This is part of a series on feminism and the decline of society. See this index.
Part 3 showed that a secular decline in general intelligence g (“Nature”) started with the Industrial Revolution.[1] For a time, increasing IQ from environmental changes (“Nurture”) prevented many negative effects from the decline in g. Then in the 1960s, feminism gave us the Sexual Revolution which unleashed sudden key and detrimental social changes (“Nurture”)—anti-Christianity, anti-patriarchy, rejection of excellence, and the dominance of bureaucracy (in part 4).[2][3a]
To establish sexual liberation, feminism had to throw off Christianity’s moral dominance over sexuality. Prior to the sexual revolution, Christianity had a huge moderating effect on group behavior. Research done on the 70s and 80s shows that advanced paternal age[4] is inversely correlated with religiosity. Advanced paternal age is opposed to religiosity because it is directly correlated with higher levels of de novo mutations and inversely correlated with higher g.[1a] However, no correlation was found in the 30s and 40s when cultural and societal pressures forced most to embrace Christianity—whether true believers or cultural Christians.[3b][3c] Christianity had been holding back the floodgate on effects from declining g and mutation accumulation.
Unfettered from Christianity, feminism was free to cause social chaos using the now-familiar tools: fornication and adultery, divorce, the child support model, abortion, contraception, anti-patriarchy, and women pursuing anti-maternal, career-focused lives.
The goal of this series has been to examine the potential causal role that feminism plays in society’s fundamental problems. Consider this claim:
“Feminism as a social movement is not coherent, until it’s appreciated as a consequence of late-stage capitalism, where most of the people in such an unfortunate society are hopelessly atomized, living as cogs in a giant machine they neither like nor understand. In context, feminism is a symptom, rather than a cause, of fundamental problems”
The series so far has largely been concerned with the genetic g decline (“Nature”), but the sexual revolution’s changes were highly social and environmental (“Nurture”). The rise of feminism was certainly influenced by declining g, but it seems implausible to treat feminism as merely a symptom. It is one principle cause. The combination of declining general intelligence and the rise in feminism are inextricably linked to fundamental problems.[4] The ‘cogs in a giant machine’ society—and failing capitalism—is a consequence of bureaucracy brought on by these factors.
The sexual revolution’s feminist goal was to destroy patriarchal systems, which it has done quite effectively. Feminist economist Victoria Bateman credits the destruction of patriarchy for modern economic prosperity.[5] By contrast, Gunner Q notes:
“The level of patriarchy`matriarchy used in a society is the most controlling factor in its overall success–reproductive, financial and otherwise. Systems that come close to God’s ideal, even if they do not acknowledge God, still get the patriarchal benefit.”
Both cannot be true.
Over thousands of years, patriarchal systems have utilized ‘mate guarding’—controls of female reproduction—to prevent cuckoldry.[6] One such example is the set of Christian sexual ethics and norms thrown off by the sexual revolution.
When men are confident that their wives are faithful, this creates male-to-male trust. In high trust societies, men spend less time guarding their mate, so more time can be spent on group cooperative activities—lowering conflict and violence and increasing economic output.[3d][6] Society—including Christian churches—is still in the process of noticing that we no longer have this high trust. MGTOW is one consequence of this.
High trust societies are also conducive to producing geniuses and innovations.[3d] By suppressing patriarchy, feminism has ensured—in the face of declining g—that these become even rarer. Research has found that religion and Victorian-like cultural sexual taboos promote greater creativity and accomplishments.[7][8] By rejecting Christianity and endorsing sexual excesses, feminism further decreases creative output.
Studying the fall of civilizations, societal collapse follows sexual excesses. High civilization leads to low stress, followed by rejection of religion, liberalized sexuality (including contraception), decreasing intelligence, and inevitable decline.[3e][8][9]
In asserting that the unequal are equal, feminism is fundamentally logically incoherent. Attempts to enforce equality of unequal things must necessarily involve the rejection of that which makes those things special. Excellent things like healthy marriages or boys getting top grades are threats to feminists. The ‘everyone gets a trophy’ mentality is the logical consequence.
At the same time, the growth of bureaucracy replaces truth and excellence with rules and procedures. When a bureaucratic drone is faced with a contradiction between their rules and procedures and some opposing but truthful fact, they will deny the truth and promote its opposite. Eventually society becomes unable to pursue truth, as expedient lies dominate.[10]
As a result of the sexual revolution, the incoherence of feminism, the growth of bureaucracy, and the rejection of Christianity combined with the decline in g, lead to the rejection of excellence and the promotion of mediocrity (or worse).
One example of this is the corruption of peer review. What should be a process that improves the quality of scientific research and conclusions does the opposite.[11][12][13] Rather than focus filtering out poor research, peer review is now used to filter out politically disfavored conclusions.[3f][14] The result is the loss of faith in scientific research:
Another example is the school system. For many years programs have been designed to give minorities (mostly blacks) additional supports. These were based on the notion that everyone is a blank slate and will have equal outcomes if given equal opportunities. Given that there are actually group differences (e.g. an average difference of 12-15 IQ points between blacks and whites) and that blankslatism is pseudoscience, this was doomed to failure. Rather than accept reality, the only remaining options were to apply standards unevenly and to lower the standards. Harvard applied standards unevenly by discriminating against high-IQ ‘white-adjacent’ Asians. The University of California is supporting dropping the SAT and ACT from admission requirements, effectively lowering admission standards.
A society that crushes excellence is a society that will be mediocre. As this series has shown, it is also a society that will experience inevitable decline.
In examining the sexual revolution, we’ve seen how sexual excesses and socially maladaptive behaviors (e.g. rejection of patriarchy; rejection of excellence) combined with declining general intelligence and increased bureaucracy. In part 6 of the series, we’ll examine how it all ties together and see where to go from here.
[1] Woodley, Michael A. (2014) “How fragile is our intellect? Estimating losses in general intelligence due to both selection and mutation accumulation.” Personality and Individual Differences vol 75 80-84. Oct. 2014, doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.047
[a] The age of parents (along with selection changes) account for a .84 points per decade loss in g.
[2] The relationship between the rise in feminism—including women’s suffrage—in the 1800s and early 1900s and the decline in g is unclear, but the 1960’s cultural changes were too fast to be purely genetic.
[3] YouTube Videos
[a] Charlton, B., Dutton, E. (2019) “Genius Famine and Albion Awakes” (censored)
[b] Dutton, E. Woodley, M. (2019), “The Rise of the Mutants” (censored)
[c] Dutton, E. (2019) “Why’s it so Difficult for Liberals and Conservatives to be Friends?”
[d] Dutton, E. (2019) “Why Civilizations Need Patriarchy and Feminism Destroys Them” (censored)
[e] Dutton, E. (2019) “Why Having Less Sex Might Save Civilization” (censored)
[f] Pierre de Tiremont interview of Michael A. Woodley of Menie (link). (censored)
[4] Feminism can be understood to be both symptom and cause. There is likely a synergistic effect between different causes, such that no cause is truly independent.
[5] Bateman, V. (2019). The Sex Factor. Polity Press.
[6] Mate Guarding: Grant, R. & Montrose, V.T. (2018). “It’s a Man’s World: Mate Guarding and the Evolution of Patriarchy” Mankind Quarterly, 58: 384-418.
[7] Kim, E. et al. (2013). “Sublimation, Culture and Creativity.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
[8] Unwin, J.D. (1934). Sex and Culture. https://archive.org/details/b20442580
[9] Cattell, R. (1938). “Some Changes in Social life in a Community With Fall Intelligence Quotient”
[10] Charles Murray (2003) “Human Accomplishment”
[11] Charlton, B. (2010) “The cancer of bureaucracy: How it will destroy science, medicine, education; and eventually everything else” Med Hypotheses, 74(6):961-5. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.11.038
[12] Charlton, B. (2013) “Not even trying: the corruption of real science”
[13] Anonymous (2018) “Against Peer Review” Free Northerner.
[14] Cofnas, N., Carl, N. & Woodley of Menie, “Does Activism in Social Science Explain Conservatives’ Distrust of Scientists?” M.A. Am Soc (2018) 49: 135.