The 'Genetic Theory' and Britain

[Iain]

I ranted about this just recently, but it has cropped up on THR again in the last couple of days. To review; the argument runs as follows - the decline of modern Britain can be traced to the amount of its brave young men who died in (insert 1914-18 or 1939-45, or both, here) It seems to be a popular theory.

So I guess some figures are in order. I've pulled these from wikipedia because I can't be bothered to do more research than that, I expect that with the sheer number of people who read and review these topics the figures will be at least ballpark. Exacting figures are not exactly necessary for the point to be made.

Number of British soldiers dead 1914-18 - around 750,000*
Population of England (not Britain) in 1911 - 33,651,600
Number of British soldiers dead 1939-45 - around 400,000
Population of England (not Britain) in 1931 - 37,359,000

* - it is estimated that 6,000,000 (of 10,000,000 eligible) British men served in this time. So the WW1 dead make up 12.5% of servicemen, 7.5% of eligible men, and 2.2% of the population. Obviously not insignificant, but probably not enough to have some sort of devastating genetic impact if in fact any element of what a society is can be said to have genetic roots. Somewhere around 87.5% of these brave young servicemen made it home in some sort of condition that ranked as rather more alive than dead.

Let's compare that to say, the American Civil War:

Number of soldiers dead, both sides, 1861-65 - 618,000
Population of the United States 1860 - 31,443,321

It's been pointed out (and accurately) recently that I'm no statistician, but those stats aren't that complicated and seem more than enough to debunk this 'genetic theory'. Anyone disagree? I'm only using soldiers because that is where the claim lies, we could expand on those figures by including civilian populations such as women because I expect that there are some who would consider that totally discounting the role of brave young women in a society (within the bounds of this 'genetic theory') is somewhat insulting and ridiculous. I'd tend to agree.

[Ron]

It's been pointed out (and accurately) recently that I'm no statistician, but those stats aren't that complicated and seem more than enough to debunk this 'genetic theory'. Anyone disagree? I'm only using soldiers because that is where the claim lies, we could expand on those figures by including civilian populations such as women because I expect that there are some who would consider that totally discounting the role of brave young women in a society (within the bounds of this 'genetic theory') is somewhat insulting and ridiculous. I'd tend to agree.

It is a silly theory.

The problem is the "Nanny State". It makes you guys look weak.

I would say borrow some of our American rugged individualism but we seem to be in short supply ourselves.

[MicroBalrog]

Tories go for oak in an attempt to soften their image
By Anthony Browne, Chief Political Correspondent

IS IT a smudge? Is it a childs scribble? No, its the new Conservative Party logo.

David Cameron, the new leader, is replacing the famous flaming torch of liberty introduced by Margaret Thatcher with a squiggly impression of an oak tree. Its the partys first new logo for more than a quarter of a century.

The new logo, which cost £40,000 to develop, is part of the rebranding of the party, aimed at promoting a more modern, softer, environmentally friendly image. However, the logo immediately ran into a barrage of criticism from party activists.

The image was due to be made public next week before the partys annual conference, but it leaked out when conference organisers posted security passes to party members with the logo printed on it.

The logo was developed by the London market agency Perfect Day, which spent two months consulting focus groups. A party official said: We consulted members across the country about our new identity. The values they wanted to see represented were strength, endurance, renewal and growth. We tested a large number of different images. The tree logo proved the overwhelming favourite.

The oak tree was chosen because it represents solidity, tradition, friendliness towards the environment and Britishness. While the concept of the oak tree has proved popular, the portrayal chosen has aroused disappointment.

Tim Montgomerie, who was chief of staff for Iain Duncan Smith when he was Tory leader and who is now editor of the influential Conservativehome.com website, said: Its disappointing. Its a really ugly thing. This looks like a smudge.

The comments on the website of Iain Dale, a leading Tory commentator and prospective candidate, were overwhelmingly negative. One contributor, Ali McNab, wrote: It looks like a three-year-old has been let loose with a crayon.

James Maskell, a party member, said: Our membership subs go up to pay thousands of pounds to create a new logo to replace the Torch and the results of that is this? Another contributor said: It looks like its been drawn, then scrubbed out. Like the Tories cant make their mind up.

However, Rita Clifton, chairman of Interbrand UK, was more positive, saying: Its easy to take shots at new brands. Whether it has nice aesthetics is less important than the message it is trying to get across. They want a new and softer image, and this absolutely is a new and softer image, no one can deny that.

The previous logo, the freedom torch, was introduced by Mrs Thatcher in 1977 and revamped by Michael Howard in 2004.

Mr Cameron and his team have concluded that one of the partys main problems is its poor image, and much of their strategy has been aimed at decontaminating the brand. An advertising executive, Steve Hilton, was put in charge of communications.

A Labour Party spokesman said: This is classic David Cameron  putting his public relations strategy ahead of tough policy decisions. The Conservative Party needs more than a respray if its going to be taken seriously.

[Preacherman]

Actually, Iain, I'm not sure that the theory is nonsense.  I don't think it's so much genetics that are the problem as the lack of the 'best' genes.  Let me explain.

Many of those killed in WW1 (probably well over half) died in the first three years of the war.  During that time, conscription did not provide the bulk of the British armed forces - volunteers did.  The majority of those who died on the Somme in 1916 were 'Kitchener's boys' - the volunteer battalions recruited around Britain in late 1914 and early 1915.  These were the best and brightest of the British recruits during the war, and they suffered far more casualties per capita than conscripts did later.  Also, junior officer casualties were enormous - it was reckoned for at least two years that the life of a subaltern in the front lines was about three weeks!  Many junior officers also joined the Royal Flying Corps, and died there.  In effect, what you had was a 'winnowing' of the leadership 'class' of Britain - and for those who don't like me using the word 'class', let me point out that Britain was hag-ridden by class-consciousness during that period, and later during WW2 as well, although to a somewhat lesser extent by then.

In WW2, again, at the beginning you had a rush of volunteers.  Not as many as in WW1, but still significant.  You also had a rush of first-class volunteers for pilot training.  When you consider that Bomber Command had horrendous casualties throughout WW2, and Fighter Command did too, you can see that the same type of individual who would have been the volunteer or subaltern of WW1 was again 'winnowed' a generation later.  The early volunteers and recruits also died in proportionately greater numbers than those who came later.

I truly believe that those who would normally have provided leadership to British society were 'winnowed' in this way in two successive generations.  I have little doubt that this influenced the problems Britain encountered in the second half of last century.  It's just a personal opinion, but it makes sense to me.  I'd be interested in hearing any counter-arguments.

[Ron]

I don't know Preacherman.

You think none of the tough guys stayed behind to be police, fireman, ironworkers, miners etc...

Only the tough guys got killed? What about all the seviceman who survived?

I think the dependency of a socialist welfare state does more to sap the warrior ethos out of a people than war.

If anything war awakens the warrior spirit in those who didn't even know it was there.

Just some idle thoughts, don't know for sure myself.

[Iain]

I do see where you're coming from Preacherman.

Partly it depends on how much you think these things are genetic. For instance you say that a lot of 'leadership class' bought it on the front line, yet perhaps those were the kids raised to think they were leaders. A better class of education and a class consciousness tends to do that, I doubt all the young men who ended up wearing officers uniforms at the very beginning of a war of that period actually represented the best leadership going. It still exists today, I met plenty of guys at university whose education had been geared towards thinking of themselves as leaders, developing that sort of personality. Public school education isn't a bad thing. The argument I'm making is that perhaps it was education and class that created the group of men to which you refer, at least during WW1.

My biggest problem is that I think this represents a crude understanding of genetics. I can't remember who but some ancient said that men aren't born brave but with discipline they become brave. That's probably not true of all, some men just are, and necessity without discipline will provoke bravery in others.

If I'm right and leadership skills and the rest are learned (perhaps particularly at public school) then lots of older men schooled this way never went to war, and lots of younger men will have grown up during and since. Public schools didn't change much I wouldn't imagine.

Tend to think that if we want to understand the framework for the brave new society that was laid down immediately after 1945 we'd probably need to look at the attractiveness of a more socialist ethos to a country that had experienced pretty severe hardships of war. Aside from German boots never haven trod British soil, many cities had been bombed to hell, socialism was offering things that would probably seem very attractive to a bombed, rationed and exhausted populace, especially benefits and the NHS. As a historical theory that's probably more than a bit incomplete, but I would regard it as being more accurate than any genetic theory.

[280plus]

Maybe we are forgetting that in the years after the "Civil War" there has been Various waves of immigrants to the US so comparing the quality of it's population to Britain's is not necessarily apples to apples?

[Tallpine]

I suspect that Britain has lost more "cream of the crop" leadership and manliness to emmigration than to war casualties

The same is probably true of a lot of near and far eastern countries today: their best and brightest doctors and engineers are moving to the US instead of trying to stay and fix the medieval mess in their homelands (GWB should take note of this before trying to bomb them into democracy...  )

[Stand_watie]

I would say that it has merit in theory, but should be ridiculous in fact.

I would add to your calculations the number of British soldiers who fathered children before they left, and the number of British soldiers who were able to father children because they were soldiers.

Without question in my mind, British children grow up with exactly the same moral and physical fortitude as American (with obvious, reasonable genetic differences, for example, American kids on the average are going to have greater natural immunities from tropical diseases and greater likelyhood of contracting non-anglo race specific diseases like sickle cell anemia, because we as a nation are less anglo than you) children if placed in identical  circumstances throughout their lives.

[Stand_watie]

..Tend to think that if we want to understand the framework for the brave new society that was laid down immediately after 1945 we'd probably need to look at the attractiveness of a more socialist ethos to a country that had experienced pretty severe hardships of war. Aside from German boots never haven trod British soil, many cities had been bombed to hell, socialism was offering things that would probably seem very attractive to a bombed, rationed and exhausted populace, especially benefits and the NHS. As a historical theory that's probably more than a bit incomplete, but I would regard it as being more accurate than any genetic theory.

Something I think you need to consider Ian, is that socialism and nanny state group-thinkism was getting into vogue pre-1945 in Britian. A couple of famous authors who spoke about it early on (I'll get you references later) were Tolkien and Lewis. Small scale immigration of eastern european philosophy had been occuring in England in 1945 for about 65 years or so if I'm remembering my dates correctly. Also remember the introduction of large scale socialism to America (other than early puritan colonies) was during the depression, a few years prior to ww2.

[Iain]

Sure, I mean the victory of the Labour party in 1945 was probably something to do with the attractions of a welfare state to a war weary populace.

In a bit I'll see what one of the old socialists of the 1960's had to say about it in his biography of Churchill. Read it a while ago, can't remember that bit well.

[The Rabbi]

I first heard this theory at Oxford in 1984 when I was there as a student.
The second sons (and sometimes first) of Britain's nobility were usually the ones chosen as first lieutenants.  They were the brightest and best educated and would have filled the bureaucracy with civil servants in the Empire.
They were also the first to be killed when called on to go over the top in trench warfare.  Since there was a selection process to get them into their positions in the first place, and those positions resulted in them getting killed in large numbers, it makes sense that this contributed to Britain's mediocrity in the years following.

[CAnnoneer]

I am with Preacherman here. It does not matter how many peasants you lose - there will always be many left. If by contrast you lose your best, most educated, most capable youth, you will be screwed as a country for generations to come.

Iain's explanation is not bad either, but is best handled as a second-order effect to Preacherman's. If you have a strong, capable, successful class of leaders who are loyal to freedom and individuality, those spots in the power structure cannot be taken over by collectivist plebs.

Yet another second-order effect is "cultural fatigue". Many would associate the old order with the crises of the two world wars, so it is natural for the sheeple to hope that a new world order would disallow reoccurrences of these calamities, while older leaders are held accountable for them and/or are dispirited themselves. In some ways, they might even have been right to believe so. What they could not appreciate were the new evils of the new order.

In much the same way, modern leftists think kumbaya world-socialism would solve poverty, disease, war, genocide, racism etc. What they do not understand is that their global USSR would be even more oppressive, inhuman, and likely murderous than the current world order, even if they somehow miraculously get their wetdreams materialized. Further, that materialization will certainly involve much violence itself and the likely loss of the top-of-the-crop individuals who would not stand for it, as it happened in post-revolutionary France and Russia.

[Iapetus]

During the war, because of the the bombing of the cities, many children were evacuated from the (generally poor and often poverty-stricken) cities, to live with foster families in the (generally wealthier) courtryside.

Many people who had been ignorant of the living conditions of the inner-city poor became aware of it this way, and were shocked by it.

Much of the drive for the establishment of a welfare state came from the middle classes, who had concluded that the way things had been before the war was bad, and wanted to do something about it.



Iapetus

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Do you have a counter-theory, Iain?  

Somethig has apparently hapenned in the British culture over the last half century.  Britain used to be the most decent, self-reliant, civilized and indomitable nation on the planet.  Now it appears to be (from an outsider's perspective) a land of snivelling nanny-staters who cower in fear from two-bit thugs, and worse still, can't see the obvious correlation between their nanny-statism and the rise in thuggery.  

I can't claim to know whether the world war deaths are the cause of this decline.  But if you think this is not the reason, can you suggest what the reason is?

[Stand_watie]

Do you have a counter-theory, Iain?  

Somethig has apparently hapenned in the British culture over the last half century.  Britain used to be the most decent, self-reliant, civilized and indomitable nation on the planet.  Now it appears to be (from an outsider's perspective) a land of snivelling nanny-staters who cower in fear from two-bit thugs, and worse still, can't see the obvious correlation between their nanny-statism and the rise in thuggery.  

I can't claim to know whether the world war deaths are the cause of this decline.  But if you think this is not the reason, can you suggest what the reason is?

You have to go back farther than 50 years to define a breaking point in a trend toward nanny-statism in Britain. Orwell, Tolkien, and Lewis's cautions all precede that. I'll suggest a reason (like most of Europe) - hundreds of years of ruling class oppression in matters of things financial with disinterest in personal matters, followed by enlightenment, the industrial revolution freeing up the women for nannying other than their own families, social causism, and the marxist revolution.

[Matthew Carberry]

Find and read the book "Mud, Blood and Poppycock" by Gordon Corrigan for a statistical dismissal of the "lost generation" tripe.

Plus it's a great book on all sorts of things you thought you "knew" about WWI.

[Art Eatman]

Like a lot of stuff, there's no one contributory cause.  Sure, war takes some of the best and brightest.  What often takes more of the b&b, however, is a perception of economic betterment and freer living conditions.  The U.S. for decades has had a brain-drain into it for those reasons.  I've no idea of the percentage effect on any other country, but some of the sociologist-boffins think it's appreciable.  

Generally, emigres are among the b&b of any society, regardless of why they leave.  They are able to assess the world in which they live; judge it, and have the forethought to leave while the leaving is good.  Those left behind tend not to have this ability...

After the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956, I met more than one Englishman who said the days of Empire were done; they were heading elsewhere.  Canada, the US, Australia, etc.

Art

[HankB]

Generally, emigres are among the b&b of any society, regardless of why they leave.  They are able to assess the world in which they live; judge it, and have the forethought to leave while the leaving is good.  Those left behind tend not to have this ability...

German Jews who left when Hitler first came to power were wise . . . those who willingly stayed even after Kristallnacht weren't so wise, and a great many paid the price. Some armchair genetics "experts" have claimed that this is why Israel is so tough - the docile, compliant Jews were murdered by Hitler in large numbers, leaving tougher stock.

More recently, white people who left Zimbabwe showed sense. White South Africans who are leaving that country today are also wise. Those who stay will regret it, those who leave will enhance the countries they ultimately settle in.