tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post8258344029240322467..comments2024-03-29T05:14:33.223-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: hbd chick v. Francis FukuyamaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger79125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53916883251933124252011-06-11T21:00:10.334-07:002011-06-11T21:00:10.334-07:00http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?p...http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=953Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26912232100601501742011-06-10T20:33:26.814-07:002011-06-10T20:33:26.814-07:00I'm not sure where the Habsburg jaw or lip cam...I'm not sure where the Habsburg jaw or lip came from, whether it was in the Habsburg line before the Trastámara alliance, in the Trastámara line, or whether it was simply a consequence of excessive inbreeding in the 16th and 17th centuries. The physical condition of Charles II of Spain, as well as of several of his ancestors, sounds a great deal like acromegaly (look at a profile of Rondo Hatton - he had a "Habsburg jaw," although any genealogical connection is quite unlikely). <br /><br />But the mental condition of Charles II is not attributable to acromegaly, which isn't normally accompanied by imbecility. Several of Charles's relatives also had acromegalic features, but were not mentally impaired - e.g., his father-in-law the emperor Leopold I, who was a competent statesman, a patron of the arts, and skilled at musical composition. The emperor Rudolph II had a milder case of Habsburg jaw, and suffered from bouts of melancholia, but despite this managed to keep peace in his fractious empire by following a then-unusual policy of religious tolerance. His intellectual curiosity led him to support numerous artists - most famously, Arcimboldo - and scientists, including Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Cornelis Drebbel. <br /><br />The Habsburg jaw became much less noticeable in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (probably due to the influx of Lotharingian blood via Francis I), and it is not evident at all in the features of the current family, e.g., the archduke Otto. They also appear to be a reasonably intelligent lot.Crawfurdmuirnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-48232358249560309302011-06-10T14:49:29.822-07:002011-06-10T14:49:29.822-07:00If you mean the various Czars and Kings and Queens...If you mean the various Czars and Kings and Queens of England, they were/are not really morons. They're just ordinary people in extraordinary positions, upon which people still tend to place mythic expectations.lelseynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-73984604937995839572011-06-10T14:45:45.561-07:002011-06-10T14:45:45.561-07:00"The case of Charles II of Spain is not an il..."The case of Charles II of Spain is not an illustration of "too much Habsburg." The bad genes were from the highly inbred house of Trastámara, coming from his ancestress Joan the Mad. There was mental unsoundness in the Spanish line, seen also in the eldest son of Philip II, Prince Charles of the Asturias. Joan the Mad was the latter's great-grandmother both on the paternal and maternal sides. <br /><br />Joan the Mad shows up fourteen times in the ahnentafel of Charles II. By my calculation, 13/32 of his genes came from her - over 40%."<br /><br />Well, Ok. I do know about Joan the Mad (who could forget such a handle) and took her into consideration; but didn't the long jaw and lip come from the Hapsburgs?hapsburg post childnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12224122102119046422011-06-10T04:23:08.844-07:002011-06-10T04:23:08.844-07:00"Like another non-pc woman, Dr. Mary Lefkowit..."Like another non-pc woman, Dr. Mary Lefkowitz..."<br /><br />LOL. Lefkowitz didn't like a group narrative that conflicted with her group narrative. If she's considered "non-PC" it's default, kind of like the chaps filling the neo-con posse. She dissembles as much as the rest.friggnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-50460167363465192582011-06-10T02:31:16.342-07:002011-06-10T02:31:16.342-07:00Further apropos of the claim that lay patronage of...Further apropos of the claim that lay patronage of ecclesiastical benefices made no difference because "they are still being selected from a pool basically controlled by the church" - again, you are basing your ideas of the pre-Reformation church on the post-Reformation phenomenon of Ultramontanism in the Roman Catholic church.<br /><br />The nobility and gentry sent their younger sons into the church, and the rights of lay presentation were intended to allow them to select their kinsmen as parish clergy in their territories, or just to find them sinecures. Talleyrand is a late example of the type - he was given an abbacy while still in minor orders. The aristocracy, not the church, controlled who the clergy were. <br /><br />When a king wished to appoint a bishop, he sent the cathedral chapter, who nominally elected their bishop, the name of his candidate, with "congé d'elire" (leave to elect him). The candidate need not even have been a priest. If he were not, he would be ordained one before being consecrated a bishop. <br /><br />It is true that St. Thomas à Becket disappointed his royal patron, but he was exceptional. That is why he was canonized. Most mediæval bishops did not disappoint their patrons, and very few of them were saints.Crawfurdmuirnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-80853229182360295362011-06-10T02:03:10.623-07:002011-06-10T02:03:10.623-07:00@Kyle - it was not that the Church lacked legal au...@Kyle - it was not that the Church lacked legal authority, but rather that papal bulls and decretals on such matters as marriages to fourth cousins had little force outside the temporal demesnes of the pope. The centralization of papal authority began at the time of the Counterreformation and did not reach its present extent until Vatican I in 1870. <br /><br />In the middle ages, there was very little direct communication between the papacy and the laity outside the pope's temporal demesnes. Bishops were in practice appointees of secular monarchs, and parish priests were appointees of their barons and squires. What was taught in the pulpits and enforced in the dioceses was not exact conformity with the rulings of Rome, but varied from kingdom to kingdom. The farther one got from Rome, the less conformance there was with its dictates, and the more likely local custom was to be observed. For example, Jon Arason, the last Catholic bishop of Holar, Iceland (decapitated 1550) had two acknowledged sons, despite the requirement of priestly celibacy in the Latin rite. <br /><br />The practical indifference of the church to its theoretical prohibitions must also be considered. As an example, Catherine of Aragon was initially betrothed to Prince Arthur, the eldest son of Henry VII, and married him in 1501. Arthur died in April of 1502; a papal dispensation was obtained in 1503 so that she might be betrothed to Prince Henry (later Henry VIII) despite having been his brother's wife and hence within a canonically prohibited degree of kinship. When, years later, Henry wished to divorce her, he based his argument on the canonical prohibition, which he claimed had been improperly waived. He brought great scholarly weight to bear on his side. In 1529, at Henry's behest, archbishop Cranmer sent Richard Croke as an emissary to Venice to solicit the support of the very learned Franciscan, Francesco Zorzi (author of "De harmonia mundi" [1525]) on this question, which he obtained; but it was of no use in persuading the pope. This episode illustrates how relatively insignificant the rules regarding consanguinity were with respect to the diplomatic considerations of the day. <br /><br />At a less exalted level, apart from royalty and the great nobility, few people would even have known who might be their fourth cousins. The mechanism for enforcing any prohibition against consanguineous unions would have been solely by the publication of the marriage banns, a custom which was intended to allow objections to be brought to a marriage. The vestige of this practice is still found in the part of the marriage ceremony in which the officiant asks if anyone has cause to show why a couple should not be joined in wedlock, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. The publication of banns was not required until the Lateran Council of 1215, the same that your Fukuyama quotation indicates relaxed the rules on consanguinity. <br /><br />Thus the means of enforcing the older, strict rules - even in territories under direct ecclesiastical rule - were almost non-existent before 1215, and after it were still fairly haphazard. The Reformation, of course, took place only a little more than 300 years after that, and this led to the adoption of the present Table of Kindred and Affinity, which prohibits only first cousins from marrying. So, the notion that church law actively required distantly exogamous marriages for most of European history is not easily sustained by these facts - even if we do not consider the extensive genealogical records, quarterings of arms, and other indications that, at least among the nobility and gentry, marriages routinely took place amongst persons closer in consanguinity than fourth cousins.Crawfurdmuirnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-48763932600842120612011-06-09T20:37:48.887-07:002011-06-09T20:37:48.887-07:00@anonymous @6/9/11 8:22 PM - "It depends what...@anonymous @6/9/11 8:22 PM - <i>"It depends what level you're looking at. You're weakening the blood-ties at the clan level while at the same time strengthening the blood-ties at the tribe level."</i><br /><br />yes! wait. i think we agree. (^_^) (or i forgot what the discussion was about....)hbd chickhttp://hbdchick.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18952173691887312362011-06-09T20:22:00.848-07:002011-06-09T20:22:00.848-07:00hbdchick
"yes. but don't you alter the ga...hbdchick<br />"yes. but don't you alter the gap between the degree of relatedness between near- and far-kin by altering with whom you mate?"<br /><br />Yes, i'm agreeing with you, except...<br /><br />"weaking the clan-level force is a weakening of blood-ties. that's how you get there, no?"<br /><br />It depends what level you're looking at. You're weakening the blood-ties at the clan level while at the same time strengthening the blood-ties at the tribe level.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-50378233464786789722011-06-09T17:02:01.048-07:002011-06-09T17:02:01.048-07:00@anonymous @6/9/11 10:27 AM - "Just years of ...@anonymous @6/9/11 10:27 AM - <i>"Just years of war, massacres, violence, struggle, political contest, etc."</i><br /><br />symptoms of the biological divisions. just like between bands of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/science/22chimp.html" rel="nofollow">chimps</a>. or meerkitties.hbd chickhttp://hbdchick.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-49299344358960098272011-06-09T16:56:09.980-07:002011-06-09T16:56:09.980-07:00@douglas knight - thnx! (^_^)@douglas knight - thnx! (^_^)hbd chickhttp://hbdchick.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7850465531888018452011-06-09T16:52:42.611-07:002011-06-09T16:52:42.611-07:00@londoner - "...is likely to lead to a huge r...@londoner - <i>"...is likely to lead to a huge rise in accidental consanguinity over the coming generations, with lots of youngsters who unknowingly share a daddy producing offspring of their own."</i><br /><br />yes. and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1282575/Couple-discover-siblings-Child-courts-blamed-strangers-fall-love-son--half-brother-sister.html" rel="nofollow">they find each other</a> strangely, overwhelmingly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_sexual_attraction" rel="nofollow">attractive</a>!hbd chickhttp://hbdchick.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-25743713017811728132011-06-09T16:48:50.633-07:002011-06-09T16:48:50.633-07:00@anonymous @6/9/11 12:28 AM - "I am afraid HB...@anonymous @6/9/11 12:28 AM - <i>"I am afraid HBD chick has got it wrong. All European states were (and still are), defined by language."</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v456/n7218/fig_tab/nature07331_F1.html" rel="nofollow">Genes Mirror Geography Within Europe</a>hbd chickhttp://hbdchick.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88752416879961770822011-06-09T16:39:31.726-07:002011-06-09T16:39:31.726-07:00@anonymous @6/8/11 11:49 PM -
in your first comme...@anonymous @6/8/11 11:49 PM -<br /><br />in your first comment you said:<br /><br /><i>"If the clan-level force is weakened it makes it easier for tribal co-operation to become the default mode. It's not a weakening of blood-ties it's a shift in the balance between near-kin and far-kin.</i><br /><br />then you said:<br /><br /><i>"If the degrees of relatedness were instead 8 and 6 then the value for B at the tribal level would only have to be 4/3 bigger than the value of B at the clan level. The smaller the gap between degree of relatedness between near-kin and far-kin the smaller the gap between additional reproductive benefit needs to be before tribal level co-operation makes sense.</i><br /><br />yes. but don't you alter the gap between the degree of relatedness between near- and far-kin by altering with whom you mate?<br /><br />you can mate with your sisters (eww) and, therefore, have a really <em>large</em> degree of difference between your near- and far-kin ... or you can marry someone from two villages over and so narrow the difference.<br /><br />weaking the clan-level force <i>is</i> a weakening of blood-ties. that's how you get there, no?hbd chickhttp://hbdchick.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69557118979983938932011-06-09T16:29:59.456-07:002011-06-09T16:29:59.456-07:00People arguing that the medieval Church didn't...People arguing that the medieval Church didn't have the ability to influence marriage due a lack of legal authority are demonstrating their applied autism here.<br /><br />It's not just a simple legal matter. The Church didn't have much power (in the form of performing arrests, conducting trials, and doling out punishments) anywhere yet we have a clearly very Christian culture none the less. People were afraid to go against the Church because they feared for the fate of their souls.<br /><br />If the Church says it is bad to have children with your cousin then you are going to take it seriously even if there is no Inquisition coming to put the thumbscrews to you.<br /><br />People were very, very religious. The Church had real power all over Europe. It doesn't matter if the Monarch or Lord appointed Bishops due to concordance agreements. They are still being selected from a pool basically controlled by the Church.<br /><br />We can't even pick candidates with differing viewpoints for Congress. How much ability do you think a Monarch really had in getting an ideological spread out of his candidates for Bishop? Much less so why he would even care about banning cousin marriage enough to make a point of it anyway.K(yle)noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-60958792899552380792011-06-09T16:29:19.379-07:002011-06-09T16:29:19.379-07:00@crawfurdmuir - so, essentially you are saying tha...@crawfurdmuir - so, essentially you are saying that the medieval church was not effective at enforcing its regulations on marriage (am i right?).<br /><br />you may be right.<br /><br />on the other hand, several folks i've read (or am planning to read!) have said the opposite:<br /><br /><a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/The_development_of_the_family_and_marria.html?id=LVkYFGqylfQC" rel="nofollow">The development of the family and marriage in Europe</a><br /><br /><a href="http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0631129235" rel="nofollow">The European family: patriarchy to partnership from the Middle Ages to the present</a><br /><br /><a href="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780195103373.do" rel="nofollow">Sacred Trust - The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm</a><br /><br /><a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.61.3711&rep=rep1&type=pdf" rel="nofollow">"Family structure, institutions, and growth – the origin and implications of Western corporatism"</a><br /><br />(*hbdchick throws her hands up in confused despair*)hbd chickhttp://hbdchick.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-16351482311245093012011-06-09T16:12:15.099-07:002011-06-09T16:12:15.099-07:00@forty percent - "Scandinavian nations, with ...@forty percent - <i>"Scandinavian nations, with the shortest history of Catholicism, have even smaller rates of cousin marriage then very Catholic ones like Italy and Spain."</i><br /><br />yes, but many of the protestant churches (including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#Europe" rel="nofollow">the church of sweden</a>, for instance) also banned cousin marriage during different periods.<br /><br />@forty percent - <i>"In places where consanguity rates are very high, Morrocco to Pakistan, it’s one of the factors preventing the rise of functioning European style nation states.<br /><br />"But it probably wasn’t all that important in the last say ~3,000 years of European history. Or for that matter in the history of China, Japan, Sub-Saharan Africa."</i><br /><br />but you're contradicting yourself. on the one hand, you're saying that inbreeding -- especially at high rates -- prevents the rise of functioning nation-states, while on the other you're saying that <i>low</i> inbreeding rates in europe <i>didn't</i> have an effect on the rise of nation-states. which is it?<br /><br />if heavy inbreeding retards modern nation-state development, shouldn't the corollary be that outbreeding <i>promotes</i> it?hbd chickhttp://hbdchick.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-39861502255980212292011-06-09T16:02:47.371-07:002011-06-09T16:02:47.371-07:00@forty percent - "Not all tribal / clannish c...@forty percent - <i>"Not all tribal / clannish cultures practice cousin marriage. For example, Circassians absolutely forbid cousin marriage. The Chechens don’t seem to practice it either."</i><br /><br />true. but both the <a href="http://www.everyculture.com/Africa-Middle-East/Circassians-Marriage-and-Family.html" rel="nofollow">circassians</a> and the <a href="http://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Chechen-Ingush-Marriage-and-Family.html" rel="nofollow">chechens</a> have endogamous marriage practices, i.e. they don't marry (much) outside of their groups. i don't know much about either group, but they don't strike me to be <i>as</i> tribal as, say, afghanis and arabs who not only marry within their respective groups, but also marry their cousins.<br /><br />@forty percent - <i>"It’s not clear that cousin marriage was widespread in Europe before the Catholic prohibition."</i><br /><br />eh. there are <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/The_development_of_the_family_and_marria.html?id=LVkYFGqylfQC" rel="nofollow">a lot of good indications</a> that it was the case. maybe the rates weren't as high as, say, pakistan nowadays, but it very likely was a' happenin'.hbd chickhttp://hbdchick.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53542850015184734252011-06-09T14:18:27.262-07:002011-06-09T14:18:27.262-07:00The case of Charles II of Spain is not an illustra...The case of Charles II of Spain is not an illustration of "too much Habsburg." The bad genes were from the highly inbred house of Trastámara, coming from his ancestress Joan the Mad. There was mental unsoundness in the Spanish line, seen also in the eldest son of Philip II, Prince Charles of the Asturias. Joan the Mad was the latter's great-grandmother both on the paternal and maternal sides. <br /><br />Joan the Mad shows up fourteen times in the ahnentafel of Charles II. By my calculation, 13/32 of his genes came from her - over 40%.Crawfurdmuirnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-90091019031193961562011-06-09T12:00:33.209-07:002011-06-09T12:00:33.209-07:00So, one thing we can say is that a very powerful i...So, one thing we can say is that a very powerful institution in Europe, the Catholic Church, leaned against cousin marriage. In contrast, lots of other cultures find cousin marriage highly sensible.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-471349970912553772011-06-09T11:57:21.439-07:002011-06-09T11:57:21.439-07:00"And why were so many kings and emperors simp..."And why were so many kings and emperors simpering wimpering morons?"<br /><br />They weren't - at least not for most of history where they had to lead their army into battle. The ones that were like that were usually killed or died in rebellions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-44525409764567935492011-06-09T11:49:12.583-07:002011-06-09T11:49:12.583-07:00"it makes me question how anyone could have h..."it makes me question how anyone could have had a good enough grasp of who were fifth/sixth cousins to stop them marrying each other."<br /><br />I doubt very much anyone would have the faintest idea who their 5th or 6th cousin was *except* perhaps nobility who maintained very detailed genealogies (which makes me think the higher level bans may have been a way to make money from dispensations).<br /><br />I think the lower level bans are the important bit.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-9441705887934203642011-06-09T11:15:58.402-07:002011-06-09T11:15:58.402-07:00But China prolly didn't want to democratize ho...But China prolly didn't want to democratize horseownership because it would have undermined a sense of strict hierarchy between leaders and the led.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18314205838949044382011-06-09T11:14:55.458-07:002011-06-09T11:14:55.458-07:00Maybe the democratization of horse-ownership and t...Maybe the democratization of horse-ownership and then the arrival of the auto did much to produce a wider sense of community. <br /><br />In traditional society, the kings and nobles owned horses. Some farmers had horses but more to work the fields than to ride. So, for most people, they were lowly folks on the ground while noblemen were elevated high up on their horse. Even today, mounted cops look pretty impressive, immeasurably more intimidating than flatfoots. And one of the reasons why South American natives were freaked out by the Conquistadores was that that Spaniards were atop big horses. Some natives even thought man-and-horse were one. <br /><br />In traditional Europe, noblemen were on horses, and commonfolk often had to look up to them from the ground. <br />But in America, especially in the West, taming/buying/owning a horse became a common thing. Even a lowly cowhand could own a horse. He didn't have to look up to any man. <br /><br />And then, the car replaced the horse. A rich guy could afford a fancier car, but even a fancy car cannot tower over other cars. The only way for the modern rich to tower over others is to live in penthouse condos--but then government housing projects rise pretty high too. <br />Psychology is linked to physicality. The relation of man and his space partly shapes how he sees the world and other people. <br /><br />PS. Could the Mongols have gained the great advantage cuz they democratized horse-ownership? In China, only the rich and privileged owned and rode horses. Most Chinese were dirt-peasants with some pigs and always crouching down to plant rice. <br />In contrast, owning and riding a horse was the common thing among all Mongols, from the powerful chieftains to the lowly warrior. China may have more soldiers but Mongols had more of what was in those days the airforce. It's as if every Mongol owned a fighter-plane. Just like airpower kicks butt today, horse-power(there were literally 100,000s of Mongol horsemen)was The thing in those days. If Chinese had democratized horse-ownership, they might have been able to fend off the mongols.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-6249326675085631902011-06-09T11:08:09.271-07:002011-06-09T11:08:09.271-07:00And now Catholics should continue the process of w...<i>And now Catholics should continue the process of world domination by marrying non Europeans. I hadn't recognized the strategy before. But it all makes sense now considering Catholics show no interest whatsoever in converting Europeans who aren't already Catholic.</i><br /><br />This attitude may date from the times when Protestant authorities forbade the practice of Catholicism, and even after they loosened up in the 1800s, the Catholics were leery of pissing off the Protestant rulers again. Similar to why the Catholics didn't bother trying to convert Muslims, after some early failed attempts. They actually became quite cynical; the French rulers of Algeria imposed reverse jizya (punitive taxes on Muslims) and other severe restrictions.<br /><br />Since Vatican II, in fact, the modern Catholic Church tends to actually reject converts from Protestant denominations, and recently has been accepting Anglicans without making them change their worship services at all. Ironically, the traditionalist groups such as the Society of St. Pius X who still say the historic Mass in Latin (the Catholic equivalent of ultra-Orthodox Jews) take anybody, so in England and Sweden, the mainstream church is full of immigrants (mostly Poles and nonwhites) while the traditionalists are majority English or Swedish.corvinusnoreply@blogger.com