You don't hear "bourgeois" used as a swear word very much anymore, yet "nouveau riche" still serves the purpose well. If this were coming from old money people, it would be understandable, but it's mostly coming from the nouveau riche themselves. That's typical of the culture's obsession with making the enviable self-flagellate in public (another example is "White guilt," a disease that only successful Whites suffer from), but in this case there does seem to be a deeper hatred.
What usually makes a person newly rich is that improving environmental conditions produce more smart people, and that the economy begins to offer more opportunities for smart hard-working people to make good use of these traits. You'd think that, since we so treasure the rags-to-riches ideal, we'd be more comfortable with the nouveau riche, as questionable as its tastes may at times be. Instead, we focus so much on how gaudy are the women's purses or the men's cars -- sins which are really more venial than cardinal -- that we overlook the wonderful fact that the smart and hard-working do not have to squander their talents picking potatoes anymore.
December 20, 2007
December 14, 2007
Recent sound changes in American English
Someone may have already written about these, but I don’t find them interesting enough to do real research on, as must have been true for early observers of rising intonation in declarative sentences. (As in, “So I went to the mall? And saw my best friend? And we had lunch?”)
The first is pronouncing the sound that begins “thin” as the sound that begins the word “then.” In jargon, the initial consonant was unvoiced, and now it is voiced. (Your voice box buzzes when you make the sound of “then” but not “thin”). It is only for one word, as far as I can tell: “thank” and its derivatives. A lot of people say “thanks” or “thank you” with the “then” sound. I may have even heard this pronunciation for “Thanksgiving,” but that’s a rare word, so my memory may be off. We’ll see if it spreads to “thin,” “thigh,” “thief,” etc.
The second is much more pervasive: devoicing a final “z” sound into an “s” sound. Devoicing a final consonant is common cross-linguistically (and again, “z” buzzes and “s” doesn’t). For example, pronouncing “please” to rhyme with “fleece.” As with rising intonation, it’s most frequent among insecure girls, the more effeminate homosexuals, and those who live on the West Coast.
It is especially noticeable when it’s used as a plural marker. By default, the plural in English has a “z” sound, and only goes to “s” when the preceding consonant is unvoiced, as in “cats.” But when someone says “dogs” with an “s” sound at the end, it’s affected, since “g” is voiced and there’s no reason to use an “s.” We’ll see if this affectation becomes regularized, the way Americans under age 40 or 45 pronounce “Milan” to rhyme with “anon” rather than “Japan.”
There, the pretense may have been “we’re trying to sound more authentic in the native language spoken in that city,” in the way that obnoxious tourists now strive to “live like a Parisian” by renting an apartment for a week and go about their daily routine, only in Paris – the way an authentic Parisian would, in contrast to what those loathsome fellow tourists are doing over at the Louvre. *
In the case of “dogs with an s,” the affectation appears to me to be a way of sounding more girly, hence its immediate adoption by flamers. On the other hand, there may be no rationale behind it at all, and it may simply be a fashion statement – “I pronounce words differently from you, and I’m cool,” which prompts the wannabes to shift in that direction too. And the gays may go along with it for the same reason they might copy female clothing trends like wide-legged vs. skinny jeans – they’re what’s “in” right now, period.
* It’s fine if that’s how you want to spend your vacation, but no one else cares.
The first is pronouncing the sound that begins “thin” as the sound that begins the word “then.” In jargon, the initial consonant was unvoiced, and now it is voiced. (Your voice box buzzes when you make the sound of “then” but not “thin”). It is only for one word, as far as I can tell: “thank” and its derivatives. A lot of people say “thanks” or “thank you” with the “then” sound. I may have even heard this pronunciation for “Thanksgiving,” but that’s a rare word, so my memory may be off. We’ll see if it spreads to “thin,” “thigh,” “thief,” etc.
The second is much more pervasive: devoicing a final “z” sound into an “s” sound. Devoicing a final consonant is common cross-linguistically (and again, “z” buzzes and “s” doesn’t). For example, pronouncing “please” to rhyme with “fleece.” As with rising intonation, it’s most frequent among insecure girls, the more effeminate homosexuals, and those who live on the West Coast.
It is especially noticeable when it’s used as a plural marker. By default, the plural in English has a “z” sound, and only goes to “s” when the preceding consonant is unvoiced, as in “cats.” But when someone says “dogs” with an “s” sound at the end, it’s affected, since “g” is voiced and there’s no reason to use an “s.” We’ll see if this affectation becomes regularized, the way Americans under age 40 or 45 pronounce “Milan” to rhyme with “anon” rather than “Japan.”
There, the pretense may have been “we’re trying to sound more authentic in the native language spoken in that city,” in the way that obnoxious tourists now strive to “live like a Parisian” by renting an apartment for a week and go about their daily routine, only in Paris – the way an authentic Parisian would, in contrast to what those loathsome fellow tourists are doing over at the Louvre. *
In the case of “dogs with an s,” the affectation appears to me to be a way of sounding more girly, hence its immediate adoption by flamers. On the other hand, there may be no rationale behind it at all, and it may simply be a fashion statement – “I pronounce words differently from you, and I’m cool,” which prompts the wannabes to shift in that direction too. And the gays may go along with it for the same reason they might copy female clothing trends like wide-legged vs. skinny jeans – they’re what’s “in” right now, period.
* It’s fine if that’s how you want to spend your vacation, but no one else cares.
December 10, 2007
My manly deed for the day
Irina in New York just wrote a post on manliness that I couldn't help but find a bit funny -- not her desires, but the implicit advice that American guys should act more like Russian or Puerto Rican guys. With some American guys, this might work, but the "protecting a woman physically" type of manliness will strike most of us (and others in the developed world) as a bit proletarian. And as you can easily see in the case of faking an interest in sports, aping the manners and tastes of your inferiors is comically see-through, off-putting, and arrogant. *
When females actually are in physical danger from men, then of course this would be the right thing to do, but we have not lived in such a society for awhile now. In fact, within recorded history, the skulls of Britons have become thinner, presumably because of a relaxation of the pressure to protect your brain against clubs and spears. If Gregory Clark is on the right track in A Farewell to Alms, there has been recent change, some of it genetic, affecting the temperament of those who have industrialized. For one thing, contemporary Northwestern Europeans seem much less interested in violent entertainment. Just look at Hogarth's Four Stages of Cruelty to see what passed for fun in pre-Industrial England.
Women in the industrialized world -- at least the parts of it that are not given euphemistic titles like the "inner city" -- are not really at risk for being assaulted, and so are not in great need to be protected in that way. However, males -- especially aged 15 to 24 -- still threaten women's sense of comfort and security in other ways. A man could verbally belittle a woman, and assuming she didn't deserve it, any guy nearby should see to it that the taunter gets verbally bitch-slapped or perhaps punched in the gut if it's warranted.
Or take the example I saw tonight while studying in the school library. A guy and girl had met up in the lobby to study for a test. I was at a table about ten feet away and immediately noticed a very peculiar display of body language from them. It looked like this, with the guy on the left:
These are large lounge chairs, so I thought, "Why is she seated so far away from him, almost cringing?" The guy was about 5'5, and the arms of the chairs were about six inches wide, making a foot-wide gap between their seat areas, so his leaning over into her space was insultingly obvious. At first I thought she was just alternating positions due to restlessness during a long study session -- but she remained bolt upright. Clearly, she had been suckered into what she thought was a group study session, or maybe he acted normal at first but figured he'd make a move once they were in a more intimate setting.
As there weren't many people in the lobby, I could overhear the guy: he was ranting on about whatever Leftist college students are obsessed with at the moment. I nearly laughed out loud when he got to the topic of health care and underscored his point with a personal anecdote about how he had recently been beaten up and couldn't afford stitches. (That line gets 'em every time!) She politely indulged him for about ten minutes but finally said, "OK, can we get back to .... ?" The whole time, he was parasitizing her, too: she brought her notes, textbooks, and study guide, while he kept interrupting her with "Wait, can you say that again?" while he copied down what she'd said.
Finally a chair freed up right across from her, so I strolled over slowly and sat down, making sure to use slow, composed movements to provide a foil to his jerky starts and stops. I should clarify that she wasn't very pretty -- maybe 5.5 or 6 out of 10 -- so I was not doing this to seduce her in any way. I had on flannel pants, a Prince of Wales patterned shirt with a sweater over it, boots, and an overcoat laying by my side, while he had gone out in public in sneakers, a ratty t-shirt, and sweatpants -- yes, a male older than 11 years was wearing sweatpants. I had my things in order and continued reading my notes and study guides. The point was just to take her mind off the oaf, and to signal to him that he didn't stand a chance with her as long as I was there, so knock off the pathetic attempt to invade her space.
She couldn't have been more relieved: within the first five minutes, I counted five times when she conspicuously tousled her long hair, vs. never doing so in the 30 minutes before I sat down. After that, she did so another five times in 25 minutes. She also settled down into her seat but turned so her body was facing me, and her leg was pointed away from him and toward me. This is a much more effective way to express lack of interest, rather than cringe but continue to face him (sociopaths can smell fear). I even saw her smile a few times and make eye-contact with me -- no more awkwardness or feeling like she was held captive by some degenerate.
He simmered down too. For one thing, he got up to go who knows where at least three times, probably out of nervousness or frustration, vs. never doing so before I sat down. That must have added up to 5 or 10 minutes that I saved her from even being in his presence. He still kept trying to lean into her space, but I think he got discouraged once she was no longer facing him (as when she was cringing).
And he tried once more to go off on a revolutionary Left rant, starting with, "Well, I think there needs to be a fundamental change in the political system, I think we can all agree on that" -- yeah, demented college students should be sent to labor camps. I waited until he was halfway through his next sentence when I burst out laughing and giggling, pretending that it was something I had read. It had the intended effect, while avoiding wasteful confrontation: he got derailed, while my outburst emboldened her not to indulge him anymore but to give him that amused, contemptuous look of "are you kidding me?" We smiled at each other for a moment, and she started tracing her lower lip with the tip of her pen just after that.
It's pretty easy to shut down that type of person: just laugh at them like you don't take them seriously. They realize that they'll never convince anyone of their views, or else they would spend more time organizing workers, walking picket lines, and so on, rather than downloading Michael Parenti speeches from YouTube and shopping for sweatpants. What they crave is an audience who cares, so the best treatment is to chuckle and giggle at them the way a parent does when their toddler thinks they've discovered a "secret passageway" in the nearby woods. "Aw, aren't you cute!"
I had to leave for dinner, so I didn't get to see how their session ended, but he'd already lost his steam, so I didn't worry much. It felt pretty good to take care of some manly business by putting a slimy con-man in his place. (He had a dingy Eastern European look, like a Gypsy used car salesman.) As funny as it may seem, it's in situations like these that women in the developed world are most likely to cry out for someone to save them.
Still, rescuing them calls on the same internal qualities as does protecting them from saber-toothed tigers or an invading war party: attention to female distress signals, a sense of decency, an urge to dominate other males competitively, and maintaining a socially intimidating appearance in case you need to signal to the offender to cut out their nonsense (which in this case could be done just by wearing a sharp suit and tie -- no need to bulk up in the gym to suggest violence). **
* In my many run-ins with "radical chic" wannabes, it's always baseball that they're supposed to be fascinated with, never any other sport. This choice belies their upper-middle background -- even they realize how degrading it would be to take up an interest in NASCAR, a more blue-collar sport. And football and basketball are a bit too nouveau for someone who still wears spectacles in the style of Trotsky. So baseball it is.
** I know that many readers find my interest in clothing tiresome, but it's serious stuff: when I walk around the dining hall, I've made 6'4 musclebound football players who are Black move out of my way in games of "Chicken." (I stand 5'8 and weigh 135 lbs.) Part of it is walking deliberately and slowly, suggesting you won't steer away, but dressing several levels above them is necessary too. It's the same reason why a prole who lives in the gym will always move out of the way of a sharp-looking investment banker, even if they grumble in envy about what an obnoxious prick he is afterward.
When females actually are in physical danger from men, then of course this would be the right thing to do, but we have not lived in such a society for awhile now. In fact, within recorded history, the skulls of Britons have become thinner, presumably because of a relaxation of the pressure to protect your brain against clubs and spears. If Gregory Clark is on the right track in A Farewell to Alms, there has been recent change, some of it genetic, affecting the temperament of those who have industrialized. For one thing, contemporary Northwestern Europeans seem much less interested in violent entertainment. Just look at Hogarth's Four Stages of Cruelty to see what passed for fun in pre-Industrial England.
Women in the industrialized world -- at least the parts of it that are not given euphemistic titles like the "inner city" -- are not really at risk for being assaulted, and so are not in great need to be protected in that way. However, males -- especially aged 15 to 24 -- still threaten women's sense of comfort and security in other ways. A man could verbally belittle a woman, and assuming she didn't deserve it, any guy nearby should see to it that the taunter gets verbally bitch-slapped or perhaps punched in the gut if it's warranted.
Or take the example I saw tonight while studying in the school library. A guy and girl had met up in the lobby to study for a test. I was at a table about ten feet away and immediately noticed a very peculiar display of body language from them. It looked like this, with the guy on the left:
These are large lounge chairs, so I thought, "Why is she seated so far away from him, almost cringing?" The guy was about 5'5, and the arms of the chairs were about six inches wide, making a foot-wide gap between their seat areas, so his leaning over into her space was insultingly obvious. At first I thought she was just alternating positions due to restlessness during a long study session -- but she remained bolt upright. Clearly, she had been suckered into what she thought was a group study session, or maybe he acted normal at first but figured he'd make a move once they were in a more intimate setting.
As there weren't many people in the lobby, I could overhear the guy: he was ranting on about whatever Leftist college students are obsessed with at the moment. I nearly laughed out loud when he got to the topic of health care and underscored his point with a personal anecdote about how he had recently been beaten up and couldn't afford stitches. (That line gets 'em every time!) She politely indulged him for about ten minutes but finally said, "OK, can we get back to .... ?" The whole time, he was parasitizing her, too: she brought her notes, textbooks, and study guide, while he kept interrupting her with "Wait, can you say that again?" while he copied down what she'd said.
Finally a chair freed up right across from her, so I strolled over slowly and sat down, making sure to use slow, composed movements to provide a foil to his jerky starts and stops. I should clarify that she wasn't very pretty -- maybe 5.5 or 6 out of 10 -- so I was not doing this to seduce her in any way. I had on flannel pants, a Prince of Wales patterned shirt with a sweater over it, boots, and an overcoat laying by my side, while he had gone out in public in sneakers, a ratty t-shirt, and sweatpants -- yes, a male older than 11 years was wearing sweatpants. I had my things in order and continued reading my notes and study guides. The point was just to take her mind off the oaf, and to signal to him that he didn't stand a chance with her as long as I was there, so knock off the pathetic attempt to invade her space.
She couldn't have been more relieved: within the first five minutes, I counted five times when she conspicuously tousled her long hair, vs. never doing so in the 30 minutes before I sat down. After that, she did so another five times in 25 minutes. She also settled down into her seat but turned so her body was facing me, and her leg was pointed away from him and toward me. This is a much more effective way to express lack of interest, rather than cringe but continue to face him (sociopaths can smell fear). I even saw her smile a few times and make eye-contact with me -- no more awkwardness or feeling like she was held captive by some degenerate.
He simmered down too. For one thing, he got up to go who knows where at least three times, probably out of nervousness or frustration, vs. never doing so before I sat down. That must have added up to 5 or 10 minutes that I saved her from even being in his presence. He still kept trying to lean into her space, but I think he got discouraged once she was no longer facing him (as when she was cringing).
And he tried once more to go off on a revolutionary Left rant, starting with, "Well, I think there needs to be a fundamental change in the political system, I think we can all agree on that" -- yeah, demented college students should be sent to labor camps. I waited until he was halfway through his next sentence when I burst out laughing and giggling, pretending that it was something I had read. It had the intended effect, while avoiding wasteful confrontation: he got derailed, while my outburst emboldened her not to indulge him anymore but to give him that amused, contemptuous look of "are you kidding me?" We smiled at each other for a moment, and she started tracing her lower lip with the tip of her pen just after that.
It's pretty easy to shut down that type of person: just laugh at them like you don't take them seriously. They realize that they'll never convince anyone of their views, or else they would spend more time organizing workers, walking picket lines, and so on, rather than downloading Michael Parenti speeches from YouTube and shopping for sweatpants. What they crave is an audience who cares, so the best treatment is to chuckle and giggle at them the way a parent does when their toddler thinks they've discovered a "secret passageway" in the nearby woods. "Aw, aren't you cute!"
I had to leave for dinner, so I didn't get to see how their session ended, but he'd already lost his steam, so I didn't worry much. It felt pretty good to take care of some manly business by putting a slimy con-man in his place. (He had a dingy Eastern European look, like a Gypsy used car salesman.) As funny as it may seem, it's in situations like these that women in the developed world are most likely to cry out for someone to save them.
Still, rescuing them calls on the same internal qualities as does protecting them from saber-toothed tigers or an invading war party: attention to female distress signals, a sense of decency, an urge to dominate other males competitively, and maintaining a socially intimidating appearance in case you need to signal to the offender to cut out their nonsense (which in this case could be done just by wearing a sharp suit and tie -- no need to bulk up in the gym to suggest violence). **
* In my many run-ins with "radical chic" wannabes, it's always baseball that they're supposed to be fascinated with, never any other sport. This choice belies their upper-middle background -- even they realize how degrading it would be to take up an interest in NASCAR, a more blue-collar sport. And football and basketball are a bit too nouveau for someone who still wears spectacles in the style of Trotsky. So baseball it is.
** I know that many readers find my interest in clothing tiresome, but it's serious stuff: when I walk around the dining hall, I've made 6'4 musclebound football players who are Black move out of my way in games of "Chicken." (I stand 5'8 and weigh 135 lbs.) Part of it is walking deliberately and slowly, suggesting you won't steer away, but dressing several levels above them is necessary too. It's the same reason why a prole who lives in the gym will always move out of the way of a sharp-looking investment banker, even if they grumble in envy about what an obnoxious prick he is afterward.
December 1, 2007
Fairfield, Iowa
What do Burlington, Washington, Main, and Court have in common? A woman who would've improved the human race by having an abortion.
BTW, what kind of faggotry is this? Bwahahahaha...
[Comments are disabled for this post]
BTW, what kind of faggotry is this? Bwahahahaha...
[Comments are disabled for this post]
November 26, 2007
Nominate a female role model?
Apropos of the post below, maybe it's worth devoting a whole post / comment section to this topic, since it must get boring to hear guys talk about how wonderful 20 year-olds are -- what are females supposed to do when they reach their mid-late 20s? Off the top of my head, I suggested fashion editor Giovanna Battaglia, just because she looks like she has her stuff together, is elegant, and seems amiable. Danica McKellar, who you know as Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years, turns out to be a math nerd, and she also looks put together and confident. There is also human geneticist Pardis Sabeti, who you can watch speak about recent human evolution here -- again, poised, elegant, pretty humble, and plays in a rock band. Blogger / commenter Thursday will surely nominate Gwen Stefani.
There must be many others I don't know about, as well as some I'm blanking on this moment, so in the comments, can readers nominate more role models for females who (like most of us) aren't exposed to many examples of women who age gracefully? The basic criteria are simply these:
- Is at least 27 years old, preferably not one of the few who still look 20.
- Has accomplished something in their field, no matter how seemingly trivial (she could be a professor with no publications, for example!). Just to show that she's set her mind to something difficult and achieved it.
- Is not flaky -- no committed believers of astrology or psychoanalysis.
- Treats strangers with a pleasant, agreeable temper.
- Puts sufficient effort into her personal appearance, whether traditional or more contemporary, but something feminine that younger women would want to emulate.
- Tends toward modesty and humility rather than bragging and attention-whoring.
You get the idea. I want to have lots of names I can suggest, since the need to do so arises all the time. The NYT ran a story not long ago showing that high school girls know that most of the celebrities they see are drugged-up skanks, and though that awareness is encouraging, we still need a positive alternative to provide them with. Ditto for college-aged and early 20-something girls. One or two of the readers fall into this demographic -- last time this topic came up, we kicked around general qualities that any civilized guy would prize, but since then have you found concrete examples of women who others should know about?
There must be many others I don't know about, as well as some I'm blanking on this moment, so in the comments, can readers nominate more role models for females who (like most of us) aren't exposed to many examples of women who age gracefully? The basic criteria are simply these:
- Is at least 27 years old, preferably not one of the few who still look 20.
- Has accomplished something in their field, no matter how seemingly trivial (she could be a professor with no publications, for example!). Just to show that she's set her mind to something difficult and achieved it.
- Is not flaky -- no committed believers of astrology or psychoanalysis.
- Treats strangers with a pleasant, agreeable temper.
- Puts sufficient effort into her personal appearance, whether traditional or more contemporary, but something feminine that younger women would want to emulate.
- Tends toward modesty and humility rather than bragging and attention-whoring.
You get the idea. I want to have lots of names I can suggest, since the need to do so arises all the time. The NYT ran a story not long ago showing that high school girls know that most of the celebrities they see are drugged-up skanks, and though that awareness is encouraging, we still need a positive alternative to provide them with. Ditto for college-aged and early 20-something girls. One or two of the readers fall into this demographic -- last time this topic came up, we kicked around general qualities that any civilized guy would prize, but since then have you found concrete examples of women who others should know about?
November 25, 2007
Not even legal Miss World girls
For a post on what makes tall women desirable, I looked up some data on Miss World contestants (see their pictures here). The chart in the Wikipedia article lets you order the columns, so just click that little gray box on "age" and you can see that there are 5 contestants who are just 17 -- and upon further investigation, Miss New Zealand is still 16 and will only turn 17 in December. If the winner is crowned on Dec. 1, that sounds as if she'd still be 16 if she won. My impression is that countries set their own age limits, although no one younger than 16 or older than 25 shows up (the median age is 21, and the distribution looks pretty symmetrical, maybe a bit more bunched around the younger end).
On the one hand, it might seem in poor taste to send a 17 year-old to an international beauty pageant, but younger girls have a lot to recommend them, mostly in their demeanor, which is more warm and giggly. I had been tutoring girls that age before I started school, but I forced myself to not even start thinking along those lines. But now that I'm surrounded (besieged) by 18 year-old coeds most of the day, none of whom I tutor, I can allow myself to study what makes them so appealing to guys of all ages.
Sure, the skin is much tighter, especially on the thigh, but they tend not to have fully developed breasts and posteriors, which many men are interested in, so I don't think they have a higher net level of physical attractiveness compared to females in their mid or late 20s (30+ is a different matter). But their personalities do tend to differ: researchers of the Big Five personality traits have found that, although changes after 30 are weak, from about 20 to 30 there is a decrease in Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness, and an increase in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. In brief, during your mid-20s, rough, you become more well-behaved and disciplined, and less outgoing, emotionally unstable and open to new things. *
I think Agreeableness and Conscientiousness are more relevant to potential employers; some would say it pays to have a more Agreeable partner, but I prefer someone who's a bit stubborn and mock-confrontational. Higher Openness means that far more silly ideas will fill their heads -- as they did mine too when I was that age, of course -- but that's easy to overlook, since you know it's just a phase they're going through. The committed vegan activist who's over 30, on the other hand, is overwhelmingly likely to be a sourpuss. At the same time, youthful curiosity is pretty attractive. I also prefer someone who's above-average in Neuroticism, since otherwise they won't empathize when I get set off by little things, and since a certain degree of emotional vulnerability makes you more careful about how you treat her.
Higher Extraversion means they're better flirts, are more chatty, show greater warmth, and experience positive emotions more frequently. This is probably the key personality difference that men pick up on when they become entranced by a 20 year-old. Females seem to smile less as they age, and giggle even much less. Now, giggling is one of those things that you can't mention without invoking the slanderous image put out there by non-gigglers that this activity consists of acting retarded and ditzy. But it's not that at all: they're not laughing at something they think is funny, but rather signaling that they enjoy interacting with you, as when a cat or a guinea pig purrs when you pet it the right way. It is just adorable. **
Younger girls are also less guarded and calculating when they're trying to get your attention, largely because their actions are not as under rational control as they are at older ages. Just to provide a few examples: they toss and tousle their hair more conspicuously (fidgeting with hair is always a sign of interest). They put more of a bounce in their step when they walk by, often lightly caressing the table you're sitting at, or gently tapping the chair that's opposite you. If they're leaving a room, they'll caress, tap, or cup the jamb of the door as they leave. And if there happens to be a male acquaintance of theirs nearby, they'll laugh and bounce around as hard as they can while his speech goes in one ear and out the other. All of these involuntary tics are clearly designed to grab your attention, and again the ingenuousness is so refreshing.
As a reminder, others have speculated that these honest signals of lack-of-control serve to convince the observer that the sender can be trusted. After all, if you can't help the way you feel, you aren't apt to leave once someone slightly better strolls by. Giggling, getting butterflies in the stomach, showing anxiety and possessiveness over your boyfriend -- these hallmarks of feminine charm begin to flower around age 15 (at the risk of sounding like a dirty old man), and noticeably wane by age 25, having peaked somewhere in the middle of this range, on average.
To be sure, females in their mid or late 20s have their own charms, especially when they resist the urge to plant their feet, in vain, as the river of time washes them steadily forward. For example, wearing sweat-suits ("track-suits") that look appropriate only on high-school girls, or behaving like a spoiled brat, which would scarcely be cute even were she a teenybopper. I keep trying to think of positive role models in this regard, but the US doesn't supply this urgent demand very well, does it? Fortunately, I happened upon a picture of lovely Giovanna Battaglia, a 27 year-old fashion editor who works for L'Uomo Vogue, and whose work can be seen at her website. *** In the comments section of a fashion blog, which you expect to be plagued by pointless bickering and posturing, everyone at The Sartorialist -- male and female -- agreed that Ms. Battaglia sets a fine example for young women out there.
* See the following: one, two, three.
** Never trust an animal that doesn't purr, like dogs.
*** More pictures and info here.
On the one hand, it might seem in poor taste to send a 17 year-old to an international beauty pageant, but younger girls have a lot to recommend them, mostly in their demeanor, which is more warm and giggly. I had been tutoring girls that age before I started school, but I forced myself to not even start thinking along those lines. But now that I'm surrounded (besieged) by 18 year-old coeds most of the day, none of whom I tutor, I can allow myself to study what makes them so appealing to guys of all ages.
Sure, the skin is much tighter, especially on the thigh, but they tend not to have fully developed breasts and posteriors, which many men are interested in, so I don't think they have a higher net level of physical attractiveness compared to females in their mid or late 20s (30+ is a different matter). But their personalities do tend to differ: researchers of the Big Five personality traits have found that, although changes after 30 are weak, from about 20 to 30 there is a decrease in Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness, and an increase in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. In brief, during your mid-20s, rough, you become more well-behaved and disciplined, and less outgoing, emotionally unstable and open to new things. *
I think Agreeableness and Conscientiousness are more relevant to potential employers; some would say it pays to have a more Agreeable partner, but I prefer someone who's a bit stubborn and mock-confrontational. Higher Openness means that far more silly ideas will fill their heads -- as they did mine too when I was that age, of course -- but that's easy to overlook, since you know it's just a phase they're going through. The committed vegan activist who's over 30, on the other hand, is overwhelmingly likely to be a sourpuss. At the same time, youthful curiosity is pretty attractive. I also prefer someone who's above-average in Neuroticism, since otherwise they won't empathize when I get set off by little things, and since a certain degree of emotional vulnerability makes you more careful about how you treat her.
Higher Extraversion means they're better flirts, are more chatty, show greater warmth, and experience positive emotions more frequently. This is probably the key personality difference that men pick up on when they become entranced by a 20 year-old. Females seem to smile less as they age, and giggle even much less. Now, giggling is one of those things that you can't mention without invoking the slanderous image put out there by non-gigglers that this activity consists of acting retarded and ditzy. But it's not that at all: they're not laughing at something they think is funny, but rather signaling that they enjoy interacting with you, as when a cat or a guinea pig purrs when you pet it the right way. It is just adorable. **
Younger girls are also less guarded and calculating when they're trying to get your attention, largely because their actions are not as under rational control as they are at older ages. Just to provide a few examples: they toss and tousle their hair more conspicuously (fidgeting with hair is always a sign of interest). They put more of a bounce in their step when they walk by, often lightly caressing the table you're sitting at, or gently tapping the chair that's opposite you. If they're leaving a room, they'll caress, tap, or cup the jamb of the door as they leave. And if there happens to be a male acquaintance of theirs nearby, they'll laugh and bounce around as hard as they can while his speech goes in one ear and out the other. All of these involuntary tics are clearly designed to grab your attention, and again the ingenuousness is so refreshing.
As a reminder, others have speculated that these honest signals of lack-of-control serve to convince the observer that the sender can be trusted. After all, if you can't help the way you feel, you aren't apt to leave once someone slightly better strolls by. Giggling, getting butterflies in the stomach, showing anxiety and possessiveness over your boyfriend -- these hallmarks of feminine charm begin to flower around age 15 (at the risk of sounding like a dirty old man), and noticeably wane by age 25, having peaked somewhere in the middle of this range, on average.
To be sure, females in their mid or late 20s have their own charms, especially when they resist the urge to plant their feet, in vain, as the river of time washes them steadily forward. For example, wearing sweat-suits ("track-suits") that look appropriate only on high-school girls, or behaving like a spoiled brat, which would scarcely be cute even were she a teenybopper. I keep trying to think of positive role models in this regard, but the US doesn't supply this urgent demand very well, does it? Fortunately, I happened upon a picture of lovely Giovanna Battaglia, a 27 year-old fashion editor who works for L'Uomo Vogue, and whose work can be seen at her website. *** In the comments section of a fashion blog, which you expect to be plagued by pointless bickering and posturing, everyone at The Sartorialist -- male and female -- agreed that Ms. Battaglia sets a fine example for young women out there.
* See the following: one, two, three.
** Never trust an animal that doesn't purr, like dogs.
*** More pictures and info here.
November 4, 2007
Brainy models
I'm going to regret not bringing a TV with me out here, not because I watch much, but the new season of Project Runway begins in a few weeks. I took a look at the models and something jumped out at me: of the 15 models, 3 are pretty bright -- one went to NYU and later got a masters degree in psychology, and two others went to Tufts, one for psych and art history, and another for econ. Given the schools' average SAT scores, I'd say these girls are at least 2 SD above the population mean for IQ.What's the probability of this happening?
If we assume that looks and IQ are sorting independently, we can figure this out as follows. There are about 13 million American females aged 18-25, of whom 130,000 are in the top 1% of the attractiveness distribution for their age group. Assume that the 15 models on the show are random draws from this pool of 130,000, at least with respect to IQ (no SAT scores needed to get on the show). Of the hot girls this age, 2600 will also be in the top 2% of the IQ distribution. (That's what you find at the level of Tufts, NYU, etc.)
Using the hypergeometric distribution, we have a sample of 15 hot girls from a population of 130,000 hot girls. Of them, 2600 will also be brainy, and we draw 3 of these in our sample of 15. The contingency table looks like this:
_______Drawn___Not____Total
Smart____3_____2597____2600
Not_____12____127388__127400
Total____15____129985__130000
Plugging these numbers in, we find the probability of this event occuring is about 0.002584. To really round out a Fisher's Exact Test, we'd have to calculate the probability of all of the more extreme cases -- e.g., where there are 4 smarties, 5 smarties, up to all 15 smarties -- but it's clear that these will be small compared to probability we've already got. And since they're a pain to calculate, I won't do it. So let's say p is less than 0.003.
That's pretty rare. One explanation is that this is just a fluke -- unfortunately, the biographies for the models of the previous three seasons just mention their hometown, so I can't tell. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this pattern is fairly representative. The reason is that looks and IQ are not independent: smart, successful guys marry good-looking women, who may also be smart.
Here I suggested that there is greater assortative mating among hot-and-smart people "back East" compared to the Mountain Time Zone. This region is at least several generations behind the "rest of" the country, meaning the parts where power is concentrated, so it's only a matter of time before it happens here too. And sure enough, the three brainy models are from upstate New York, suburban Philadelphia, and western Massachusetts (where she went to the elite Deerfield Academy boarding school).
The econ degree is something of a red flag, but the other two studied psychology and art history -- very little chance that they're the get-outta-my-way girls who use their big brains to work on Wall Street or for Manhattan law firms. So what's not to love?
Update: A commenter raises the issue of affirmative action and whether these girls are really in the top 1%. As to the latter, think of a small liberal arts school with 5000 undergrads -- the top 1% is 50, and if they're uniform across classes, that makes about 12 or 13 per class. Wouldn't these girls make that cut? I think so, but I've re-done the calculation assuming they're only in the top 5% -- I don't think that's really debateable. It says you expect to have to sample 20 people at random to find a girl who's that attractive.
As for affirmative action, I don't think it's enough to make a difference. Both Blacks went to Tufts, which has an average SAT score of 1390, and so the average person there is between 2 and 3 SD above the pop mean. I used 2 as a lower-bound, but the average White student there is probably 135 or a bit more. Schools like Tufts get to snatch up the limited pool of high-IQ Blacks; once you get into U-Mich territory, where the average score is somewhere in the low 1300s, that's when the pool has been dried up by Harvard et al, and AA plays a larger role.
Let's assume, however, that the average Black student at Tufts has an IQ of 125, and ditto for the White girl who went to NYU. That's in the top 5% of IQ. To really get our priors straight, though, one of the Black girls is Jamaican, and they (and Caribbeans in general) tend to do much better academically than other African-Americans, so she may be on an equal footing with her White peers. The other girl majored in econ -- that's not something a dope can do, since it involves a lot of math and abstraction, so she too could be on par with her White peers.
But just to buffer against these criticisms, conservatively assume all three girls are just in the top 5% for both looks and IQ. Using the same procedure as before, we find that the probability of exactly this pattern showing up is about 0.03073, and adding in the other even smaller probabilities to fill out Fisher's Exact Test likely won't raise that above 0.05, the conventional cut-off for "unlikely." So the result stands as before.
If we assume that looks and IQ are sorting independently, we can figure this out as follows. There are about 13 million American females aged 18-25, of whom 130,000 are in the top 1% of the attractiveness distribution for their age group. Assume that the 15 models on the show are random draws from this pool of 130,000, at least with respect to IQ (no SAT scores needed to get on the show). Of the hot girls this age, 2600 will also be in the top 2% of the IQ distribution. (That's what you find at the level of Tufts, NYU, etc.)
Using the hypergeometric distribution, we have a sample of 15 hot girls from a population of 130,000 hot girls. Of them, 2600 will also be brainy, and we draw 3 of these in our sample of 15. The contingency table looks like this:
_______Drawn___Not____Total
Smart____3_____2597____2600
Not_____12____127388__127400
Total____15____129985__130000
Plugging these numbers in, we find the probability of this event occuring is about 0.002584. To really round out a Fisher's Exact Test, we'd have to calculate the probability of all of the more extreme cases -- e.g., where there are 4 smarties, 5 smarties, up to all 15 smarties -- but it's clear that these will be small compared to probability we've already got. And since they're a pain to calculate, I won't do it. So let's say p is less than 0.003.
That's pretty rare. One explanation is that this is just a fluke -- unfortunately, the biographies for the models of the previous three seasons just mention their hometown, so I can't tell. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this pattern is fairly representative. The reason is that looks and IQ are not independent: smart, successful guys marry good-looking women, who may also be smart.
Here I suggested that there is greater assortative mating among hot-and-smart people "back East" compared to the Mountain Time Zone. This region is at least several generations behind the "rest of" the country, meaning the parts where power is concentrated, so it's only a matter of time before it happens here too. And sure enough, the three brainy models are from upstate New York, suburban Philadelphia, and western Massachusetts (where she went to the elite Deerfield Academy boarding school).
The econ degree is something of a red flag, but the other two studied psychology and art history -- very little chance that they're the get-outta-my-way girls who use their big brains to work on Wall Street or for Manhattan law firms. So what's not to love?
Update: A commenter raises the issue of affirmative action and whether these girls are really in the top 1%. As to the latter, think of a small liberal arts school with 5000 undergrads -- the top 1% is 50, and if they're uniform across classes, that makes about 12 or 13 per class. Wouldn't these girls make that cut? I think so, but I've re-done the calculation assuming they're only in the top 5% -- I don't think that's really debateable. It says you expect to have to sample 20 people at random to find a girl who's that attractive.
As for affirmative action, I don't think it's enough to make a difference. Both Blacks went to Tufts, which has an average SAT score of 1390, and so the average person there is between 2 and 3 SD above the pop mean. I used 2 as a lower-bound, but the average White student there is probably 135 or a bit more. Schools like Tufts get to snatch up the limited pool of high-IQ Blacks; once you get into U-Mich territory, where the average score is somewhere in the low 1300s, that's when the pool has been dried up by Harvard et al, and AA plays a larger role.
Let's assume, however, that the average Black student at Tufts has an IQ of 125, and ditto for the White girl who went to NYU. That's in the top 5% of IQ. To really get our priors straight, though, one of the Black girls is Jamaican, and they (and Caribbeans in general) tend to do much better academically than other African-Americans, so she may be on an equal footing with her White peers. The other girl majored in econ -- that's not something a dope can do, since it involves a lot of math and abstraction, so she too could be on par with her White peers.
But just to buffer against these criticisms, conservatively assume all three girls are just in the top 5% for both looks and IQ. Using the same procedure as before, we find that the probability of exactly this pattern showing up is about 0.03073, and adding in the other even smaller probabilities to fill out Fisher's Exact Test likely won't raise that above 0.05, the conventional cut-off for "unlikely." So the result stands as before.
October 15, 2007
Mutating meme on "the best of..."
Tagged by an internet meme on evolution -- read about it at my tagger Sheril's blog here. I'm tardy in producing my mutants, but that just goes along with my late-bloomer life history. I'm going to delete and replace the first question, not having read any SF/Fantasy or time travel books.
1. The best feel-good symphony in Classical music is:
Beethoven's 7th. I used to blast this out of my car windows in areas where "fuck the system" conformists hang out. In Maryland, at Barnes and Noble -- not that the converse is true of course -- and here in the Mountains, just about anywhere, since skateboard dudes abound. What a perverse world, where Classical music has become against-the-grain!
2. The best scary movie in scientific dystopias is:
Alien. It's one of the few that doesn't involve some phoney-baloney about creeping totalitarianism. All those predictions were wrong: only the Third World saw totalitarianism, and First World never really came close, considering how many opportunities there were. The message of Alien -- that there are places where we'll be eaten up if we venture too far, especially if we try to colonize -- turned out to be right in just about every case where it was put to the test during the 20th century. Score another one for the "let's mind our own business" worldview.
3. The best cult novel in American fiction is:
Catcher in the Rye. Bear in mind, the comparison class here is "cult novels in American fiction," few of which I've read.
4. The best sexy song in pop is:
"I Got a Man" by Positive K. I generally don't like songs that try to be sexy. In this one, though, the guy doesn't end up getting the girl; it's more about the excitement of flirtation. Tension and repartee are sexier than confession and praise. As a big-time flirt (when I'm not focused on work, and assuming I know the girl), I miss rap songs like this. Plus, when was the last time rappers bothered writing rhymes like these? --
I don't tag anyone in particular. Guess I'm letting down The Race that way.
1. The best feel-good symphony in Classical music is:
Beethoven's 7th. I used to blast this out of my car windows in areas where "fuck the system" conformists hang out. In Maryland, at Barnes and Noble -- not that the converse is true of course -- and here in the Mountains, just about anywhere, since skateboard dudes abound. What a perverse world, where Classical music has become against-the-grain!
2. The best scary movie in scientific dystopias is:
Alien. It's one of the few that doesn't involve some phoney-baloney about creeping totalitarianism. All those predictions were wrong: only the Third World saw totalitarianism, and First World never really came close, considering how many opportunities there were. The message of Alien -- that there are places where we'll be eaten up if we venture too far, especially if we try to colonize -- turned out to be right in just about every case where it was put to the test during the 20th century. Score another one for the "let's mind our own business" worldview.
3. The best cult novel in American fiction is:
Catcher in the Rye. Bear in mind, the comparison class here is "cult novels in American fiction," few of which I've read.
4. The best sexy song in pop is:
"I Got a Man" by Positive K. I generally don't like songs that try to be sexy. In this one, though, the guy doesn't end up getting the girl; it's more about the excitement of flirtation. Tension and repartee are sexier than confession and praise. As a big-time flirt (when I'm not focused on work, and assuming I know the girl), I miss rap songs like this. Plus, when was the last time rappers bothered writing rhymes like these? --
I wanna turn you on and excite ya.
Let me know the spot on your body and I'll bite ya.
So when your man don't treat you like he used ta,
I kick in like a turbo-boosta.
You want lovin', you don't have to ask when.
Your man's a headache? I'll be your aspirin.
All confusions, you know I'll solve 'em.
"I got a man." -- You got a what?
How long you had that problem?
I don't tag anyone in particular. Guess I'm letting down The Race that way.
October 9, 2007
Sin, hypocrisy, and the blank slate: social convention is smarter than you are
The use of "hypocrisy" as "failing to live up to the standards that one preaches" has become very popular, probably because of its service in shutting down a debate on how things ought to be. For instance, someone might say to me:
Ah, but I write maybe two posts a week, and typically on the weekends when I have some time to waste. I know it would be better spent in other ways, but it's human nature to want some goof-off time. The point of that post was simply that reading Wikipedia, etc., is a form of sloth and should be minimized if you want to accomplish something. I'm sure non-nerds have their own ways of goofing off: debating who the best basketball player is, watching American Idol, and so on.
At bottom, "hypocrisy" just means preaching to others to behave one way while casting these rules aside in your own life. You claim to be egalitarian, and hector those who appear inegalitarian, yet you run an operation with a strict hierarchy. That's not merely succumbing to temptation during a weak moment -- it's something you go out of your way to do, consistently day-in and day-out, with no compunction afterwards. And it means you're full of it. There was a very interesting example of this recently when the Dean of Admissions at MIT turned out to be a complete phony, and like a true hypocrite her only remorse was over having been found out, not for lying about her educational background for decades -- all while going through applicants' claims with a fine-toothed comb!
So, the only way a big stink can be made over "not living up to one's standards" (aside from the duplicitious case mentioned above) is if the offender acted as if they were perfectable rather than inherently constrained by human flaws. In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker argues that the "fear of imperfectability" has been one of the driving forces behind the entrenchment of the tabula rasa view of human nature. * One casualty of the blank slate's ascendancy, then, is a belief in sin -- not in the sense of "doing wrong," since we clearly still have those ideas, but in the sense of in-born tendencies to stray from a good life. Now the only conceivable sin is not meeting the high standards you set for yourself, since it's taken for granted that you can become whatever you want if you put your mind to it.
It seems that a key development in furthering civilization along after the classical cultures was a progression in moral standards from merely not committing horrible felonies, such as those proscribed by the Ten Commandments, to avoiding the more subtle but more pervasive temptations catalogued in the Seven Deadly Sins -- and to veer in the proper direction by adhering to the Seven Virtues. Or something like that. Now, culture isn't the only way of achieving this progression, since personality traits like Conscientiousness are moderately heritable and thus apt to shift toward higher levels if the selection pressures are there. Indeed, Gregory Clark floats this idea in his new book on the Industrial Revolution, A Farewell to Alms. **
In the modern view, though, as long as you abide by some secular version of the Ten Commandments, then you're doing fine and no one can judge you. Outspoken atheists tend to deride things like the Ten Commandments as suitable only for the low-IQ, who require the fear of fire and brimstone in order to not behave like raping and pillaging barbarians. Almost all of the conventional wisdom accumulated over the past 1000 or so years, much of it codified in something like the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues, is lost on such people. "Consenting adults," "freedom of choice," "laissez-faire," etc.
But there is evidence almost anywhere you look that those for whom organized religion is important tend to be more virtuous and civicly engaged than atheists. Here is a review of the statistics on atheists vs. active-faith Americans in voter registration, volunteering for non-church groups, being active in the community, helping the homeless, and donating to non-church charities. Atheists do well, but the more religious still outscore them on all these measures. The fact that atheists do well on an absolute level shows that they are not outscored on account of lazy, apathetic members, who might differ from principled and philosophical atheists.
Recently Inductivist showed that those who attend church frequently were more likely to donate blood than those who never go to church. And here I reviewed a study that showed that, even among those with gifted IQs, the more religious scored higher on Conscientiousness as adults. Another interesting datum from the study on volunteering, etc., was that 12% of atheists but only 4% of Christians said that living a "comfortable, balanced lifestyle" was important to them. Naively assuming that this trait is normally distributed as personality traits are, this implies a difference between means of 0.58 standard deviations. If it were height, that would make the active-faith group about 1.7 inches "taller" on average. Also, going to church makes you dress in a dignified way at least one day of the week.
So, while acknowledging that these are overlapping distributions, the picture does suggest that there's a kernel of truth to the popular stereotype of atheists as smug, intellectual slugabeds who talk but don't do. And don't hold up a single counterexample, since that proves nothing. Think back, and average out all the atheists you've ever met, and all those who were religious (had faith, went to church, or whatever). Who's more likely to end up permanently working in a bike repair shop, indie record store, or used bookstore, thereby squandering their potential to accomplish something?
I'm not trying to single out atheists in particular, but just to provide one example of the result of the experimentalist attack on convention, as when someone demands, "Well, logically justify the Seven Virtues, and maybe I'll listen." Maybe the adherent to virtue isn't very bright or eloquent, and so can't do so. "Ha, then there's no basis for following them!" Well, except that they appear to work. The social realm is not like the Platonic world of mathematics or the laboratory of science -- blithely discarding manners and convention in the latter areas may be a good thing in some case, and if it's not, we'll quickly understand that and fix the problem. Math and science are stable in that way.
But the arts, humanities, and the social realm more broadly show the opposite pattern -- if they are disturbed, they will diverge away from where they were. Western artistic creation and criticism basically went extinct within three generations during the 20th century. Look how quickly we went from a world where men and women knew roughly how to relate to each other, to today's world where guys are so clueless that they can't figure out whether or not to pay for dates, let alone innumerable other cases in the relationship between the sexes.
So, the eventual burial of the blank slate worldview, the beginning of which I think we're starting to see, will hopefully bring back the idea that human nature tends toward sin, and that we should adopt customs that steer us away from those tendencies. None of this requires religious devotion, but in order to prove that, non-believers have to get over their scorn for following tradition. They usually qualify that phrase as "blindly" following tradition -- but it's no less thoughtless to abandon customs whose logic cannot be elucidated. How do you know they don't serve some beneficial function?
Evolutionarily minded atheists love to say that "evolution is smarter than you are" in response to people who are incredulous about the power of natural selection to adapt organisms to their environment genetically. That's true, but we could have that go in the opposite direction as well: social convention is smarter than you are to adapt people to their environment when human nature cannot be relied upon. That means convention wins in the short-term -- if human nature changes on a genetic level, and it can do so very quickly, only then is "another world possible."
* One implication he points out is that if man appears imperfect, that cannot be due to nature, and therefore must be due to defective social institutions which must be re-engineered to churn out better people. The first examples that come to mind are likely Soviet Russia and Maoist China, as well as similar re-education programs that continue to operate in the West: political correctness, affirmative action, and so on.
Still, most prominent conservatives -- meaning those with real power, those who staff think tanks, etc. -- are in favor of affirmative action, No Child Left Behind, massive illegal immigration, bringing democracy to Iraq, and other policies doomed to failure by not considering human nature. And many libertarians' faith in some Econ101 version of homo economicus is even more risible than Rousseau's belief in Natural Man, since at least the latter wasn't surrounded by counterevidence (he lived his whole life within a civilized society). These days, just about all of the elite are a bunch of clueless clods.
** In Andrew Hinde's demographic history of England, England's Population, he shows that the weight of the evidence suggests that stagnant population growth in Early Modern England (roughly 1500 to 1750) was not due to increased mortality but lower fertility. In particular, it looks like prudence became popular: during these hard times, the age at first marriage went from early 20s to mid-late 20s, celibacy increased from almost 0 to tens of percents, and marriage rates tracked real wages -- you got married when you could afford to form a family, and didn't if you couldn't. Now, they didn't have to have the conscious, explicit objective of being prudent, just as an extravert doesn't have to rationally calculate that they'll be better at sales than computer programming -- they'll figure out what works best.
"Well, for all your stern lecturing about doing something more productive than reading blogs or Wikipedia, here you are wasting time writing blog entries about Madonna's career, chock full of YouTube clips. Sorry, I don't take advice from hypocrites."
Ah, but I write maybe two posts a week, and typically on the weekends when I have some time to waste. I know it would be better spent in other ways, but it's human nature to want some goof-off time. The point of that post was simply that reading Wikipedia, etc., is a form of sloth and should be minimized if you want to accomplish something. I'm sure non-nerds have their own ways of goofing off: debating who the best basketball player is, watching American Idol, and so on.
At bottom, "hypocrisy" just means preaching to others to behave one way while casting these rules aside in your own life. You claim to be egalitarian, and hector those who appear inegalitarian, yet you run an operation with a strict hierarchy. That's not merely succumbing to temptation during a weak moment -- it's something you go out of your way to do, consistently day-in and day-out, with no compunction afterwards. And it means you're full of it. There was a very interesting example of this recently when the Dean of Admissions at MIT turned out to be a complete phony, and like a true hypocrite her only remorse was over having been found out, not for lying about her educational background for decades -- all while going through applicants' claims with a fine-toothed comb!
So, the only way a big stink can be made over "not living up to one's standards" (aside from the duplicitious case mentioned above) is if the offender acted as if they were perfectable rather than inherently constrained by human flaws. In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker argues that the "fear of imperfectability" has been one of the driving forces behind the entrenchment of the tabula rasa view of human nature. * One casualty of the blank slate's ascendancy, then, is a belief in sin -- not in the sense of "doing wrong," since we clearly still have those ideas, but in the sense of in-born tendencies to stray from a good life. Now the only conceivable sin is not meeting the high standards you set for yourself, since it's taken for granted that you can become whatever you want if you put your mind to it.
It seems that a key development in furthering civilization along after the classical cultures was a progression in moral standards from merely not committing horrible felonies, such as those proscribed by the Ten Commandments, to avoiding the more subtle but more pervasive temptations catalogued in the Seven Deadly Sins -- and to veer in the proper direction by adhering to the Seven Virtues. Or something like that. Now, culture isn't the only way of achieving this progression, since personality traits like Conscientiousness are moderately heritable and thus apt to shift toward higher levels if the selection pressures are there. Indeed, Gregory Clark floats this idea in his new book on the Industrial Revolution, A Farewell to Alms. **
In the modern view, though, as long as you abide by some secular version of the Ten Commandments, then you're doing fine and no one can judge you. Outspoken atheists tend to deride things like the Ten Commandments as suitable only for the low-IQ, who require the fear of fire and brimstone in order to not behave like raping and pillaging barbarians. Almost all of the conventional wisdom accumulated over the past 1000 or so years, much of it codified in something like the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues, is lost on such people. "Consenting adults," "freedom of choice," "laissez-faire," etc.
But there is evidence almost anywhere you look that those for whom organized religion is important tend to be more virtuous and civicly engaged than atheists. Here is a review of the statistics on atheists vs. active-faith Americans in voter registration, volunteering for non-church groups, being active in the community, helping the homeless, and donating to non-church charities. Atheists do well, but the more religious still outscore them on all these measures. The fact that atheists do well on an absolute level shows that they are not outscored on account of lazy, apathetic members, who might differ from principled and philosophical atheists.
Recently Inductivist showed that those who attend church frequently were more likely to donate blood than those who never go to church. And here I reviewed a study that showed that, even among those with gifted IQs, the more religious scored higher on Conscientiousness as adults. Another interesting datum from the study on volunteering, etc., was that 12% of atheists but only 4% of Christians said that living a "comfortable, balanced lifestyle" was important to them. Naively assuming that this trait is normally distributed as personality traits are, this implies a difference between means of 0.58 standard deviations. If it were height, that would make the active-faith group about 1.7 inches "taller" on average. Also, going to church makes you dress in a dignified way at least one day of the week.
So, while acknowledging that these are overlapping distributions, the picture does suggest that there's a kernel of truth to the popular stereotype of atheists as smug, intellectual slugabeds who talk but don't do. And don't hold up a single counterexample, since that proves nothing. Think back, and average out all the atheists you've ever met, and all those who were religious (had faith, went to church, or whatever). Who's more likely to end up permanently working in a bike repair shop, indie record store, or used bookstore, thereby squandering their potential to accomplish something?
I'm not trying to single out atheists in particular, but just to provide one example of the result of the experimentalist attack on convention, as when someone demands, "Well, logically justify the Seven Virtues, and maybe I'll listen." Maybe the adherent to virtue isn't very bright or eloquent, and so can't do so. "Ha, then there's no basis for following them!" Well, except that they appear to work. The social realm is not like the Platonic world of mathematics or the laboratory of science -- blithely discarding manners and convention in the latter areas may be a good thing in some case, and if it's not, we'll quickly understand that and fix the problem. Math and science are stable in that way.
But the arts, humanities, and the social realm more broadly show the opposite pattern -- if they are disturbed, they will diverge away from where they were. Western artistic creation and criticism basically went extinct within three generations during the 20th century. Look how quickly we went from a world where men and women knew roughly how to relate to each other, to today's world where guys are so clueless that they can't figure out whether or not to pay for dates, let alone innumerable other cases in the relationship between the sexes.
So, the eventual burial of the blank slate worldview, the beginning of which I think we're starting to see, will hopefully bring back the idea that human nature tends toward sin, and that we should adopt customs that steer us away from those tendencies. None of this requires religious devotion, but in order to prove that, non-believers have to get over their scorn for following tradition. They usually qualify that phrase as "blindly" following tradition -- but it's no less thoughtless to abandon customs whose logic cannot be elucidated. How do you know they don't serve some beneficial function?
Evolutionarily minded atheists love to say that "evolution is smarter than you are" in response to people who are incredulous about the power of natural selection to adapt organisms to their environment genetically. That's true, but we could have that go in the opposite direction as well: social convention is smarter than you are to adapt people to their environment when human nature cannot be relied upon. That means convention wins in the short-term -- if human nature changes on a genetic level, and it can do so very quickly, only then is "another world possible."
* One implication he points out is that if man appears imperfect, that cannot be due to nature, and therefore must be due to defective social institutions which must be re-engineered to churn out better people. The first examples that come to mind are likely Soviet Russia and Maoist China, as well as similar re-education programs that continue to operate in the West: political correctness, affirmative action, and so on.
Still, most prominent conservatives -- meaning those with real power, those who staff think tanks, etc. -- are in favor of affirmative action, No Child Left Behind, massive illegal immigration, bringing democracy to Iraq, and other policies doomed to failure by not considering human nature. And many libertarians' faith in some Econ101 version of homo economicus is even more risible than Rousseau's belief in Natural Man, since at least the latter wasn't surrounded by counterevidence (he lived his whole life within a civilized society). These days, just about all of the elite are a bunch of clueless clods.
** In Andrew Hinde's demographic history of England, England's Population, he shows that the weight of the evidence suggests that stagnant population growth in Early Modern England (roughly 1500 to 1750) was not due to increased mortality but lower fertility. In particular, it looks like prudence became popular: during these hard times, the age at first marriage went from early 20s to mid-late 20s, celibacy increased from almost 0 to tens of percents, and marriage rates tracked real wages -- you got married when you could afford to form a family, and didn't if you couldn't. Now, they didn't have to have the conscious, explicit objective of being prudent, just as an extravert doesn't have to rationally calculate that they'll be better at sales than computer programming -- they'll figure out what works best.
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