Cosmic Nordic Supremacy
01-10-2011, 01:40 AM
Traditionally, biology and culture have been viewed as more or less separate aspects of the human condition. Similarly, genes and environment have been viewed as separate and discrete concepts, with commentators debating the relative contributions of genes vs. environment for a wide variety of human traits. But does this dichotomy really exist? Are biology and culture, genes and environment really unlinked as some would think? Or are these concepts really intertwined at a level of complexity greater than many imagine?
An article published in 1983, viewed in regard to the "race question," can shed important light on these issues. In "How people make their own environments: A theory of genotype greater than environmental effects," Sandra Scarr and Kathleen McCartney ask the following questions:
How do genotypes and environments combine to produce human development? And, how do genetic and environmental differences combine to produce variation in development?1
These questions were in part related to the observed phenomenon of dizygotic (i.e., non-identical) twins and adopted siblings becoming more dissimilar over time. The authors ask: How is it possible that the more you live with someone, the less like that person you become? The answer is that the environments experienced by a person (here, a developing child) are in part2 determined by the genotype of that person; in other words, the differences between individuals’ preferences, abilities, and characteristics are genetically determined, and these differences influence and modulate the environment that the individual experiences.
The authors propose three types of genetic to environmental interactions for developing children. First there is the "passive" model, in which parents provide a particular environment for their biologically related children. This environment may or may not be well suited for the specific child's genotype. Note that since the child is receiving both its genes and its early environment from its parents, and that both are influenced by the parents’ own genetic structure, this means that it is very difficult to determine whether any particular influence is solely environmental. Second, there is the "evocative" model, in which the child receives "responses" from others based on the child's genotype, and these responses help modulate the environment.3 Third and most important is the "active" model which:
[R]epresents the child's selective attention to and learning from aspects of his environment that are influenced by his genotype and indirectly correlated with those of his biological relatives.
The authors call this active process "niche-picking" and "niche-building"; the child is "seeking out" those environments that are compatible with the child's innate (genetic) preferences and abilities. According to the authors, children move from "passive" to "evocative" to "active" as they grow older; thus, the older the child, the more it actively chooses and modulates its environment. Therefore, the influence of the child's specific genotype and the effects of this "niche-picking/building" increase with age. The authors speculate that this is why, for example, adopted siblings become more different over time. The more they actively modulate their environment due to genetic differences, the more these environments will differ, since the underlying genotypes differ. Dizygotic twins and ordinary siblings will diverge more than monozygotic (identical) twins, who are genetically alike. The authors support the idea that "genes drive experience" and that "the genotype is the driving force behind development." Their ideas can be summarized thus:
Because the child's genotype influences both the phenotype and the rearing environment, their correlation is a function of the genotype. The genotype is conceptually prior to both the phenotype and the rearing environment.
In this model, the child can be viewed as "canalizing" its environment in a particular direction that is dictated by the child's underlying genetic structure.
A later article by Elkins et al. supports some of the ideas of Scarr and McCartney. Here comparisons of "twin similarity" were performed at ages eleven and seventeen, looking at genetic influences on "perceptions of parent-son conflict, regard, involvement, and overall support." The authors not only report "significant genetic influences" on these parameters, but also that the factor of heritability, particularly in the interactions between fathers and sons, was greater in the older twins studied. These data were seen to be supportive of Scarr and McCartney’s concept of an increase in "active gene-environment correlations" in the older group, consistent with the idea that the older children were more able to choose and influence (i.e., canalize) their environments. Thus, there is some evidence that the Scarr and McCartney proposal has some practical validity in child development.
A concept directly, and importantly, related to the proposals of Scarr and McCartney is the idea of the "extended phenotype." Two books instrumental in developing this concept are The Extended Phenotype, by Richard Dawkins and J. Scott Turner’s The Extended Organism, with Dawkins generally credited with defining and popularizing the term. Considering spiders, beavers, and humans, it is obvious that the genotype of each is simply the genes of each. The traditional phenotype of each would be the body of each: the spider's body, the beaver's body, the human's body. Phenotypes are simply the physical attributes of an organism, the visible manifestations or physically discernible features of genetic and polygenic traits. Since the brain is part of the body, in a sense intelligence and behavior can be considered part of the traditional phenotype, but here we begin to touch the edge of the concept of extended phenotype (or extended organism; for the purpose of this essay, these two terms will be synonymous). The extended phenotype paradigm asks: why must the idea of phenotype stop at the limit of the organism's body? Are not all fitness-related interactions of the organism with its environment also part of the organism's phenotype? Is not the cobweb of a spider part of the spider's phenotype, and in essence part of the spider itself? Can we not say the same about the beaver's dam? A gopher's hole? A bird's nest? The way one animal interacts with others, of the same or different species? The way a parasite interacts with its host? The way a plant interacts with its environment to obtain water and sunlight? Are not all of these examples of the "extended phenotype" of the organism's genes? What this is all about is enhancing the "fitness" of the organism; that is, its ability to reproduce itself and its genes as much as possible. We can view the extended phenotype as a product of the underlying genotype, produced for the express purpose of providing a "vehicle" by which the genes are maintained and increased (by reproduction).
Can we extend these analyses to the human condition? Yes. The ability of persons to deal with, and manipulate, their environments, their interactions with other people, their schooling, their career: all such capabilities that can influence the fitness of a person can be considered part of the individual’s phenotype. It is reasonable to consider the paintings of the Sistine Chapel, Hamlet, and the invention of the light bulb part of the extended phenotypes of Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Thomas Edison. These examples all fit in well with the concept of extended phenotype, as does Scarr and McCartney’s canalization idea. After all, what a child does to canalize its environment is no less an example of extended phenotype than a beaver dam or Hamlet. Thus canalization and extended phenotype are two sides of the same coin, and issues that apply to the one concept can inform us about the other.
Selection, and the subsequent changes in fitness, can be viewed as working on a group level, rather than just on individuals. Since culture can be considered as “ways of living, passed down from generation to generation” (Webster's dictionary) and “the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, art, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought characteristic of a community or population” (The American Heritage Dictionary, second college edition), then can the culture and cultural artifacts of a people be considered part of their extended phenotype, reflecting the underlying genetic biological reality? Certainly. Therefore, the cultural history and achievements of ethnic and racial groups can be considered part of their extended phenotypes, canalizing the environment, with the potential for increasing or decreasing the fitness of the groups. Whether fitness is increased or decreased would depend on how successful the cultural artifacts are in promoting the genetic interests of the groups producing them.
I therefore propose that Scarr and McCartney's "niche-picking/building" (canalization) is relevant for population groups as well as for individuals. In this scheme, not only does the environment influence the population's genetic structure (via natural selection), but also the population's innate (i.e., genetic, heritable) biological characteristics shape the environment in specific ways, and such alterations in the environment then can further alter the population's genotype. A positive feedback loop can be envisioned. First, a particular population develops specific gene frequencies based on the selective pressure of the natural environment. This specific genotype bestows upon this population particular abilities and preferences (extended phenotype) that cause the population to structure its environment in specific ways. The preferences of the population and the actions it takes to modulate its environment are no more or no less than the entirety of that population's culture. In other words, culture can be defined as the desire, and the attempt, to canalize an environment to suit the needs of a particular population's genetic structure. Once the environment has been modified, it then exerts further selective pressure on the population, possibly increasing the frequency of particular genes that influence the extended phenotype of the population. This, in turn, prompts the population to make further modifications to their environment (cultural expansion), which in turn feeds back once again, via selection, to the population's genes and the resultant extended phenotype. One can imagine a relatively homogeneous population that is then split up into two groups, each group going into somewhat different environments. The differences in the initial environments would begin to cause alterations in the genetic structures of these populations (neutral genetic drift would do so as well, but here we are talking about selective effects on genes which may control phenotypically relevant traits). Canalization would then take place as these populations develop various cultural artifacts in order to organize their environment according to their preferences. The positive feedback loop would begin and what was once a single homogeneous population would be transformed into quite different populations in a time-frame shorter than what may be predicted by simple, direct (environment to genes) natural selection. Thus, I speculate that the positive biocultural feedback loop described here can accelerate the rate of population differentiation, and may have done so throughout human history. This bidirectional interaction between genes and the environment, and the idea that man-made culture can significantly influence gene frequencies and the resultant extended phenotype (including culture itself): this is the foundation underlying the thesis of this essay. In other words, humans are biocultural organisms, and the two components (biology and culture) are intimately intertwined.
One example of population gene-environment canalization could be the eugenic effects on intelligence of the Ashkenazi Jewish culture, as described in chapter seven of Kevin MacDonald's 1994 book, A People That Shall Dwell Alone (PTSDA). Under the pressures of resource competition with gentiles, the Ashkenazim developed a culture in which Talmudic scholarship was a core foundation, a culture in which mastery of this difficult and convoluted material led to greatly increased status and reproductive success for the males. Daughters of successful businessmen were also reproductively successful. These and other cultural practices have led to the situation in which today's Ashkenazi Jews have a significantly higher verbal intelligence than other Caucasian groups (and also compared to other Jewish groups which had different cultures). One can imagine that each generation of Jews became verbally more adept and demonstrated a greater preference for intellectual Talmudic scholarship, thus increasing the emphasis and value of such studies in the society, and enhancing the selective pressure for greater verbal intelligence and for a preference for mental, as opposed to physical, activity. Indeed, in PTSDA, MacDonald speaks of "cultural selection" as regards the evolution of the Ashkenazi population; most certainly, the idea that cultural artifacts can influence a population's biological characteristics is a thread running through various sections of PTDSA.
The ethnocentrism and separatism of Jewish communities may have resulted in a similar feedback loop. The conditions of the Near East (more crowded, resource competition, selective pressures of the geographic environment, population demographics, etc.) resulted in populations originating in that area being higher on levels of ethnocentrism and xenophobia. These populations would then, based on these innate (genetic) preferences, create cultures emphasizing ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and separatism (see PTSDA and also MacDonald’s "What Makes Western Culture Unique," in the Summer 2003 issue of TOQ). Jews who fit in well with this mindset would remain in the group, fit in, and reproduce; those whose innate tendencies rejected such a mindset would be unsuccessful outcasts, and perhaps would leave the community. The genetic preference for xenophobic separatism would thus increase with each generation, creating a more ethnocentric culture, feeding back to create even more selective pressure for genes controlling behavioral traits supporting ethnocentrism and collectivist xenophobia. I would add that the Jewish preference for "sojourning" in other peoples' lands can also be a trait evolved through biocultural amplification. Thus, the unique characteristics of the biocultural Jewish entity could be explained via this mechanism.
The history of Western, European populations would be different. Indeed, in his TOQ article, MacDonald provides a chart comparing and contrasting the characteristics of European and Jewish populations. MacDonald cites the following as the fundamental characteristics of European, Western culture:
1. The Catholic Church and Christianity.
2. Tendency toward monogamy.
3. Simple family structure/nuclear family (not the extended clan).
4. Companionate marriage (affection between partners).
5. De-emphasis on kinship relations (see no. 3) and a relative lack of ethnocentrism.
6. Individualism, as exemplified by individual rights against state power, representative government, moral universalism, and science.
Many of these traits were exhibited by Western populations in the Classical (Greco-Roman) world; MacDonald cites the specific examples of the Romans, particularly during the Republican period, as embodying many of the characteristics unique to Western civilization. Later, in the Middle Ages, as the development of central authority lessened the need for more collectivist, kinship-based relationships, it was the Germanic peoples of Northwest Europe who first, and most strongly, developed the individualistic, Western culture of the Modern period. Later, these characteristics spread easily throughout Western Europe.4 As MacDonald writes:
Although these differences between the Germanic peoples and other areas of Europe system are important, they do not belie the general difference between Western Europe and the rest of Eurasia. Although the trends toward simple households and the demographic transition occurred first in the northwest of Europe, they spread relatively quickly among all the Western countries.
Why is that? Why the difference between Europeans and the rest of Eurasia, and why, in the Modern era, were the trends initially, and most strongly, developed by the Germanic peoples? Dr. MacDonald writes that:
European groups are part of the North Eurasian and Circumpolar culture area.5 This culture area derives from hunter-gatherers adapted to cold, ecologically adverse climates.
Such ecologically harsh climates would support smaller populations, making adaptations for ethnocentrism and group-based conflict relatively unnecessary. Groups would be small, so extended kinship would be limited, and the simple, nuclear family more practical and easier to care for. Collective urges would be muted, and individualism more powerful; the underlying theme being more the small group, or even the individual family, fighting the elements to survive, rather than larger groups in ecologically less harsh areas fighting other large groups and developing collectivist "us vs. them" mindsets. The conditions in the Northern regions would result in ecologically imposed monogamy—it would be impractical for a male to support more than one family. Now, given this starting point, one can consider that these ecological (environmental) conditions would select for specific gene frequencies/extended phenotypes adapted to this environment—genes coding for an extended phenotype in which behavior was focused in the direction of points 2-5 above. Individuals with such a mindset would begin canalizing their environment, via specific cultures, to suit this genotype/extended phenotype, making the environment even more selective for the traits of individualism that define the Western cultural mode. A positive feedback loop would be engaged, in that those individuals who were more inclined to monogamy, smaller familial groups, individualistic thought-patterns, etc. would be more likely to survive, prosper, and reproduce in this environment (partially natural, partially man-made) than those with a different mentality. Here we see that both the natural environment, and the man-made canalized cultural environment, would have differed significantly in pre-historic/ancient Europe vs. that of the rest of Eurasia, e.g., the Middle/Near East. Even when the ecological conditions in Europe became less harsh, the positive feedback loop was already established, so that selection to a Western bioculture continued. Ecologically imposed monogamy gave way to socially imposed monogamy, for example—instead of being dictated by a harsh ecological system, the monogamy was imposed via the culture, the culture itself being part of the genetically inherited extended phenotype of the population.
Since the North Germanic peoples existed in the harsh ecological conditions the longest, and were the most adapted to that environment, I speculate that they had the most intense initial selection for individualistic traits and the longest period of positive feedback loops amplifying these traits. Other non-Germanic European peoples had a somewhat less stringent adaptation and amplification, as well as having been admixed to a larger extent with Neolithic invaders from somewhat ecologically less harsh environments than had the Germanic tribes. Thus, we can see why the Germanic peoples were more strongly developed in these individualistic traits than other Europeans. However, the other Europeans were more strongly developed in these traits than other Eurasians; these other Europeans went through selective positive feedback loops similar (albeit not absolutely identical) to those of the Germanic peoples. This is not surprising; despite differences that exist between different European peoples, they resemble one another in genetic structure and in extended phenotype more than they do other population groups. Thus, in summary, while it is true that Modern-era individualistic Western culture was first strongly observed among Germanic Europeans, it quickly became a defining characteristic of all European peoples generally, who in their entirety can be considered Western populations.
The biocultural evolutionary paradigm outlined here may be able to explain an interesting phenomenon. While Northeast Asians are said to have evolved in very harsh, northern Ice Age ecological conditions, their cultural extended phenotype is radically different from that of Western populations and, in some ways, more similar to the Near Eastern groups that evolved in quite different ecological niches. Northeast Asians—e.g., Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans—are highly xenophobic and ethnocentric; their cultures are more authoritarian and more collectivist; and in general they have differed significantly throughout much of their history from Western culture in the six defining points that MacDonald has identified as characteristic of European society. And of course their genetic structures are very different; they are both genetically and phenotypically more alien to the West than are the Caucasians of the Near East. If the initial environments were roughly similar, why are these differences so marked?
I would propose that the gene-environment feedback loop shares a characteristic with "chaos theory" such that very small changes in initial conditions or early events can have a disproportionately large downstream effect on the final outcome.6 For whatever reason—small differences in the initial environment, small differences in the gene pools of the early pre-racially divergent Eurasian populations, "random" differences in choice between various equally adaptive cultural options, "random" historical events, etc.—the initial canalization of the environment was somewhat different between early Europeans and early Northeast Asians. As the results of these early small differences fed back into the gene-environment loop, they became amplified over and over again throughout the tens of thousands of years that separate the two populations. In this way, the biological-cultural feedback caused what may have been a very small initial difference in genotype-extended phenotype to inflate into the extreme variation between Europeans and Northeast Asians we observe today. Europeans went in the direction of individualism, scientific objectivity/empiricism, and moral universalism, Orientals went more in the direction of collectivist xenophobic ethnocentrism and cohesive kinship bonds. Differences in the natural ecological environment alone may not explain these differences, but possibly the biocultural paradigm outlined here can. Indeed, one may consider that by comparing human biological diversification and genetic history with cultural evolution and ethnic history, and determining whether correlations exist between these phenomena, suggestive evidence either supporting or refuting the present hypothesis may be observed.
Practical Considerations
One may speculate that knowledge of bioculture can assist in informing choices of how to pursue ethnic and racial genetic interests, and how to stem the demographic/sociopolitical tide that threatens the survival of Western populations. In the last chapter of his book The Culture of Critique, MacDonald suggests that European-derived peoples may go in the direction of more collectivist, group-serving ideologies and structures in order to survive. It does seem that the naturally individualistic tendencies of Western populations need to be overcome in order to form cohesive units able to compete with hostile, more collectivist groups. We need a thorough understanding of the aracial (and in some ways anti-racial) hyper-individualism of white "elites," who are leading us on the path of destruction. We need to understand how the degeneration of Western culture—a culture which is part of our extended phenotype and responsible for canalizing the environment for our genetic benefit—is destroying us not only culturally but biologically as well. As our culture declines so do our numbers and our genetic quality—living in a distorted environment ill suited to our genotype and phenotype, the Western biocultural organism is slowly dying. We need to diagnose the disease if we wish to cure it. Furthermore, the biocultural paradigm can show us how and why different populations come into conflict, and how one population can alter another just by altering the culture and environment, even in a "non-violent" fashion.
MacDonald's Culture of Critique—as well as the other two volumes of his trilogy—chronicles how the Jewish extended phenotype has been waging war on the Western biocultural organism. Indeed, the phrase "culture wars," as used by some paleoconservatives, takes on a new meaning if we consider how culture may be the key to canalizing environments to benefit various populations. We can ask: if two populations live in the same territory, is it possible that their extended phenotypes will clash? Is it possible that canalization of the environment by one population will be incompatible with the biocultural needs of the other population? Can we envision a non-military form of biocultural warfare, fought with cultural weapons, in which one extended phenotype, and its underlying genotype, attempts to obtain ascendancy over other extended phenotypes/genotypes, via specific forms of environmental canalization, and the subsequent effects such canalization would have—both genetically and environmentally—via repeated cycles of the feedback loop? Does MacDonald's trilogy tell the story of such a conflict between Western and Jewish populations? Is this conflict reaching a crescendo in America, and today's Western world as a whole?
It is entirely reasonable, based on the historical evidence, to view the following as resulting, at least in part, from the Jewish extended phenotype at work in America: the "civil rights" movement, resulting in forced racial integration, anti-White quotas, school busing, "equal opportunity” and housing laws, and the resultant damage to our schools and standards, destruction of neighborhoods and cities, and countless thousands of Euro-American victims of ethnic minority violence; the 1965 change in our immigration laws, which continues to flood America with non-European immigrants, and which will result in minority status for Euro-Americans in several decades; the feminist movement, which has caused gender hostility between male and female Euro-Americans, and has resulted in an increased divorce and abortion rate, and a decreased birthrate among Euro-Americans; miscegenation between Euro-Americans and other racial groups, vigorously promoted by the media, which further reduces Euro-American numbers while damaging our genetic inheritance; the anti-(Vietnam) war movement, which created an atmosphere of cynicism, generational conflict, and defeatism in the American public; the "counter-culture," helped along by the Frankfurt School,” which has assailed traditional Euro-American values, damaged our culture, and created feelings of alienation, particularly among the young; "white guilt," which leads our people, again particularly the young, to doubt their own worth and to reject their history, with devastating consequences; the prevalence of the denial of race and racial differences, which distorts science in an attempt to convince peoples of European descent that since their race really doesn't exist, then nothing is being lost as their population group hurtles to extinction; and a war against free speech which is making America more and more a gulag of political correctness.
We can note similar manifestations of the Jewish extended phenotype in Europe, where the suppression of free speech is far more advanced than in America. One major aspect of the Jewish extended phenotype that has to be mentioned is Marxism, which has resulted in more deaths and human anguish than any other creed in recent history, and which provides the ideological basis for the anti-European, anti-Western activities of those who wish to destroy the "white West." Thus does the Jewish extended phenotype express itself in ways directly destructive to Western interests. Of course, the Jewish extended phenotype also manifests itself in the Jewish preoccupation with education, material success, and power, as well as the Jewish interest in verbal skills and occupations which emphasize the predominance of advanced verbal skills. Obviously, these aspects of the Jewish extended phenotype help in the pursuit of the more direct anti-Western activity described above, and assists in the Jewish suppression and distortion of normal and healthy Western extended phenotypes.
Thus group culture can be viewed an integral part of that group's extended phenotype, which can have a significant impact on that group's ability to survive, reproduce, and compete with other groups. Extended phenotypes can overlap, and one extended phenotype can manipulate another. Certainly, internal and external parasites can alter the extended phenotype of the host, often including changes in behavior, and/or manipulation of a previously adaptive behavior to benefit the parasite to the detriment of the host. A bird feeding the offspring of the cuckoo, rather than its own genetic offspring, is an example. The inclusive fitness of the parasitized bird decreases, that of the cuckoo increases. The host bird's behavior, in the absence of the cuckoo, is adaptive: feed the young that hatch in its nest, which would usually be its own. But the implantation of an alien egg into the nest upsets this, and the extended phenotype of the host is used to benefit the parasite—a relationship that is indeed a fundamental part of the parasite's extended phenotype.
All of this can be applied to the human situation. Europeans (and by "Europeans" I mean all people of European descent, including Euro-Americans, Euro-Australians, etc.) have an extended phenotype that, for most of human history, has served them well. Aspects of this extended phenotype, however, can be manipulated to serve alien interests. Indeed, the behavior of Europeans today vis-à-vis, for example, the colored underclass, seems remarkably similar to the host bird—cuckoo bird parasitic situation. Europeans who do not have the resources to raise children of their own in a manner consistent with their extended phenotype (culture) are coerced to pay money (taxes) to support the reproduction of competing ethnic/racial groups. In addition, characteristics of the Western extended phenotype—such as altruism, concern for life, and adherence to "the golden rule"—all of which can be viewed as adaptive in more homogeneous societies, are also being manipulated to the detriment of Europeans. Europeans often adopt children of other population groups, and raise and nurture these instead of their own; the parallels to the cuckoo situation are remarkable. Europeans will sometimes support sociopolitical and socioeconomic policies that benefit others, but hurt themselves. They will contribute to charities that benefit other races, at their own expense.
Is the European/Western extended phenotype maladaptive? If so, how did this group survive and prosper, up to this point? Why was it able to successfully canalize its environment up to this point? Did the extended phenotype change radically? If so, how? Or, perhaps, the extended phenotype—the original one—is maladaptive only in its current environment? And the problem with the current environment is that the extended phenotypes of other groups have altered the environment in such a way as to make previously beneficial—or at least neutral—Western extended phenotypic traits highly maladaptive. These others have canalized the environment in ways beneficial to their genotypes and extended phenotypes, and harmful to ours. In so doing, they remove the basis of the survival of Western populations as a distinct biocultural entity. They are destroying the environment carefully built up by Western culture over time and have replaced it with a distorted anti-Western structure that is utterly incompatible with the well-being of European/Western biocultural organisms.
Which groups have so altered the environment? It is doubtful that the Negro is the primary mover, since, in the U.S.A., Europeans have survived and prospered for centuries living amongst the Negro. The overall historical evidence suggests that it was not the Negro, or other colored peoples, who so altered the Western environment to cause problems. The evidence points to the Jewish extended phenotype being the one which altered the environment and is manipulating the Western extended phenotype, and, by so doing, is resulting in a catastrophic, possibly permanently destructive, diminution of European interests and European fitness.
The United States, it would seem, is the primary seat of worldwide Jewish power, and U.S. cultural, economic, and military power is the fulcrum by which the Jewish extended phenotype leverages itself against gentile—particularly European gentile—interests. In addition, in other Western areas, even those not so conducive to Jewish dominance, historical developments enabled the Jewish extended phenotype to reach new levels of power. In a Western world without Jews, the development of more materialistic worldviews, including "rationalism" and "humanism," may have just been a phase through which the European peoples passed without any threat to Western survival. These may have been eventually replaced with other worldviews. However, the Jewish extended phenotype eagerly seized upon the opportunities presented by a more materialistic and "rational, humanistic" Europe, with the Jewish development of Marxism being the epitome of Jewish exploitation of these developments. The "end of the Cold War" has not ended the threat of Marxism; paradoxically, as the Marxist Soviet states of Eastern Europe collapsed, alternative "softer" forms of Marxist totalitarianism, in the form of "political correctness" and "racial sensitivity" (that is, sensitivity to the needs of all peoples except Europeans) spread throughout the West, usually with Jewish assistance. Thus we have reached a point at which, in many European nations, political dissent that is critical of Jewish interests is prohibited, and bizarre forms of coercion are in place to stifle such forms of dissent. We may well ask which side really won the "Cold War." These things can all be viewed as consequences of the Jewish extended phenotype in the West, a phenotype that has been canalizing the Western environment in a manner inimical to the long-term well being and even survival of Western populations. If Western populations are going to somehow reverse these trends, then a holistic understanding of the links between biology and culture, and between genes and environment, will be crucial. Only by understanding where we are and how we got there can we begin the task of taking back our culture and begin canalizing our environments for our own benefit.
Summary
1. The gene-environment dichotomy is a false one. Genes and environments influence each other. Biology and culture influence each other; there is no dichotomy between biology and culture.
2. Individuals canalize their environments to suit their genotypes. This ability to manipulate their environment ("niche-picking," "niche-building") is an integral part of the individual’s extended phenotype.
3. Human population groups, like individuals, have extended phenotypes. A group's culture is an integral part of its extended phenotype.
4. Human population groups canalize their environments to suit their genotypes the same as do individuals. This canalization is no more or no less the culture of the group in question. These altered environments then exert a selective pressure on the population group.
5. Thus, human population groups are biocultural entities; their initial genetic structures were molded by their initial environments. Subsequent human population evolution has been, is, and will continue to be characterized by: genotypes canalizing environments to suit themselves (culture); these altered environments then exerting selective pressure on the population and its genotype; these now altered genotypes further canalizing their environment; this newer environment then exerting new selective pressure on the population—in a never-ending positive feedback loop amplifying population-specific gene frequencies and extended phenotypes.
6. This model has practical consequences in the real world. If Western populations allow others to canalize Western environments in ways inimical to Western survival, then Western populations will be greatly diminished and may cease to be altogether.
Conclusion
We must acknowledge and recognize that human population groups are biocultural entities. Genes not only create the physical phenotype, but the culture as well, as the extended phenotype. The physical body provides the vehicle in which genes survive and undergo competition with others in the process of selection. The culture of a people is the vehicle in which its gene pool resides, and the culture helps decide the ultimate fate and fitness of that gene pool. Furthermore, the culture, by altering the environment in which the population lives, exerts selective pressure on the population and its genetic structure. Thus, culture influences the genes just as the genes influences the culture.
Western culture, our extended phenotype, is sick, is distorted, and this is killing the Western biocultural organism, killing off the European peoples and their gene pool. Our fitness, relative to other groups, decreases constantly. We must recognize that we are involved in a struggle between extended phenotypes, which represent competing gene pools, and that our side is losing, and losing badly. We have to understand that our extended phenotype is under attack, is being distorted, and we must identify who is doing this, how, and why. We must do all we can to take control of our culture from the manipulators. It is crucial both to go back to the healthy attributes of our culture and to create new cultural artifacts free of foreign, destructive influences.
Ultimately, just as the "extended phenotype" idea proved to be a new paradigm in the field of evolutionary biology, so must "biocultural synthesis" become a new paradigm in the field of ethnic/racial pursuit of genetic interests (ethnic/racial nationalism). Biologically minded people have to understand and accept the important role of culture. Activists must include mental traits, as well as physical traits, in their evaluation of the individual. They must also include the extended phenotype of culture in their evaluation of an individual or a group. This does not mean that a Negro who listens to Mozart is a European—for the Negro is not a European genetically, nor as regards physical appearance. On the other hand, a genetically and anthropologically European who is deeply immersed in the culture of other groups and/or who advances the genetic fitness interests of others groups cannot truly be considered part of our biocultural group. The culturalists have to acknowledge and accept the underlying importance of biology, the biological reality of race and ethnicity, and how race and ethnicity influences culture. They need to understand that culture is not an end in itself, but part of the extended phenotype of a people, produced by the genes, for the benefit of the genes. Both the biologists and culturalists need to understand how biology and culture influence each other in the same type of positive feedback mechanism outlined by Scarr and McCartney as regards the active form of "niche-picking/building" that takes place during child development. Biologists and culturalists alike have to understand how the new biocultural paradigm strengthens their particular focus—on the one hand demonstrating the power of genes through the creation of the extended phenotype of culture, which ultimately serves genetic interests; on the other hand demonstrating the power of culture, the ultimate expression of the biocultural organism, a mechanism shaping the very genetic structure of the biological group via its effects on "canalizing" the environment, shaping an environment that will then exert a selective influence on gene frequencies. Indeed, both biology and culture need to be studied, strengthened, and the link between them recognized and valued. Only in this way can we ensure the survival of our threatened Western biocultural group.
Addendum
In November 2003, Nature Genetics published a brief note from eleven researchers that identified an example of gene-culture coevolution. The authors write: "We found substantial geographic coincidence between high diversity in cattle genes, locations of the European Neolithic cattle farming sites (>5,000 years ago) and present-day lactose tolerance in Europeans. This suggests a gene-culture coevolution between cattle and humans." (Beja-Pereira et al., “Gene-culture coevolution between cattle milk protein genes and human lactase genes,” Nature Genetics, 23 November 2003: 35, no. 4, pp. 311 – 313.)
Louis R. Browning is an academic in the behavior genetic and sociobiological research fields, and is a freelance writer specializing in the evolutionary influences of individual and group differences in social behavior
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Elkins, I. J., McGue, M., & Iacono, W. G. “Genetic and environmental influences on parent-son relationships: Evidence for increasing genetic influence during adolescence,” Developmental Psychology 33 (1997), 351-363.
MacDonald, Kevin A People That Shall Dwell Alone Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994.
MacDonald, Kevin “What Makes Western Culture Unique," The Occidental Quarterly 2, no. 2 (Summer 2002) (http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/vol2no2/km-unique.html).
Scarr, S. and McCartney, K. How people make their own environments: A theory of genotype greater than environmental effects, Child Development 54 (1983), 424-435.
Endnotes
1. An organism's genotype can be considered the totality of that organism's genes, the biological instructions for creating the organism. The phenotype of the organism, in the traditional sense of the term, is the organism itself, the physical reality of the organism, its "body" so to speak.
2. The authors stress that they are not saying that "environmental fate" is completely determined by genotype, but rather that "some genotypes are more likely to receive and select certain environments than others." In other words, their theory is "probabilistic" rather than absolutely deterministic. Nevertheless, genotype is the fundamental factor.
3. A child that demonstrates intellectual interests at an early age may "evoke" the response of being given more books, etc. Well-behaved children will "evoke" different responses than unruly children, with consequences to their environment.
4. I find it interesting that Western Europe is stressed here. One can ask, what about Eastern Europe? I would say that Eastern Europeans of course share these same traits in general but, because of history, the development of many Western cultural characteristics was delayed for centuries. Certainly, Eastern Europe has had Christianity, monogamy, and trends toward a more Western family structure. On the other hand, it would seem that the development of individual rights vs. the state was retarded in the east as opposed to the west of Europe, possibly due to the traumatic effects and influences of the Mongols and Turks. In Russia, assertion of rights against the state more often took the form of more collectivist endeavors (e.g., the Cossacks), rather than via "legalistic" means (e.g., "Magna Carta," etc.). Ethnocentrism in places like the former Yugoslavia seems rather high. However, when compared to non-European areas of Eurasia, Eastern Europeans would fall into the Western cultural cluster overall, and, certainly now, with the fall of communism, one can expect Eastern Europeans to demonstrate cultural artifacts similar to those of Western Europeans. However, given the main thesis of this essay, it is possible that the centuries-long cultural divide between West and East Europe may well have resulted in different selective pressures on the populations, and different gene-environment positive feedback loops, resulting in various population-specific alterations in gene frequencies and extended phenotypes. Examination of intra-European differences in the gene-environment story is beyond the scope of this essay. But perhaps the legendary stoicism of the Russian population, the ability of that people to withstand hardships, survive invasions and catastrophes, the persistent determination and bravery of the Russian soldier, all these positive ethnic traits may have developed as biocultural adaptations during the specific history of that nation. However, it must be stressed that all European populations, West and East, North and South, are now equally part of the Western biocultural organism. Dividing this organism will kill it as surely as dividing an animal will kill it.
5. Burton et al. Current Anthropology 37 (1996), 87-123.
6. Such as the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in one area and not another can have a profound effect on differences in weather patterns or some other large event.
Louis R. Browning (http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/archives/vol4no1/lrb-bioculture.html)
An article published in 1983, viewed in regard to the "race question," can shed important light on these issues. In "How people make their own environments: A theory of genotype greater than environmental effects," Sandra Scarr and Kathleen McCartney ask the following questions:
How do genotypes and environments combine to produce human development? And, how do genetic and environmental differences combine to produce variation in development?1
These questions were in part related to the observed phenomenon of dizygotic (i.e., non-identical) twins and adopted siblings becoming more dissimilar over time. The authors ask: How is it possible that the more you live with someone, the less like that person you become? The answer is that the environments experienced by a person (here, a developing child) are in part2 determined by the genotype of that person; in other words, the differences between individuals’ preferences, abilities, and characteristics are genetically determined, and these differences influence and modulate the environment that the individual experiences.
The authors propose three types of genetic to environmental interactions for developing children. First there is the "passive" model, in which parents provide a particular environment for their biologically related children. This environment may or may not be well suited for the specific child's genotype. Note that since the child is receiving both its genes and its early environment from its parents, and that both are influenced by the parents’ own genetic structure, this means that it is very difficult to determine whether any particular influence is solely environmental. Second, there is the "evocative" model, in which the child receives "responses" from others based on the child's genotype, and these responses help modulate the environment.3 Third and most important is the "active" model which:
[R]epresents the child's selective attention to and learning from aspects of his environment that are influenced by his genotype and indirectly correlated with those of his biological relatives.
The authors call this active process "niche-picking" and "niche-building"; the child is "seeking out" those environments that are compatible with the child's innate (genetic) preferences and abilities. According to the authors, children move from "passive" to "evocative" to "active" as they grow older; thus, the older the child, the more it actively chooses and modulates its environment. Therefore, the influence of the child's specific genotype and the effects of this "niche-picking/building" increase with age. The authors speculate that this is why, for example, adopted siblings become more different over time. The more they actively modulate their environment due to genetic differences, the more these environments will differ, since the underlying genotypes differ. Dizygotic twins and ordinary siblings will diverge more than monozygotic (identical) twins, who are genetically alike. The authors support the idea that "genes drive experience" and that "the genotype is the driving force behind development." Their ideas can be summarized thus:
Because the child's genotype influences both the phenotype and the rearing environment, their correlation is a function of the genotype. The genotype is conceptually prior to both the phenotype and the rearing environment.
In this model, the child can be viewed as "canalizing" its environment in a particular direction that is dictated by the child's underlying genetic structure.
A later article by Elkins et al. supports some of the ideas of Scarr and McCartney. Here comparisons of "twin similarity" were performed at ages eleven and seventeen, looking at genetic influences on "perceptions of parent-son conflict, regard, involvement, and overall support." The authors not only report "significant genetic influences" on these parameters, but also that the factor of heritability, particularly in the interactions between fathers and sons, was greater in the older twins studied. These data were seen to be supportive of Scarr and McCartney’s concept of an increase in "active gene-environment correlations" in the older group, consistent with the idea that the older children were more able to choose and influence (i.e., canalize) their environments. Thus, there is some evidence that the Scarr and McCartney proposal has some practical validity in child development.
A concept directly, and importantly, related to the proposals of Scarr and McCartney is the idea of the "extended phenotype." Two books instrumental in developing this concept are The Extended Phenotype, by Richard Dawkins and J. Scott Turner’s The Extended Organism, with Dawkins generally credited with defining and popularizing the term. Considering spiders, beavers, and humans, it is obvious that the genotype of each is simply the genes of each. The traditional phenotype of each would be the body of each: the spider's body, the beaver's body, the human's body. Phenotypes are simply the physical attributes of an organism, the visible manifestations or physically discernible features of genetic and polygenic traits. Since the brain is part of the body, in a sense intelligence and behavior can be considered part of the traditional phenotype, but here we begin to touch the edge of the concept of extended phenotype (or extended organism; for the purpose of this essay, these two terms will be synonymous). The extended phenotype paradigm asks: why must the idea of phenotype stop at the limit of the organism's body? Are not all fitness-related interactions of the organism with its environment also part of the organism's phenotype? Is not the cobweb of a spider part of the spider's phenotype, and in essence part of the spider itself? Can we not say the same about the beaver's dam? A gopher's hole? A bird's nest? The way one animal interacts with others, of the same or different species? The way a parasite interacts with its host? The way a plant interacts with its environment to obtain water and sunlight? Are not all of these examples of the "extended phenotype" of the organism's genes? What this is all about is enhancing the "fitness" of the organism; that is, its ability to reproduce itself and its genes as much as possible. We can view the extended phenotype as a product of the underlying genotype, produced for the express purpose of providing a "vehicle" by which the genes are maintained and increased (by reproduction).
Can we extend these analyses to the human condition? Yes. The ability of persons to deal with, and manipulate, their environments, their interactions with other people, their schooling, their career: all such capabilities that can influence the fitness of a person can be considered part of the individual’s phenotype. It is reasonable to consider the paintings of the Sistine Chapel, Hamlet, and the invention of the light bulb part of the extended phenotypes of Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Thomas Edison. These examples all fit in well with the concept of extended phenotype, as does Scarr and McCartney’s canalization idea. After all, what a child does to canalize its environment is no less an example of extended phenotype than a beaver dam or Hamlet. Thus canalization and extended phenotype are two sides of the same coin, and issues that apply to the one concept can inform us about the other.
Selection, and the subsequent changes in fitness, can be viewed as working on a group level, rather than just on individuals. Since culture can be considered as “ways of living, passed down from generation to generation” (Webster's dictionary) and “the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, art, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought characteristic of a community or population” (The American Heritage Dictionary, second college edition), then can the culture and cultural artifacts of a people be considered part of their extended phenotype, reflecting the underlying genetic biological reality? Certainly. Therefore, the cultural history and achievements of ethnic and racial groups can be considered part of their extended phenotypes, canalizing the environment, with the potential for increasing or decreasing the fitness of the groups. Whether fitness is increased or decreased would depend on how successful the cultural artifacts are in promoting the genetic interests of the groups producing them.
I therefore propose that Scarr and McCartney's "niche-picking/building" (canalization) is relevant for population groups as well as for individuals. In this scheme, not only does the environment influence the population's genetic structure (via natural selection), but also the population's innate (i.e., genetic, heritable) biological characteristics shape the environment in specific ways, and such alterations in the environment then can further alter the population's genotype. A positive feedback loop can be envisioned. First, a particular population develops specific gene frequencies based on the selective pressure of the natural environment. This specific genotype bestows upon this population particular abilities and preferences (extended phenotype) that cause the population to structure its environment in specific ways. The preferences of the population and the actions it takes to modulate its environment are no more or no less than the entirety of that population's culture. In other words, culture can be defined as the desire, and the attempt, to canalize an environment to suit the needs of a particular population's genetic structure. Once the environment has been modified, it then exerts further selective pressure on the population, possibly increasing the frequency of particular genes that influence the extended phenotype of the population. This, in turn, prompts the population to make further modifications to their environment (cultural expansion), which in turn feeds back once again, via selection, to the population's genes and the resultant extended phenotype. One can imagine a relatively homogeneous population that is then split up into two groups, each group going into somewhat different environments. The differences in the initial environments would begin to cause alterations in the genetic structures of these populations (neutral genetic drift would do so as well, but here we are talking about selective effects on genes which may control phenotypically relevant traits). Canalization would then take place as these populations develop various cultural artifacts in order to organize their environment according to their preferences. The positive feedback loop would begin and what was once a single homogeneous population would be transformed into quite different populations in a time-frame shorter than what may be predicted by simple, direct (environment to genes) natural selection. Thus, I speculate that the positive biocultural feedback loop described here can accelerate the rate of population differentiation, and may have done so throughout human history. This bidirectional interaction between genes and the environment, and the idea that man-made culture can significantly influence gene frequencies and the resultant extended phenotype (including culture itself): this is the foundation underlying the thesis of this essay. In other words, humans are biocultural organisms, and the two components (biology and culture) are intimately intertwined.
One example of population gene-environment canalization could be the eugenic effects on intelligence of the Ashkenazi Jewish culture, as described in chapter seven of Kevin MacDonald's 1994 book, A People That Shall Dwell Alone (PTSDA). Under the pressures of resource competition with gentiles, the Ashkenazim developed a culture in which Talmudic scholarship was a core foundation, a culture in which mastery of this difficult and convoluted material led to greatly increased status and reproductive success for the males. Daughters of successful businessmen were also reproductively successful. These and other cultural practices have led to the situation in which today's Ashkenazi Jews have a significantly higher verbal intelligence than other Caucasian groups (and also compared to other Jewish groups which had different cultures). One can imagine that each generation of Jews became verbally more adept and demonstrated a greater preference for intellectual Talmudic scholarship, thus increasing the emphasis and value of such studies in the society, and enhancing the selective pressure for greater verbal intelligence and for a preference for mental, as opposed to physical, activity. Indeed, in PTSDA, MacDonald speaks of "cultural selection" as regards the evolution of the Ashkenazi population; most certainly, the idea that cultural artifacts can influence a population's biological characteristics is a thread running through various sections of PTDSA.
The ethnocentrism and separatism of Jewish communities may have resulted in a similar feedback loop. The conditions of the Near East (more crowded, resource competition, selective pressures of the geographic environment, population demographics, etc.) resulted in populations originating in that area being higher on levels of ethnocentrism and xenophobia. These populations would then, based on these innate (genetic) preferences, create cultures emphasizing ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and separatism (see PTSDA and also MacDonald’s "What Makes Western Culture Unique," in the Summer 2003 issue of TOQ). Jews who fit in well with this mindset would remain in the group, fit in, and reproduce; those whose innate tendencies rejected such a mindset would be unsuccessful outcasts, and perhaps would leave the community. The genetic preference for xenophobic separatism would thus increase with each generation, creating a more ethnocentric culture, feeding back to create even more selective pressure for genes controlling behavioral traits supporting ethnocentrism and collectivist xenophobia. I would add that the Jewish preference for "sojourning" in other peoples' lands can also be a trait evolved through biocultural amplification. Thus, the unique characteristics of the biocultural Jewish entity could be explained via this mechanism.
The history of Western, European populations would be different. Indeed, in his TOQ article, MacDonald provides a chart comparing and contrasting the characteristics of European and Jewish populations. MacDonald cites the following as the fundamental characteristics of European, Western culture:
1. The Catholic Church and Christianity.
2. Tendency toward monogamy.
3. Simple family structure/nuclear family (not the extended clan).
4. Companionate marriage (affection between partners).
5. De-emphasis on kinship relations (see no. 3) and a relative lack of ethnocentrism.
6. Individualism, as exemplified by individual rights against state power, representative government, moral universalism, and science.
Many of these traits were exhibited by Western populations in the Classical (Greco-Roman) world; MacDonald cites the specific examples of the Romans, particularly during the Republican period, as embodying many of the characteristics unique to Western civilization. Later, in the Middle Ages, as the development of central authority lessened the need for more collectivist, kinship-based relationships, it was the Germanic peoples of Northwest Europe who first, and most strongly, developed the individualistic, Western culture of the Modern period. Later, these characteristics spread easily throughout Western Europe.4 As MacDonald writes:
Although these differences between the Germanic peoples and other areas of Europe system are important, they do not belie the general difference between Western Europe and the rest of Eurasia. Although the trends toward simple households and the demographic transition occurred first in the northwest of Europe, they spread relatively quickly among all the Western countries.
Why is that? Why the difference between Europeans and the rest of Eurasia, and why, in the Modern era, were the trends initially, and most strongly, developed by the Germanic peoples? Dr. MacDonald writes that:
European groups are part of the North Eurasian and Circumpolar culture area.5 This culture area derives from hunter-gatherers adapted to cold, ecologically adverse climates.
Such ecologically harsh climates would support smaller populations, making adaptations for ethnocentrism and group-based conflict relatively unnecessary. Groups would be small, so extended kinship would be limited, and the simple, nuclear family more practical and easier to care for. Collective urges would be muted, and individualism more powerful; the underlying theme being more the small group, or even the individual family, fighting the elements to survive, rather than larger groups in ecologically less harsh areas fighting other large groups and developing collectivist "us vs. them" mindsets. The conditions in the Northern regions would result in ecologically imposed monogamy—it would be impractical for a male to support more than one family. Now, given this starting point, one can consider that these ecological (environmental) conditions would select for specific gene frequencies/extended phenotypes adapted to this environment—genes coding for an extended phenotype in which behavior was focused in the direction of points 2-5 above. Individuals with such a mindset would begin canalizing their environment, via specific cultures, to suit this genotype/extended phenotype, making the environment even more selective for the traits of individualism that define the Western cultural mode. A positive feedback loop would be engaged, in that those individuals who were more inclined to monogamy, smaller familial groups, individualistic thought-patterns, etc. would be more likely to survive, prosper, and reproduce in this environment (partially natural, partially man-made) than those with a different mentality. Here we see that both the natural environment, and the man-made canalized cultural environment, would have differed significantly in pre-historic/ancient Europe vs. that of the rest of Eurasia, e.g., the Middle/Near East. Even when the ecological conditions in Europe became less harsh, the positive feedback loop was already established, so that selection to a Western bioculture continued. Ecologically imposed monogamy gave way to socially imposed monogamy, for example—instead of being dictated by a harsh ecological system, the monogamy was imposed via the culture, the culture itself being part of the genetically inherited extended phenotype of the population.
Since the North Germanic peoples existed in the harsh ecological conditions the longest, and were the most adapted to that environment, I speculate that they had the most intense initial selection for individualistic traits and the longest period of positive feedback loops amplifying these traits. Other non-Germanic European peoples had a somewhat less stringent adaptation and amplification, as well as having been admixed to a larger extent with Neolithic invaders from somewhat ecologically less harsh environments than had the Germanic tribes. Thus, we can see why the Germanic peoples were more strongly developed in these individualistic traits than other Europeans. However, the other Europeans were more strongly developed in these traits than other Eurasians; these other Europeans went through selective positive feedback loops similar (albeit not absolutely identical) to those of the Germanic peoples. This is not surprising; despite differences that exist between different European peoples, they resemble one another in genetic structure and in extended phenotype more than they do other population groups. Thus, in summary, while it is true that Modern-era individualistic Western culture was first strongly observed among Germanic Europeans, it quickly became a defining characteristic of all European peoples generally, who in their entirety can be considered Western populations.
The biocultural evolutionary paradigm outlined here may be able to explain an interesting phenomenon. While Northeast Asians are said to have evolved in very harsh, northern Ice Age ecological conditions, their cultural extended phenotype is radically different from that of Western populations and, in some ways, more similar to the Near Eastern groups that evolved in quite different ecological niches. Northeast Asians—e.g., Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans—are highly xenophobic and ethnocentric; their cultures are more authoritarian and more collectivist; and in general they have differed significantly throughout much of their history from Western culture in the six defining points that MacDonald has identified as characteristic of European society. And of course their genetic structures are very different; they are both genetically and phenotypically more alien to the West than are the Caucasians of the Near East. If the initial environments were roughly similar, why are these differences so marked?
I would propose that the gene-environment feedback loop shares a characteristic with "chaos theory" such that very small changes in initial conditions or early events can have a disproportionately large downstream effect on the final outcome.6 For whatever reason—small differences in the initial environment, small differences in the gene pools of the early pre-racially divergent Eurasian populations, "random" differences in choice between various equally adaptive cultural options, "random" historical events, etc.—the initial canalization of the environment was somewhat different between early Europeans and early Northeast Asians. As the results of these early small differences fed back into the gene-environment loop, they became amplified over and over again throughout the tens of thousands of years that separate the two populations. In this way, the biological-cultural feedback caused what may have been a very small initial difference in genotype-extended phenotype to inflate into the extreme variation between Europeans and Northeast Asians we observe today. Europeans went in the direction of individualism, scientific objectivity/empiricism, and moral universalism, Orientals went more in the direction of collectivist xenophobic ethnocentrism and cohesive kinship bonds. Differences in the natural ecological environment alone may not explain these differences, but possibly the biocultural paradigm outlined here can. Indeed, one may consider that by comparing human biological diversification and genetic history with cultural evolution and ethnic history, and determining whether correlations exist between these phenomena, suggestive evidence either supporting or refuting the present hypothesis may be observed.
Practical Considerations
One may speculate that knowledge of bioculture can assist in informing choices of how to pursue ethnic and racial genetic interests, and how to stem the demographic/sociopolitical tide that threatens the survival of Western populations. In the last chapter of his book The Culture of Critique, MacDonald suggests that European-derived peoples may go in the direction of more collectivist, group-serving ideologies and structures in order to survive. It does seem that the naturally individualistic tendencies of Western populations need to be overcome in order to form cohesive units able to compete with hostile, more collectivist groups. We need a thorough understanding of the aracial (and in some ways anti-racial) hyper-individualism of white "elites," who are leading us on the path of destruction. We need to understand how the degeneration of Western culture—a culture which is part of our extended phenotype and responsible for canalizing the environment for our genetic benefit—is destroying us not only culturally but biologically as well. As our culture declines so do our numbers and our genetic quality—living in a distorted environment ill suited to our genotype and phenotype, the Western biocultural organism is slowly dying. We need to diagnose the disease if we wish to cure it. Furthermore, the biocultural paradigm can show us how and why different populations come into conflict, and how one population can alter another just by altering the culture and environment, even in a "non-violent" fashion.
MacDonald's Culture of Critique—as well as the other two volumes of his trilogy—chronicles how the Jewish extended phenotype has been waging war on the Western biocultural organism. Indeed, the phrase "culture wars," as used by some paleoconservatives, takes on a new meaning if we consider how culture may be the key to canalizing environments to benefit various populations. We can ask: if two populations live in the same territory, is it possible that their extended phenotypes will clash? Is it possible that canalization of the environment by one population will be incompatible with the biocultural needs of the other population? Can we envision a non-military form of biocultural warfare, fought with cultural weapons, in which one extended phenotype, and its underlying genotype, attempts to obtain ascendancy over other extended phenotypes/genotypes, via specific forms of environmental canalization, and the subsequent effects such canalization would have—both genetically and environmentally—via repeated cycles of the feedback loop? Does MacDonald's trilogy tell the story of such a conflict between Western and Jewish populations? Is this conflict reaching a crescendo in America, and today's Western world as a whole?
It is entirely reasonable, based on the historical evidence, to view the following as resulting, at least in part, from the Jewish extended phenotype at work in America: the "civil rights" movement, resulting in forced racial integration, anti-White quotas, school busing, "equal opportunity” and housing laws, and the resultant damage to our schools and standards, destruction of neighborhoods and cities, and countless thousands of Euro-American victims of ethnic minority violence; the 1965 change in our immigration laws, which continues to flood America with non-European immigrants, and which will result in minority status for Euro-Americans in several decades; the feminist movement, which has caused gender hostility between male and female Euro-Americans, and has resulted in an increased divorce and abortion rate, and a decreased birthrate among Euro-Americans; miscegenation between Euro-Americans and other racial groups, vigorously promoted by the media, which further reduces Euro-American numbers while damaging our genetic inheritance; the anti-(Vietnam) war movement, which created an atmosphere of cynicism, generational conflict, and defeatism in the American public; the "counter-culture," helped along by the Frankfurt School,” which has assailed traditional Euro-American values, damaged our culture, and created feelings of alienation, particularly among the young; "white guilt," which leads our people, again particularly the young, to doubt their own worth and to reject their history, with devastating consequences; the prevalence of the denial of race and racial differences, which distorts science in an attempt to convince peoples of European descent that since their race really doesn't exist, then nothing is being lost as their population group hurtles to extinction; and a war against free speech which is making America more and more a gulag of political correctness.
We can note similar manifestations of the Jewish extended phenotype in Europe, where the suppression of free speech is far more advanced than in America. One major aspect of the Jewish extended phenotype that has to be mentioned is Marxism, which has resulted in more deaths and human anguish than any other creed in recent history, and which provides the ideological basis for the anti-European, anti-Western activities of those who wish to destroy the "white West." Thus does the Jewish extended phenotype express itself in ways directly destructive to Western interests. Of course, the Jewish extended phenotype also manifests itself in the Jewish preoccupation with education, material success, and power, as well as the Jewish interest in verbal skills and occupations which emphasize the predominance of advanced verbal skills. Obviously, these aspects of the Jewish extended phenotype help in the pursuit of the more direct anti-Western activity described above, and assists in the Jewish suppression and distortion of normal and healthy Western extended phenotypes.
Thus group culture can be viewed an integral part of that group's extended phenotype, which can have a significant impact on that group's ability to survive, reproduce, and compete with other groups. Extended phenotypes can overlap, and one extended phenotype can manipulate another. Certainly, internal and external parasites can alter the extended phenotype of the host, often including changes in behavior, and/or manipulation of a previously adaptive behavior to benefit the parasite to the detriment of the host. A bird feeding the offspring of the cuckoo, rather than its own genetic offspring, is an example. The inclusive fitness of the parasitized bird decreases, that of the cuckoo increases. The host bird's behavior, in the absence of the cuckoo, is adaptive: feed the young that hatch in its nest, which would usually be its own. But the implantation of an alien egg into the nest upsets this, and the extended phenotype of the host is used to benefit the parasite—a relationship that is indeed a fundamental part of the parasite's extended phenotype.
All of this can be applied to the human situation. Europeans (and by "Europeans" I mean all people of European descent, including Euro-Americans, Euro-Australians, etc.) have an extended phenotype that, for most of human history, has served them well. Aspects of this extended phenotype, however, can be manipulated to serve alien interests. Indeed, the behavior of Europeans today vis-à-vis, for example, the colored underclass, seems remarkably similar to the host bird—cuckoo bird parasitic situation. Europeans who do not have the resources to raise children of their own in a manner consistent with their extended phenotype (culture) are coerced to pay money (taxes) to support the reproduction of competing ethnic/racial groups. In addition, characteristics of the Western extended phenotype—such as altruism, concern for life, and adherence to "the golden rule"—all of which can be viewed as adaptive in more homogeneous societies, are also being manipulated to the detriment of Europeans. Europeans often adopt children of other population groups, and raise and nurture these instead of their own; the parallels to the cuckoo situation are remarkable. Europeans will sometimes support sociopolitical and socioeconomic policies that benefit others, but hurt themselves. They will contribute to charities that benefit other races, at their own expense.
Is the European/Western extended phenotype maladaptive? If so, how did this group survive and prosper, up to this point? Why was it able to successfully canalize its environment up to this point? Did the extended phenotype change radically? If so, how? Or, perhaps, the extended phenotype—the original one—is maladaptive only in its current environment? And the problem with the current environment is that the extended phenotypes of other groups have altered the environment in such a way as to make previously beneficial—or at least neutral—Western extended phenotypic traits highly maladaptive. These others have canalized the environment in ways beneficial to their genotypes and extended phenotypes, and harmful to ours. In so doing, they remove the basis of the survival of Western populations as a distinct biocultural entity. They are destroying the environment carefully built up by Western culture over time and have replaced it with a distorted anti-Western structure that is utterly incompatible with the well-being of European/Western biocultural organisms.
Which groups have so altered the environment? It is doubtful that the Negro is the primary mover, since, in the U.S.A., Europeans have survived and prospered for centuries living amongst the Negro. The overall historical evidence suggests that it was not the Negro, or other colored peoples, who so altered the Western environment to cause problems. The evidence points to the Jewish extended phenotype being the one which altered the environment and is manipulating the Western extended phenotype, and, by so doing, is resulting in a catastrophic, possibly permanently destructive, diminution of European interests and European fitness.
The United States, it would seem, is the primary seat of worldwide Jewish power, and U.S. cultural, economic, and military power is the fulcrum by which the Jewish extended phenotype leverages itself against gentile—particularly European gentile—interests. In addition, in other Western areas, even those not so conducive to Jewish dominance, historical developments enabled the Jewish extended phenotype to reach new levels of power. In a Western world without Jews, the development of more materialistic worldviews, including "rationalism" and "humanism," may have just been a phase through which the European peoples passed without any threat to Western survival. These may have been eventually replaced with other worldviews. However, the Jewish extended phenotype eagerly seized upon the opportunities presented by a more materialistic and "rational, humanistic" Europe, with the Jewish development of Marxism being the epitome of Jewish exploitation of these developments. The "end of the Cold War" has not ended the threat of Marxism; paradoxically, as the Marxist Soviet states of Eastern Europe collapsed, alternative "softer" forms of Marxist totalitarianism, in the form of "political correctness" and "racial sensitivity" (that is, sensitivity to the needs of all peoples except Europeans) spread throughout the West, usually with Jewish assistance. Thus we have reached a point at which, in many European nations, political dissent that is critical of Jewish interests is prohibited, and bizarre forms of coercion are in place to stifle such forms of dissent. We may well ask which side really won the "Cold War." These things can all be viewed as consequences of the Jewish extended phenotype in the West, a phenotype that has been canalizing the Western environment in a manner inimical to the long-term well being and even survival of Western populations. If Western populations are going to somehow reverse these trends, then a holistic understanding of the links between biology and culture, and between genes and environment, will be crucial. Only by understanding where we are and how we got there can we begin the task of taking back our culture and begin canalizing our environments for our own benefit.
Summary
1. The gene-environment dichotomy is a false one. Genes and environments influence each other. Biology and culture influence each other; there is no dichotomy between biology and culture.
2. Individuals canalize their environments to suit their genotypes. This ability to manipulate their environment ("niche-picking," "niche-building") is an integral part of the individual’s extended phenotype.
3. Human population groups, like individuals, have extended phenotypes. A group's culture is an integral part of its extended phenotype.
4. Human population groups canalize their environments to suit their genotypes the same as do individuals. This canalization is no more or no less the culture of the group in question. These altered environments then exert a selective pressure on the population group.
5. Thus, human population groups are biocultural entities; their initial genetic structures were molded by their initial environments. Subsequent human population evolution has been, is, and will continue to be characterized by: genotypes canalizing environments to suit themselves (culture); these altered environments then exerting selective pressure on the population and its genotype; these now altered genotypes further canalizing their environment; this newer environment then exerting new selective pressure on the population—in a never-ending positive feedback loop amplifying population-specific gene frequencies and extended phenotypes.
6. This model has practical consequences in the real world. If Western populations allow others to canalize Western environments in ways inimical to Western survival, then Western populations will be greatly diminished and may cease to be altogether.
Conclusion
We must acknowledge and recognize that human population groups are biocultural entities. Genes not only create the physical phenotype, but the culture as well, as the extended phenotype. The physical body provides the vehicle in which genes survive and undergo competition with others in the process of selection. The culture of a people is the vehicle in which its gene pool resides, and the culture helps decide the ultimate fate and fitness of that gene pool. Furthermore, the culture, by altering the environment in which the population lives, exerts selective pressure on the population and its genetic structure. Thus, culture influences the genes just as the genes influences the culture.
Western culture, our extended phenotype, is sick, is distorted, and this is killing the Western biocultural organism, killing off the European peoples and their gene pool. Our fitness, relative to other groups, decreases constantly. We must recognize that we are involved in a struggle between extended phenotypes, which represent competing gene pools, and that our side is losing, and losing badly. We have to understand that our extended phenotype is under attack, is being distorted, and we must identify who is doing this, how, and why. We must do all we can to take control of our culture from the manipulators. It is crucial both to go back to the healthy attributes of our culture and to create new cultural artifacts free of foreign, destructive influences.
Ultimately, just as the "extended phenotype" idea proved to be a new paradigm in the field of evolutionary biology, so must "biocultural synthesis" become a new paradigm in the field of ethnic/racial pursuit of genetic interests (ethnic/racial nationalism). Biologically minded people have to understand and accept the important role of culture. Activists must include mental traits, as well as physical traits, in their evaluation of the individual. They must also include the extended phenotype of culture in their evaluation of an individual or a group. This does not mean that a Negro who listens to Mozart is a European—for the Negro is not a European genetically, nor as regards physical appearance. On the other hand, a genetically and anthropologically European who is deeply immersed in the culture of other groups and/or who advances the genetic fitness interests of others groups cannot truly be considered part of our biocultural group. The culturalists have to acknowledge and accept the underlying importance of biology, the biological reality of race and ethnicity, and how race and ethnicity influences culture. They need to understand that culture is not an end in itself, but part of the extended phenotype of a people, produced by the genes, for the benefit of the genes. Both the biologists and culturalists need to understand how biology and culture influence each other in the same type of positive feedback mechanism outlined by Scarr and McCartney as regards the active form of "niche-picking/building" that takes place during child development. Biologists and culturalists alike have to understand how the new biocultural paradigm strengthens their particular focus—on the one hand demonstrating the power of genes through the creation of the extended phenotype of culture, which ultimately serves genetic interests; on the other hand demonstrating the power of culture, the ultimate expression of the biocultural organism, a mechanism shaping the very genetic structure of the biological group via its effects on "canalizing" the environment, shaping an environment that will then exert a selective influence on gene frequencies. Indeed, both biology and culture need to be studied, strengthened, and the link between them recognized and valued. Only in this way can we ensure the survival of our threatened Western biocultural group.
Addendum
In November 2003, Nature Genetics published a brief note from eleven researchers that identified an example of gene-culture coevolution. The authors write: "We found substantial geographic coincidence between high diversity in cattle genes, locations of the European Neolithic cattle farming sites (>5,000 years ago) and present-day lactose tolerance in Europeans. This suggests a gene-culture coevolution between cattle and humans." (Beja-Pereira et al., “Gene-culture coevolution between cattle milk protein genes and human lactase genes,” Nature Genetics, 23 November 2003: 35, no. 4, pp. 311 – 313.)
Louis R. Browning is an academic in the behavior genetic and sociobiological research fields, and is a freelance writer specializing in the evolutionary influences of individual and group differences in social behavior
References
Burton, M.L., C.C. Moore, J.W.M. Whiting, and A.K. Romney “Regions based on Social Structure,” Current Anthropology 37 (1996), 87-123.
Elkins, I. J., McGue, M., & Iacono, W. G. “Genetic and environmental influences on parent-son relationships: Evidence for increasing genetic influence during adolescence,” Developmental Psychology 33 (1997), 351-363.
MacDonald, Kevin A People That Shall Dwell Alone Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994.
MacDonald, Kevin “What Makes Western Culture Unique," The Occidental Quarterly 2, no. 2 (Summer 2002) (http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/vol2no2/km-unique.html).
Scarr, S. and McCartney, K. How people make their own environments: A theory of genotype greater than environmental effects, Child Development 54 (1983), 424-435.
Endnotes
1. An organism's genotype can be considered the totality of that organism's genes, the biological instructions for creating the organism. The phenotype of the organism, in the traditional sense of the term, is the organism itself, the physical reality of the organism, its "body" so to speak.
2. The authors stress that they are not saying that "environmental fate" is completely determined by genotype, but rather that "some genotypes are more likely to receive and select certain environments than others." In other words, their theory is "probabilistic" rather than absolutely deterministic. Nevertheless, genotype is the fundamental factor.
3. A child that demonstrates intellectual interests at an early age may "evoke" the response of being given more books, etc. Well-behaved children will "evoke" different responses than unruly children, with consequences to their environment.
4. I find it interesting that Western Europe is stressed here. One can ask, what about Eastern Europe? I would say that Eastern Europeans of course share these same traits in general but, because of history, the development of many Western cultural characteristics was delayed for centuries. Certainly, Eastern Europe has had Christianity, monogamy, and trends toward a more Western family structure. On the other hand, it would seem that the development of individual rights vs. the state was retarded in the east as opposed to the west of Europe, possibly due to the traumatic effects and influences of the Mongols and Turks. In Russia, assertion of rights against the state more often took the form of more collectivist endeavors (e.g., the Cossacks), rather than via "legalistic" means (e.g., "Magna Carta," etc.). Ethnocentrism in places like the former Yugoslavia seems rather high. However, when compared to non-European areas of Eurasia, Eastern Europeans would fall into the Western cultural cluster overall, and, certainly now, with the fall of communism, one can expect Eastern Europeans to demonstrate cultural artifacts similar to those of Western Europeans. However, given the main thesis of this essay, it is possible that the centuries-long cultural divide between West and East Europe may well have resulted in different selective pressures on the populations, and different gene-environment positive feedback loops, resulting in various population-specific alterations in gene frequencies and extended phenotypes. Examination of intra-European differences in the gene-environment story is beyond the scope of this essay. But perhaps the legendary stoicism of the Russian population, the ability of that people to withstand hardships, survive invasions and catastrophes, the persistent determination and bravery of the Russian soldier, all these positive ethnic traits may have developed as biocultural adaptations during the specific history of that nation. However, it must be stressed that all European populations, West and East, North and South, are now equally part of the Western biocultural organism. Dividing this organism will kill it as surely as dividing an animal will kill it.
5. Burton et al. Current Anthropology 37 (1996), 87-123.
6. Such as the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in one area and not another can have a profound effect on differences in weather patterns or some other large event.
Louis R. Browning (http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/archives/vol4no1/lrb-bioculture.html)