Individualism and the
Western Liberal Tradition:
Evolutionary Origins,
History, and Prospects
for the Future
Kevin MacDonald
Kindle Direct Publishing Edition
Copyright © 2019 Kevin MacDonald
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 9781089691488
Preface
Chapter 1: Recent Population Genetic
Research
Three Distinct Population Movements
in Pre-historic Europe
Percentages of Admixture of WHGs, EFs,
and I-Es
The Pitted Ware Culture of Coastal
Scandinavia
Further Evidence for North-South WHG
and EF Genetic Clines
Selection for General Cognitive Ability
and Physical Traits
Genetic Differences within Contemporary
Europe Mirror Geography
Sex-Chromosome Data
Conclusion
Chapter 2: The Indo-European Cultural
Legacy: Aristocratic Individualism
Indo-European Culture
Technological Advances
Domestication of Horses
Sophisticated Wagons
The Secondary Products Revolution
Social/Cultural Practices
The Militarized Culture of the
Indo-Europeans
Reciprocity as a Trait of I-E Culture
Breaking Down Bonds of Kinship
The Rewards of Military Success
Indo-Europeanism as a Free-Market,
Individualist Culture
Sippe and Männerbünde
Aristocratic Individualism in Ancient
Greece
Aristocratic Individualism among the
Germanic Peoples after the Fall of the
Western Empire
How Ethnically Cohesive Were
Germanic Groups in Late Classical
and Early Medieval Europe?
Conclusion
Appendix to Chapter 2: Roman Culture:
Militarization, Aristocratic Government,
and Openness to Conquered Peoples
The Indo-European Roots of Roman
Civilization: The Military Ethos of the
Roman Republic
The Roman Family
Roman Public Religion
The Aristocratic, Non-Despotic
Government of Rome
The Openness of Roman Society:
Social Mobility and Incorporating
Different Peoples
Plebeian Upward Mobility
Upward Social Mobility of Incorporated
Peoples
Conclusion: Rome as a Failed Group
Evolutionary Strategy
Chapter 3: The Northern Hunter-Gatherer
Legacy in Europe: Egalitarian Individualism
Egalitarianism as a Distinguishable
Component of Western Culture
The Ecological Argument for the
Individualism of Northern
Hunter-Gatherers
The Social Complexity of Northern
European Hunter-Gatherers
Egalitarianism as a Fundamental Trait of
Northern Hunter-Gatherers
Exogamy as Characteristic of Western
Marriage
Love as Central to Western Marriage
Psychological Differences between WEIRD
People and the Rest
Social Exchange and Altruistic
Punishment
Other Psychological Tendencies of
WEIRD People
Moral Reasoning
Cognitive Differences
Conclusion
Chapter 4: The Familial Basis of European
Individualism
Marriage in Western Europe: Some Basic
Differences
Descriptive Data on Family Patterns in
Northwestern and Southern Europe
Characteristics of the Moderately
Individualist Family System of
Northwest Europe
Dating the Origins of the Individualist
Family
Disadvantages of the Individualist Family
Contextual Influences Proposed as
Causing Moderate Individualism
Moderate Collectivism in Southern
Europe versus Moderate Individualism
in Northwest Europe
Egalitarian Trends in Northern Europe
Northwest European Non-Manorialized
Areas
Germanic versus Irish Kinship
Germanic Kinship
Irish Kinship
The Ethnic Argument
State-Supported Extreme Individualism in
Scandinavia
Conclusion
Chapter 5: The Church in European History
Implicit and Explicit Processing:
How Ideology Motivates Behavior
Ideology and Social Controls Supporting
Monogamy in Western Europe
The Papal Revolution: Establishing the
Image of the Church as an Altruistic
Institution
The Papal Revolution: The Church’s
Power Over Secular Elites
Medieval Ecclesiastical Collectivism
Social Controls and Ideology Maintaining
Socially Imposed Monogamy
Policing Sexual Behavior in the Middle Ages
and Later
Ideologies Promoting Monogamy
Conclusion
Effects of Monogamy
Monogamy as a Precondition for the
European “Low-Pressure” Demographic
Profile and the Industrial Revolution
Monogamy and Investment in Children
Christianity in Opposition to the Ancient
Greco-Roman Aristocratic Social Order
Christianity in Post-Roman Europe
The Church in Pursuit of Power
The Church’s Ideology of Moral
Egalitarianism as an
Instrument of Furthering Its Power
Church Policy in Opposition to the
Power of Extended Kinship Groups
The Church’s Encouragement of
Diverse Centers of Power
Christianity and the Rational Tradition
of the West
The Realism Versus Nominalism Debate
Christianity and Post-Medieval Europe
Conclusion: The Church Facilitated but
Did Not Cause Western Individualism
Chapter 6: Puritanism: The Rise of
Egalitarianism Individualism and
Moralistic Utopianism
Puritanism as a Group Evolutionary
Strategy
John Calvin’s Group Strategy
Puritanism in New England
Puritan Families
Child-rearing Practices
Intelligence and Emphasis on
Education
Puritan Names as Ingroup Markers
Community Control of Individual
Behavior: Puritan Collectivism
Was Puritanism a Closed Group
Evolutionary Strategy?
Decline of Puritan Group Boundaries
The Puritan Revolution in England
The Puritan Revolution in the United
States
Nineteenth-Century Puritan-Inspired
Intellectual Trends: Secular Versions
of Moral Utopianism
Transcendentalism as a Movement o
f
Puritan-Descended Intellectuals
Prominent Transcendentalists
Orestes Brownson (1803–1876)
George Ripley (1802–1880)
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802–1882)
Theodore Parker (1810–1860)
William Henry Channing (1810–1884)
Transcendentalist Activism on Behalf
of Social Justice
Transcendentalism: A Summing Up
The Uneasy Association between
Anglo-Saxon Individualism and Ethnic
Identification in the Nineteenth Century
Self-interest and Liberal Ideology
Other Liberal Nineteenth-Century
Intellectual Currents
Libertarian Anarchism
Liberal Protestantism
Academic Cultural Determinism
The Secular Left
The Period of Ethnic Defense: 1880–1965
Conclusion
Chapter 7: Moral Idealism in the British
Antislavery Movement and the “Second
British Empire”
The Wider Context of the Age of
Benevolence
The Psychology of Altruism and
Moral Universalism
The Personality System of Empathy
Moral Idealism and the Ideology of Moral
Universalism
Philosophical Antecedents
Empathy and Abolitionism
Empathy and Ideology in Opposition to
Slavery: Quakers, Evangelical Anglicans,
and Methodists
Quakers
Evangelical Anglicans
Methodists
Puritanism as a Prototype of the Age of
Benevolence
“The Second British Empire” in the
Nineteenth Century: A Kinder, Gentler
Place
The Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica
and Its Supporters in England
David Hackett Fischer on the “Second
British Empire”
Free Speech in the United States
and New Zealand
The Affective Revolution in England:
An Ethnic Hypothesis
The Ethnic Origins and the Decline of the
Aristocratic Ethos in Britain
Conclusion
Chapter 8: The Psychology of Moral
Communities
Social Identity Processes as an Adaptation
for Moral Communities
The Role of Empathy in Moral
Communities: Altruism—and
Pathological Altruism
Controlling Ethnocentrism: Implicit and
Explicit Processing
Implicit White Communities
Managing White Ethnocentrism: The
Problem with Non-Explicit White
Identity
Race Differences in Personality
Some Basic Personality Systems
The Behavioral Approach System (BAS)
The Love/Nurturance Pair Bonding
System
Prefrontal Executive Control (PEC)
Richard Lynn’s Race Differences in
Personality: Whites as More Generous
and Empathic than Other Races
Life History Theory
Psychological Challenges to Developing
an Explicit Culture of White Identity
and Interests
Self-interest and the Anti-White
Infrastructure
Social Learning Theory: The Consequences
of Not Dominating the Cultural High
Ground
Benefits and Risks of Conscientiousness
Cognitive Dissonance as a Force of
Psychological Inertia
Psychological Mechanisms for a White
Renaissance
Being Aware of Impending Minority Status
Triggers White Ethnocentrism
Expressions of Anti-White Hatred Promote
White Ethnocentrism
Social Identity Processes
The Extremism of Scandinavian Culture:
Egalitarianism, Trust, Conformity,
and Consensus Decision Making
The Special Case of Finland
Conclusion: The Importance of
Changing the Explicit Culture
Appendix to Chapter 8: Recent Cultural
Deterioration: Some Cultural
Correlates of the Rise of a New Elite
The General Cultural Decline in America
Since the 1960s
Conclusion: The Transformative Effect
of the s Countercultural Revolution
Chapter 9: The Liberal Tradition
versus Multiculturalism
Individualism as a Precursor of Science
And Capitalism
Individualism as Precursor of Science
Individualism as Predisposing to
Capitalism
What Went Wrong? The New Elite and Its
Loathing of the Nation it Rules
Intellectual Movements of the Left Have
Exploited the Western Liberal Tradition
The Moral Argument for White Interests
Conclusion: The Uncertain Future of the West
Preface
____________________
The origins of this book go back to the early 1980s when I spent a year as an unemployed Ph.D. Armed with the evolutionary theory of sex, I started reading in anthropology and basically found that as societies created higher levels of economic production, wealthy, powerful men were able to control ever larger numbers of women. The interesting thing was that this was not generally the case in Western Europe. This issue led to a number of papers on the establishment and maintenance of monogamy in Western societies (cited in Chapter 5) and ultimately to this book.
Of course, the fundamental issues have changed over the years. The critical questions now are why the West became so successful (monogamy is part of the story) and, in recent decades, why is it so bent on self-destruction. The short answer to this is individualism, but my attempt to answer those questions requires some long journeys through population genetics, European history and pre-history, and the changing elites in the West, especially after World War II, as well as psychological research. The overall theoretical lens used is evolutionary psychology—I accept the general principle that humans have a set of psychological mechanisms that influence their behavior and that genetic variation is an important contributor to these influences.
But this is not to imply what is usually disparagingly referred to as “genetic determinism.” Human history is far too complex for explanations solely in terms of genetics. In several chapters I develop the psychological basis for cultural and ideological influences based on research on the higher brain centers—prototypically located in the prefrontal cortex. These mechanisms are incredibly elaborated in humans and, in a very real sense, they are what makes us human. Thus ideologies and social controls influencing human behavior play a central role here, but there is no claim that such influences are a deterministic outcome of human psychology interacting with the social and material world.
Moreover, human history is littered with contingencies and cannot be predicted or even postdicted in any detail by any theory I am aware of—certainly not by an evolutionary psychology positing only a set of universally available evolved modules as explanatory devices.[1] History is filled with twists and turns, often depending on the outcome of particular battles or political conflicts, themselves influenced by a host of psychological and contextual factors. For example, Chapter 5 discusses the cultural influence of the Catholic Church and the psychological mechanisms underlying this influence, but also the ideologies and social controls so essential to its success during the High Middle Ages. There is a lot of material here on the consequences of the rise of Protestantism in England, but no attempt to provide an explanation o
f exactly why it occurred when it did. Historical accounts have the benefit of hindsight but we are still left with accounts that fall well short of a complete explanation. So be it.
So how does evolutionary psychology enter in? Essentially the thesis is that ethnic influences are important for understanding the West—that the pre-historic invasion of the Indo-Europeans had a transformative effect on Europe, inaugurating a prolonged period of what will be labeled “aristocratic individualism” resulting from variants in Indo-European genetic and cultural influence (Chapter 2). However, beginning in the seventeenth century and gradually becoming dominant was a new culture labeled “egalitarian individualism,” itself influenced by the ethnic tendencies of northern hunter-gatherers that had remained relatively submerged during the period of aristocratic domination. Egalitarian individualism ushered in the modern world and we are living with its consequences today. As in the outcome of particular battles or political conflicts, the rise of this new people and new culture is not predictable in detail, but we can certainly trace out its consequences in hindsight.
This book has benefited from interaction with many others over the years. In recent times, I would single out F. Roger Devlin who proofread the manuscript and corrected many stylistic deficiencies. I also want to thank Simon Ström, whose expertise in the area of population genetics was very useful, and Luke Torrisi, whose expertise on Protestant millenarianism contributed greatly to the material on nineteenth-century America.
1
Recent Population Genetic
Research
__________________________
This book seeks to present a biologically informed view of Western culture and civilization with a special focus on individualism, a trait that, like all others of interest to psychologists, has a genetic basis.[2] It is therefore appropriate to begin by tracing the genetic history of the West.
A genetic basis for a trait can evolve via advantageous mutations or via phenotypic plasticity (i.e., change as a result of experience). In an organism with some degree of plasticity, environmental events can result in changes in the phenotype. If this phenotype is advantageous, the organism would tend to accumulate mutations that make the development of the phenotype more reliable and result in genetic influence/control over the trait.[3] This is sometimes labeled “phenotype first” evolution because the genetic changes occur after the trait first appears in the population as a result of plasticity.[4]
Developmental plasticity allows for a relatively fast route to producing adaptive phenotypes compared to the gradual accumulation of advantageous mutations. Nevertheless, it is now well accepted that evolution via either route can occur well within historical time spans.[5]
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