Individual humans can be described via many individual features that are useful in predicting what they do. Such features include gender, age, personality, intelligence, ethnicity, income, education, profession, height, geographic location, and so on. Different features are more useful for predicting different kinds of behavior.
ethnicity and class are the two most convenient features on which to do so [unite families]
But class doesn't unite families, as I understand there's as much economic inequality within families as between them. (Class isn't reducible to income, but I presume the same disparities within families apply.)
If you look at any natural social group (families, communities) there are likely features that members of those groups share and features that members don't. Those differences and similarities may drive the nature of political coalitions.
Let's consider my family as an example. I have a male father and female mother. A female wife, and a male son and female daughter. Given that I'm invested in all of their lives, it doesn't make sense for me to form a coalition that overtly advantages one age group or gender over another (at least relative to social norms). However, my family (and much of my social and work community) do broadly share class, educational attainment, and social attitudes. It's therefore much more likely that I'd form a coalition over those factors that stand to bind my family, friends, and colleagues than over issues like age and gender which risk pulling them apart. I suspect race is another shared group feature in most families and communities as well, so it's not surprise that that becomes a factor in coalitions.
Robin's latest post answers my question about ethnology and argument:
Our ancestors sat down and argued – at least if present-day small-scale societies are any guide to the past. In most such societies across the globe, when a grave problem threatens the group, people gather, debate, and work out a solution that most find satisfying. ..
So the prehistoric (and psychological) roots of class, ethnicity, and ideology:
Class: the struggle for equality against would-be "big men," discussed by Boehm.
Ethnicity: An extension of consanguinity interests. (This is the one I most doubt. Some researchers have distinguished cultures by their clannishness, and Germany, one of the less clannish cultures, erected a politics based on ethnicity.)
Ideology: The innate human tendency to have different opinions about socially important matters. Robin seems to think this tendency serves primarily other interests. But if the author of The Enigma of Reason is correct, it seems there was evolutionary pressure on humans to be good deliberators. Ideology is a distorted expression of this tendency. (Distorted in a world where class and ethnic conflict have been intensified.)
[It's important to distinguish here the ability to deliberate effectively and the ability to find truth. Many characteristics of ideology are more readily understandable as making a contribution to rational group behavior than to getting things right individually. Note also this doesn't assume group selectionism.]
Hanson alludes to the fact that politics is not as divided by gender as one might expect. However, there is a larger (though less discussed) divergence between married & unmarried people. Steve Sailer pointed out that one of the factors which most strongly correlates with the Republican share of the vote in presidential elections is years married among non-Hispanic white women. I've heard that in the early days of women's suffrage it was assumed by some that wives would simply vote the same as their husbands, and the effect would be the amplify the impact of married men (on the other hand, many correctly realized that this would strengthen the forces of Prohibition).
As is class. Perhaps this is the answer: a political coalition needs to unite families, not individuals, and ethnicity and class are the two most convenient features on which to do so.
(And perhaps this even applies to ideology too, given it's apparently somewhat heritable.)
Elegant explanation. But I don't think it's correct. The most avid followers of ideologies are the youth, who haven't yet committed to other coalitions.
Nation is based on race, always has been. Whites have ethnicities based on power and success, more primitive societies have clans or tribes. All groups have an identity. Western Civilization has class structures based on sophistication. More primitive races and groups have castes based on racial purity and genetic ties. The concept of hybrids and mixing never leads to stability. The Balkans and Haiti showed that all to clearly. There can never be a multiracial society. Mixing only dilutes the issue and blurs the lines, but they always exist. Religion is a wild card as Pakistan, Burma and India shows. But laws are not the same as religious beliefs as you are about to learn.
One factor is that political coalitions have to be big. The only ones that matter are those that are inclusive enough to allow a significant part of the population in. This is a pressure directly contrary to "use features that are good predictors of individual behaviour"
Simple: in a sufficiently unstable society, all other policy preferences become subordinate to your preference to not get looted or killed, and this is most easily sorted on the very basic tribal traits. And societies that aren't unstable are the exception.
Your political ideology tells us which coalitions you've already joined. That makes it informative about which coalitions you might join in the future. (So, political ideology is a little less tautological than Quite Likely said, but not much.)
Perhaps the puzzle is more about the basis for our largest scale coalitions, and there is less of a puzzle regarding smaller scale ones. I edited the post at bit to reflect this.
One reason ethnicity is probably a stronger group formation factor than gender, is sexuality. All else being equal, many people would prefer having members around that they are sexually interested in. So mixed-gender is in itself a positive trait for a group.
In creating a group, you probably would want to emphasize factors that distinguish members from non-members and demonize factors that would erase or diminish the group's boundary. Would it be reasonable to predict that a ethnicity-oriented group would be negative to say, mixed-race marriages, or that gender-oriented group would be negative to sexuality? Does it bear out in practice?
One possible thing to consider is Jonathan Haidt theory of social intuitionism, moral discust and moral foundations theory.
But that seems like a very different question, and more to do with group psychology than "why are political coalitions built on this factor"
ethnicity and class are the two most convenient features on which to do so [unite families]
But class doesn't unite families, as I understand there's as much economic inequality within families as between them. (Class isn't reducible to income, but I presume the same disparities within families apply.)
If you look at any natural social group (families, communities) there are likely features that members of those groups share and features that members don't. Those differences and similarities may drive the nature of political coalitions.
Let's consider my family as an example. I have a male father and female mother. A female wife, and a male son and female daughter. Given that I'm invested in all of their lives, it doesn't make sense for me to form a coalition that overtly advantages one age group or gender over another (at least relative to social norms). However, my family (and much of my social and work community) do broadly share class, educational attainment, and social attitudes. It's therefore much more likely that I'd form a coalition over those factors that stand to bind my family, friends, and colleagues than over issues like age and gender which risk pulling them apart. I suspect race is another shared group feature in most families and communities as well, so it's not surprise that that becomes a factor in coalitions.
Robin's latest post answers my question about ethnology and argument:
Our ancestors sat down and argued – at least if present-day small-scale societies are any guide to the past. In most such societies across the globe, when a grave problem threatens the group, people gather, debate, and work out a solution that most find satisfying. ..
So the prehistoric (and psychological) roots of class, ethnicity, and ideology:
Class: the struggle for equality against would-be "big men," discussed by Boehm.
Ethnicity: An extension of consanguinity interests. (This is the one I most doubt. Some researchers have distinguished cultures by their clannishness, and Germany, one of the less clannish cultures, erected a politics based on ethnicity.)
Ideology: The innate human tendency to have different opinions about socially important matters. Robin seems to think this tendency serves primarily other interests. But if the author of The Enigma of Reason is correct, it seems there was evolutionary pressure on humans to be good deliberators. Ideology is a distorted expression of this tendency. (Distorted in a world where class and ethnic conflict have been intensified.)
[It's important to distinguish here the ability to deliberate effectively and the ability to find truth. Many characteristics of ideology are more readily understandable as making a contribution to rational group behavior than to getting things right individually. Note also this doesn't assume group selectionism.]
Hanson alludes to the fact that politics is not as divided by gender as one might expect. However, there is a larger (though less discussed) divergence between married & unmarried people. Steve Sailer pointed out that one of the factors which most strongly correlates with the Republican share of the vote in presidential elections is years married among non-Hispanic white women. I've heard that in the early days of women's suffrage it was assumed by some that wives would simply vote the same as their husbands, and the effect would be the amplify the impact of married men (on the other hand, many correctly realized that this would strengthen the forces of Prohibition).
As is class. Perhaps this is the answer: a political coalition needs to unite families, not individuals, and ethnicity and class are the two most convenient features on which to do so.
(And perhaps this even applies to ideology too, given it's apparently somewhat heritable.)
Elegant explanation. But I don't think it's correct. The most avid followers of ideologies are the youth, who haven't yet committed to other coalitions.
Huh? Large fractions of the population have an age, gender, etc.
Nation is based on race, always has been. Whites have ethnicities based on power and success, more primitive societies have clans or tribes. All groups have an identity. Western Civilization has class structures based on sophistication. More primitive races and groups have castes based on racial purity and genetic ties. The concept of hybrids and mixing never leads to stability. The Balkans and Haiti showed that all to clearly. There can never be a multiracial society. Mixing only dilutes the issue and blurs the lines, but they always exist. Religion is a wild card as Pakistan, Burma and India shows. But laws are not the same as religious beliefs as you are about to learn.
One factor is that political coalitions have to be big. The only ones that matter are those that are inclusive enough to allow a significant part of the population in. This is a pressure directly contrary to "use features that are good predictors of individual behaviour"
Simple: in a sufficiently unstable society, all other policy preferences become subordinate to your preference to not get looted or killed, and this is most easily sorted on the very basic tribal traits. And societies that aren't unstable are the exception.
Your political ideology tells us which coalitions you've already joined. That makes it informative about which coalitions you might join in the future. (So, political ideology is a little less tautological than Quite Likely said, but not much.)
This seems to me to be obviously correct.
Perhaps the puzzle is more about the basis for our largest scale coalitions, and there is less of a puzzle regarding smaller scale ones. I edited the post at bit to reflect this.
One reason ethnicity is probably a stronger group formation factor than gender, is sexuality. All else being equal, many people would prefer having members around that they are sexually interested in. So mixed-gender is in itself a positive trait for a group.
In creating a group, you probably would want to emphasize factors that distinguish members from non-members and demonize factors that would erase or diminish the group's boundary. Would it be reasonable to predict that a ethnicity-oriented group would be negative to say, mixed-race marriages, or that gender-oriented group would be negative to sexuality? Does it bear out in practice?