Changing ratios of Warrior ethos vs. Worrier ethos as an alternate to Critical Theory and Social Justice Theory

From Academic corruption 2: Emasculated culture by Arnold Kling.

The predicate model is discussed by Kling.  It is based on the research of Joyce Benenson:

I enjoyed this podcast with Joyce Benenson, about her book, Warriers and Worriers. She and Roy Baumeister are the rare social scientists who see that (a) men and women differ on average in their behavioral tendencies and (b) male tendencies are not all bad.

Her book is grounded in observations of young boys and girls. My memories of my boyhood align perfectly with her picture of boys, and with the song lyrics above. We played team sports without supervision, put a lot of effort into setting rules, and competed to demonstrate skill. When we weren’t playing sports, we imagined ourselves fighting the “bad guys,” either in the Old West or in World War II.

One of her ideas is that men have a social strategy that works well in war: organize unrelated males, fight other groups overtly according to rules, then reconcile after battle. Women have a social strategy that works well for protecting their individual health and the health of their children: emphasize safety, covertly undermine the status of unrelated females, and exclude rivals rather than reconcile with them.

Probably true, with increasing exceptions at the margin.  

This leads me to speculate on the consequences of adding a lot of women to formerly male domains. Over the past several decades, a number of important institutions that were formerly almost exclusively male now include many women: academia, journalism, politics, and management positions in organizations. These institutions increasingly are discarding the values that sustained them when the female presence was less.

1. The older culture saw differential rewards as just when based on performance. The newer culture sees differential rewards as unjust.

2. The older culture sought people who demonstrate the most competence. The newer culture seeks to nurture those who are at a disadvantage.

3. The older culture admires those who seek to stand out. The newer culture disdains such people.

4. The older culture uses proportional punishment that is predictable based on known rules. The newer culture suddenly turns against a target and permanently banishes the alleged violator, based on the latest moral fashions.

5. The older culture valued open debate. The newer culture seeks to curtail speech it regards as dangerous.

6. The older culture saw liberty as essential to a good society. The newer culture sees conformity as essential to a good society.

7. The older culture was oriented toward achievement. The newer culture is oriented toward safety. Hence, we cannot complete major construction projects, like bridges, as efficiently as we used to.

 I think that in each case, the older culture was consistent with male tendencies (what Benenson calls “warriors”); the newer culture is consistent with female tendencies (what she calls “worriers”). Keep in mind that men can have worrier personalities and women can have warrior personalities, but those are not the norm.

 Obviously, just a hypothesis.  An intriguing one at that.   My suspicion is that the warrior and worrier effect size may be reasonably true but overstated.  None-the-less, the hypothesis fits some obvious changes of the decade.  Most of these changes have been ascribed to the rise of safetyism, the spread of social justice theory and the spread of critical theory.  

I am strongly inclined to believe that this is more of an issue of a decline in cultural integrity than a matter of changing ratios of male and females in the work environment.  Oddly, though, if I think about it as a matter of changing ratio of warrior and worrier ethos, recognizing that both men and women can manifest either category, the hypothesis becomes dramatically more tenable.

Would be interesting to see it tested.  In the meantime, I suppose it is off to read Joyce Benenson's book.