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I have a personal theory. It began as a thought experiment among friends, based on an idea I had in regards to the stark divide in this country. Why half the country thinks the other half is crazy.
I believe that the human species has split into two "sub species".
I believe this split originates with the "settling down" of the majority of our hunter gatherer (h/g) ancestors around 12,000 years ago. The adoption of the agricultural/pastoral (a/p) lifestyle.
I think that it manifests primarily in how members of these two groups "look" at the world, resulting from adaptations to the new (a/p) way of life and the new social structures associated with it.
First, a couple of clarifications.
When I use the terms liberal and conservative in this thread I'm referring to personality type and not ideology. I use h/g and a/p because liberal and conservative are so emotionally charged. We actually used the word "Pastoralis" in our conversations, as in Homo Sapiens Pastoralis, for a/p types, but that was just a made up name.
I'm certain that nurture and social conditioning are relevant. The "traits" to which I am referring are just that, tendencies and predispositions, not hardwiring or instinct, but there is some science antecedent to my original theory that suggests differences in brain structures between "liberals" and "conservatives". Whether genetic or developmental remains to be determined.
There is no "judgement" as to "superiority", merely two sets of adaptations to two substantially different ways of living.
I think that those who carry stronger expressions of rootstock "h/g" genes tend to be frontier types and newer "a/p" types are more comfortable once things are settled down and the trappings of civilization are in place.
I've seen commentary on recent science that introduces the idea that conservatives are more "fearful" than liberals. And that liberals are "braver" than conservatives.
I disagree with this interpretation of the findings.
Tossing this idea around with sharp educated people quite a bit, BEFORE these studies were done, we came to two primary conclusions.
One is that a primary factor is in how the two groups relate to novelty and risk.
And the "fear" element was more to do with cognition, or how one decides what to be afraid of and how that information is acquired than on individual "courage". Simply put, h/g types tend to be fearful of direct threats. A/p types tend to be fearful of "communicated" threats (invaders, etc) as well, an adaptation to living in FAR larger groups than we had for 100,000+ years before.
A member of a tribe of twelve SEES the pack of wolves. A farmer in a civilization of 10,000 HEARS about a pack of wolves on the other side of the kingdom.
H/g types, on the other hand, aren't "braver" so much as drawn to novelty and less risk averse, as these are appropriate personality traits for people who are contantly on the move looking for food.
Its a HUGE topic actually. We tested the hypothesis quite a bit over several years and it has held up amazingly well. There are whole subsets of the original hypothesis that have yielded many hours of engaging converstation.
The OP is already long, so what do y'all think.
(And lets try "Thought Experiment" instead of "Political Pissing-Match". The whole reason the original idea came up was an attempt to determine why we're so divided in the first place)
I believe that the human species has split into two "sub species".
I believe this split originates with the "settling down" of the majority of our hunter gatherer (h/g) ancestors around 12,000 years ago. The adoption of the agricultural/pastoral (a/p) lifestyle.
I think that it manifests primarily in how members of these two groups "look" at the world, resulting from adaptations to the new (a/p) way of life and the new social structures associated with it.
First, a couple of clarifications.
When I use the terms liberal and conservative in this thread I'm referring to personality type and not ideology. I use h/g and a/p because liberal and conservative are so emotionally charged. We actually used the word "Pastoralis" in our conversations, as in Homo Sapiens Pastoralis, for a/p types, but that was just a made up name.
I'm certain that nurture and social conditioning are relevant. The "traits" to which I am referring are just that, tendencies and predispositions, not hardwiring or instinct, but there is some science antecedent to my original theory that suggests differences in brain structures between "liberals" and "conservatives". Whether genetic or developmental remains to be determined.
There is no "judgement" as to "superiority", merely two sets of adaptations to two substantially different ways of living.
I think that those who carry stronger expressions of rootstock "h/g" genes tend to be frontier types and newer "a/p" types are more comfortable once things are settled down and the trappings of civilization are in place.
I've seen commentary on recent science that introduces the idea that conservatives are more "fearful" than liberals. And that liberals are "braver" than conservatives.
I disagree with this interpretation of the findings.
Tossing this idea around with sharp educated people quite a bit, BEFORE these studies were done, we came to two primary conclusions.
One is that a primary factor is in how the two groups relate to novelty and risk.
And the "fear" element was more to do with cognition, or how one decides what to be afraid of and how that information is acquired than on individual "courage". Simply put, h/g types tend to be fearful of direct threats. A/p types tend to be fearful of "communicated" threats (invaders, etc) as well, an adaptation to living in FAR larger groups than we had for 100,000+ years before.
A member of a tribe of twelve SEES the pack of wolves. A farmer in a civilization of 10,000 HEARS about a pack of wolves on the other side of the kingdom.
H/g types, on the other hand, aren't "braver" so much as drawn to novelty and less risk averse, as these are appropriate personality traits for people who are contantly on the move looking for food.
Its a HUGE topic actually. We tested the hypothesis quite a bit over several years and it has held up amazingly well. There are whole subsets of the original hypothesis that have yielded many hours of engaging converstation.
The OP is already long, so what do y'all think.
(And lets try "Thought Experiment" instead of "Political Pissing-Match". The whole reason the original idea came up was an attempt to determine why we're so divided in the first place)