> Why wouldn’t the managerial class use this leverage to prevent us from having abortions?
Wow, what a question! Bravo! Now I am going to be stuck on it for a while.
Here is a stab at the answer:
Promoting freedom of abortion allows the managerial class to exercise its ventriloquism on behalf of the aggrieved women who would like to have that freedom and are being coerced by the society not to. The opposite would not work: nobody forces a woman who does not want to have an abortion to get one (at least not on the societal level.)
As regards the central question of this piece, my expectation is that the managerial class favors an underclass dominated by fast life strategists (r-selected population, I believe is the ecological term) because such a population also favors a high time preference. As such, they are much easier to control, having less ability to reason through the logical long-term consequences of their actions, are more prone to impulsive behavior, and more easily emotionally manipulated.
It would follow that the managerial class themselves would not follow the r-selected strategy they encourage in the lower class, and indeed they are generally K-selected: low reproductive rate, high offspring investment, low divorce rate, etc.
It might also be expected that, at the same time the population is being biologically engineered to be more r-selected via subtle Darwinian pressure, the managerial class would take steps to psychologically engineer the population to encourage r-selected traits. The normalization of porn addiction may be consistent with this, as it reduces impulse control at a neurological level. Obviously, in a consumer economy, reduced impulse control is a net benefit to the managerial class. Even aside from economic questions, a population that has become less capable of impulse control will have greater need for the guidance of the managerial class, i.e. this engineering has the effect of consolidating the class's position by making it more indispensable.
Indeed, agency and intent should be left aside. I was using the concept in that sort of lazy way evolutionary biologists do - "evolution wants to do x" kind of thing. These dynamics are probably more accurately thought of as emergent effects arising because certain actions result in beneficial outcomes, regardless of what's intended. One should not write off subconscious or intuitive motivations, as well: they might realize what they're doing at an instinctive level, but not at a conscious level.
I think it is plausible that this course of action is being pursued intuitively, and that John is articulating this rationale in a way that most or all individuals who could be described as "managerial class" probably don't have the self-awareness to replicate. Can they even still think politically incorrect thoughts after all their training?
It is bemusing to see detached, realist analysis of this topic. If you delve into biological determinism I propose something to consider. I believe it is possible to be a biological determinist and believe in free will simultaneously. I think it's just two different levels of analysis. Even though recognizing biological determinism is necessary at some level because to believe otherwise is to engage in magical thinking by circumventing commonly understood laws of causality, this is not the best way to understand human action. Just like evolutionary biology is a more appropriate lens by which to examine this issue (as you have done) than say, physics, praxeology is the most appropriate for examining political economy (IMO). Mises called this methodological dualism. https://grantesmith.substack.com/p/framing-the-problem?s=w
An important point here is that biological determinism works on the macro or aggregate level, while on the micro or individual level there is always free will, at least to some degree.
Biology establishes constraints; free will exists within those constraints. It's like poetry: a sonnet must be composed with a certain metre and rhyme, but it is entirely up to the poet what is written within that structure; the magic happens at the interface between the freedom of and constraint on the composition.
Of course, at some point, a biological realist position has to address the free will question, which I have of course done in a couple books. I'll address it here at the appropriate time. But I'll offer a hint to my assessment: people mean very different things when they use that phrase. I'd say sometimes what they mean is a perfectly legitimate claim. In other cases it is illogical nonsense. But I wouldn't want to be getting the horse ahead of the cart and so on.
Yes, I can see how this topic would be especially prone to the development of verbal disputes. On that note, I've come to believe that verbal disputes are less common in German, and that this explains the disproportionately high representation of native germanophones among my favorite philosophers. Jorg Guido Hulsmann once said in an interview "English for business, German for philosophy". There might be an imprecision to English language that facilitates agreement, but this doesn't map well to philosophy as verbal disputes can get things off track fast. Of note, CRT hasn't really taken off in Germany, the increased precision of German may also interfere with bad faith efforts to manipulate communication. Or maybe the strategy just doesn't map to other languages because the tried and true critical theory strategies are dependent on particular linguistic shortfalls/points of frustration. Does any of that even make sense? I've never articulated that before, just something that has kind of been bumping around in my head.
I've been thinking about why the managerial class would feel so strongly about abortion and thought of three:
1. Part of Replacement Theory. Abort natives, replace with immigrant serfs.
2. Transhumanism. A key example of science and medicine transcending despised biological realities.
3. Eugenics. Ideally who gets aborted would be controlled by the managerial class as part of social engineering.
Before reading your book (Which I only discovered along with this blog thanks to the great review by Robert Barnes on his locals page), I hadn't put together Fascism, Communism and Neo-liberalism as coming from the same class ideology. It all seems to come back to Nietzsche's idol of man's self-perfection as a replacement for God. Wonder what you think.
The eugenics angle is certainly historically applicable. Planned Parenthood was quite explicit about this when the organization was founded: their goal was quite openly to suppress the growth of the African ancestry population in the US, together with that part of the white population seen as less desirable. It wouldn't surprise me if this was still a motivating factor (indeed blacks continue to have a much, much higher abortion rate than whites), but of course they can't say so openly.
I was thinking eugenics too, but agree with all 3. I'm also pretty confident that the Malthusian belief in population collapse that is prevalent among the managerial class is explanatory. It explains the fixation on restricting access to affordable energy as well.
I wonder how genuinely Malthusian the managerial class really is. I'm aware that certain elements of the globalist faction of the managerial class promote Malthusian rationales. Clearly Malthusian rationales lend themselves to managerial liberalism's imperialist social engineering. How widely believed (as opposed to simply exploited for propaganda purposes) those rationales really are, I do wonder about. They're not stupid; they can see the data.
I think some certainly buy into it. For those that don't completely subscribe it might serve as a soothing justification for "ends justify the means" type reasoning when supported policies result in death (there are countless examples, but millions starving secondary to COVID lockdowns comes to mind). This of course wouldn't apply to the psychopaths among them, but I don't need to preach to the choir.
That's an interesting thought. I am of course holding my cards close until I've had the opportunity to flesh out the biopolitics/biological realism side of things.
The managerial class wants women to have abortions. Kids get in the way of their jobs. They want employees shuffling papers, not changing diapers.
> Why wouldn’t the managerial class use this leverage to prevent us from having abortions?
Wow, what a question! Bravo! Now I am going to be stuck on it for a while.
Here is a stab at the answer:
Promoting freedom of abortion allows the managerial class to exercise its ventriloquism on behalf of the aggrieved women who would like to have that freedom and are being coerced by the society not to. The opposite would not work: nobody forces a woman who does not want to have an abortion to get one (at least not on the societal level.)
As regards the central question of this piece, my expectation is that the managerial class favors an underclass dominated by fast life strategists (r-selected population, I believe is the ecological term) because such a population also favors a high time preference. As such, they are much easier to control, having less ability to reason through the logical long-term consequences of their actions, are more prone to impulsive behavior, and more easily emotionally manipulated.
It would follow that the managerial class themselves would not follow the r-selected strategy they encourage in the lower class, and indeed they are generally K-selected: low reproductive rate, high offspring investment, low divorce rate, etc.
It might also be expected that, at the same time the population is being biologically engineered to be more r-selected via subtle Darwinian pressure, the managerial class would take steps to psychologically engineer the population to encourage r-selected traits. The normalization of porn addiction may be consistent with this, as it reduces impulse control at a neurological level. Obviously, in a consumer economy, reduced impulse control is a net benefit to the managerial class. Even aside from economic questions, a population that has become less capable of impulse control will have greater need for the guidance of the managerial class, i.e. this engineering has the effect of consolidating the class's position by making it more indispensable.
Such interesting ideas!
I suspect you're giving the managerial class too much credit, here. But leaving agency aside, I do think this analysis is onto something important.
Indeed, agency and intent should be left aside. I was using the concept in that sort of lazy way evolutionary biologists do - "evolution wants to do x" kind of thing. These dynamics are probably more accurately thought of as emergent effects arising because certain actions result in beneficial outcomes, regardless of what's intended. One should not write off subconscious or intuitive motivations, as well: they might realize what they're doing at an instinctive level, but not at a conscious level.
I think it is plausible that this course of action is being pursued intuitively, and that John is articulating this rationale in a way that most or all individuals who could be described as "managerial class" probably don't have the self-awareness to replicate. Can they even still think politically incorrect thoughts after all their training?
Precisely so.
It is bemusing to see detached, realist analysis of this topic. If you delve into biological determinism I propose something to consider. I believe it is possible to be a biological determinist and believe in free will simultaneously. I think it's just two different levels of analysis. Even though recognizing biological determinism is necessary at some level because to believe otherwise is to engage in magical thinking by circumventing commonly understood laws of causality, this is not the best way to understand human action. Just like evolutionary biology is a more appropriate lens by which to examine this issue (as you have done) than say, physics, praxeology is the most appropriate for examining political economy (IMO). Mises called this methodological dualism. https://grantesmith.substack.com/p/framing-the-problem?s=w
An important point here is that biological determinism works on the macro or aggregate level, while on the micro or individual level there is always free will, at least to some degree.
Biology establishes constraints; free will exists within those constraints. It's like poetry: a sonnet must be composed with a certain metre and rhyme, but it is entirely up to the poet what is written within that structure; the magic happens at the interface between the freedom of and constraint on the composition.
Of course, at some point, a biological realist position has to address the free will question, which I have of course done in a couple books. I'll address it here at the appropriate time. But I'll offer a hint to my assessment: people mean very different things when they use that phrase. I'd say sometimes what they mean is a perfectly legitimate claim. In other cases it is illogical nonsense. But I wouldn't want to be getting the horse ahead of the cart and so on.
Yes, I can see how this topic would be especially prone to the development of verbal disputes. On that note, I've come to believe that verbal disputes are less common in German, and that this explains the disproportionately high representation of native germanophones among my favorite philosophers. Jorg Guido Hulsmann once said in an interview "English for business, German for philosophy". There might be an imprecision to English language that facilitates agreement, but this doesn't map well to philosophy as verbal disputes can get things off track fast. Of note, CRT hasn't really taken off in Germany, the increased precision of German may also interfere with bad faith efforts to manipulate communication. Or maybe the strategy just doesn't map to other languages because the tried and true critical theory strategies are dependent on particular linguistic shortfalls/points of frustration. Does any of that even make sense? I've never articulated that before, just something that has kind of been bumping around in my head.
I've been thinking about why the managerial class would feel so strongly about abortion and thought of three:
1. Part of Replacement Theory. Abort natives, replace with immigrant serfs.
2. Transhumanism. A key example of science and medicine transcending despised biological realities.
3. Eugenics. Ideally who gets aborted would be controlled by the managerial class as part of social engineering.
Before reading your book (Which I only discovered along with this blog thanks to the great review by Robert Barnes on his locals page), I hadn't put together Fascism, Communism and Neo-liberalism as coming from the same class ideology. It all seems to come back to Nietzsche's idol of man's self-perfection as a replacement for God. Wonder what you think.
The eugenics angle is certainly historically applicable. Planned Parenthood was quite explicit about this when the organization was founded: their goal was quite openly to suppress the growth of the African ancestry population in the US, together with that part of the white population seen as less desirable. It wouldn't surprise me if this was still a motivating factor (indeed blacks continue to have a much, much higher abortion rate than whites), but of course they can't say so openly.
I was thinking eugenics too, but agree with all 3. I'm also pretty confident that the Malthusian belief in population collapse that is prevalent among the managerial class is explanatory. It explains the fixation on restricting access to affordable energy as well.
I wonder how genuinely Malthusian the managerial class really is. I'm aware that certain elements of the globalist faction of the managerial class promote Malthusian rationales. Clearly Malthusian rationales lend themselves to managerial liberalism's imperialist social engineering. How widely believed (as opposed to simply exploited for propaganda purposes) those rationales really are, I do wonder about. They're not stupid; they can see the data.
I think some certainly buy into it. For those that don't completely subscribe it might serve as a soothing justification for "ends justify the means" type reasoning when supported policies result in death (there are countless examples, but millions starving secondary to COVID lockdowns comes to mind). This of course wouldn't apply to the psychopaths among them, but I don't need to preach to the choir.
That's an interesting thought. I am of course holding my cards close until I've had the opportunity to flesh out the biopolitics/biological realism side of things.