Mark William Henshaw wrote:

> ams:> With their plethora of strictly enforced rules
> > governing various minutiae of daily existence,
> > I would be surprised if they are not low on UAI.
>
> MH: , based on your arguments, you should be surprised
> if they are not *high* on UAI.

ams: Well, Mark, you just have to understand my terminology. Sometimes
I use the word low to mean "low" and sometimes I use the word low to
mean "high!" Since you seem to be "challenged" in the area of
mindreading skills, I'll try to avoid doing this in the future--but no
promises!

>
>
> ams:> So do Catholics! (And the similarity here is no
> > coincidence--it was Puritans who created the emphasis
> > on "assurance of salvation," but they had little or
> > no effect on RC's or anabaptist sects who retained
> > the Catholic view. So does this show that Catholics
> > are lower on UA than evangelicals who emphasize the
> > importance of "knowing you're saved?" You've already
> > agreed that it is the other way around.
>
> mh:Interesting point. I can only say once again that this is an issue
> which I approach with a strong degree of humility, because I don't
> think I fully understand these cultural dimensions.

ams: I think it's just very uncertain (ironic, huh?) to draw a
conclusion based on a single item. This would be especially true of a
theological tenet, since they tend to be resistant to change even when
the conditions under which they originated have changed. But in the case
of the Amish and OO Mennonites, they're written rules (of course they
have unwritten customs as well, like any culture) are a living document.
Their rules tend to grow, because they add new ones faster than they
drop outmoded ones. There is always a reluctance among them to discard
an old rule even when it no longer makes sense to retain it. But new
ones must be added because technology is always changing, and the Amish
(and OO Mennonite) response to technology must be regulated; and some
Amish affiliations are more liberal or conservative than others.
Hutterites also regulate technology, but I think this more on a colony
by colony basis. Their communist way of life permits them to be more
accepting of technology than Amish and OO Mennonites. Mainly they
regulate access to mass media and education, while the private
property-based economies of the Amish and OOM create a need to regulate
everything. For example, a motor vehicle is not a serious threat to the
group's way of life when it is owned by the colony for colony use, but
it does become a threat if motor vehicles are owned by individuals.

>
>
>
>
> > I would think it's possible, but not Bush. He's too
> > supportive of multiculturalism, alien immigration, and,
> > in the area of religion, ecumenism. And then there's
> > his Mestizo nephew whom he dreams of becoming the
> > next Bush in the White House. Ignorant, arrogant,
> > and callous, yes; xenophobic, no.
>
> mh:Doesn't his mestizo nephew speak English?

as: Sure. And Dubya himself speaks Spanish.

> mh:I think Bush sees the
> nonChristian, non-American hordes in the middle East with a great
> deal of xenophobia. (In other words, I think he is xenophobic in the
> way many bioegalitarians are xenophobic - they don't really fear
> different genetic groups, which they disbelieve in anyway, but
> different cultural forms give them the heebie jeebies.)
>
as: I don't think so. Bush seems to be openly supportive of
multiculturalism. And nonChristian especially doesn't bother him. Far
from being a traditional Christian, he is very much the ecumenist. As
far as I can tell, his views seem to be similar to the Freemasons--there
are many paths to God, if not equally good, at least close enough.
Dubya is by no means religiously exclusionary. He's surrounded himself
with even more Jews than Clinton, and mainstream evangelicals, no matter
how fanatically pro-Israel many of them are (but *not* the sect that
Dubya belongs to--the non-Dispensational and very liberal United
Methodists), all agree that non-Christian Jews are uniformly on the fast
track to hell. I don't doubt that Dubya is sincere in his belief in
Christianity, but I think he is theologically ignorant (as he is about
most things), and that he adheres to an idiosyncratic version of
Christianity in which he accepts or rejects particular teachings in
piecemeal fashion based on his individual judgment rather than embracing
Christianity (or one particular sect of Christianity) as a "seamless
garment," to be accepted or rejected as a whole. Dubyaism is a
Protestant sect of its own, with a total membership of one. I actually
think there are a lot of people like Dubya these days, as a result of
Protestantism's, and even more so evangelicalism's, very weak
ecclesiology and very individualistic approach to interpretation of the
Bible. When Luther broke with the Vatican, he thought he could contain
the doctrinal and organizational fragmentation that he started, but he
was wrong. The end result is "Dubya-ism."

> ams: Yet high MAS Jap babies behave the opposite
> of Jewish babies (with Euro babies in between)

>
> Do they? Can you provide a source? If true, this helps us to pinpoint
> the nature of Jewish crying as being Low-A (provided that you believe
> Jews are low-A and Asians are high-A).

ams: It strengthens the case. You already have a source for Euro babies
being calmer than Ashkenazi babies. I've read in several places that
East Asian babies are less easily disturbed than Euro babies, and more
quickly calmed when they are disturbed. I think one place you'll find a
reference to this is Rushton's REB. Also, behavioral differences are
observed to persist between Chinese and Euro offspring throughout early
childhood. The Oriental children are observed to be more pro-social in
their behavior, and also more task-oriented.

>
> MH: As a personal anecdote, my sister, who tests about as low as I do on
> Agreeableness, which is extremely low,

AS: Mark, I'm glad you're smart! Imagine being so high on psychopathy
*and* having a 2 digit verbal IQ!

> MH: was absolutely petrified of
> strangers as an infant. Her earliest memories are of crawling under
> the table when strangers came into the house. Yet she also scores
> (like I do) very low on Neuroticism. This is just one example, of
> course, but information is scarce enough that it seemed worth
> bringing up.

AS: Yes, we really need more data.

>
>
>
> > ams: Isn't a society governed by lots of rules
> > regarding social propriety typical of UAI societies?
> > If so, that's what I have described: those rules of
> > propriety have decreased greatly since the '60's.
> > It's much more socially laissez-faire now, except
> > for certain matters that infringe on political
> > sensibilities.
>
> But these rules were generally *unwritten.* They were understood to
> be part of a grey area of culture which everyone took for granted.

AS: No, this was not a "grey area." Grey areas are areas not covered by
rules. And unwritten rules are not necessarily or even generally less
clear, explicit, and strict as written ones.

Second, not all the rules were unwritten. Many of those laws were struck
down by "progressive" judges and some even remain on the books but are
forbidden to be enforced any more. Many of the rules separating blacks
and whites were written into statutory law--separate schools, separate
water fountains, separate restrooms, etc. So were laws against
interracial marriage. Divorce was only possible if you could prove in a
court of law that your spouse had committed adultery, or abandoned you,
etc. There was no "no fault" divorce. The sexes also were unequal not
just by custom but by law. For example, they didn't have the same
property rights. And homosexual acts, if discovered, were felonies.
Some acts were even felonies in many states when performed between
husband and wife. Blasphemy was also a crime; I'll bet it's still on the
books in some places, but the courts won't let it be enforced any more.

Third, all high UAI cultures--haredi Judaism, traditional Japan,
Confucianist China, Medieval Europe--are governed by a mixture of
written and unwritten rules, of law and custom. The Talmud itself only
started out as a written record of oral tradition, or unwritten custom
which the rabbis feared would be lost in the crisis of their age.

>
>
>
> > > I don't know much about Greece or Portugal,
> > > but do Belgians have traditionalist attitudes?
> > > Spanyards? The French? Have you seen the stuff
> > > they show on TV in Japan?
> >
> > ams: Mark, you're changing the subject. What do
> > traditionalist attitudes have to do with our topic?
>
> MH: Every single example of "decreasing UAI" which you gave involved
> decreasing traditional values. Look:

AS: Yes, and I explained why that is inevitable in any long established
culture:

it is only incidental (although perhaps unavoidable) that these rules
usually grow out of and eventually become regarded themselves as
traditional attitudes.

Mark, in case you haven't noticed, I think every example you gave of a
high UAI culture is also, or was until recently, a "traditional values"
culture (in terms of its own traditional values). Did you really
imagine that was an accident?

>
> _
>
> With the exception of a few anti-miscegination laws, all of
> these "regulations" you describe were just the way everybody behaved.
> There were no laws against discussing homosexuals, no laws enforcing
> shotgun weddings, no laws preventing divorce, just, as you
> said, "stigma." This is all evidence for increasing IND over the last
> century, not decreasing UAI.
>
>
> > Well, you're not talking about the Empire
> > anymore. You're discussing the barbarians.
> > I tend to agree that their Christianization
> > was not as deep. Many of the Empire's
> > converts were the result of a mass movement.
>
> This is essentially what I was saying (or regurgitating - this is
> just Stark's idea, though I agree with it). Genuine conversions take
> place through friendly social networks, rather than being imposed by
> autocratic demands from above.

I agree that this is generally true, but I also think that reluctant
conversions, after a period of several generations, give you a nation of
many sincere believers in their no longer new faith. But I also think
that in many families what began as passive resistance or dislike or
even just apathy toward a coercively imposed faith may evolve into a
lackadaisical attitude toward religion in general that will be passed
down throught the generations. This may be why religious skepticism,
once pressures against it were relaxed in the early modern period, seems
to have been more pronounced among the former barabarian cultures of
northern Europe than among the Mediterranean cultures where Christianity
gained most of its converts via a mass movement. I think universal
intensive religious education, which is what has revived haredi Judaism
when everyone thought half a century ago that it was on the verge of
extinction, could have ended this heritage of religious apathy or
skepticism, but that probably wasn't feasible under pre-modern
conditions. I never thought before about the forcible conversions
having a long term effect different from mass movement conversions, but
it certainly seems like a logical explanation for some of the
differences we see between northern Europe (including Roman Catholic
France, where Clovis, King of the Franks, was converted in AD 500) and
Mediterranean Europe, where mass movements spread rapidly among a highly
urbanized culture with relatively easy mobility via the Mediterranean
Sea. Inland transportation was excruciatingly slow in premodern times
though, there were few or no cities far removed from major waterways,
and during the Dark Ages urban life collapsed anyway. This may also
explain some of the differences between western and eastern Europe.
Christianity spread more rapidly in subjugated Greek speaking areas,
which were mainly in the eastern Mediterranean, and more slowly among
the Latins, among whom pride in the achievements of their pagan
ancestors delayed the conversion of most Latin-speakers until the
political events of the fourth century.

>
>
>
>
> MH: How frequently do they [Jews] experience religious schisms?

AS: They don't seem to me to be any more prone to this than Protestants
are. Evangelicals especially are notorious even among themselves for
"splitting their splits."

I just though of something else:

Mark wrote: Hofstede *described* high UAI cultures as xenophobic and
superstitious.

AS: Isn't this typical of low O psychology? Especially the xenophobia?

>
> > OTOH, you seem to have a point
> > that the crying is more likely explained by A than N,
> > because East Asians should not be lower N than whites.
> > The picture still looks very mixed to me.
>
> MH: This actually gives us a good basis for comparison - Jews and
> E.Asians are quite "K-selected." They have high intelligence, high
> rates of myopia, low fertility, high parental investment, are
> financially successful, etc. So they should show similar behaviors.

AS: And in some ways they do.

>
> Yet, their personalities and strategies do seem different on simple
> observation. The Japanese seem far more self-effacing, submissive,
> quiet, and friendly, while the Jews are more religious (or used to
> be, anyway), more domineering, and more warlike. It sounds like a
> difference in both E and A. Perhaps this is the difference between
> diasporic city-living and insular agricultural living?

AS: Not too quick. A better comparison might be of Jews with the "Jews
of the East," ie, the overseas Chinese diaspora, mostly an urban
phenomenon. These both tend to be middle man minorities, and their
strategies are similar, but personalities still seem to be different.

warlike: Jews only appear warlike since the establishment of a Jewish
state in 1948. The Japanese seemed to be warlike until we imposed a
semi-pacifist constitution on them in 1945.

> MH: Personal
> experience suggests that smart disagreeable people easily fool others
> into thinking they're nice, friendly, team players. This is probably
> how politicians do it! The only thing that bothers me about this line
> of reasoning is that it smacks of rationalization - if the data
> doesn't fit the theory, let's re-interpret it to fit the theory.

AS: Yes, but personality is complex, so you may have a point.

> MH:I'd
> like to have some actual hard data on Ashkenazi Jews, or at least on
> Semites in general;

AS: I certainly would too, but Semites are only a language group.
Genetically, fertile crescent peoples all cluster very closely, and the
"true" Arabs of the Arabian peninsula are somewhat farther removed
genetically. Also, the Yiddish have a unique occupational history that
their genome has adapted to over many centuries. Plus, religious and
secular Jews will probably have some significant differences largely for
cultural reasons. Let's say you had a group of 100 clones. 50 were
adopted into haredi families and 50 into secular Jewish families. I
venture to guess that a majority of one group would remain secular,
while a majority of the other group would remain haredi, although one
group of clones might have more losses than the other, through some
combination of chance enviromental influences and genetic
predisposition. I think most genomes are able to adjust well enough to
either lifestyle if that is what they are raised in, with most dropouts
being among individuals who are at the extremes of either genetic
predisposition or adverse environmental influences.

~Alypius
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