Reactionary Consensus III: Sex Realism

Today, we get to talk about sex. No, not that kind of sex. In this, the third volume of a planned 10-part series, we’re going to look at the biological distinctions between male and female members of the human species, and how what everyone knows and sees with his (or her) own eyes, and how we ought to apply that knowledge, makes up a critical area of agreement in the Reactionary Consensus®.

In my previous installment, I took on the thorny and controversial issue of “Deep Heritage”, its nature, how it fits into human culture, and how far the agreement might go within the Consensus. In contrast, the issue of sex differences is among the least controversial topics to reactionaries of various stripes. That should make this installment a relatively short one.

Synopsis:

Differences between the sexes do not end at the neck, are principally biological determined, and therefore not largely socially determined. Recognizing sex differences plays a significant role in the development of humane culture which, on net, benefits all societies. Traditional sex roles are therefore intended by nature, or nature’s god, or both to foster the common good. Among the greatest of such goods is the rearing of psychologically and physically healthy children. Ignoring traditional sex roles and distinctions in public policy, or attempting to subvert or remove them, is at best foolish and almost certainly harmful to the common good, and thereby group adaptive fitness.

Proposition Σ₁—The Naturalness of Sex Differences:

Sexual dimorphism exists in almost all animal species, and certainly does in humans. This dimorphism extends not only to obvious physical differences in anatomy, average speed and strength, and hair growth, but also to the typical psychology of individuals, their interests, social tendencies, and brain reward circuitry. This is a hard, measurable, and well-documented fact of human biology. Anyone who tries to explain sex differences by invoking a chief cause of socially imposed “gender” norms, is trying to sell something that is quite far from the truth.

Probably no axiom of the Progressivist Religion is better refuted by science, common sense, and the everyday experience of normal human beings than that of Human Neurological Uniformity (HNU). Of course men and women are different! Of course men and women think differently! Of course this is because they are born that way. Consult any source to the right on the blogroll under the headings of “Manosphere” or “Womanosphere” for an almost daily dose of science coverage and common sense to confirm the obvious. If you don’t take their word for it, consult any work of literature composed in any language before 1950. Consult any TV show prior to 1970. Consult your grandmother.

While not all men are equally masculine, nor all women equally feminine, humans do not have gender. They have sex. Nouns, in Romance and other languages, have gender.

Proposition Σ₂—Real Sex Differences Imply Different Sex Roles:

Physical and psychological sex differences naturally lead to different roles, broadly speaking, for men and women in society.

There exist very tall women. Similarly there are some very short men. But in general, men are taller than women, and not even a Cathedralist gets his panties in a wad in acknowledging this. And men are also stronger, hairier, more aggressive, have better spatial reasoning, take more and greater risks, and have wider variances in most psychological attributes than women. None of which means you cannot occasionally find a very hairy woman.

Women are more sensitive, sociable, more caring, more adaptable to social changes, more socially disarming, have a better feel for people’s (men’s and women’s) emotional states, and have narrower variances in most psychological traits than men. None of this means you cannot occasionally find a man very much in tune with people’s emotional states. Although he might be gay.

Given these differences, will a man or a woman on average be more likely to

• be a schoolteacher?
• be a computer engineer?
• be a coal miner?
• be a nurse?
• be a trail-blazing visionary or die trying?
• be willing to go along to get along?
• be the sole bread-winner in stable two-parent home?
• be happy as a stay-at-home parent in the above home?

If you have trouble determining which of these are, statistically speaking, more likely to apply to men and women respectively, then the Cathedral has successfully removed an otherwise functioning part of your brain. Hopefully, you’ll be able to grow it back. But there is simply no point in arguing the question.

Given these differences across so many psychological and physical traits, is it surprising that a gap persists between the average wages of working men and women respectively? No. Does it mean that men, or society, or the institutions of society are sexist, i.e., irrationally biased against women? Again, No.

Proposition Σ₃—Real Sex Differences Mean Different Besetting Moral Traps for the Sexes:

Positive law, social institutions, moral codes, customs, and religions arise within cultures largely to guard against the unbridled sexual desires in both men and women.

Just as men and women are born with different strengths on average, they are also born with different propensities to do wrong—”sin”, or fall into “social pathology”. It is widely documented that men possess a disposition toward polygamy, the ability to be attracted to, and possibly care deeply for, multiple women at the same time. Women have an instinct toward hypergamy, the tendency to be attracted to and even wish to “trade up” to, a higher status man.

None of which is to say that these base, instinctual (“hind brain”) desires are unalloyed goods, or that they should necessarily be acted upon. In fact, a the entire development of traditional marriage, synonymous with patriarchy, is shown largely to be a palliative to these primal urges in Phillip Longman’s (must read, epoch-making) essay The Return of Patriarchy.

Nature alone, red in tooth and claw, does not by itself promote monogamy—the idea that nearly every man can find one wife with whom to procreate, and that nearly every woman can find one at or near her own status level from whom to procure a (public and enforceable) promise of support for their offspring. It took the development of culture, largely religious culture, to promote monogamy. And the cultures that promoted it best, pretty much took over the world. Whereas the cultures that promoted it least probably had a hard time inventing the wheel.

Without socially enforced monogamy, approximately 80% of women will be chasing approximately 20% of the highest ranking men. Never mind that this would ultimately work against most of these women’s own long-term self-interests, to say nothing of society’s own interests. In the long run, we’re all dead, right?

In a word, traditional marriage is civilization. (Well, that and the plow.)

So women are keepers of the sex, and men are keepers of the commitment. Why? Because for 99.999% of human history, up until just a few figurative seconds ago, having sex meant to risk pregnancy, and women bore a huge disparate impact from that pregnancy. In order to risk pregnancy, she needed an iron clad commitment from the sexing male that he would support her and their offspring for a long time. A man, a civilized man at rate, needed certainty that any child that he would support would bear his name and be, in fact, his biological offspring. Maternity is always certain, paternity, alas, is not.

Thus traditional marriage, or something very close to it, arose in virtually all civilized (technological and productive) societies. And it worked so well for so long that people have lately forgotten about it and are beginning to deem it purely optional or even recreational. That will not end well.

Proposition Σ₄—The Reality of Sex Differences Requires Traditional Marriage:

Traditional Marriage, i.e., Patriarchy, is the only proven widely effective “meme complex” for guarding against the excesses of sexual desire, which lead to massive social pathology and human misery.

High rates of divorce in a society is an almost certain sign of social breakdown and moral chaos. Dalrock has made a (blog) living out of documenting the raw statistics of divorce, its corrosive effects on culture, and the causes behind it. So I won’t go into the details here. Suffice it to say that it is self-evident to reactionaries, even among those who don’t go all in for the metaphysical underpinnings of the Christian religion, that something has gone horribly wrong with our culture. And civilization cannot long withstand the collapse of culture. The West is living on cultural capital borrowed from our forebears.

Conclusion
Upon what do the Christian Traditionalists, Ethno-Nationalists, Techno-Commercialists, and assorted conservative particularists of various stripes who make up The Reaction® agree regarding sex differences? First of all, that they are real and rooted in biology. Natural sex differences are not merely anatomical, but even more importantly, psychological. They therefore imply different tendencies, strengths, aptitudes, and weaknesses in the sexes respectively. Hence, no misogyny is required to account for radically different roles and outcomes for men and women.

The war, so-called, between the sexes ought never have gotten very far because of excessive fraternization with the enemy. But it got a lot farther than most people thought. Reactionaries agree that traditional marriage, with divorce difficult or impossible, ought to be upheld as an ideal for most to pursue as it promotes the common good, and thereby group adaptive fitness. They agree further that attempts by governments or mediating institutions to ignore or eliminate otherwise natural sex roles and outcomes are at best foolish, and almost certainly harmful to the common good.

[…continue to the next installment: Reactionary Consensus IV: Race Realism]