Yeah, so there's this interesting phenomena that is very characteristic of
societies, I believe pretty much everywhere it is being studied. Now,
you can calculate an index called the Gini Coefficient, and the Gini Coefficient is a number that represents
How much inequality of income distribution there is in a given
geographical area. So, you could calculate a gini coefficient for a street, or
an area in the city, or a city, or a state, or a country. You can do it at all those levels, and
what you find is --you always hear this idea that poverty causes crime:
that's a classic left-wing idea-- but it's wrong. It's seriously wrong, and it's importantly wrong, and it's
definitively wrong not only that. So there's no argument about this, it's already been established.
What causes crime -especially aggressive crime- is relative poverty.
Relative poverty is not the same thing as Poverty, at all;
It's seriously not the same thing. Poverty is when you don't have enough to eat
Relative poverty is when the guy next door has a much better car than you.
So, there's lots of relative poverty in the United States, and there's some absolute poverty; but even the absolute poverty in the United States
is nothing like the absolute poverty in places like India or in sub-Saharan Africa, where absolute poverty means you have nothing.
Now, what's really interesting about the Gini Coefficient, Is that
If you go to places where everyone -roughly speaking- is
poor, by National standards, (I think South Dakota was often used as an example or maybe one of the maritime provinces
like Newfoundland where there's low average income, but it's pretty flat distribution)
there's almost no crime, and
if you go to places where the everyone's rich
then there's almost no crime; but if you go places where there are poor people,
moderately well-off people, and rich people
and the distribution is really steep-- then, the rate of aggressive behavior among young men
usually within their own ethnic group, starts to skyrocket
out of control. The reason for that seems to be- that if the dominance hierarchy is too steep, then the young men have no
likelihood of climbing to a dominant position
while playing the standard social game. So what they do is turn to aggression,
to make their mark on the world, and it works, [too].
[That's the other thing is that] make no mistake about it:
if you're if you're looking for status in a place where status is hard to achieve, and you're the meanest, toughest guy around; [then] and
you know, around a bunch of people [who] like you don't have much money; then, you're going to benefit from that status. It works. --- Yeah?
Audience: Would that be [uh]
part of the reason why... cause I know I think that the violent crime rate in the U.S. Is higher than [it is] in Canada
Would that be part of the reason why?
JBP: Sure.
Sure, yeah
I mean, you can make a real, conservative argument [for making sure] that [you know] the conservatives are very anti income distribution,
and we figure that's because of the guys that have this male independence you know they identify [with] this male independence factor.
They don't want to be distributing resources to people who are down the dominance hierarchy, because they want they want them down in the dominance
hierarchy! They want there to be a difference
between the people on top,
and the people on the bottom so [that] they can be the people on top; [so] that it increases their relative attractiveness.
[like] It's a perfectly logical game;
and they presume that "well, the rules are set up and like
every man can go for it do its best in the winner wins and the loser loses;
and that's just how it is; and don't ask me to fix it because I don't want to."
You know? "and besides, that it's I don't find it
I find it distasteful to attempt to fix it more than that," [right?]. Because it's a moral issue, it's not just an
intellectual issue.
so
So you can make a case--
However, you can make a case from the conservative point of view -- especially with regards to beliefs in religious traditionalism and the desire to
maintain social stability-- that you shouldn't let income
distribution become too unequal,
[like] One of the big things your society has to do is to make sure that that doesn't get out of hand [because it tends
To get out of hand] It tends towards a few people having everything, and almost everyone else having nothing.
It's a natural... in a sense, it's a natural consequence of economic
progression, which is actually something that Marx pointed out although an Italian named Pareto had figured it out at
Approximately the same time and I think with a lot more
conceptual clarity; but, the more unequal you let your society get, the higher the probability of death
Roughly speaking through violent causes; and [you know]
I'll tell you why is that
Men want to climb the dominance hierarchy, and the reason they want to climb the dominance hierarchy is because that's how they get access to women.
Audience: [societies] actually [have] [earlier] in this [discussion] you talking both
familiar and the unfamiliar and
the structure:
[So] It seems like we all want to live within the structure, but we don't want the rules to apply to ourselves.
Well, we have this contradictory problem:
We want to be protected by the structure, but we want to advance our position within it; [and so] that means
What that should mean and this is [I think] the definition of civilized behavior, [is that]
You are allowed to advance your position within the structure, as long as you don't disrupt it negatively. [you know]
And I think most people do do that. In fact,
I think people in civilized countries do that so effectively that it's an absolute incomprehensible
miracle. I can't understand how or why I never got established.
But [someone like] a psychopath will climb the ladder and cut the rungs off underneath,
fundamentally. [right?] It's like he doesn't care. He doesn't even care if the damn thing maintains itself,
You know, he's perfectly willing to have it destroyed after he's exhausted it.
you know
but if everyone acted like that -or even if a fairly substantial
percentage of people acted like that- the whole thing would come to a halt, in no time flat.
so so i mean
Why?
See. you might. here
Here's the reasons, likely:
You know because, one of the things we were talking about was
masculine violence. Now, the thing about
masculine violence, is [that] it only tends to emerge in situations where there doesn't ...
where there don't seem to be any
other
reasonably viable means of advancing
status.
So it's not reasonable to say that men are aggressive. You [can] say that, on average, men are more aggressive than women; and
you can also say that if you put men in a situation where they have no...
Where they can see status differences,
but they have no means of moving forward,
that they're likely to turn to aggression as a way of establishing dominance.
and then you can say that that's... the reason for that is [because] it makes them more attractive
- the fundamental reason yeah?
Audience: Oh yeah, I'd just like to add on, I read this article [once] that talked about how polygamous societies are more violent.
JBP: Yeah, absolutely.
Audience: [just] The reason: If one guy has two wives, than there is
fifty percent of the population that has no wife - JBP: that's right -
Audience: no access to [them]. JBP: Yeah, that's exactly right
the Evolutionary psychology explanation
for the Pathology of polygamy is that: if, once you let it establish itself, then the men get ultraviolent.
Audience: So would you say that normally there would [always] be a basis for ...?
JBP: Many people have said that [and] yes, I think you can make a strong case for that
And I [think] the fundamental reason is the one that you [just] pointed out.
the idea is -- well
"Would you rather have one woman,
or die?"
You know, or, and --sorry that's not quite right-- "Would you rather" [no] That's not quite
that's not quite right...
"Would you it's more like would you be willing to limit yourself to one partner,
or have a shot at many partners, but a much higher probability of dying?
[yeah], right. [and you know]
some guys will take that they'll take that the high risk approach
So, now, it just doesn't eliminate the difference in
Individual differences in determining who's going to be aggressive, because
what will happen is that as the Gini Coefficient pressure rises,
The more aggressive men
-the men who are more aggressive by [their] nature-
will get more aggressive, [and do so] first.
right so you can imagine, it's a threshold phenomena to some sense.
so [and] what I should tell you as well is the
relationship between the Gini Coefficient and Male-on-male homicide
isn't like 0.2 or 0.3
Which is about the correlation that you get if you were predicting
something like that using personality.
It's like 0.8 or 0.9
[It's like] it eats up all of it. It's The explanation.
So it's a huge effect.
It's so it's so big an effect, that you can basically say,
"Oh well, we figured that out."
Although psychologists never know when they figured anything out,
and they keep endlessly
retesting it over and over and over.
Because we don't know how to bring our science to a stop.
but if you don't accept the Gini Coefficient aggression data
It's like you might as well throw the rest of social sciences out the window because the effect is -- unbelievably powerful.
Audience: What geographical area does this take place in?
[it] depends-
You can do it at any level of analysis.
You can do it,
you can do it by County, you can do it by City
You can do it by state, and you can do it by country.
[and] it works on all of those levels
Audience:Like it predicts agression [all over...]?
JBP: You bet yeah, yeah, and [that's] a great question. [I] mean
the methodologically sophisticated studies have done exactly that.
To ensure that it's actually this phenomena -- rather than other factors that might be operative in that particular geographical area.
Countries with a higher Gini Coefficient are more violent.
and Cities within that country [that] have a
higher than average gini coefficient for that country are more violent on average.
It's a very very robust
robust robust finding. so
all [right], so
We're going to say for the sake of argument, that
you've got the male dominance hierarchy and it's represented as
Masculine now one of the things Jung said: he thought that women carried an image of Man
in their unconscious
And he thought that the image that
Women carried of men in their unconscious was a
group of men not an individual man.
He called that the "animus"
whereas he believed that the image that women
Image of women that men carry in their collective unconscious
was of a single woman,
and he called that the anima