Paul Dachslager

PAUL S. DACHSLAGER

CURRICULUM VITAE

platopaul@yahoo.com

EDUCATION

2012, Ph.D. equivalence, for 20 years of research experience and publishing, as designated by the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA. (Documentation of Ph.D. equivalence is available upon request.)

2014–Present, Master’s Degree Candidate: European History, American Public University System, Charles Town, West Virginia, Core requirements completed, 18 Units. GPA: 3.95.

2007, B.A., Philosophy, American Public University System, Charles Town, West Virginia.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Evolutionary psychology: Use hierarchy to model primary social, political, and cultural areas in religion, art history, mores, identity politics; describe transitions between fundamental periods of modern Western history.

Evolutionary and Platonist periodizations of Western historical eras: emphasize modernism and identity politics, social science methodology, aggression, dominance and crime; periodize art, film, and music history; assimilate Platonism and Christian-Platonism to evolutionary psychology.

Books read for research: approximately 1,600 volumes read on most aspects of history, ancient and modern philosophy, and evolutionary psychology.

PUBLICATIONS

Thomas Martin (pen name). "The Victory of Humanism: The Psychology of Humanist Art, Modernism and Race." Palm Coast, FL: Backintyme Publishers, 2011.

Paul Dachslager. "Human Sin or Social Sin: Evolutionary Psychology, Plato and the Christian Logic of Sociology." Charleston, SC: Create Space, 2016.

The complete text of "The Victory of Humanism" is contained in "Human Sin or Social Sin."

I have been commissioned by Cognela Academic Publishing, San Diego, CA, to write an undergraduate textbook on evolutionary psychology, which shows how my models and findings have restructured the discipline, with two chapters devoted to my models. The commissioning editor, Laura Pasquale, has a Ph.D. in psychology.

EMINENCE ACHIEVED IN ACADEMIA

Richard Lynn, Ph.D. in psychology at Cambridge University (1956), professor emeritus of psychology, University of Ulster: Prof. Lynn confirmed that the evolutionary model for social psychology outlined in my books caused the discipline of evolutionary psychology to change its methodology from kin selection to group selection for the evolution of altruism, as evidenced by David Buss, ed., Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, 2nd edition, vols. 1 and 2 (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2016); and Edward O. Wilson, The Social Conquest of Earth (New York: Liveright, 2013). See Professor Lynn’s contact information under Professional References, below.

My models and findings have been reproduced and extended by four different publications. 1) Joseph Carroll, Dan P. McAdams & Edward O. Wilson, eds., Darwin’s Bridge: Uniting the Humanities and Sciences (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); 2) Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Penguin Books, 2012); 3) David Buss, ed., Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, 2nd edition, vols. 1 and 2 (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2016); and 4) Edward O. Wilson, The Social Conquest of Earth (New York: Liveright, 2013). Reproducibility is an important part of the scientific method.

My publications founded the subdisciplines of evolutionary political psychology and the evolutionary psychology of history and postmodernism.

The empirical strength of my models is such that I have been interviewed by four talk-show hosts.

CONFERENCE PAPERS

“Is Postmodernism Post Plato? By No Means.” Inaugural Lecture, Socratic Philosophical Honor Society. American Public University System, Charles Town, WV. May 12, 2016.

“From Virtue to Politics.” Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Natal, Brazil. July 30–August 2, 2014. (The poster abstract was published by HBES.)

“An Evolutionary Periodization of Modernism.” Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Miami, Florida. July 17–21, 2013. (The poster abstract was published by HBES.) (This paper and the paper above contain two of the main theses of my books and their application to the central aspects of Western socio-political and cultural history. My evolutionary model has passed formal scientific peer review. The abstracts for the two HBES posters are published in Human Sin or Social Sin.)

“The Paradox of Wagner and Modernism.” Wagner Society of Northern California, San Francisco, CA. February 9, 2013.

“Proto-Evolutionary Theory in Plato and Aristotle.” Socratic Philosophical Honor Society, American Public University System, Charles Town, West Virginia. Presentation date to be determined.

MEMBERSHIP IN AN ACADEMIC ADVISORY BOARD

Academic Advisor (Referee), "Journal of the American Philosophical Association," Cambridge University Press, 2014–Present. (This appointment entails reviewing articles that are evolutionary applications in the Social Sciences and Humanities.)

MEMBERSHIP IN SCHOLARLY SOCIETIES

• American Philosophical Association, University of Delaware, Newark. 2011–Present. Member of the APA Committee of Philosophers Outside of Academia. (Membership granted for The Victory of Humanism.)

• International Plato Society, Université Paris Ouest, Nanterre-La Defense, 2012–Present. (Membership granted for The Victory of Humanism.)

• The Human Behavior and Evolution Society, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 2007–Present.

• The Wagner Society of Northern California, San Francisco, CA. 1997–Present.

• The American Beethoven Society, California State University, San Jose, CA. 2016–Present.

• French Porcelain Society, London, England. 2008–Present.

HONORS/AWARDS

• Golden Key International Honor Society, Atlanta, GA. 2016.

• Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society, Winfield, KS. 2016.

• Historical Studies Honor Society, American Public University System, Charles Town, West Virginia. 2016.

• Socratic Philosophical Honor Society, American Public University System, Charles Town, West Virginia. 2016.

• Lifetime Achievement Award Nominee, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 2014. Nominated by Richard Lynn, Ph.D.

• Education Award Finalist, American Public University System, 2014.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ENDORSEMENTS

Over twenty individuals with Ph.D.’s. (ten from Ivy League schools) have praised my books; seven of these individuals wrote blurbs for my books.

Joan Wallach Scott, Director of the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. After being asked if she read a 100-page writing sample, she responded, in a hushed tone, “Yes!”

Mauro Tulli is professor of classics at the University of Pisa, and a past president of the International Plato Society. He read The Victory of Humanism and confirmed that it qualified me for membership in the Society.

Charles H. Parsons, music critic for "The American Record Guide," "Opera" (London), and "Opera News" (New York). He described my Wagner Society paper as “fascinating.”

James Slouffman, M.A., President of the Wagner Society of Cincinnati, instructor at the University of Cincinnati. Assigned my paper “The Paradox of Wagner and Modernism” to his class on Wagner. He commented that the paper was well received.

“It’s Revolutionary!!”

Barbara Henrahan, Ph.D.

Chief Editor

University of Wisconsin Press

Dr. Henrahan yelled this comment into the phone. She has a Ph.D. in medieval history. Her last position before retirement was as director of The University of Notre Dame Press. She responded to what I wrote during my first four months of writing. (I still have this writing sample, and I published all of it fifteen years later.)

“This tome, Human Sin or Social Sin, has conquered the two worlds that have divided scholarship for over two centuries; Dr. Dachslager has brought together the humanities and sciences and integrated new dimensions of the evolutionary psychology of politics, religion, art, group selection and history. This is all rooted in the findings of primate behavior in Human Sin or Social Sin.”

Richard Lynn, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Ulster. Prof Lynn has a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. He is the author of six books and 500 articles published in journals such as Intelligence.

“Mr. Dachslager has written a book of critical importance. His thoughts are well phrased, and reflect the author’s detailed knowledge of the American cultural scene. He moves easily from highbrow to lowbrow culture and can write intelligently about both.”

Paul Gottfried, Ph.D.

Horace E. Raffensberger Professor in the Humanities

Elizabethtown College

Elizabethtown, PA

Prof. Gottfried, whose Ph.D. is from Yale University, wrote a letter to the American Philosophical Society, describing how my books demonstrate Ph.D. equivalence. He has written nine books on political philosophy, three of which were published by Princeton University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Palgrave Macmillan.

“Mr. Dachslager has a discerning eye, and unlike many academics, including myself, he has the range to connect fashionable academic theory to pop culture. I enjoyed in particular the dissection of the race question.”

Robert Paquette, Ph.D., Professor of American History, Hamilton College.

Prof. Paquette, a specialist on American slavery, is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Slavery in the Americas (2016). He is a co-founder of the Alexander Hamilton Institute.

“People with Ph.D.’s would have difficulty doing this!!”

Dane Archer, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

UC Santa Cruz

Professor Archer, who has a Ph.D. from Harvard University, is the co-author of Violence and Crime in Cross-National Perspective (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984). He yelled the above comment into the phone. His book contains the most complete international crime data set for the twentieth century. His comment is a response to my analysis of his crime data set. His comment affirms my analysis’ empirical strength and its difficulty.

“Modern sleep and dream science teaches us, as does Mr. Dachslager’s work, that all human activities, including art and politics, are products of the human brain and that each of us has the privilege and responsibility of using it actively and communicating its creations.”

Dr. J. Allan Hobson. Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School, author of Dreaming: An Introduction to the Science of Sleep (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), and, From Angels to Neurons: Art and the New Science of Dreams (2005; translated into Italian).

Dr. Hobson’s memoirs were recently published by MIT Press. He has published 11 books on the neurobiology of sleep, dreams, and consciousness, putting dream analysis on a firm empirical and biological foundation. There is no discussion of symbolism in his book. Dr. Hobson was the recipient of the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Sleep Research Society in 1988. A philosophy professor commented that Dr. Hobson is the most important sleep and dream scientist of the last fifty years.

Prof. Edward O. Wilson, at Harvard University, in his book Consilience, uses Dr. Hobson’s model for sleep and dreams to imply that the Greek rationalist tradition is on a scientific basis. Prof. Jonathan Gottschall, in his book The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), has a chapter devoted to summarizing Dr. Hobson’s findings on sleep and dreams, showing their relevance for understanding culture and literature.

Dr. Hobson implies in his endorsement that I have successfully biologized art and politics.

“This book has changed my experience of the world.”

Richard Dobson, Ph.D.

Dr. Dobson, whose Ph.D. is from UC Berkeley, was an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara. His comment is about as high a praise as a book can get. He wrote a letter to the Institute for Advanced Society testifying that my work demonstrates Ph.D. equivalence.

“For the select few who appreciate a masterful weaving of history, philosophy, and the arts (from grand opera to the movies) the book is a tour de force. Reading it is like a return to college. For those concerned about the state of modern life, it is a must read.”

Robert Weissberg, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, New York University.

Professor Weissberg is the author of eleven books.

“Mr. Dachslager might as well have added the subtitle to his book The Changing Nature of Western Symbolism. The author focuses on the shifts in the meanings of Western symbols, be they of ethical or aesthetical nature, and he explains their different interpretations within different socio-political epochs. The author displays considerable erudition as he puts his description into a wider historical perspective. The book offers us a further insight into the self-perception of the Ancients as opposed to the self-perception of what came to be known as “the Moderns.” Backed by solid bibliography and numerous quotations from classics, the book is a valuable source. The Western man’s obsession with the feelings of guilt and self-hate, which the author depicts in a very succinct manner, might qualify his book as a sequel to Spengler’s and Toynbee’s premonitions of the final death of the West.”

Dr. Tom Sunic, whose Ph.D. in political science is from the UC Santa Barbara, is the author of Postmortem Report: Cultural Examinations from Postmodernity. In his comment above, he describes how my work might be in the same class as Toynbee’s, one of the twentieth century’s most important historians and an Oxford professor. Toynbee wrote a 12-volume history of civilizations. To be mentioned in the same breath with this achievement is indeed significant.

“Mr. Dachslager writes with brilliance.”

Winfred Moore, Ph.D.

Visiting Distinguished Professor of Religion

Baylor University.

Prof. Moore is co-editor of Toward the Meeting of the Waters: Currents in the Civil Rights Movement of South Carolina During the Twentieth Century (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2010). He has used my ideas in his lectures.

PROFESSIONAL REFERENCES

Paul Gottfried, Ph.D.

Raffensberger Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus

Elizabethtown College

Email: gottfrpe@etown.edu

Richard Lynn, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology, Emeritus

University of Ulster

Email: Lynnr540@aol.com

Robert Weissberg, Ph.D.

Professor of Political Science, Emeritus

University of Illinois, Urbana

Email: rweissbe@illinois.edu

Frank Sweet, M.A. (He completed all his coursework for a Ph.D. in history)

Founding Publisher, BackinTyme Press

Email: fwsweet@backintyme.com

Writing Sample: Human Sin or Social Sin

By Paul Dachslager

Foreword

Special Note: For the peer review process and this book, see Appendix 1 in the complete edition.

For scholarly citation options regarding this book, see Appendix 1 in the complete edition.

This work, the result of twenty-five years of research, unifies the sciences of evolutionary psychology and primate behavior with the history of culture, both high and low, and political philosophy. Two of its most important theses have passed peer review by the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. (See Appendix 1 for abstracts.) This book was first published in three successive volumes issued between 2006 and 2013. The first and second volumes, which were the most significant, were sent to several important American evolutionary psychologists. From the direction of subsequent research and findings in the discipline, the works’ reception appears to have shifted the emphasis in evolutionary theory away from kin selection and toward group selection. A psychology professor with a Ph.D. from Cambridge University reviewed the relevant scholarship, and agreed that the findings contained in Human Sin or Social Sin had this effect on evolutionary psychology.

Studies have found that male aggression is sexualized for both men and women, which in turn influences how they view and stratify themselves and others. This led me to study the intersections of gender, sex, race, morality, and crime. It was clear that aggression was central to these areas of psychology and that these subjects could only be unified by a model that coordinated aggression, sex, race, and hierarchy. Clearly, women stratify men relative to sexual preferences, just as men stratify women.

By identifying changing preferences in affiliation, love, and sexuality, I was then able to examine their higher-level expressions in social and cultural values and institutions. Men and women express their preferences and values in the social and cultural realm through attitudes, cultural symbols, gestures, rituals, patterns of appeasement, and opinions. The last fifty years have seen a sexual revolution, during which white men and women have adopted different ideals regarding gender and different ideals about their relations with other ethnic groups.

The idea of free love was an underground movement in the nineteenth century, but with sexual liberation it went mainstream. Not only are white men and women quicker to jump into bed today, but they feel an imperative to love other ethnic groups; the “Summer of Love” occurred in 1967 and was in part directed to other ethnic groups. The nineteenth-century composer Richard Wagner was an anarcho-socialist who believed in free love. He opposed laws, contracts, and marriage, instead believing that free love could unite people. With sexual liberation, this notion of a unifying love is now a common impulse that gives whites feelings of affection, affiliation, and unity with other ethnic groups: popular sayings are “One Love,” “Love>Fear,” “Global Village,” “Celebrate Diversity!” “Unlimit Yourself,” and “Unity Through Music.” In music videos, whites’ orchestrated affections for other ethnic groups are very common, and “diversity Czars” are hired by companies to make similar arrangements.

Like Wagner, Christian groups today are in the forefront of promoting whites’ redeeming love for other ethnic groups. (The nineteenth century also believed in redemption through love.) These new ideals of group-based love and affiliation create whites’ impulses and expressions of love and perceived unity with other ethnic groups. Similarly, these ideals inspire the elites and our moral leaders to promote and enforce among whites this cross-group love. As elites during the nineteenth century advocated that whites should love other whites, the elites today advocate that whites, as a group, should love other ethnic groups.

Whites who resist or oppose these smiling, appeasing, and affiliative emotions are branded as “haters,” and there are laws against not accepting other ethnic groups. It is fine for a white to hate another white or even to hate the entire white race, which is common and even viewed as commendable, but a white cannot hate an ethnic group. This is so serious that to commit a hate crime is a federal offence. In contrast, for a white to kill another white is not a federal offence. As in the nineteenth century, Christian love today is serious business. For instance, if a white person or an institution were to advocate that it should be an ideal for whites to love whites and their historical accomplishments—as a group—this would be experienced as racism. This would smack of the nineteenth century. The pious position today, of course, is to reject history in the name of love and in the spirit of rejecting the evil, “fallen” past, the era of the “old law.” Or the imperative is to fight for the triumph of good over evil, and to marginalize discussions of whites as a group; the obvious priority is to focus instead on celebrating other ethnic groups. This moral imperative results in promoting multi-culturalism in the liberal arts as symbolic of our meritorious efforts to reject wicked history.

What is evident in this discussion of love and race is that whites today have a very unified moral culture, which is clearly based on the intersections of love, sex, race, social values, culture, and even law. These fit together into one unified system—from ideals of Christian love down through the arts and other symbols, rituals of appeasement, social philosophy, and further down to sex.

This unified moral system has clearly defined enemies that are pursued, persecuted, and prosecuted. Moral panics regarding racism are common today, just as moral panics were common in earlier centuries and resulted in similar witch hunts. So today’s social psychology is race-based and has an aggressive stance to those outside of the moral, cultural, and civic identity. The moral drama during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries centered on whites and their moral relation with other races—the difference being that now whites view themselves as evil instead of good. So as the nineteenth century was a very unified and ordered culture, we are today also. There are whites who get the stamp of approval, and then there are the outsiders. Whites who give the impression that they are members in good standing are more likely to receive many social and sexual benefits or acts of cooperation and altruism. It is common for civic and business organizations to give recognition and awards to individuals who are exemplary or self-sacrificing in their “service to the cause.”

I believe it is the empirical and methodological strength of this model for our social unity today that inspired the evolutionary psychologists to re-examine the traditional group selection model for the evolution of altruism. On the one hand, the historical and anthropological records are clear regarding frequent group tension and fighting, and, apparently, those groups that most successfully worked together as a team were more likely to beat their enemies and conquer more territory. Rome is a good example from antiquity, and as of 1914, European powers controlled 85% of the Earth’s land. Both of these scenarios show high degrees of social altruism; men were willing to risk their lives for the greater glory of nation, god, and other types of leaders. The institutions at the time that governed and educated people, from churches and schools to the highest levels of government, were devoted to inculcating this altruism, love, and service to the cause of the white nations and governments.

Today, we see similar group-based thinking for whites from most of our institutions devoted to promoting multi-cultural affiliation, unity, and love. And as in the nineteenth century, there are people today who are proper and improper, insiders and outsiders: a wrong comment today can ruin a career. Reputation and keeping up appearances are as important today as during the nineteenth century.

What the model described in Human Sin or Social Sin has done is to give evolutionary psychology the system and data to show the growth of contemporary culture out of the patterns of group selection in history. And a significant part of this is a unified evolutionary model for altruism and related social psychologies, such as religion, ritual, hierarchies, appeasement, and ritual submission. As is clear, we are as morally stratified today as in the past, and this has profound social and reproductive consequences for men and women. The model also shows how aspects of the psychology of hierarchy function today and how people negotiate the hierarchy with a language of rituals or symbols in order to maintain a good reputation. For instance, the traditional V-shape of two fingers meant Victory during World War II, but it became transformed into “peace” between whites and other ethnicities during the 1960s. People use this language to signal to others that they are securely in the group and are therefore a reliable partner for other men and women to collectively forward their own status and reproductive aspirations.

The influence of this model is clear in "The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology," 2nd edition (2016), edited by David Buss, at the University of Texas at Austin. In the first edition of the Handbook, several aspects of psychology were absent or incomplete. This has been remedied in the second edition, and is now consistent with my findings on the centrality of groups, religion, morals, ritual, reputation, hierarchy, and leadership as large factors in morals and altruism. Edward O. Wilson also defended the primacy of group selection in his book "The Social Conquest of Earth" (2013). His treatment of Western religions is such that he only alludes to its importance for hierarchy and altruism, and in such a way as to avoid borrowing from my explicit treatment. And the same development of material applies to the second edition of the Buss Handbook.

Both Buss and Wilson can be seen as providing additional theoretical frameworks for the more empirical orientation of "Human Sin or Social Sin." They also add helpful cross-social data. Furthermore, Human Sin or Social Sin incorporates some of their findings and refers the reader to their works for supplemental reading. When the findings of "Human Sin or Social Sin" are combined with those by Buss and Wilson, they show the natural growth of contemporary Western culture from its immediate history. With this new model for history and the present, the future is now clear, and the triumph of evolutionary psychology in the humanities and liberal arts may be at hand.

Introduction to the New Edition:

Biologizing God and Man: The Rise of the New Group Selection

“Nature is still the great book to be deciphered.”

—Eighteenth-Century Artist

“It is nature, rather than art, that has formed them.

The stone is softened into living flesh.”

—Peter Paul Rubens

“It is not a matter of painting life, but giving life to painting.”

—Pierre Bonnard

“Other nations made gods, kings, spirits: the Greeks alone made man…. By discovering man, the Greeks did not discover the subjective self, but realized the universal laws of human nature.”

—Werner Jaeger, Harvard University

"Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture"

Works Discussed

Paul Dachslager. Human Sin or Social Sin: Evolutionary Psychology, Plato and the Christian Logic of Sociology. Charleston, South Carolina: Create Space, 2016.

David Buss, Ed. The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2016. Vol. 1: Foundations. Vol. 2: Integrations.

Edward O. Wilson. The Social Conquest of Earth. New York: Liveright, 2013.

Joseph Carroll, Dan P. McAdams, Edward O. Wilson, Eds. Darwin’s Bridge: Uniting the Humanities and Sciences. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

If the best presents come in small packages, then the best revolutions come from scientists working slowly in their labs. Resulting from twenty-five years of research, the publications by Buss and Wilson, when combined with that by yours truly, I believe have biologized religion and the social and political culture that arose in the last three centuries. As I shall try to show, the traditional “church militant” and redemptive love have turned into Leftist militancy and socialized love or “brotherhood” that are emblematic of the 1960s.

It is not coincidental that as some church leaders in the nineteenth century attacked Darwin for moral reasons, so intellectuals today attack evolutionary psychology for moral reasons. And these attacks can become almost violent in the context of biologizing group-based differences; careers have been ruined for attempting this. To geneticize medicine is fine, but not group-based trends in psychology. To show a gap between different groups of people that implies disdain, and not love, is intolerable for most people today. This iron grip of social love has become so tight in the last thirty years that even most Republicans have come to agree with its political implications; Republicans commonly dismiss biological determinism as scientism.

During the nineteenth century, sex and the body were viewed as evil, but notions of race, class, gender, or “society” were viewed as good and legitimate. With sexual liberation, we displaced evil to the public sphere. With the displacement or socialization of evil, now the body is viewed as legitimate, even glorious, but race, class, gender, and “society” are viewed as evil, illegitimate and to be purged. As “society” during the nineteenth century was viewed as glorious, and the body as sinful, now the body is viewed as glorious and society as sinful. As the evils of the body were to be purged, now the evils of “society” or the social body are to be purged. As the individual was viewed as potentially sinful or “hegemonic,” so now the social body is viewed that way. Specifically, the resistance to race science, or any other “hegemonic discourse,” results, it is shown, from the perception that it is socially hubristic or evil.

This perception in turn resulted from the fact that the traditional Seven Deadly Sins were, with sexual liberation, displaced from the body to the social sphere, thereby creating the pathological Seven Deadly Social Sins, which need to be purged through social and political action. These deadly social sins are (1) Pride, which became Racism; (2) Covetousness: Class Elitism; (3) Lust: “Sexism” and “Gender” existing “Out There”; (4) Gluttony: Consumer Fetishism; (5) Vanity: Media Images of Beauty; (6) Envy: National Honor and Expansionism, the Nazis’ irredentist impulses being notorious; and (7) Sloth: the Lack of Social Action: “Are you fighting for diversity?” As it was once imperative to purge the sins from our body, so it is now imperative to purge the sins from the social body.

As the Devil was the epitome of evil, now Hitler is the epitome of evil. As we were frightened by the Devil, now we are frightened by Hitler. As the Devil had a lurid and educational presence in our lives, now Hitler has a lurid and educational presence in our lives. As it was viewed as savvy to have a disgusted awareness of the Devil, now it is viewed as savvy to have a disgusted awareness of Hitler. As knowledge of the Devil and his minions was viewed as intellectually relevant, now knowledge of Hitler and his minions is viewed as intellectually relevant. The Salvation Army was founded during the nineteenth century, is still with us today, and has clearly moved its headquarters to the universities.

As our corrupt bodies were thrust upon us during the expulsion from Paradise, now “society” or our corrupt social bodies are thrust upon us—inspiring purging social and political rebellion and socially redemptive love and politics for the blacks and other ethnic groups. But an essential category here is groups, which are a unified and compelling moral vision for Western identity. And today, as in the past, there are those who are “enlightened” and “progressive” or “the benighted, hopelessly lost to sin.” Whites are still the fulcrum and morally stratified. As in the nineteenth century, women today are the moral avant-garde and badger men with ideals and stories of moral uplift.

This huge moral agenda is so imposing for people that the motto was and remains, “See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.” People no longer “see” race, gender, class, etc., and instead see menacing, “hegemonic” society or the social body. This is what people fear and attack. Mentioning the biological basis of “differences” raises eyebrows, since it evokes suspicions of hubris, or the sin of social pride, or a hegemonic discourse. And recall that pride was considered the root of all evil and a terrible temptation. So it’s not a coincidence that during the 1920s we jettisoned both the old puritanism and bio-determinism in the social sciences.

This schema of sin and redemptive love defines the culture’s ideals, philosophies...