U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab has been forced out in a weird scandal involving “bullying” [Dominic Raab, U.K. Deputy Prime Minister, Resigns Amid Bullying Scandal, by Mark Landler and Stephen Castle, NYT, April 21, 2023]I just gave a bravura performance imitating his alleged behavior on my Jolly Heretic podcast to make a broader point: “bullying” is evolutionarily adaptive.
And it is found at least as often among a group that the conventional wisdom doesn’t admit exists: the Authoritarian Left
Thus in the U.S., Donald Trump notoriously called his 2016 GOP primary opponent Marco Rubio “Little Marco,” a crude jab at the senator from Florida. He called Jeb Bush “low-energy Jeb” and Sen. Ted Cruz “Lyin’ Ted.” But Orange Man Bad had nothing on the radical Leftists. Black Lives Matter mobs have repeatedly bullied al fresco diners into raising their fists in “solidarity” during the Floyd Hoax spasm of street violence. BLM activists bully whites into kneeling. Leftists on college campuses routinely intimidate, threaten, and suppress conservative speakers. All these bullies have something in common. Their behavior is part of human nature. It’s in our genes.
In 2012, the journal Aggressive Behavior published a fascinating study on the evolutionary dynamics of bullying by Brock University’s Professor Tony Volk and colleagues: Is Adolescent Bullying an Evolutionary Adaptation? [Volume 00, pages 1–17 (2012)]
It made for sobering reading. The study explained why bullying is so pervasive and why it cannot be stamped out, no matter how hard good-hearted people try. Last year, Volk and his colleagues reviewed their work and that of others during the subsequent 10 years. Their findings were confirmed: Bullying is adaptive and explained by evolution [Is Adolescent Bullying An Evolutionary Adaptation? A 10-Year Review, Educational Psychology Review, 2022].
Our review of the evidence published since our 2012 paper provides very consistent and strong support for the hypothesis that adolescent bullying is, at least in part, an evolutionary adaptation that is currently adaptive regarding at least five evolutionarily relevant functions (the Five “Rs”): Reputation, Resources, deteRrence, Recreation, and Reproduction.
The authors originally showed that bullying can be found among non-human animals, in all human societies and appears impossible to stamp out. Accordingly, the propensity to bully is an evolutionary adaptation, which means it is at least partly heritable—i.e., partly genetic—and must enhance wealth, social success, and reproduction.
2022’s review confirmed that finding:
[P]erhaps the strongest form of genetic evidence for bullying is behavioral genetic studies. These consistently report that genetic factors account for 60–70% of the variance associated with being a bully or a bully victim within Western samples…
Also last year, Volk and his colleagues cited a study that showed that bullying enhances the bully’s status and reputation:
[The study] found that high-status bullies maintained their status when continually bullying the same victims, but lost peer status when the bullying stopped. Further, there were clear status gains for a bully when targeting a new victim. … These results demonstrate a clear link between bullying and reputational status: sustained bullying conferred status; when the bullying stopped, status decreased; and when bullying was initiated, status increased.
And, importantly, the authors argued that “bullying is associated with multiple proxies for reproductive success,” that “research [links] bullying to motives related to reproductive goals” and is “a tactic to impress potential mates and/or denigrate potential competitors.”
The authors write:
Using data from three distinct British and Dutch cohorts, [researchers] found that people who bullied in their youth had more children in adulthood than their non-bully counterparts. This directly supports the hypothesis that bullying is currently an adaptive behavior.
Apparently, men who bully showcase qualities that are innately attractive to girls and women, including the following:
- physical prowess in bullying a weaker target;
- social skill by virtue of not being the outcast;
- wealth, by having the power to control more resources; and,
- intelligence, seen in verbal bullying by acerbic wit or ridicule.
Male bullying, of course, is more physical than female bullying. American psychologist Joyce Benenson has shown that women evolved to seek out a small group of potential alloparents—women who help them look after their children within a broader harem—and to strongly one-on-one bond with these helpmates in a relationship of supposed equality. A prehistoric woman who “stood out” and tried to get more attention from a dominant man was a threat [Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes, by Joyce Benenson, February 2014].
A personal story about women who bully: When I was in line to register as a doctoral student at Scotland’s Aberdeen University, I met a friendly and pretty Greek postgraduate. Quite a few Greeks seemed to be there, but anyway, a while later, I mentioned her to another Greek woman postgraduate who lived in the flat below mine. She was 28, somewhat older than the other Greek, and had a very big nose. She informed me that the woman whom I’d met in the queue was “easy.” On another occasion she referred to another student with whom I was also friendly and pretty, but overweight, as “the big girl.” That’s how women bully.
Psychologist Jordan Peterson explained it in an interview with an incredulous feminist:
People look at aggressive and antisocial behavior in women and in men. And in women it tends to take the expression of innuendo, gossip, and reputation destruction, and in men it tends to take the form of outright physical aggression. There’s a whole literature on that. It’s not a surprise to anyone. This has been known for 30 years. …
Women have to express aggression somehow. … They tend not to do it physically—not to the degree men do—so they use other channels.
Men or boys who bully each other attack the target’s “masculine” qualities that both sexes find attractive. Example: Donald Trump vs. his 2016 opponents. He strongly implied that his opponents weren’t masculine. Rubio, again, was “Little Marco” because he’s 5-feet-9.
Rubio retaliated. “You know what they say about men with small hands,” Rubio told a crowd of supporters. After a pause for the audience to draw its own conclusion, Rubio delivered this innocuous line: “You can’t trust ’em.”
Obvious implication: Trump has a small appendage. It was an obvious attack on Trump’s masculinity.
As for “low-energy Jeb,” Matthew Yglesias explained that “low-energy” didn’t mean Bush needed a double espresso to get through a debate:
But most men I’ve spoken to interpret Trump as alluding to Jeb’s virility, or lack thereof. Trump is suggesting that Jeb has “low T” or erectile dysfunction, or at a minimum lacks the outward projections of masculine vigor that society expects from a president.
[“Low-energy”: Donald Trump’s favorite diss on Jeb Bush, explained, Vox, September 4, 2015]
Journalists who argue that Trump’s father or negative experiences at his military school turned him into a bully, by the way, should keep Volk’s work in mind [Trump the ‘Bully’: How Childhood & Military School Shaped the Future President, by Patrice Taddonio, Frontline, September 22, 2020].
But let’s move to Leftist bullying:
- In 2021, Leftists bullied anyone who questioned the received wisdom on the Covid contagion for months.
- Antifa and Blacks Lives Matter bully or brutally attack anyone who opposes them. Example: heroic independent journalist Andy Ngo.
- Leftists drove Sen Ted Cruz and his wife out of a restaurant in 2018 because he supported then U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh [Ted Cruz, wife chased out of D.C. restaurant by anti-Kavanaugh protesters, by Adam Edelman, NBC News, September 25, 2018].
- Spoiled Leftist rich kids earn their daily bread by doxing their political opponents.
- Whites not wanting to be vilified, including cops and FBI agents, are made to kneel and grovel before blacks to “apologize” for slavery and other putative injustices.
- U. S. Representative Maxine Water and a mob bullied the jury into convicting Derek Chauvin for “murdering” George Floyd, who died of a fentanyl overdose.
- Leftists recently bullied Ann Coulter off the stage at her alma mater, Cornell University.
Bullying today goes beyond what some experience in high school from the handsome jocks or fetching cheerleaders. Now it’s become political, and particularly vicious.
If times worsen economically, and as the 2024 presidential election approaches, expect the Left to intensify its bullying to marginalize Trump supporters and anyone else it considers an enemy.
But just remember, no matter who the bully is, it’s probably in his genes.
We just have to deal with it.
Edward Dutton (email him | Tweet him) is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Asbiro University, Łódź, Poland. You can see him on his Jolly Heretic video channels on YouTube and Bitchute. His books are available on his home page here.
Mr. Dutton’s article grasps the situation, but misses the point.
Bullying Is Adaptive Evolutionary Behavior.
All human behavior is adaptive!
The question is whether or not a particular mode of adaptation is itself adaptive.
Meaning, it might be adaptive to us, but not to the world we live in, which includes other people.
All modes of adaptation are necessarily maladaptations. If they weren’t then perfect adaptation for humans would be possible. But it isn’t. Although it’s the fantasy of the weak-minded. Which is why they’re always so dangerous whenever they get into positions of power. Like they are now.
Also, and related to the above, there’s the historical element (implied in the very word evolution).
Whatever keeps us alive at one point in human history can destroy us at another. For that reason we develop counter-adaptations. Violent aggression, which is what bullying is all about, might be evolutionarily selected up to a certain point. But that point is soon reached, requiring a counter-adaptation. And what is the counter-adpatation to the use of force?
Civilization! Which is the circumnavigation of the use of force. And now we’re back to why the weak-minded now in power are so dangerous. Because their bullying is maladaptive and therefore an actual existential threat to human survival.
Their attempt to impose a social order that is free of control and sustained by force – bullying – has only increased the uncontrolled exercise of naked power. And it’s that force – constantly applied – that undermines the very social institutions their power now controls. And when force fails there’s no alternative. Hence the need for civlization, the counter-adaptation to the use of force, ie; bullying.
no matter who the bully is, it’s probably in his genes.
The key word here is probably. So he doesn’t know for sure. And there’s a reason why.
Genetically controlled behavior is differentiated from learned behavior, ie; Culture.
Since any attempt to distinguish genetically controlled behavior must depend upon the subtraction of learned behavior, such subtraction being itself cultural behavior, we can know nothing definite about genetically controlled behavior.
Put bluntly, there is no stability, nor can there be, in determinations of what we might refer to as genetically controlled behavior. That’s why our knowledge of genetics, itself a cultural product, has exploded in the last 100 years or more. But as long as we’re in to talking about genetics. Here’s a question or two for Mr. Dutton and his readers: What is the primary attribute of the human brain? And what is that attribute’s relation to human culture?
We just have to deal with it.
Really? Resignation as a mode of adaptation? Doesn’t sound very promising, or adaptive. That’s something Nietzsche might have referred to as the slave’s reaction. In any event, I disagree.
We don’t have to just deal with it. We have to respond to it. That is, if we want to stay alive. And our response to bullying, or any kind of force, whatever that response might be, will also qualify as a mode of adaptation. The readiness is all.
adolescent bullying = government
There would be no gov’t without adolescent bullying.
Fighting and Fucking are the name of the game.
Murder Is Adaptive Evolutionary Behavior. The Left Is As Involved As Anyone. Legalize Homicide.
Although bullying may be found everywhere, there is a strong cultural component. Several years ago, there was a survey of bullying rates by nation (using self-reporting of being bullied). The “winner” was Ireland. Those of us familiar with the irascible and combative nature of Irishman were not surprised.
So, this is what happens when you disparage logic because you confuse university philosophasters with philosophers.
Trump using playground insults in a democratic election is not ‘bullying’ for the simple reason it’s not cowardly. Declasse maybe, but nobody is going to gang up on Trump’s opponents if they, you know, return fire. Indeed, quite the contrary.
The stereotypal bully punches the nerd, with two of his friends standing by to help if the nerd does anything to fight back. The bully refuses to fight one on one. Alternatively he picks on smaller kids from lower grades. Bullies attack the weak because they are weak. The fact this may be reproductively useful means social status is inherently dysgenic, not that bullying is adaptive.
Hey guess what else leads to greater reproductive success: rape.
Are you pro-rape, Dutton? Bite that bullet. No really, I want you to.
You know who is really especially vulnerable to being ganged up on? Women.
You really didn’t think this through, did you?
—
I was both, by the way. Transitioned from the entire class and the teacher ganging up on me, to being untouchable due to being defended by random bystanders. Accidentally and for free recruited everyone my age as bodyguards, oops.
Whatever I did, it’s clearly far more reproductively useful than bullying. The only folk I ever attacked were folk who attacked me first, and trust me on this, these attacks were never cowardly.
Handsome jocks don’t bully. It’s the downmarket, insecure part of the middle class that bullies. You need enough power to win the fight, so the lowest can’t bully. The bully thinks they don’t have enough power. As such, bullying (again, not what Trump did) is an admission of inferiority. They don’t think they are good enough, and they are usually right.
“Lobsters do it” is an argument against the behaviour, not in favour. Do try to rise above oversized insects when choosing behaviour.
Supporting bullies is dysgenic.
Universal morality is a contradiction in terms, but something can be salvaged: there is a tension between the long-term and the short-term.
Bullying has short-term, narrow-scope benefits, with long-term detriments and wide-scope sociological damage.
The prisoner’s dilemma is secretly the fundamental theorem of sociology. There are cooperators, and there are defectors. The rule, therefore, is to defect on defectors. Bullies are traitors to the social group, not cooperators.
When a coward starts attacking someone who is minding their own business that is the time to bully. Bullying bullies is highly prosocial.
Indeed, arguably one should heed Machiavelli’s dictum. Do no small harm. Step 1: politely explain to the bully that they are being an idiot and should stop. If that doesn’t work, step 2: execution. If they are not just kinda confused, they are junior criminals and you can save everyone a lot of trouble if they just don’t grow up to senior criminals.
Naturally they will resist execution, but they’re not cooperators, so it’s fine to gang up on them. Indeed it’s practically your duty.
Bullying is zoo behaviour. It’s something animals do when they’re confined in tiny pens and overstressed. If you didn’t have Prussian school there would be almost no bullying. There would be no chance of a researcher confusing it with Darwinian success, because only near-total losers would try it.
Children who are accepted and have a role in their community have better things to do. I always imagine learning to forge for some reason. If you’re practising hammering out nails, in other words if you have business of your own to mind, you don’t have time to worry about doing petit highwayman behaviour on random acquaintances.
Bullies do not understand “politeness”. Bullies need to be beaten to within an inch of their lives. Force is the only thing a bully understands.
The sad part is that many bullies choose occupations in “law enforcement”–not a good thing. They perpetuate their attitude towards those they are supposed to be serving.
Your assertion: “Handsome jocks don’t bully.” is incorrect.
In fact, jocks are more likely to get away with behavior that would land an ordinary non-jock student in detention or worse.
A number of years ago football jocks from an Amarillo Texas high school tormented and eventually murdered a “goth” kid. This youth was harassed without end (for being “different”), while school officials turned a blind eye to what was going on.
These jocks (football heroes?) ended up murdering this youth by running him over with a car. The “goth” kid was from “the poor side of the tracks” while the jocks were all relatively wealthy whose parents were “pillars of the community”.
When the case came to trial, the jocks were acquitted. You see, the “big football championship” was scheduled for the following week, and the jurors felt that their players would be needed on the field, rather than incarcerated (where they really belonged).
The good side of this story is that the ringleader of the jocks was eventually prosecuted for other crimes, committed a few years after the murder.
Quite often, school officials “look the other way” while their “sports heroes” get away with behavior that those of lesser status would be brought to task for.
Best regards,
Evolution, lol. Retarded theory.
Best way to respond to bullying or threats is with better threats, sometimes physical threats are required…and you don’t need to speak them if they’re implicit in your behavior….
And then the teacher responds to your deterrent by protecting the bully from the consequences of their behaviour. Because ‘zero tolerance,’ lol.
Bullies would have nothing if teachers didn’t have their back. Which is another way of saying that Trump can’t possibly be a bully.
This is to teach you how cops will react to you defending yourself from a criminal.
Which is how you can be 100% sure that any non-confused bully is nothing but a junior criminal.
I think Dutton offended his genius and she quit.
Anyway, don’t send your kids to school. Like wtf, how much do you hate your kids.
Let’s be frank, this is the reason that the Jews are absolutely determined to have integration of white gentiles with blacks, albeit with a virtual exemption for their own children.
White boys are slower to maturity than negro “teenagers.” Moreover, white boys are generally socialized for a law-abiding society, whereas negroes are continually engaged in physical jockeying for dominance. It is intrinsically an unfair contest for the white child, like putting a baby in a pen with an infant wild animal in the name of equality. Bullying is indeed a very negative thing, it is not merely a struggle for dominance or competition that sometimes becomes hostile and fractious. It is not mere intolerance of a socially unacceptable pose or behavior. Bullying does not depend on any objective criteria of the person being bullied, but they are told otherwise. When an outsider like a scholarship boy is brought into a group of young brats in a public school or an intellectual boy is forced into low company and denied the opportunity to advance in learning at a rate commensurate with his ability, this is the social group as a whole, not just the aggressive and mean-spirited boys, engaged in bullying. It is well understood that the “outsider” will be subjected to aggression and this is done intentionally, to put him in his place, so that he will not speak his mind as an adult, so his better qualities will not yield an advantage in the social group in which his reputation is pre-emptively assaulted and often permanently damaged. Moreover there is often little the victim can do in this situation. His situation has been pre-determined by the pre-existing social hierarchy. This is indeed the reason for the masonic inspired coeducation system in high schools. The intention is demoralization, to “crush those in the egg”, basically, the intention is to lower the status of the Christians to permit the continued domination of the freemasons.
They wished to forbid parochial schools and to ban homeschooling when possible, for this reason. A Jew such as Disraeli would be “bounced in and out of second-rate schools, and got most of his education at home” – the gentiles have been ingrained with the conviction or unthinking practice (like circumcision in America!) that this is just wrong, that the kids doing everything “rebellious” (except offending against liberal orthodoxy) in school must be allowed to enforce their dominance cruelly and with demoralizing effect. Education of the intelligent children must suffer for the benefit of the brats. The mixing of negroes among the lower class whites is simply to amplify this effect to the point of complete ruin of white school children.
At any rate, I hope people tell their children, that social dominance is not about your merit. It may be true that a person with special talents, merits or social adroitness can avoid being targeted. But this does not mean that it is a natural or normal part of learning to be subjected to a hostile, alien social hierarchy (the Anti-Christian power in society) immediately branding your child, no matter his gifts, as a lesser being meant for abuse. The abuse will usually come, the abuse is encouraged by the families of the abusers, the abuse is nearly always defended and justified by those in authority, and the abuse is intended to cause permanent harm. No good parent will ever tolerate this.
The only reason they have managed to progress from the rather disciplined, sexually segregated classroom to coeducation, racial integration and now indoctrination in sex perversion ideology in the schools, is that the parents have been taught to defer without question to to the judeo-masonic / socialist Anti-Christian authorities who are entrenched in a school system they created. School taxes can be voted for, and the school board is your landlord who can seize your property if you don’t pay! But they can’t be repealed. They can’t be overturned. You work for them, and let’s be perfectly clear, they ALL believe parents SHOULD NOT control the schools. The Natural Law doctrine that the father of the family has the right to decide the education of his children is fervently rejected by these enemies of the human race.
Excellent defence of the NPC factories.
The Regime thanks you for your submission.