Why are Europeans going along with the destruction of their civilization? Why can’t they see what is happening? A new study suggests it may just be in our nature. Europeans really are less ethnocentric than other races.
There are two types of ethnocentrism. “Positive ethnocentrism” means you take pride in your own people and make sacrifices for them. “Negative ethnocentrism” means you don’t especially like other peoples. Computer modelling experiments show once you control for other factors, ethnocentric groups will dominate and displace less ethnocentric groups.
European-Americans, and Europeans in general, are not very ethnocentric. It’s only Europeans–specifically northern Europeans–admitting hundreds of thousands of young, fit, male, Syrian fake refugees.
In contrast, Northeast Asian countries aren’t letting them in. They don’t want their country deconstructed. Arab countries and Israel feel the same.
A recently published paper in the leading psychology journal Personality and Individual Differences confirms white people are the least ethnocentric, both in both the positive and negative sense, of all major races. Drawing upon the World Values Survey, a team of three scholars – Edward Dutton (Finland), Guy Madison (Sweden) and Prof. Richard Lynn (well-known to VDARE com readers because of his studies of race and IQ) show that whites are the least ethnocentric, then blacks, then North Asians, and finally South Asians and Arabs, who are the most ethnocentric of these races.
As metrics, the authors use surveys on the willingness to fight for one’s country and level of national pride for positive ethnocentrism. Not wanting a neighbor of a different race or ethnic group determines “negative ethnocentrism.”
They found the two respective measures of positive ethnocentrism strongly correlate, as do the two measures of negative ethnocentrism. However, there is no relationship at all between positive and negative ethnocentrism. They are quite separate constructs.
The review of other research in the paper notes northern Europe is low in “racism” (meaning: not wanting foreigners) and high in generalized trust. In southern Europe this is completely reversed. In Greece, nobody trusts anybody and nobody likes foreigners.
Not only do Dutton and his research team prove that these differences exist and are statistically significant at the level of race, they look into why. This is intriguing because it raises the possibility ethnocentrism can be changed with environmental intervention.
One of the team’s most important discoveries is the prevalence of particular forms of genes in the population has a significant effect on ethnocentrism. Race differences in ethnocentrism are almost certainly (partly) a matter of historical evolution to a different kind of environment.
Population prevalence of a particular form of the DRD4 gene–which is associated with sensitivity to context–is negatively associated at -0.7 with negative ethnocentrism. So, populations with a different form of it are likely to be very ethnocentric.
In terms of a broader model for what might be going on, the authors present us with something called Life History Theory. In essence, you either adopt a fast LH strategy – known as an r-strategy; or a slow LH strategy, known as a K-strategy.
We all sit somewhere on this spectrum, relatively closer to r or K, and this is true of nations and races. In a highly unstable but plentiful environment, such as pathogen-rich Africa, more people adopt an r-strategy. They must live fast because they will die young and unpredictably. As such, they are evolved to invest their resources in sex and have as much sex with as many people as possible. They create weak social bonds, only develop small and unstable social groups, and are highly aggressive and impulsive. All of this is designed to be able to deal with sudden, violent problems.
As the environment becomes more stable, it reaches its carrying capacity for the species. This makes it harsher and more competitive. This results in a move towards a K-strategy. You live slowly because you can better predict the future, making investments in it worthwhile.
Negative ethnocentrism is associated with measures of r-strategy, while positive ethnocentrism is weakly negatively associated with r-strategy. National testosterone prevalence is a proxy for strategy, as testosterone makes you aggressive. A fast LH strategy, an r-strategy, generally leads to more negative ethnocentrism at the national level.
A K-strategy means less investment in sex (quantity) and more in growth (quality). K-strategists will have fewer partners and children but bond more strongly and invest more in them. This makes them more likely to adapt the environment and develop larger social groups. Being “cast out” in a harsh environment means certain death, so they evolve to be cooperative and loving. In short, the more cooperative group will win the battle of group selection.
But national differences in ethnocentrism levels are also related to environmental variables–to things we can actually change. Here, Dutton’s team found–via some complicated statistical analysis that this writer can’t really comment on–that high levels of negative ethnocentrism were mainly predicted by prevalence of the form of the DRD4 gene as well as high levels of cousin marriage.
The authors argue that ethnic groups are basically extended families and we only invest in families because it helps to indirectly pass on our own genes. The more sure we are that someone’s our genetic kin. the more we will invest. So, Northeast Asian dads will invest in their kids because everybody is trustworthy and so they can trust that the kids really are theirs.
Of course, in a society like South Asia – less K – people are much less trustworthy so people are less inclined to invest in their kids, let alone in the broader society. But you can get round this if you marry your cousin. Then, even if the child isn’t yours, he is still strongly related to you. Indeed, so is the whole of the society, so it makes sense to take risks for it and be proud of it and attack foreigners because it really is your genes. Cousin marriage is also associated, though not as strongly, with positive ethnocentrism for similar reasons.
Positive Ethnocentrism in mainly associated with a young average population but there are number of factors that underpin this. Basically, these young countries have low IQ and are very poor. This means the people are stressed, highly instinctive, and so highly ethnocentric. Religious countries are more positively ethnocentric according to Dutton and his colleagues. The authors argue that religion is an evolutionary strategy which means, in part, that you believe your group is blessed by God so you will make sacrifices for it. The authors argue that religious groups are basically proxies for genetic ones, so if you believe the other group is damned by God, you’ll be all the more inclined to destroy it. Religion has evolved because it makes us more ethnocentric.
It may well be that the reason why Muslim influence is so much lower in the USA than in Europe is that we’re more religious and this has been passed on as a genetic legacy.
So, what’s the take home message from this paper? What can non-academics do with it?
Macron (who famously married a much older woman and has no children of his own) may get control of France, for now. But he and his spiritual heirs will leave nothing behind.
Lance Welton [Email him] is the pen name of a freelance journalist living in New York.
