Low Testosterone And The Left
Vice is a heaping pile of garbage, even for a so-called news organization. In spite of this, it does not stop their articles from popping up on my Facebook news feed.
Usually, I glance over and take a look at the goods they’re trying to sell to their mostly female and pre-pubescent audience, have a hearty chuckle and move on.
One article, in particular, piqued my interest: Gym Bros More Likely to be Right-Wing Assholes, Science Confirms, or, in plain English: men who are physically strong are more likely to have right-wing political views.
What image pops up when you think of a man who self-describes himself as a feminist? A white Black Lives Matter activist apologizing for the sins of his ancestors? A pinko shouting hippity-hoppity, abolish all property? An avid Japanese cartoon enthusiast? The image forming in your head definitely does not resemble the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, that I can tell you.
Could it be that political positions are genetically predetermined?
According to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, this particular investigation observed that men’s upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution (a core tenet of socialism). What’s fascinating is not necessarily the fact that body strength (and testosterone, by default) play a role in socio-political-economic views, but that such a link evolved in order to better preserve mankind’s limited resources: the study claims “political views are designed by natural selection to function in the conditions recurrent over human evolutionary history”.
In brief, strong men prefer the path of self-interest and leadership while weak men are more reluctant to assert their self-interest and prefer the security from groups and submission.
Another review published in Psychological Science concluded that the structure of a man’s face (facial width-to-height ratio) may indicate his tendency to express racially prejudiced beliefs and is associated with testosterone-related behaviors of social dominance.
A journal from the International Society of Political Psychology titled “Linking Genetics and Political Attitudes: Reconceptualizing Political Ideology” supports the findings aforementioned in the above studies.
A study called “Is Sociopolitical Egalitarianism Related to Bodily and Facial Formidability in Men?” by researchers from Brunel University confirms once again that physically attractive, strong men, who regularly go to the gym, are more likely to be conservative.
If I sound repetitive, good, you’re noticing a pattern.
“Klemm,” you think, “That’s all well and fine, but so what? Maybe low testosterone is not so bad!”
Wrong. Men suffering from low testosterone will experience a stunted sex drive, difficulty getting/keeping it up, low sperm volume (an epidemic only found in Western countries), hair loss, fatigue, loss of muscle mass, increased body fat, decreased bone mass, mood changes and, the most important one, cognitive impairment.
The Department of Geriatrics in Saint-Etienne University Hospitals of France outright suggests “low endogenous levels of testosterone may be related to reduced cognitive ability” in their medical paper Testosterone and Cognitive Function: Current Clinical Evidence of a Relationship.
In conclusion, if you have a calling to redistribute the wealth, get your T checked.