Originally Posted by
Occam's Banana
https://x.com/CCrowley100/status/1878185045845770713
to:
https://x.com/CCrowley100/status/1878204268424966329
{Chad Crowley
@CCrowley100 | 11 January 2025}
[bold emphasis in the original - OB]
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We could spend all day debating the nature of Western decline. It’s complex, multifaceted, and undeniable. But at its core lies a chilling truth: falling intelligence, collapsing values, and self-destructive ideologies are accelerating the unraveling of our civilization.
[video @ original - OB]
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The modern West has reached a tipping point. In its zealous pursuit of an ever-distant and never-achieved equality, masquerading under the guise of progress, a darker truth comes to light: the forces shaping the trajectory of Western civilization are not merely misguided but actively maladaptive. This means that what is heralded as advancement—ideological zeal, technological innovation, and a "moral" reordering—has instead sown the seeds of decay. Beneath the glittering facade of "progress" lies a civilization in crisis, where intellectual decline converges with the rise of ideologies that undermine the very foundations of cultural and biological survival.
Few thinkers have dared to dissect this unraveling as unflinchingly as Edward Dutton. An evolutionary psychologist with a penchant for challenging taboos, Dutton has made a career of addressing uncomfortable realities. In "At Our Wit's End," written with Michael Woodley of Menie, Dutton explores the inversion of evolutionary pressures that once fostered intelligence, a defining trait of Western success, now favoring mediocrity. In "Woke Eugenics," co-authored with J. O. A. Rayner-Hilles, Dutton examines the self-destructive tendencies of progressive ideologies, which, under the guise of "justice," promote sterility and fragility, unintentionally removing their acolytes from the gene pool. Together, these works offer a sobering diagnosis of the West’s decline: a genetic and cultural unraveling that few dare to acknowledge.
This essay examines these intertwined crises, using Dutton’s works as a framework to confront the forces shaping our age—and to explore the potential for Western renewal.
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The Decline of Intelligence: A Civilization Unravels
At the heart of "At Our Wit's End" is a provocative thesis: intelligence, the keystone of any successful civilization, is in decline. This is not conjecture but a measurable phenomenon, supported by falling IQ scores, slower reaction times, and diminishing creativity. Edward Dutton and Michael Woodley of Menie marshal an array of evidence to support this claim. Longitudinal studies, for instance, show significant decreases in IQ scores over recent decades, with some estimates suggesting a drop of nearly seven points per generation in Western populations. Similarly, studies of reaction times—a reliable proxy for cognitive processing speed—indicate that modern individuals are slower than their Victorian-era counterparts. Even creativity, once a hallmark of Western ingenuity, has waned. Researchers have documented sharp declines in originality, emotional expressiveness, and imaginative problem-solving since the early 1990s.
Dutton and Woodley argue that this decline stems from the Industrial Revolution, a turning point that reversed the evolutionary pressures shaping human intelligence. Before industrialization, societies rewarded traits like foresight, problem-solving, and self-control—qualities that correlated with higher intelligence. Wealthy, intelligent elites had more surviving children, while the poor and less capable succumbed to harsher conditions. Evolution acted as a filter, fostering a population better equipped to navigate the complexities of life. However, the Industrial Revolution equalized survival rates across society. Advances in sanitation and medicine meant that intelligence was no longer a prerequisite for reproduction. Welfare systems and contraception further exacerbated this trend, enabling individuals with lower cognitive ability to out-reproduce the intelligent, who increasingly delayed or avoided parenthood.
The consequences of this shift are staggering. Dutton and Woodley highlight the slowing pace of "macro-innovations"—transformative breakthroughs like the airplane or the internet—as a direct consequence of declining intelligence. Between 1450 and 1870, the rate of such innovations per capita quadrupled, reflecting a period of rapid intellectual ascent. Yet since the 19th century, this rate has plummeted. Even the maintenance of existing technologies is slipping: the West has not sent a manned mission to the Moon since 1972, and supersonic passenger travel ended with the retirement of the Concorde in 2003. Cultural outputs, too, show clear signs of stagnation. Studies on popular music, for example, reveal declining variety in tonal complexity and timbre, while movies and literature increasingly rely on derivative themes rather than originality. This is not merely a loss of genius but a creeping erosion of competence, leaving the West vulnerable to stagnation and collapse.
For those of us still capable of critical thought, it is painfully evident that the collective decline of intelligence is not merely an academic concern but a civilizational one. A society that cannot innovate, adapt, or even maintain its existing infrastructure is one that has forfeited its future. The West’s failure to grapple with this reality reflects not just intellectual laziness but a deeper existential crisis—a refusal to confront the forces of its own undoing. To ignore this decline is to invite the very dystopia Dutton and Woodley warn against: a civilization slowly strangled by its own mediocrity.
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The Rise of Maladaptive Ideologies
In "Woke Eugenics," Edward Dutton and J. O. A. Rayner-Hilles delve into the ideological upheavals that mirror the genetic decline of the West. The rise of progressive ideologies—what the authors refer to as the oft-cited "woke mind virus"—is not a cultural accident but a symptom of increasing genetic maladaptation. Drawing on psychological and evolutionary research, they argue that harmful mutations, accumulated over generations, weaken mental resilience and leave individuals more susceptible to ideologies that undermine group survival.
The woke mindset prioritizes individual status-seeking within groups while disregarding the collective well-being of those groups. According to Dutton and Rayner-Hilles, this is evident in the rejection of binding moral foundations like loyalty, authority, and sanctity—values that have historically ensured social cohesion. Instead, the woke elevate "individualizing" moral foundations such as equality and harm avoidance, promoting a worldview that celebrates sterility, weakness, and even self-destruction.
The authors bolster their argument with data connecting woke ideologies to declining fertility. Fertility rates across Western nations have plummeted well below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, with progressive strongholds like Germany and the United Kingdom averaging 1.5. Woke movements encourage this decline through overt and covert messaging. Abortion is championed as a moral imperative, childlessness as a noble response to climate change, and transgenderism as a solution for unhappy youth—despite its lifelong reproductive consequences. Subtler yet pervasive cultural norms, such as the glorification of extended adolescence and debt-laden education systems, further discourage young people from forming families. Rising housing costs and stagnant wages render homeownership and financial stability unattainable for many, leaving the most fertile years of life squandered in economic precarity.
Even more insidiously, the authors highlight how wokeness fosters social and cultural conditions hostile to reproduction. Movements like "fat acceptance" and "climate anxiety" normalize maladaptive behaviors and mindsets, while anti-natalist rhetoric portrays parenthood as selfish or irresponsible. Dutton and Rayner-Hilles connect these trends to psychological vulnerabilities, particularly among woke adherents. Studies show that individuals with "vulnerable narcissism" or traits linked to borderline personality disorder—common among woke activists—struggle with emotional regulation and seek validation through moral crusades rather than stable family structures. In their fixation on equality and harm avoidance, the woke abandon the very principles that sustain life: family, fertility, and faith.
Yet, paradoxically, this self-destructive tendency may serve an unintended evolutionary purpose. Dutton and Rayner-Hilles suggest that wokeness acts as a form of "group selection," removing maladaptive individuals from the population. The very ideologies that render their adherents unfit for survival—through sterility or dysfunctional behavior—may ultimately benefit the broader group by eliminating genetic and behavioral liabilities. However, this process is fraught with danger. A society weakened by these ideologies risks collapse before any meaningful purging can occur, leaving it vulnerable to internal chaos or external conquest.
From my perspective, the woke fixation on sterility is emblematic of a civilization that has not only lost faith in itself but is actively anti-life and anti-human. Fertility is a vote for the future—a declaration of belief in one’s people, culture, and purpose. A people who refuse to reproduce are a people who have forfeited their claim to tomorrow. Wokeness, for all its moral posturing, is less a movement for justice than a cry of despair—a nihilistic rejection of the principles that sustain life. As Dutton and Rayner-Hilles show, the pathologies of wokeness are not just cultural; they are evolutionary, pushing the West toward an abyss from which only the strongest—and the most self-aware—might emerge.
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The interplay of declining intelligence and maladaptive ideologies fits within a broader historical framework: the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations. Dutton and his co-authors draw on "Social Cycle Theory," which posits that civilizations ascend through discipline, ingenuity, and collective solidarity but inevitably succumb to decadence, disunity, and stagnation. This framework not only illuminates the present malaise of the West but also serves as a cautionary tale from history: no civilization is immune to decline, especially when it abandons the principles that once secured its greatness.
This cycle is perhaps most famously illustrated in the fate of ancient Rome. Once renowned for its martial vigor and cultural achievement, Rome in its latter imperial stages became decadent, infertile, and fractured. The Roman elite, once defined by their discipline and commitment to the state, gradually succumbed to hedonism and self-interest, forsaking their duty to the collective. The influx of foreign populations further destabilized the delicate balance of Roman society, introducing competing loyalties and undermining the cultural and moral foundations of the empire. Traditional values that once unified the empire—loyalty to Rome, reverence for ancestors, and the prioritization of civic duty—gave way to individualism, materialism, and moral relativism.
Dutton and Woodley argue that the same forces are at work in the modern West. Just as Rome’s decline was marked by a loss of selective pressures on its elite and the rise of ideological subversion, so too has the West surrendered to similar dynamics. The egalitarianism and moral permissiveness that characterize modern ideologies parallel the cultural and genetic erosion that left Rome vulnerable to external conquest and internal decay. These patterns are not coincidental; they reflect a deeper truth about the fragility of human societies when faced with prolonged comfort and abundance.
The works also resonate with Ibn Khaldun’s concept of asabiyyah, or group solidarity. Khaldun observed that civilizations rise when harsh conditions demand collective effort and shared purpose but fall into decline as luxury and ease erode this unity. Harsh environments forge strong bonds of trust, loyalty, and sacrifice, fostering resilience and discipline within a population. However, as material wealth accumulates, these virtues are often replaced by complacency, entitlement, and fragmentation. The West, with its fixation on individual rights and equality, has allowed the shared values and hierarchies that once unified its people to disintegrate. This erosion of asabiyyah not only undermines social cohesion but also amplifies the impact of intellectual decline, leaving institutions unable to sustain the complexities of modern life.
What makes the present moment particularly precarious is the convergence of declining intelligence and ideological subversion. Intelligence—the ability to solve complex problems and maintain advanced systems—is critical for sustaining large-scale civilizations. As this capacity diminishes, institutions begin to falter. Ideological subversion, meanwhile, accelerates this process by promoting values that actively undermine group cohesion, such as hyper-individualism, relativism, and a disdain for tradition. Together, these forces create a feedback loop of decline, where weakening institutions breed further fragmentation and incompetence, compounding the challenges faced by society.
At the core of both works lies a disturbing paradox: the very traits that drive civilizational advancement—intelligence, creativity, and moral innovation—also sow the seeds of their destruction. The intellectual and cultural dynamism that elevate societies to their heights often deteriorates into decadence and hubris, as the mechanisms of success are taken for granted and allowed to decay. The genetic and cultural foundations that once fostered greatness now work against it, leaving the West adrift in a sea of its own contradictions. In this sense, the West’s trajectory is not merely anti-life but anti-human—a civilization actively rejecting the principles that sustain existence and the values that define humanity.
Seemingly overlooked by many mainstream historians, the true purpose of studying history is to draw lessons from the past. Rome fell, and the lights of its civilization dimmed for centuries before the seeds of renewal emerged in the Middle Ages. Whether the West can avoid a similar fate depends on its willingness to confront the forces of decline with clarity and resolve. For now, the cyclical nature of history serves as a dire reminder that collapse is not a distant possibility but an ever-present reality for those who neglect the foundations of their survival.
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While "At Our Wit's End" and "Woke Eugenics" paint a grim picture, they also offer implicit lessons for those willing to heed them. History, as Dutton and his co-authors remind us, is cyclical. Civilizations collapse, but they can also rise again. The question is whether the West possesses the will to endure its darkest hour and rebuild from the ashes.
The path to renewal lies in reclaiming the values that modernity seeks to discard. Tradition, far from being an outdated relic, is the transmission of principles that have consistently proven to sustain and strengthen societies. It embodies the hard-won wisdom of generations, reflecting values like hierarchy based on merit, group solidarity, and a shared moral framework. These traditions are not arbitrary; they are the foundations of successful civilizations, ensuring unity and stability. Merit-based hierarchy ensures the capable lead and society thrives, while group solidarity fosters trust, loyalty, and a sense of collective purpose. These values have preserved societies through crises and propelled them toward greatness.
Dutton and Rayner-Hilles offer a provocative insight: even the self-destructive tendencies of wokeness could, in theory, pave the way for a healthier society. By purging maladaptive elements, i.e., woke liberals, these ideologies may inadvertently prepare the ground for civilizational renewal. Yet this outcome is far from assured. Without active resistance, the West risks succumbing to external pressures and internal fragmentation before any meaningful rebuilding can occur.
As I see it, the future belongs to those who can safeguard the West’s ethnocultural and thus intellectual inheritance through its darkest hour. Renewal is not a passive endeavor but one that demands courage, sacrifice, and the rejection of ideological dogmas in favor of enduring truths. Tradition, with its proven values of perseverance, unity, and purpose, remains the cornerstone of this revival, offering the wisdom and stability necessary to rebuild from within.
The works of Dutton, Woodley, and Rayner-Hilles provide more than just commentary; they offer a pragmatic framework for understanding and addressing the deep-rooted challenges of our age. They do not present a rigid blueprint but equip us with the tools to assess the path forward with clarity and resolve. The seeds of renewal have already been sown, and the capacity for revival rests in the hands of those with the vision and determination to act decisively.
This is not merely a task for leaders or so-called "elites" but for every individual who understands that survival depends on action at every level of society. Confronting the uncomfortable truths of our time, rejecting complacency, and carving a path forward rooted in strength and purpose are the responsibilities of all who seek to ensure the West endures. In the face of decline, revival demands collective effort and an unwavering commitment to the principles that sustain life and civilization.
[video @ original - OB]
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If you enjoyed this thread, please give Dr. Edward Dutton (
@jollyheretic) a follow and consider purchasing some of his fantastic books. He’s an important thinker and an excellent writer, offering sharp insights into some of the most pressing issues of our time. He’s also quite funny, which makes the "dark" nature of the subject matter a bit easier to stomach!
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I felt this deserved a more detailed reply, reposted for visibility:
"Idiocracy" is satire—meant to entertain. That said, the critique here overlooks key nuances of regression to the mean (RTTM). While RTTM is real, its application in the context of Western elites doesn’t operate as neatly as implied. Intelligence is heritable, yes, but preserving it requires more than just genetics—it depends on the intricate social, cultural, and institutional frameworks that are not easily reconstructed once dismantled.
@TheTrichome is correct to highlight the role of inbreeding and its consequences. High consanguinity diminishes genetic diversity and concentrates deleterious alleles, making RTTM far less predictable in "restoring IQs." Societies with high consanguinity—many of which lack the intellectual and cultural scaffolding of the West—struggle not only with innovation but with maintaining basic systems of governance and infrastructure. A lack of both genetic and institutional diversity compounds stagnation and decline.
Additionally, historical "bottlenecks" where populations recovered did not involve the wholesale elimination of intellectual elites. Societies that rebounded successfully did so because their intellectual ecosystems—characterized by genetic diversity, selective pressures, and cultural continuity—remained intact. Should the West’s elites be removed, the resulting void would not be filled within a generation; recovery from such a loss takes centuries, not decades.
Finally, RTTM isn’t an automatic or magical process. The resilience of intelligence depends on the intellectual and cultural structures that nurture and reward it—structures historically upheld by Western elites. Suggesting IQ will "spring back" without these frameworks oversimplifies the issue. Heritability may set the stage, but it is the civilizational, educational, and moral foundations that allow intelligence to thrive and shape a functional society.
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