regality forum

I stumbled on Warlike and Peaceful Societies yesterday and am captivated by it. Really enjoying Agner's straightforward style.

What is a group? Is it a strictly regal concept? Are groups distinct only to the extent that they are in conflict? I started thinking that maybe it is conflict that makes groups; not that groups make conflict. But, that doesn't explain the existence of groups based on homophily and casual social interaction: dancing and hiking clubs for instance.

What is the difference between a group and a coalition? Coalitions are common in conflict, but lack a leader.

It seems that an individual exists at the intersection of many groups: workplace, church, sports club, immigrant community, town, region, and country. Is regalization universal across all these contexts, or might an individual feel a kungic pull in one, but a regal pull in another? For example, if my apartment block were set to be demolished by the town, it's likely that I would band together with my neighbors in regal fashion against the town. But, I'm not sure that would bleed over into the other groups in which I am a member. Is it possible to look at an individual and detect a regal or kungic tendency, or is that characteristic defined only on a group?

That's some very relevant questions.

The psychological response mechanism behind regality evolved in prehistory by territorial conflicts between tribes or bands, according to my theory. So originally, a group was a tribe or band that monopolized a common territory. Today, it is typically a nation. But it can also be a religious or ethnic minority within a country. If there is animosity and fear between the minority group and the majority, then the conflict can lead to regalization of both the minority and the majority. We are often seeing such conflicts today.

A group is not a regal concept, but a conflict is likely to strengthen the feeling of group identity and cohesion. A conflict can even lead to the invention of a new identity to define the threatened group. In my book, I am mentioning the example of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Before the conflict started (in 1947), the inhabitants of present Palestine were likely to identify as Jordanians or Arabs, while ‘Palestinian’ was a less important identity.

The same may apply to some extent to other social groups. A workplace? Yes, if the workplace and the livelihood of all the workers is threatened, then the workers may mobilize and strengthen their organization.

A sports club? This is an interesting example. Team sports such as football (soccer) are mimicking primordial inter-group conflicts. This is what makes the sport psychologically exciting. This excitement can escalate into hooliganism with behaviors that show signs of regality.

You are asking whether regality in one social group will spill over into other groups that you are also a member of. Not much, I think. There have been many psychological experiments with group dynamics. These experiments show that competition between groups lead to increased cooperation and solidarity within each group - even for short-term artificial groups created in a psychological laboratory. So I would say that group solidarity, cooperation, and organization is mainly specific to the group in question. It does not lead to general regality.

Regality in a nation is a more fundamental phenomenon that is often spilling over into irrelevant contexts. If a nation is regalized by threats or conflicts with foreign groups, then we are often seeing that the regality is spilling over into the persecution of internal minorities such as homosexuals or religious minorities that pose no threat to the nation.

You are asking about coalitions. A coalition is a group with weak or informal leadership. Conflict or competition with other groups will likely lead to strengthening of the organization and leadership.

You are asking whether it is possible to look at an individual and detect a regal or kungic tendency. Yes. A group is made up of individuals. The culture, ideology, and spirit of a nation is developing in a direction attuned to the feelings and preferences of its members. If a majority of members want a strong leader, then the nation will get a strong leader. The regality of individual persons is basically the same as authoritarianism. Psychologists believed initially that authoritarianism was an individual personality characteristic. Social psychologists have made many studies where they measure the degree of authoritarianism in individual persons. Only later have they discovered that authoritarianism is connected to group dynamics and to a fear of collective dangers.

You can find more literature at www.regality.info

Thank you for your instant and thorough reply. It's exciting to discuss this theory. I'm looking forward to discussing more as I get farther into the book.

So I would say that group solidarity, cooperation, and organization is mainly specific to the group in question. It does not lead to general regality.

So maybe it depends on the overlap in membership between groups. A regalized nation is a superset of a youth club, so we should expect the youth club to be regal in this case. But a regal youth club by itself will not regalize the nation except to the extent that it makes up a fraction of the population or antagonizes the remainder of the population into opposing regality.

A coalition is a group with weak or informal leadership. Conflict or competition with other groups will likely lead to strengthening of the organization and leadership.

The Allied and Axis powers in WWII were each coalitions, but it seems that neither had an individual leader. Despite being locked in mortal combat, I have not heard of either population pushing for central leadership. Are you aware of popular support for centralization of authority in either of these coalitions?

Does this theory apply to humans only, or is there evidence of a regal-kungic spectrum in the dominance hierarchy of a non-human species in response to environmental factors?

Bonito wrote:

The Allied and Axis powers in WWII were each coalitions, but it seems that neither had an individual leader

I am not sure I understand what you mean here. There were coalitions of large countries, each having a leading government.

Does this theory apply to humans only, or is there evidence of a regal-kungic spectrum in the dominance hierarchy of a non-human species in response to environmental factors?

That's an open question. Chimpanzees have "wars" in the form of raids that resemble raids in ancient hunter-gatherer societies. Chimpanzees have a rank order where the alpha male can be considered a leader, but the role of leadership in chimpanzee raids is unknown.

I am not sure I understand what you mean here. There were coalitions of large countries, each having a leading government.

Regality theory seems to predict that a collective threat will cause the threatened population to put themselves under the authoritarian leadership of one man. The Allied powers faced a collective threat from the Axis, but the Allied population did not push for an Allied leader. The same is true of the Axis. Despite an existential collective threat, no leader emerged above the national level. Why?

A claim is made that "the predictions of this cultural r/k theory are so similar to the predictions of the theory of a psychological desire for a strong leader in times of intergroup conflict that any of these two theories would provide a logical explanation for the same cultural effects." I'm not seeing how "a strategy where the meme complex makes its hosts spend a lot of resources on propagating their culture and beliefs to others" is equivalent with regality. What is the relationship between the meme theory and a propensity for warlike leadership? Like how does the meme theory predict low tolerance of social deviance?

Bonito wrote:

Despite an existential collective threat, no leader emerged above the national level. Why?

Big nation states did not exist in the environment of our evolutionary past, this is a new situation that our evolved psychology has not adapted to. The allied forces did not have a strong unifying national identity to rally around.

I'm not seeing how "a strategy where the meme complex makes its hosts spend a lot of resources on propagating their culture and beliefs to others" is equivalent with regality.

It is not equivalent, but it has some similar effects. A religious sect that tells its members to proselytize is likely to spread its memes. It needs strict discipline to make its members obey. So a meme complex that combines the command to proselytize as well as strict discipline and the belief that blind faith is a virtue may spread successfully, while a meme complex lacking any of these will be less sucessful.

While reading 6.4 "Why World War II started" I started wondering about why Germany went in a regal direction, but the US turned kungic during the 1930s. Economic depression and unemployment hit both countries, so the US should have gone in a regal direction. Maybe not as extreme as Germany, since the Depression was less severe in the US, but the direction should have been the same.

Instead, the US experienced strong anti-militarism, the creation of a social safety net, reduced moralism, and a trend toward freeform visual arts. 4 neutrality acts were passed between 1935 and 1939. Smedley Butler's anti-militarism was popular and 88% of Americans opposed declaring war against the Axis as late as January of 1940. Huey Long proposed redistribution of wealth to reduce inequality. The Social Security Act created a pension for the elderly. Contraception became freely available and Prohibition of alcohol was repealed. Artists like Anton Refregier and Diego Rivera were popular.

Why does it appear that a similar stimulus had opposite effects on Germany and the US?

I don't know much about US politics in the 1930s. My best bet is that it depends on whether the crisis is blamed on internal corruption or external enemies, as explained in my book. Hitler successfully put the blame on Jews and other foreigners and minorities. The Nazis staged false flag attacks and blamed them on communists. Probably the most important factor was the radio. Radio was a new invention that exposed the population to a new powerful propaganda machine that they had no "immunity" against. The Nazis produced cheap radio receivers so that everybody could hear Hitlers propaganda speeches. They almost monopolized the media landscape.

Still today, sociologists and political scientists are underestimating the power of the mass media. Economists believe that the free market forces will produce the most diverse media landscape. As I explain in the book, it does exactly the opposite.