Some books go to great lengths to explain their mechanisms because they are inherently complex. Whether mathematics, philosophy, or theology, they all build and build up to their main point, their ultimate conclusion. This book is not like that.
To grasp the content of this book, you need only understand that there are two sexual reproductive methods that are tailored to either a resource glut or shortage, r and K, respectively.
Rabbits are a representative of "r", as they are finely tuned for consuming resources and reproducing but little else, because a single rabbit will not be capable of depleting resources, nor would it be capable of doing more than run from a predator.
Wolves are a representative of "K", as they must hunt and kill to survive, so from their raising as a pup, their existence requires more effort because resources are not just made available, they are made available by the skill and ruthlessness of the individual.
Liberals are like rabbits, always behaving as if resources are just laying around, so they are anti-competitive and seek to eliminate means by which the capability of the individual affects the resources they have access to, because if resources are relatively unlimited competition is counter-productive.
Conservatives on the other hand behave as if resources are limited and require effort to obtain, so access to them must be guarded by competition, and means by which an individual distinguishes themselves in regards to their ability are a necessity, not a vice.
So, after the initial explanation of the concept, the vast majority of the book then presents the evidence from different scientific angles to explain how such a simple distinction accurately aligns with and provides strong predictive capacity for the results of tests, studies, and research into human behavior.
The claim seems too simple to be true, but by the end of the book you will have been given a very wide variety of examples of how this simple rubric can manifest in unexpected ways.
On gun control, liberals will be for it, as guns provide a means for an individual to get access to and control more resources.
On the death penalty, liberals will be against it, because it punishes an individuals behavior which shouldn't matter in the first place.
On welfare and entitlements, conservatives will be against it, because it blindly gives resources to those who may or may not lack the skills and ability to provide for themselves.
On charity, conservatives will be for it, because supporting those with whom they have an existing relationship means that the "pack" as a whole will be stronger both in the bonds of loyalty and in ability to secure resources into the future.
The basic mindset which serves as the foundation of the behavior that an individual will build on, never really gets more complicated than that, but the manner of manifestation does increase in complexity as the circumstances themselves become more complex, and that is where the supporting data after the initial claims help to provide the details to understand just how the two psychologies manifest and why they did so in that particular way in that particular circumstance.
This will be the kind of book that flips on a switch which cannot ever be flipped off. Once you start to recognize how the adaptation to resource surplus or shortage influences the behavior of people, you won't be able to stop seeing it. In every news story, in the dynamics of office politics, in the relationships you have with people at your church, in the investment advice your financial advisor gives you, all of them are, to some degree or another, influenced by whether the individual believes themselves to exist in an environment of resource excess or restriction.
Why, then, would anyone want to always be seeing things in these terms?
Because reality favors K-selection.
Our material existence is, despite advances in technology, always suffering under the effects of entropy. No matter how hard we try, we are always only delaying the inevitable, not avoiding it completely. Even the most "harmful" plastics to the environment will, on a long enough timeline, decay away.
The civilizational developments to try and push back on entropy have all occurred because of K-selective behaviors. When we promote the smartest engineers, support the smartest scientists, and encourage the brightest students, we are investing in the individual and recognizing that their skill and ability should be rewarded with access to resources. This ensures the continued refinement of behavior, the constant push to always be trying harder to develop the next cure, the next building, or even to create the next beautiful piece of art.
The antithesis in r merely promotes behavior which grants access to resources to persist in existence and leaving the actual survival of the species to chance. Were liberals actual rabbits, they would succeed quite well for a while due to rampant promiscuity, and in our modern world, the only things which have averted that outcome are the prevalence of birth control, abortion, and the social preferences toward alternative sexualities. These have all come about so quickly that the method hasn't adapted to them, and the proponents of them do not realize how this actually hurts their reproductive strategy instead of supporting it, but then again, lacking individual quality, they literally may not even understand that to be the case until it is "too late".
K-types will be prepared to deal with struggle, where r-types will deny it is even a possibility.
Which do you think will be better able to survive the struggles that we now face socially, economically, internationally?
The concept is simple. The variations in how the manifestation occurs can be complex. The evidences of the mechanisms at work are everywhere. Get this book, read it, and start to better understand why people behave in just the way they do.
The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics at Amazon
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