Digital Harems and Civilization's End
Courtship Is essential to coupling, which is essential to childrearing, which is essential to family, which is essential to civilization.
It was a lazy Sunday. I was listening to a podcast while making a ribeye sous vide. My wife and daughter were playing in the next room. My boys, seventeen and nine, would be with us again soon. (I smiled.) We are a family—not the Platonic Form of a family, but a family. My wife is Jewish and leans left, and I am a goy who leans anarc—um, libertarian, but we find common ground in the importance of family. Indeed, we returned to the Carolinas a little over a year ago to be closer to our loved ones.
So anyway, I was listening to this podcast called Hoe_Math…
For years, I listened to conservative commenters go on endlessly about family. I’d roll my eyes. I knew that children of single moms are more likely to become criminals. I knew that welfare incentives meant fewer intact families. But whenever I’d hear some greesy politician talk about family values, my bile duct would secrete.
First, I didn’t like the idea of taxpayers subsidizing the family or obstructing the dissolution of unhealthy family situations like I had experienced early on.
Second, many would blame individualism for the dissolution of the family, a claim I regarded with suspicion.
Third, while I thought family was important, I didn’t think it was a lynchpin of civilization and that claims about attacks on the family were overblown.
But family is a lynchpin of civilizations, and it has, indeed, been under attack in the West—not just the family unit itself, but the inputs and precursors to family, such as courtship and coupling.
Transcend and Include
With what follows, I want to make a case that transcends and includes the conservative view of family. But before I do, Underthrow readers who came along earlier will recall my series on Spiral Dynamics (SD). Now, the hilarious yet analytical Hoe_Math is using SD as part of his bleak and slightly irreverent assessment of modern dating.
For a handy reference, here are some of the relevant heuristics to consider:
The idea is there is something of a cultural-political war going on among different socio-cultural groups, all of which have historical precedents. There is a rootedness to all of the prior stages, each of which—roughly speaking—serves as an emergence vector for the one that comes later. So,
Purple (bottom of image) is a tribal or clan-based social order that prizes security and sharing among tribe members. But when tribes encounter each other and compete for resources, they have to adopt a new outlook.
Red produces strong leaders willing to dominate or threaten violence to eliminate competitors and win resources (including sex partners). We see glory in victory and impulsive, egoistic behavior emerge as primary values. But, excess domination and impulsivity is destructive.
Blue values authority, order, and knowing one’s place—structures designed to rein in Red’s excesses and create duties, rules and regulations that form an orderly hierarchy that originates in God. But enforcing order can become oppressive and mute the ambitions of those who drive human progress.
Orange thus values investigation, experimentation, and commerce, which liberates members of this stage from Blue’s tendencies to oppressiveness. But scientists or businesspeople hellbent on their own success can threaten equality, community, and the Earth.
Green produces more egalitarian types who value intragroup compromise and cultural relativism in response to Orange’s excesses. Yet, Greens still prize individual growth and sexual self-expression. Today’s Greens think equality, ethnic quotas, and environmental protection are the highest values, so they’ll use any means to realize them.
The family must be abolished, which means a “breaking open of the family to free and unleash what’s good in it and to generalize that into the social body as a whole. To make the necessary forms of care available to everyone unconditionally.” —Lily Sanchez
The color scheme might seem unfamiliar, but consider the basic idea that modern society is made up primarily of people in stages of Red, Blue, Orange, or Green.
Red—Instagram models, playboys, rappers, athletes, and gang members.
Blue—Conservatives, traditionalists, religious fundamentalists.
Orange—Careerist professionals, scientists, techies, and entrepreneurs.
Green—Social justice types, hippies, and the “conscious community.”
Can you see why these groups are generally at odds?
Digital Hypergamy and the Loss of Courtship
In the following video, Hoe_Math uses this framework to demonstrate that Green is the dominant socio-cultural value system right now. But it’s destroying society. Green, while outwardly egalitarian, still includes a “follow your bliss,” “live your truth,” and “do what makes you happy” hippie individualism that can exist in unhealthy tension with Green’s more communitarian aspects. Young people growing up in Green culture, who lack the need to move through the other stages, interpret “live your truth” as “do whatever you want” (that is, Red, not Green).
If Red’s “do whatever you want” is the primary motivation for young women in the dating pool, then they will almost always fail to do a realistic self-assessment and seek out mates who are above their station. These men will invariably discard them. If Red’s “do whatever you want” is the primary motivation for young men in the dating pool, then only the top decile of highly valued males will get potential mates and will discard females once they have another notch in the butt of their gun. Green values provide cover for both, as women claim to be picky, independent, sex-positive feminists, and men claim to be putting their careers first or practicing enlightened polyamory—which provides cover for philandering.
The aggregate effect of this dynamic is a generation of unhappy daters where most women want only men in the top decile and a handful of men who take advantage of the women competing for their attention. Attractive, discarded women refuse to date their peers until it’s too late, while average and below-average men have a very hard time getting dates at all. On aggregate, less happy young people thus form fewer pair bonds, whereas, in the past, there would have been a more organic mate-sorting process in which patience and courtship would have resolved issues that digital hypergamy creates.
In short, there is a demographic collapse in the West, particularly among groups that, intuitively, you’d want to reproduce, such as those more likely to be intelligent, educated, financially stable, and contributors to society. As young people fail to engage in traditional courtship, pair-bonding, coupling, marriage, and family, a generation will follow its bliss straight into a demographic ditch.
The US is making up for the decline by opening the door to mostly poor, desperate, or criminal migrants who are entering the country illegally. Countries like South Korea and Japan close the door to criminal migrants, but are destined to vanish if they don’t soon change.
Even China is expected to have a massive collapse due to its One-Child Policy. This is why natalism has come roaring back into the popular lexicon. Hopefully it represents the end of that neo-malthusian mindvirus about overpopulation that has run rampant my entire life.
A Note on Yellow
So, after Green comes Yellow. The number of people who have developed Yellow cognition and values is small. But yellow—with its emphasis on understanding and applying values from diverse perspectives—can help some see a prism of reasons why the family is indispensable to civilization. For example:
Purple. The family creates immediate structures of security and mutual aid. Families should guard traditions and customs that unite its members, especially when more complex social structures fail. Family is the original social safety net.
Red. The family establishes a base of loyalty. Family members should support each other, creating a basis of support that can help protect against rivals. Remember, when it comes right down to it—Blood is thicker than water.
Blue. The family instills discipline, moral values, and a sense of duty. It should provide a structured environment where young people learn right from wrong and can find their place in the world. Family is a fundamental instructive institution.
Orange. The family nurtures its members' unique talents and ambitions. It should provide a foundation for education and personal development, helping each become independent and successful. Families produce successful family members.
Green. The family fosters a sense of belonging, empathy, and mutual support. It should teach us to be more sensitive to one another and our environment and to extend our compassion, leaving no one behind. Families are models for societies.
Yellow. The family is a microcosm of larger systems, demonstrating interconnection and interdependence. As the family is the original system within systems—in which humans spend most of their time developing—it should help us each of us learn adaptability in complex, changing circumstances.
The thing about Yellow is that it not only lets us see how deeply our value systems are rooted in the layers of our humanity but also how the family works as a indispensible unit within social systems that have emerged since we were hunter-gatherers.
Why Family is So Important
Yellow cognition allows one to take the healthiest values of prior stages and recognize the contexts in which these should be rediscovered and emphasized. It’s like having a values decoder ring. Healthy Yellow also allowed Hoe_Math to see why modern dating, with its emphasis on promiscuity doing what feels good to you, can mean unhealthy Red runs rampant as it masquerades as Green.
In other words, civilizations around the world will decline rapidly unless the next generation reembraces it’s roots around the value of family. As Green, relativistic “live your truth” is heard as “gratify your base desires” we could see the rise of an underclass that could be as likely to tear civilization down as help to build it up.
Why, because family is important:
Educational outcomes. Children from stable, two-parent families tend to have higher academic achievement and are more likely to attend college.
Economic stability. Families with two married parents have higher household incomes and lower poverty rates compared to single-parent households.
Mental health. Children raised in healthy family environments typically experience lower rates of depression, anxiety, and behavioral problems.
Crime rates. Juveniles from intact families are less likely to engage in criminal behavior or substance abuse.
Intergenerational mobility. Strong family units can contribute to breaking cycles of poverty and improving socioeconomic outcomes across generations.
Physical health. Children in stable family environments often have better overall health outcomes and lower rates of obesity.
Social skills. Healthy family dynamics can lead to better social adjustment and relationship skills in children as they grow into adulthood.
Indeed, family is indispensable.
Courtship is essential to coupling, which is essential to childrearing, which is essential to family, which is essential to civilization.
Indeed, family is indispensable for the fabric of society and for the health of its individuals. Together with community, family makes us less easy to manipulate, feeling seen, challenged to grow, exposed to intergenerational wisdom and less prone to addictions. Family and community structures are indispensable for the health of any society and no wonder they have been under attack for years. Now, next is personal identity.
Spiral dynamics came across my radar a month ago and now I’m seeing it several times over. I’m getting the message that it’s something to pay attention to. Your points about family being the original safety net hit home, and it rubs a sore spot that we chose to only have one child. We are part of the cultural fragmentation that made it hard for us to contemplate adding a second child to our chaotic lives!