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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3401 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 28, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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A number of times on this forum, posters with right-wing sensibilities have solicited dating advice along the lines of “Every woman I talk to expresses progressive opinions, so how do I navigate around the inevitable political disagreements?” Each time, several posters have asserted that this is not in fact as much of a problem as it may appear to be; if everything else in the relationship is going well and the woman respects you for other reasons, she not only won’t have a problem with your politics, she’ll actually start to mold her own political beliefs to become more in line with yours!

This assertion has always struck me as equal parts intriguing and bizarre. Certainly I’m familiar with much of the copious amount of commentary around psychological differences between men and women, including Dissident Right discussion of the “Woman Question”. I fully accept that aggregate differences in temperament and political reasoning between the sexes are real and substantial. Still, it’s tough for me to wrap my head around the idea that most adult women’s beliefs are malleable to that extent. Perhaps I just haven’t managed to wrap my head around the unavoidable truth that, when it comes to men and women, the inner machinations of each sex’s mind are an enigma to the other sex, and that a regime of healthy relations between the sexes requires both men and women to contort themselves into a mode of external presentation that renders them legible to each other.

Although I am currently in a situation wherein the relevance of this line of questioning is probably going to become significant to me in the pretty near future, I’m not actually asking for advice here. I’m actually more just curious as to how this supposed process actually operates. The claim is that a woman who is in a long-term relationship with a right-wing man will become more right-wing herself over time. How does this work? Is this only true of women who did not express a strong political worldview before the start of the relationship? If the woman did have progressive opinions before the relationship, will she end up explicitly repudiating those opinions later on? (i.e. “I was wrong about that, and you were right. I can’t believe I ever believed that!”) Or will it just be a more subtle shift over time, with the woman beginning to express right-wing opinions and either not noticing or not acknowledging the way in which these opinions contradict her earlier views? Does the shift reflect a genuine change of worldview within the woman’s mind, or is it merely a change in the views which she verbally expresses? (The really alarming and potentially blackpilling answer would be “There is no difference between those two things.”) Also, is this shift only sustainable if the woman does not have a larger social sphere of women who will reinforce progressive views and thus act as a countervailing force against the influence of the husband?

I realize that this is a series of questions and that the subject matter might be too broad for the “Small-Scale Questions Thread”, but it doesn’t seem to be appropriate for the Culture War thread either.

Still, it’s tough for me to wrap my head around the idea that most adult women’s beliefs are malleable to that extent

Maybe you interact with a lot of smart women? E.g. a less extreme version of cloudheadedtranshumanist's post where he didn't see many psychological differences between men and women because he was 'socialized in rationalist group houses'.

There's a hierarchy of persuadability, anyway. 99% of people are uncritically receptive to opinions held by all of their peers and people of higher status since birth. Probably 80% would be swayed in the same way at around age 20-25. A still-significant minority are the kind of person who, over a period of months, just absorbs whatever their friends or partner believe. It's stronger in women, but present in both men and women. (There are probably differences in the process by which it happens in women vs men too)

Also, for every 'i am far-right and my wife slowly became a far-right' story', theres a 'my wife broke up with me because i was a nazi' story. Most of those are in practice 'putting the values of the overall group ahead of the values of the partner' rather than any form of personal strong convictions.

But if you put all of that together, it doesn't seem that surprising anymore.

I realize that this is a series of questions and that the subject matter might be too broad for the “Small-Scale Questions Thread”, but it doesn’t seem to be appropriate for the Culture War thread either.

I often want to post something for the motte audience, but it really doesn't fit into the CWR and isn't a 'wellness', a 'small-scale question', or a 'fun', so I just don't. Most recently is this (nonfiction, account of a murder among some homeless people).

Also, for every 'i am far-right and my wife slowly became a far-right' story', theres a 'my wife broke up with me because i was a nazi' story.

Right, this is precisely how my last relationship ended - and this is with me substantially concealing the full extent of my real views - which is the main reason why I’m so dubious. To defend the original proposition, though, it’s also true that the relationship had other issues, and that perhaps if our relationship had otherwise been going perfectly, the political issue wouldn’t have been such a deal-breaker.

Was this always the case, though? I wonder if generational differences are inextricably part of the answer in our current time. These two graphs [1][2] seem to indicate that young women post-Great Awokening are just so much more Left than women were at that age in past generations. And surely religiosity explains some of the remaining conservative/Republican young women. I wouldn't be surprised if perhaps as few as 10-15% of non-evangelical women under 30 identify as conservative or Republican.

I don't understand what happened.

Call me a romantic: Changing or hiding your political beliefs in order to obtain or maintain a loving relationship is the right choice in nearly all cases for an individual person.

A lot of Men and Women both do this, all the tine. The difference is that men who do so typically do so before the relationship begins, or in a general way. Men choose political beliefs all the time based on "will this get me laid?" That can be direct ("I'm going to the pro-choice rally, there are more chicks" or reading Foucault to hit on Ethereal Bisexuals) or general (Nazis/Communists/Georgists/PLO supporters are weirdos, weirdos don't get laid). A great many men pick their politics based on social desirability

Women on the other hand will often meet a man and then change their political beliefs. Because a woman can still be just as attractive despite holding unattractive political beliefs, there are very few situations where a woman's politics will make her more attractive.

Same dynamic, different order.

It should also be noted that the gender split on politics is vastly overstated in greentext comedies about "Women be like...Men be like"

Biden made gains with men, while Trump improved among women, narrowing the gender gap. The gender gap in the 2020 election was narrower than it had been in 2016, both because of gains that Biden made among men and because of gains Trump made among women. In 2020, men were almost evenly divided between Trump and Biden, unlike in 2016 when Trump won men by 11 points. Trump won a slightly larger share of women’s votes in 2020 than in 2016 (44% vs. 39%), while Biden’s share among women was nearly identical to Clinton’s (55% vs. 54%).

Even an 11% difference is barely noticeable or predictive in day to day life. 56-44 means that out of every twenty people men you meet, two or three more will be conservative compared to twenty women. Basically a non-event. The idea of a politics that primarily cleaves by gender is the fantasy of the extremely online.

I find that assertion to be true in my personal experience, though how much of that is simply an urge to fit in with someone you love, versus the fact that in all honesty, people with different political views can still be friendly with each other if they like each other for non-ideological reasons.

Certainly I had to disguise my power level when dating my girlfriend, she's as smart as me, but significantly more normie/woke on plenty of ideas, but even as I grew more comfortable expressing the more witchy ideas I hold, such as HBD, she ended up alright with it, since she trusts me to make well informed decisions. She might not agree with a lot, but it's not worth uprooting our differences while we have a good thing going.

Of course, I know men who went vegan for pussy, so it's not like it only goes one way, I'd be willing to say that people are quite malleable and only a small fraction truly believe in their ideology instead of uncritically following the crowd.

This isn't a uniquely female phenomenon, consider men who'll do, say and believe almost anything to get sex or to advance their careers.

The difference I believe is that women are a bit more malleable, have less genuine deeply held beliefs and their goal (securing, maintaining and developing longterm relationships) is more long term (and focused on a single other person) than the male one so their behaviour has a greater chance to affect their beliefs.

Of course, all these things applies to both genders in varying degrees depending on the individual.

I dont actually think an adult with reasoned convictions can actually be swayed all that much in either direction.

The kicker is that most adults dont have reasoned convictions. They just say the correct combinations of words to fit in and be high status among their group. In which case yes, you will be able to sway them.

This gets misattributed to a female trait because females in general tend to have less political convictions. So the swaying is usually done by the male most of the time.

I dont know if there is a term for inferences of this category where the statistics does back up what you say but the mechanism is entirely different. Particularly of this variety.

Nevetheless Im sure females being more agreeable also has something to do with it.

I don't think it's that women's beliefs are malleable, it's just that all people's beliefs are. And furthermore, most people these days think of the other political tribe, the wrong thinkers, as essentially like green monster aliens. When you have a relationship with someone, you can see that even if people disagree on distant political issues, they can still be a good person, who came to their beliefs genuinely and with good reason. You may disagree about several things, but what matters more for a relationship is whether you'd support them through cancer, or how you treat your friends and family.

I mean, there’s also the possibility that a large portion of liberal women are temperamentally very conservative but hold liberal views out of some form of paranoia/neuroticism(you have to destigmatize divorce- what if I get beaten up by my husband!), and that as she trusts you more she feels safe abandoning those views(hoffmeister would never hurt me!).

it’s tough for me to wrap my head around the idea that most adult women’s beliefs are malleable to that extent

It's not that women's beliefs are malleable to that extent, it's that people's beliefs are malleable to that extent. Having consistent political beliefs serves no purpose for the vast majority of people the vast majority of the time, and is often actively harmful to one's own social standing. Their behavior is not what requires explanation; it is a perfectly sensible way to go about life and reduces the likelihood of interpersonal conflict, including in this example of relationships.

We are the weird ones here, and even to the extent that any of us have unchanging, well thought-out principles with regard to certain issues, we all have other areas where we haven't spared a single thought and are happy to go along with the herd. As an example, my father has strongly held political beliefs and acts according to them, but he has almost no opinions whatsoever regarding food. Whatever he is presented with, be it burgers, sushi, silkworms on skewers, African peanut stew, or roasted guinea pig (all things he has actually eaten), he will eat it without complaint and promptly forget about it completely unless asked a set of leading questions, and he finds it baffling that I remember the characteristics of different foreign cuisines or have any sort of ranking of them in my head.

Were the Guinea pigs tasty? They always looked like snacks to go to me haha.

The taste is pretty good, like a cross between chicken and rabbit, but picking meat off all the little bones is quite time-consuming.

I’m actually more just curious as to how this supposed process actually operates.

I'm not sure such a process exists, but if it does, I'd imagine a big part of the mechanism would be something like this:

Consensus Blue politics is largely centered on the interests and activities of single women. Women in long-term, committed relationships begin experiencing a whole lot of facets of life that reveal the limits and flaws of single womens' collective worldview, and as these experiences accumulate, pressure to change their views accumulates as well. A Blue partner would help forestall this process somewhat, but a Red partner naturally encourages it, as they find themselves sympathizing more and more with the Red's viewpoint.

Getting older, serious relationships, and children all correlate pretty strongly with acquiring Red views, broadly speaking.

As I've previously joked, every contrarian-inclined college kid is a Libertarian right up until they've had to wrangle a 4-year-old ;-)

My experience has been:

shift over time, with the woman beginning to express right-wing opinions and either not noticing or not acknowledging the way in which these opinions contradict her earlier views

There is no difference between those two things

sustainable if the woman does not have a larger social sphere of women who will reinforce progressive views

This seems to lessen, as she finds and identifies with other non-progressive women.

You focus on the gender dynamics, but I think phenomenon is not primarily about gender.

The two main drivers are, IMO:

  1. When two people like each other and spend significant time together, they build trust. This means they will tend to be more charitable toward one another and less dismissive of one another's beliefs. This reduces confirmation bias by making it harder to dismiss the other partner's politics on flimsy grounds, e.g. "they only believe that because they're ignorant/evil."

  2. When a person with orthodox politics spends significant time with a person with heterodox politics, on average the person with orthodox politics is more likely to change their views than the person with heterodox politics. This is because it is easy to hold orthodox politics without considering carefully (or even encountering) arguments against those politics, whereas it is impossible to hold heterodox politics without constantly encountering counterarguments. Thus, heterodox beliefs will tend to come into the relationship more "battle hardened" and "stress tested" than orthodox beliefs.

Where gender might play into the dynamic above:

  1. Women tend to be more agreeable and thus more likely to hold orthodox beliefs.

  2. Women tend to be more agreeable and thus less likely to have engaged in "stress testing" (e.g. vigorous debate) of their political beliefs.

n=1, my wife supports my politics when our marriage is going well and she spends much time with me, else she supports [popular thing on social media].

Does she not experience this internally as a contradiction? Does she not reflect on herself and wonder how she could flip so rapidly between two incompatible beliefs?

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