Democratism-Aristocratism (Individualism-Collectivism, Egalitarianism-Elitism) in Light of the Mechanisms of Evolutionary Selection

Table 6. Intercorrelations of traits in the profiles of 1700 respondents to questionnaires 078-084

Number of degrees of freedom = 15-3,5=11,5 → socionics describes no fewer than 11 independent orthogonal psychological factors of personality

As we can see from the attached Table 6 (see), socionic «democratism» is not strictly orthogonal to the other socionic traits (and this is despite the strict orthogonalization of the diagnostic coefficients by which the traits are determined in the respondent dataset, and despite the mathematical equalization of the samples with respect to the representation of different sociotypes in them). Importantly, the magnitudes of the intercorrelations between traits shown in the table are stable and recur with only small fluctuations from one questionnaire to another (with a different set of diagnostic questions), and from one respondent sample to another. Consequently, these intercorrelations are objective in nature.

The democratic pole overlaps in 42% of its variance with the other 14 socionic traits; among other things, it correlates weakly positively with statics, intuition, extraversion, Questimity, irrationality, and Judiciousness, and to a substantially lesser degree (by one and a half percent of its variance) overlaps with the «Serious» pole. Thus, democratism overlaps quite appreciably in its variance with increased black intuition (and aristocratism – conversely, with decreased black intuition).

Thus, when we speak of the evolutionary benefits of the democratic pole, it must be taken into account that some of these benefits are generated by black intuition, with which democratism is partially linked. The benefits of the democratic pole (which declares a reduction in the gradient between the value of “one’s own” and “outsiders”) and of Black Intuition (which seeks new possibilities and is prone to wandering) are both realized with the greatest benefit at the periphery of the tribe’s habitat - where it comes into contact with other tribes. Therefore, the genetic (partial) linkage of democratism with Ne should not be surprising.

What kind of evolutionary benefits can the democratic pole have, equally lowering the value of “one’s own” and partly increasing the value of “outsiders”? In combination with logic and black sensing – this is personal egoism. In combination with the peaceable benevolence of the Judicious pole, to which the «you do for me, I do for you» principle of the Serious is partly added - this is the benefit of conflict-free behavior and an orientation toward interindividual human mutual assistance, regardless of the degree of kinship with another person (note that these expanded opportunities for horizontal cooperation once again provide the individual with only an individual, rather than a group, benefit). The latter property is especially useful in large multinational communities. It is no coincidence that democratism is partly associated with extraversion, and partly also with black business logic. Its partial linkage with intuition of possibilities is useful here as well.

However, individualistic democratism indeed also provides a group benefit!

1. Let us imagine a certain tribe of our ancestors (living among other tribes competing with it), almost entirely afflicted with aristocratic xenophobia. Will it be easy for this tribe to acquire allies among the other surrounding tribes in order to oppose some adversary that is stronger relative to each tribe standing alone? No, such a tribe will find itself in political isolation and therefore sooner or later will be wiped out.

2. A tribe with heightened xenophobia, inclined toward isolationism, will not enter into marriage alliances with surrounding tribes, that is, it will not replenish its gene pool, and with a comparatively small tribe size this will inevitably lead to its genetic degeneration. The problem of the degeneration of isolated populations is relevant even for modern peoples of quite substantial size – for example, the Finnish people, among whom, because of the large number of consanguineous matings, a large burden of genetic diseases has accumulated; therefore, attracting outside migrants to Finland has for several decades been a fully deliberate policy of the Finnish Ministry of Health.

3. In the era when multinational states were formed from scattered tribes, tribes with an elevated potential for socionic democratism have a substantial advantage in the survival of their genes because they fit much better into the politics and economy of a multinational state, and all the more so – a multinational empire. The same is true of eras when the territory of an indigenous population is seized by stronger newcomers. Because of their heightened socionic «aristocratism» and therefore their low capacity for assimilation and collaborationism, many Native American tribes died out precisely for this reason - after white people arrived on their lands.

On the other hand, the aristocratic pole also has its own obvious evolutionary advantages. Strengthened mutual support within the family contributes to the better survival of each individual. Aristocratism promotes the consolidation of the tribe, increases the unity and coordination of the actions of its members, especially increases their readiness to risk their lives for those close to them, and thereby increases the tribe’s military potential. The militaristic side of tribal life and mutual support among fellow tribespeople in years of famine – these are the areas of life in which the strengthened aristocratic pole, with its well-established clan-tribal relations, creates the most substantial advantages for the group as a whole.

It should also be remembered that there are no people in nature who are constantly and consistently prepared to sacrifice their own interests and those of their loved ones for the sake of completely unfamiliar outsiders (connected to the subject by neither kinship nor ideological ties). Nor are there any among socionic «democrats». Therefore, the question of how a trait that gives priority to the survival of foreign genes could become evolutionarily fixed is not entirely valid. In pure form, such cases do not occur. «Democrats» - these are simply people in whom the «one’s own-outsider» differentiation is less sharply expressed than in «aristocrats». Extremes are evolutionarily disadvantageous in either direction, and as a result nature establishes a certain population balance – which lies precisely in the zone of the present ambiversion of the «democrats-aristocrats» trait.

Today or tomorrow we will discuss this trait and a number of its characteristic clusters once again, in greater detail.

For now, looking slightly ahead, let us note the following:

1. Empathy-sympathy is neutral with respect to this trait (zero correlation with it). Empathy-sympathy, as it turns out, is associated only with ethics and benevolence («Judiciousness»).

2. Egoism-altruism correlates with democratism-aristocratism, with democrats as a whole (though far from all of them individually) being more egoistic on average. This is so. Their egoism manifests primarily as reduced concern for close relatives (sometimes – this reduction is compensated by concern and solidarity with other people connected to them more by ideological ties). But the socionic trait of democratism-aristocratism is not the only one, nor even remotely the main one, that contributes to egoism-altruism. Rationality, Declatimity, and ethics also make contributions of equal magnitude to altruism, while the contributions of Judiciousness and Yielding to altruism are even several times greater than the specific contribution of «aristocratism».

3. «Aristocratism» manifests most vividly in such clusters of psychological properties as xenophobia and isolationism, adherence to retrograde traditional values («uniting the people»), priority of the interests of the state and the collective over the interests and rights of the individual, as well as adherence to the values of unanimity among the people. But even in such a property as a tendency toward military heroism with self-sacrifice, the contribution of aristocratic traits, although not entirely zero, is still fairly small – in comparison with the noticeably greater contribution of such traits as Merriness and Statics.

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Note: The intercorrelations of traits in the attached Table 6 were obtained in a sample mathematically equalized with respect to the representation of different psychotypes. Thus, these are «true» correlations, unrelated to the socionic heterogeneity of the sample.