiousness’ crosses over with being ‘right-wing’ in industrial societies. Indeed, the Right Wing Authoritarian Scale (RWA) and the Fundamentalism Scale have been shown to significantly correlate at 0.75 (Laythe et al., 2001), meaning they are strongly the same. Thus, it may be that the central factor is atheism. This may be underlie extreme Leftism, though future research would have to test this. Moreover, it may be that high mutational load would be associated with extreme negative ethnocentrism, but in that this is effectively a form of despising those who are genetically different from yourself it would ultimately lead to individuals who were anti-social malcontents, unlikely to pass on their genes. It is possible many ‘Lone Wolf’ nationalist terrorists, such as Thomas Mair who murdered the British MP Jo Cox during the 2016 European Union referendum campaign, are precisely such people (BBC News, 23rd November 2016). Positive ethnocentrism, as we have seen, is inherently adaptive.

  However, there is a key difference between the Mouse Utopia and our own Human Zoo. Unlike in Mouse Utopia, among humans there would be no scientists to enforce the ‘utopia’. Consequently, eventually average human intelligence would fall so low that the utopia could not be sustained. It would collapse back into pre-modern conditions of selection and in those conditions the genes that predicted health, intelligence, ethnocentrism and religiousness would likely be once again strongly selected for.