Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us
Avi Tuschman
Language: English
Pages: 543
ISBN: 1616148233
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The first book to tell the natural history of political orientations.
Our Political Nature is the first book to reveal the hidden roots of our most deeply held moral values. It shows how political orientations across space and time arise from three clusters of measurable personality traits. These clusters entail opposing attitudes toward tribalism, inequality, and differing perceptions of human nature. Together, these traits are by far the most powerful cause of left-right voting, even leading people to regularly vote against their economic interests.
As this book explains, our political personalities also influence our likely choice of a mate, and shape society's larger reproductive patterns. Most importantly of all, it tells the evolutionary stories of these crucial personality traits, which stem from epic biological conflicts.
Based on dozens of exciting new insights from primatology, genetics, neuroscience, and anthropology, this groundbreaking work brings core concepts to life through current news stories and personalities. For instance, readers will meet Glenn Beck and Hugo Chavez and come to understand the underlying evolutionary forces they represent. By blending serious research with relevant contemporary examples, Our Political Nature casts important light onto the ideological clashes that so dangerously divide and imperil our world today.
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then the fitness of the mother (which shares half of her genes with both offspring) increases. The older pup, though, prefers not to risk malnutrition, illness, or death. It protects its own survival at its sibling's expense. After all, the larger pup shares only a half of its genes with its sibling (or a quarter of its genes with its half-sibling, as the case may very likely be), but it shares 100 percent of its genes with itself. The human “clutch size” is normally only one, due in part to the
success. Now, recall that the strongest correlations of any physical or personality traits measured between spouses concern their ideological attitudes. It makes sense that people mate assortatively by political orientation; after all, the three personality clusters affect who people are attracted to and who they dislike, how people think children should be raised, and how people manage their relationships with others in general. As we learned in chapter 10, Americans have been segregating into
November 6, 2010. 39. David M. Levy, “Anti-Nazis: Criteria of Differentiation,” in Personality and Political Crisis: New Perspectives from Social Science and Psychiatry for the Study of War and Politics, ed. Alfred H. Stanton (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1951), pp. 151–227. 40. Jost, “The End of the End of Ideology.” 41. Jost et al., “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition.” 42. Edward L. Glaeser and Bryce A. Ward, “Myths and Realities of American Political Geography,” National
Westermarck, Three Essays on Sex and Marriage (London: Macmillan, 1934). 27. Arthur P. Wolf, “Explaining the Westermarck Effect, or, What Did Natural Selection Select For,” in Inbreeding, Incest, and the Incest Taboo: The State of Knowledge at the Turn of the Century, ed. Arthur P. Wolf and William H. Durham (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 76–92; Edward o. Wilson, The Social Conquest of Earth (New York: Liveright, 2012). 28. Patrick Bateson, “Inbreeding Avoidance and Incest
South Korea, Big Five personality traits, 43 Soviet Union anti-ethnocentrism of far left, 78 Communist oppression of minorities, 386–387 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 391, 392 sexual-equality deception, 387 Stalin, 228–229, 303 women's participation in war, 220 See also Russia Spain conquest of the Incas, 157–158, 233 Popular Party, 115 sexual tolerance, 115 Young Socialist party, 115 Spanish Inquisition, 141–142 species, defined, 147 spirituality vs. religiosity, 86–87 Spitzer,
