This research was in the field of evolutionary psychology, it was peer-reviewed, and the proof entirely statistical, so you know it has to be true. So say Michael Bang! Petersen, Daniel Sznycer, and a couple of others in the infallible journal Psychological Science (emphasis added; Petersen’s middle name really is Bang).
I can confirm the results. Your own author—who is a soaring six-feet two-inches, two hundred pounds of hardened sinew and pure corded steely muscle, a man who can crack a walnut by blinking and whose five-o’clock shadow appears before the toast grows cold—is among the manliest of the male sex and, as the research suggested, conservative as hell.
You can confirm it, too. Just look what non-conservatives have on offer: Chris Matthews, the pudgy effeminate who admitted to going tingly after peeking at Barack Obama’s pants crease (or whatever), the cadaverous Alan Colmes who has to be duct-tapped to his studio chair lest a strong breeze blow him off set. Jimmy Carter. Pretty boy George Clooney. The meekly, mousy, mugging Jon Stewart. Harry Reid? Please.
And then, besides me, who else do we find on the right? Clint Eastwood, baby. Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston, two dead guys who are still manlier than half the Senate. Bret Baier at Fox; what was he, a linebacker? Arnold Schwarzenegger is a registered Republican. The Geo. Bushes were fighter pilots. And just you take a poll in any major league locker room asking whether the mountainous occupants prefer more or less government.
According to the Daily Mail summary, docile, flat-chested males are “more likely to support the welfare state and wealth redistribution”. You bet they are. That can’t take on the larger challenges, so they plead to be given. And that’s fine, because two trademarks of conservatism are generosity and bigheartedness. We’re pleased to oblige.
That’s not me speaking, that’s science. Yes, this is the way we evolved on the African veldt. And therefore there’s nothing to do be done about it. The awesomeness differential is built into nature. Some of us will be big and mighty, others will listen to NPR and never learn what hockey is. This is the Way Things Are. This is tough luck for a lot of you, which might explain why those who can’t bench press their own weights are always going on about fairness.
Listen sugars: if you still believe in fairness at your age, your mother failed in her job. We all have our crosses to bear; it’s just that some of us are quieter about it than others. Which reveals another conservative principle: fortitude. That also spells manliness, which is now no surprise.
The paper is more nuanced than the summary given here, sometimes to the point of absurdity. But that’s because academics can’t resist lathering thick coatings of theory on everything they touch (some jargon about “asymmetric war of attrition” “theory”).
And they only distinguished conservativeness by attitude towards redistribution. That’s always a mistake because manly men (a.k.a. conservatives) are happy to give generously and with love to those truly in need. Yet both charitable duty and confiscatory taxation are called “redistribution.” Conservatives don’t want to give their money to pusillanimous politicians and bloodsucking bureaucrats who’d only use the proceeds to lavish gifts upon themselves and fund the breeding of more of their own kind.
I know a lot of progressives read this site. Never you fret, weaker brothers. We conservatives are here to protect you. The manliness of one conservative (the paper proves this) is more than enough for a passel of progressives. You come right over here and stand behind us and we’ll save you from those who would take by force what is rightfully yours.
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Thanks yet again to Al Perrella and K.A. Rodgers who alerted us to this topic.
Not the “Daily News” the “Daily Mail”. That Daily Mail whose web pages include what is called here the UK “the sidebar of shame” because you feel slightly dirty after reading it. Surely you could have found this in the Telegraph?
Rich,
Another typo placed by my enemies.
Story is everywhere. Try Reason.com, Science 2.0, and on and on.
Well, Reason.com had a link to the abstract which says:
Among men of lower socioeconomic status (SES), strength predicted increased support for redistribution; among men of higher SES, strength predicted increased opposition to redistribution.
So if attitudes to redistribution are reliable proxies for political leanings then surely they’re saying that strong but poor men are more likely liberals than conservatives?
Fortunately, real men don’t give a damn what evolutionary psychologists think.
Real men shave with chainsaws. In fact real men don’t even shave.
This post is too manly for me! ^_^
Is reading Daily Mail one of the qualifications for being manly?
But, I have to wonder where all us palid, scrawny-armed libertarians fit in. Could it be that there is some unknown factor ignored in this analysis? I suspect it is not merely powerful biceps, but also powerful brains involved.
And shaving, if at all, with a chainsaw.
I would have left out Arnie, who is a registered republican, but in actually is more a progressive. Actions count, not registered parties.
One would have thought that evolution would have, in the beginning, reduced the number of less-manly males. After all, the manly males would have had their hands full saving the women and children from roaming bands of saber-tooth tigers. The less manly would have been lost in the fray. Only as we became more “civilized” would the less-manly have flourished, protected by the manly who no longer were fully occupied protecting women and children.
Will I become more manly if I become a conservative?
RE: “Some of us will be big and mighty, others will listen to NPR and never learn what hockey is. This is the Way Things Are…”
I still play hockey…and there’s no shortage of liberals there….mostly found, it seems, as referees….and the whacky, physics-defying rule interpretations they concoct are often brilliant for brevity & insanity…
Those liberals gravitate to where they get to boss others around everywhere they can….it is the way things are….
Noblesse: Unknown. Perhaps you could try it and report back? (It may not happen overnight, so we’ll be patient.)
All pathetic men around here. Real men aren’t in the internets. Real men are out there hunting wolf packs with their bare hands. For instance, I’m not even here, I’m so manly that my computer even knows (by fear) what I am currently thinking and types this all out automatically… while I’m out there hunting wolfs. Because I’m manly.
Luis–Cool. Can you market the software that knows what you are thinking and post a picture of the wolf you successfully hunted? That would be really helpful!
I’m impressed! 🙂
The correlation is between biceps size and the preference for wealth redistribution. Being strong can mean having big biceps, but as anybody who has worked out knows, it is very easy to train the biceps in isolation. Maybe bicep size is a signal to other people: “look how strong I am”, and people automatially assume somebody with a big biceps is strong.
Cannot imagine that the sabertooth was impressed by a big biceps, though.
And a prediction: body builders are the most conservative of all people.
Rich,
Strong, poor, and believing in redistribution.
Around here, they call that “Strong-Arm Robbery.”
I’d like to do what Evan did – was he arrested?
I’ve always kinda guessed that my chest hair and other manly endowments were giving me political advice. Now I know!
BTW, I’ll leave this here:
“Chuck Norris was bitten by a snake. After 5 days of excruciating, unremitting pain the snake died.”
I wonder what peer-reviewed Science has to say about the political leanings of manly women, girly men, femme fatales, etc. There are so many directions for “future work” …
So does a man have a double mastectomy to prevent his dying from breast cancer? Or does he just die of shame from having breast cancer? Or do men all live in denial about their illnesses? Or just work through it drinking cider vinegar neat?
“real man” “real men” where appropriate …
Luis on 17 May 2013 at 7:24 am said:
Real men shave with chainsaws. In fact real men don’t even shave.
Of course real men shave. We do it to sharpen our chainsaws.
Man Cards all around.
officialmancard.com
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