A Right-Wing Monster

The New York Times ^ | 25 Jul 2011 | ROSS DOUTHAT

[AnonymousConservative]

Even left and right aren't the complete antitheses people often take them to be.

As I have made the case here repeatedly, they are. Within every population will exist r-selected and K-selected psychologies. The r-selected psychologies are designed by evolution to function under conditions of copious resources and high mortality. Liberal ideology parallels the r-selected psychology exactly. Averse to competition, promiscuous, and unconcerned with child rearing methods. Produce lots of offspring fast and early.

K-selected psychologies are what arise when there is no external mortality. There, a population increases, until there are not enough resources to support everyone. Suddenly competition for resources becomes necessary to survive, and individuals evolve to compete more effectively. Conservatism parallels K-selected psychology exactly. Competitive (from Capitalism, to War, to self defense), prone to espouse abstinence until monogamy, and overly concerned with two parent, high investment child-rearing, from demanding decency in culture to espousing “family values.”

These two ideologies are merely intellectual manifestations of the primitive psychologies one finds in nature and in r/K selection theory. Individuals inevitably stray, given the complexity of our intellects, but the ideologies are diametrically opposed, and pitted in direct competition within our species.

[JadeEmperor]

"implying that American conservatism produces cultural chauvinism. That is not true."

Cultural chauvinism is a perfectly normal human behavior that has been a part of all viable human societies for millenia. A society expects and has a legitimate right to assert its majority culture among its members, up and including minorities. A viable society has every right to exert normalizing pressure to force immigrants to assimilate into the core culture. By trying to force-feed multiculturalism you create worse problems. Look at where the post Civil Rights America is heading today. Look at the state of the American conservatism today. Always on the defensive, ready to run away and abandon any topic of discussion as soon as the Leftist Masters of Discourse hint you may be "racist", "homophobic" or "xenophobic". Geriatric, toothless, all bark no bite.