If this is actually true, the number of kids matters, as does the intergenerational transfer of political stances--hence there may be a scientific basis for the old adage of demography being destiny
Eh, I rather doubt that the content of political beliefs is heritable. Temperament is, though. For example, how come that children of arch-communists can become arch-Atlaticists (the sort of thing you'll see in the former Easter Block)? Easy-peasy: both the parents and the children are dogmatic. Low in openness, high in orderliness. But the exact content of the dogma doesn't really matter. Can be communist, can be Muslim, can be liberal (which is of course a misnomer, since modern-day liberalism has very little to do with freedom).
I thought this one might tempt you to comment: welcome, Irena. First up, not that me posting stuff doesn't necessarily imply agreement with, or even liking whatever I write about.
In this case, though, I do think consideration of the argument put forth merits attention: it's quite well-known that 'conservatives' (whatever that might mean) tend to have more kids; if we now consider that, all other things being equal, 'conservatives' would start families sooner than most of their liberal/left counterparts, this all becomes a quite easily understandable phenomenon: have your first child when the mother is around 25 makes it quite more likely to have more children as opposed to when the woman is 32 (the current average age nowadays in the West). As men and women age, fertility declines; we know fertility is influenced by a myriad of things, including environmental poisons and, yes, cell phone radiation.
As to the former Eastern Bloc, well, there's been a large-scale exodus since the Iron Curtain came down, esp. American Universities (it's a gigantic business) were very successful siphoning off just that highly relevant (high in openness, creativity) by offering undergraduate scholarships (with the idea that those graduates would have an easier time to move to US-based colleges); who remains is, well, often falling into the categories you mentioned.
Ah, but keep in mind that conservativism simply means resistance to change. That's all it means. Conservatives from two different societies may have very different opinions on particular "issues." For example, a conservative in the 1970s Soviet Union would be a Stalinist.
Well, we're in for a ride, with lots of changes coming our way. (Just for starters: the collapse of German industry, with all that this entails.) Arch-conservatives will do very badly, since their whole world is going away, and as for those who are very high in openness: I'm not sure. Probably, some will do very well, but most will do very badly. But isn't that always the case, really? The reason you have openness to begin with is because it allows you to try new things. Most new things work out badly, but every once in a while, you win big.
With all that said: I rather doubt that genetic changes affecting temperament can happen particularly fast, if for no other reason, then simply because all these traits are highly polygenetic (plus regression to the mean). It's possible that the Chinese are temperamentally different from (say) the Greeks at the genetic level, but that's thousands of years of evolution. In a generation or two? Forget it!
I honestly do think that, by way of survival, certain likelihoods of traits may be passed down generations, but I seriously doubt this occurs within 2-3 generations.
Yes, and you also need to think long-ish term. It may be that people with trait X usually fare better than people with trait Y, except that during certain semi-regular periods of disruption, those with trait Y do better than those with trait X. Which is why natural selection never gets around to eliminating either trait.
Also, I suspect that conservatives have *fewer* children than those high in openness during periods of serious social disruption, such as Eastern Europe during the 1990s. A conservative temperament will dispose you to following the old script in, among other things, family formation. Okay, but if the material/social circumstances that you find yourself in are laughably inadequate for successfully following that script (every script has material/social prerequisites), then what are you going to do? One obvious answer is to simply forgo breeding. If you're high in openness, you might just muddle through, bend the rules, and somehow make it work under radically different circumstances.
Reaction is resistance to change. Conservatism is the idea that revolution throws the baby out with the bath water and that change should therefore be managed, with the positive in the current conserved.
It's a continuum, with extreme reactionaries on one far end of the spectrum, and burn-it-all-down revolutionaries on the other. Both extremes are pathological (and you could argue it's a horseshoe thing: was ISIS reactionary or revolutionary for wanting to recreate 7th century Arabia?). Most people are somewhere in between, with garden-variety conservatives somewhat closer to the reactionaries than to the revolutionaries, and the opposite for garden-variety reformists.
ETA: You can see this in matters that are not particularly political. For instance, do you like a few types of food and don't particularly fancy trying anything new unless there's a compelling reason for it (e.g. you went to a party, and well, your favorite food is not available), or do you like trying new flavors all the time and get bored pretty quickly otherwise? Or: do you have one favorite vacation spot (or perhaps two or three) and try to go there every year if finances allow, or would you rather go to a different place each year? In principle, neither is "wrong." It's an attitude thing: "don't fix it if it's not broken" vs. "let's try this new thing, and if it doesn't work, we'll go back to the old thing or try some third thing."
Be fruitful and multiply.
Eh, I rather doubt that the content of political beliefs is heritable. Temperament is, though. For example, how come that children of arch-communists can become arch-Atlaticists (the sort of thing you'll see in the former Easter Block)? Easy-peasy: both the parents and the children are dogmatic. Low in openness, high in orderliness. But the exact content of the dogma doesn't really matter. Can be communist, can be Muslim, can be liberal (which is of course a misnomer, since modern-day liberalism has very little to do with freedom).
I thought this one might tempt you to comment: welcome, Irena. First up, not that me posting stuff doesn't necessarily imply agreement with, or even liking whatever I write about.
In this case, though, I do think consideration of the argument put forth merits attention: it's quite well-known that 'conservatives' (whatever that might mean) tend to have more kids; if we now consider that, all other things being equal, 'conservatives' would start families sooner than most of their liberal/left counterparts, this all becomes a quite easily understandable phenomenon: have your first child when the mother is around 25 makes it quite more likely to have more children as opposed to when the woman is 32 (the current average age nowadays in the West). As men and women age, fertility declines; we know fertility is influenced by a myriad of things, including environmental poisons and, yes, cell phone radiation.
As to the former Eastern Bloc, well, there's been a large-scale exodus since the Iron Curtain came down, esp. American Universities (it's a gigantic business) were very successful siphoning off just that highly relevant (high in openness, creativity) by offering undergraduate scholarships (with the idea that those graduates would have an easier time to move to US-based colleges); who remains is, well, often falling into the categories you mentioned.
As to the arch-Atlanticists, well, if you consider that the Neocons were all Leninsts/Maoists in the 1960s, you can easily see how this isn't an issue either (in fact, I'd wager that after FDR (in the US case) and after WW2 (in Western Europe), 'the free world' looked more like a de facto Bolshevik régime, albeit with a multi-party system (as opposed to the Soviet style of having 'Marxism-Leninism' de facto meaning 'politics') and with less obvious oppression. I suppose the term 'imperialist de facto Bolshevism' would be appropriate here).
Ah, but keep in mind that conservativism simply means resistance to change. That's all it means. Conservatives from two different societies may have very different opinions on particular "issues." For example, a conservative in the 1970s Soviet Union would be a Stalinist.
Well, we're in for a ride, with lots of changes coming our way. (Just for starters: the collapse of German industry, with all that this entails.) Arch-conservatives will do very badly, since their whole world is going away, and as for those who are very high in openness: I'm not sure. Probably, some will do very well, but most will do very badly. But isn't that always the case, really? The reason you have openness to begin with is because it allows you to try new things. Most new things work out badly, but every once in a while, you win big.
With all that said: I rather doubt that genetic changes affecting temperament can happen particularly fast, if for no other reason, then simply because all these traits are highly polygenetic (plus regression to the mean). It's possible that the Chinese are temperamentally different from (say) the Greeks at the genetic level, but that's thousands of years of evolution. In a generation or two? Forget it!
I honestly do think that, by way of survival, certain likelihoods of traits may be passed down generations, but I seriously doubt this occurs within 2-3 generations.
Yes, and you also need to think long-ish term. It may be that people with trait X usually fare better than people with trait Y, except that during certain semi-regular periods of disruption, those with trait Y do better than those with trait X. Which is why natural selection never gets around to eliminating either trait.
Also, I suspect that conservatives have *fewer* children than those high in openness during periods of serious social disruption, such as Eastern Europe during the 1990s. A conservative temperament will dispose you to following the old script in, among other things, family formation. Okay, but if the material/social circumstances that you find yourself in are laughably inadequate for successfully following that script (every script has material/social prerequisites), then what are you going to do? One obvious answer is to simply forgo breeding. If you're high in openness, you might just muddle through, bend the rules, and somehow make it work under radically different circumstances.
Reaction is resistance to change. Conservatism is the idea that revolution throws the baby out with the bath water and that change should therefore be managed, with the positive in the current conserved.
It's a continuum, with extreme reactionaries on one far end of the spectrum, and burn-it-all-down revolutionaries on the other. Both extremes are pathological (and you could argue it's a horseshoe thing: was ISIS reactionary or revolutionary for wanting to recreate 7th century Arabia?). Most people are somewhere in between, with garden-variety conservatives somewhat closer to the reactionaries than to the revolutionaries, and the opposite for garden-variety reformists.
ETA: You can see this in matters that are not particularly political. For instance, do you like a few types of food and don't particularly fancy trying anything new unless there's a compelling reason for it (e.g. you went to a party, and well, your favorite food is not available), or do you like trying new flavors all the time and get bored pretty quickly otherwise? Or: do you have one favorite vacation spot (or perhaps two or three) and try to go there every year if finances allow, or would you rather go to a different place each year? In principle, neither is "wrong." It's an attitude thing: "don't fix it if it's not broken" vs. "let's try this new thing, and if it doesn't work, we'll go back to the old thing or try some third thing."
The meek will inherit the earth...here’s why.