Why Are Most Prominent
Peak Oil Authors Men?
By Matt Savinar
Another evolved psychological trait is the drug-like reward
many people get from intense attention. The evolutionary
origin of the attention-reward pathway is due to the way
social primates measure status. A certain amount of status
is required before a hominid male becomes attractive to
females.
Men's attractiveness is largely correlated with their status or with characteristics likely to lead to status such as humor, intelligence, speaking ability, athletic prowess, political dexterity, or business acumen. Given these factors, it makes sense us guys would disproportionately choose to stand on our Peak Oil soap boxes. (As I do with this site.) If we are effective at "sounding the alarm" or offering seemingly workable normative mitigation agendas, the prospect of increased social status (attractiveness) awaits us. Typically, this increase in status flows from attention received via interviews in the media, public speaking engagements, leadership roles in politics, acclaim for well written articles, book deals, etc. These evolutionary mechanisms (or God's gifts, depending on your belief system) are as much at work within the subconscious of the local activist writing an article for his town's newspaper as they are within the mind of a nationally known author doing an interview on CNN. As both individuals are members of the same species, their central genetic wiring is virtually indistinguishable.
As an example, these evolutionary (or "God-given", if that's your belief) mechanisms are why I was so thrilled to get my picture and a favorable mention in Fortune Magazine last December. If it weren't for potential copyright violations, I would have scanned the picture and displayed it on this site much the way a male peacock displays his feathers out in the wild.
"Hey everybody, look at me I'm in Fortune Magazine!"
(Sidenote: if any of you out there happen to have the print edition of the Fortune issue and just happen to "accidentally" scan the picture into your computer, touch it up a bit with photoshop, and then post it all over the internet, you should know that I can't endorse or advocate such behavior as it would be a violation of copyright law. In fact, if you were to do such a thing, I would be forced to link to the picture repeatedly and frequently as an example of what does not constitute "fair use".)
To those of you who need physical proof that a man's attractiveness and social status are correlated more with things like intelligence, humor, and speaking ability than simply physical appearance, I offer you Exhibit A: renowned geologist and Peak Oil author Dr. Ken Deffeyes, pictured below. As evidenced by the existence of his children and grandchildren, Dr. Deffeyes is objectively an attractive male hominid. I suspect his attractiveness flows primarily from the following characteristics:
2. Excellent public speaker abilities indicated by his
3. A sense of humor indicated by the following passage from
page 183 of his book Hubbert's Peak:
Shell was interviewing three potential employees: a
geologist, a geophysicist, and a petroleum reservoir
-estimation engineer. The test question asked was
"What is two times two?" The geologist mumbles for a
while and announces that is probably more than three,
maybe less than five. The geophysicist punches it into
his calculator and announces 3.999. When the reservoir
engineer is asked, he jumps up, locks the door, closes
the shades, unplugs the phone, and whispers, "What do
you want it to be?"
Dr. Deffeyes is blessed to posses these traits in such abundance because, as the following picture indicates, he is unlikely to be appearing on the cover of Gentleman's Quarterly anytime soon:
Clearly, Dr. Deffeyes has achieved alpha male status within the Peak Oil tribe more because of his intelligence and humor than because of his boyish good looks. In short, doing as Dr. Deffeyes has done is what most (all?) males who write, speak, organize or otherwise take publicly visible leadership roles on pretty much any social, political, economic, or environmental issue (including Peak Oil) are seeking to do, albeit usually on a more localized level.
To be clear, I'm not classifying this self-interested behavior as good or bad in and of itself. Whether verifiable social good flows from an individual pursuing his own evolutionary self-interest is something that can only be judged on a case-by-case basis. Let's say, for example, Richard Heinberg decided to pursue his evolutionary self-interest by running for mayor here in Santa Rosa and actually managed to win. I'm inclined to think this would turn out to be a good thing for the town. On the other hand, if one of the local Hummer dealers did the same thing, I'm inclined to think it would turn out to be a bad thing for the town.
Richard Heinberg as mayor of Santa Rosa? Good thing.
Hummer dealer as mayor of Santa Rosa? Bad thing.
* Warning: Politically Incorrect Minefield Dead Ahead *
What's the real reason us men pursue visible roles in politics and activism with such vigor? I think I more or less answered that question up top but the following example should really make the the point clear, albeit in a fashion that may make some of you a bit uncomfortable. In brief, consider what Ralph Abernathy wrote in his autobiography about the 20th century's most revered alpha-male political activist, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr:
. . . he was also a man who attracted women, even when
he didn't intend to, and attracted them in droves. Part of his
appeal was his predominant role in the black community and
part of it was personal. During the last ten years of his life,
Martin Luther King was the most important black man in
America. That fact alone endowed him with an aura of
power and greatness that women found very appealing. He
was a hero — the greatest hero of his age — and women
are always attracted to a hero.
As far as heroes are concerned you can generally find out how somebody will conduct themselves within the corridors of power by asking them the question, "Who are your heroes?" Given Dr. King's way with the ladies, should it come as any surprise former president Bill Clinton cites King as one of his heroes right alongside JFK, the all time alpha-male American political figure?
At the risk of besmirching the dead, I can't help but wonder: would Dr. King would have fought for civil rights with quite the same degree of bravery and vigor had doing so made him less, instead of more, attractive to the opposite sex? (Boy am I going to get some "interesting" emails for pondering that question.)
As far as Bill Clinton goes, I can answer the same question about him quite assuredly: had high profile political positions not provided him a steady stream of "evolutionary opportunities", I seriously doubt he would have pursued public office at all. (BTW, word on the street is Bill's back in the evolutionary saddle again.)
"Don't hate the player, hate the game"
Where a man's attractiveness may be correlated with his notoriety in politics or activism, as Clinton and King's were respectively, a woman's attractiveness is correlated much more closely, although certainly not exclusively, with what she looks like. (Sorry, but it's true.) Political notoriety may, at best, moderately enhance her attractiveness to a handful of men. The degree of enhancement, however, will never be near what a similarly situated man would get from the same notoriety. In the end, there's simply more motivation for men to pursue political notoriety than for women.
As two examples of this differential in action, I offer the two women most directly comparable to Dr. King and Bill Clinton: Harriet Tubman and Hilary Clinton.
Tubman was perhaps the bravest activist of the last 250 years. Given the incredible risks she took throughout her life, I think it's safe to say she was as brave and courageous, if not more so, than Dr. King. I doubt, however, that her notoriety as the "Moses of her people" yielded her quite the evolutionary ROI that Dr. King's notoriety yielded him. (At least not if Mr. Abernathy is to be believed.) I suspect this is the real reason why so many modern male progressives offer MLK as one of their heroes but fail to mention Harriet Tubman or others. Secretly, they admire Dr. King not for his bravery or his stance on civil rights but for the massive social power he wielded. From an evolutionary perspective, that social power is what they are truly coveting when contemplating Dr. King's accomplishments. Social power, after all, is far more directly correlated with the opportunities a man is afforded to "pass on his genes" than his political disposition(s).
As far as Hilary Clinton goes, do I even really need to explain how and why her political notoriety has not yielded her the same evolutionary ROI that her husband's notoriety has yielded him?
Before I go any further, I should make one point perfectly clear: nothing in this article should be interpreted as lessening women's accomplishments or advocating in any way that they shy away from leadership roles.
In fact, there are many situations where I would actually prefer a woman's leadership over a man's. Case in point: let's pretend you and I are in stranded in post-Katrina New Orleans. Mercenaries from the company Blackwater are swarming the streets, the bridges into and out of the city have been blocked by FEMA, all communication systems are down, and the New Orleans Superdome has turned into the Mad Max Thunderdome. In that situation, who do you want leading you out: Martin Luther King or Harriet Tubman? I don't know about you but, with all due respect to Dr. King, I'm sticking with Harriet in that situation. After all, the question in my mind at that point is going to be, "Whose going to get us the f--k out of here alive and who might screw things up along the way looking to get laid?"
Of course there are times where I prefer a man's leadership. For instance, let's pretend catastrophic climate change submerges most of the West Coast under water, leaving as the last bastion of civilization a walled off compound down at the Playboy Mansion. In that situation, who do you want leading you to the promised land: Bill or Hilary Clinton?
Need to escape from Post-Katrina New Orleans?
Then you want Harriet Tubman's leadership.
Need to sneak into the Playboy Mansion?
Then you want to holler at your boy Bill Clinton.
Point of all this is that rather than dissuade women from pursuing leadership roles, I am simply explaining why there is less evolutionary motivation for women to pursue these roles, particularly highly visible ones. Put it this way: men weren't flocking to Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks the way women flocked to Martin Luther King. That doesn't mean Park and Tubman's accomplishments were any less important than King's. But it does explain why men have more incentive to behave in highly visible ways as King did than women do. The same principal applies to the Clintons. Women flock to Bill because of his political power. Men don't flock to Hilary because of hers. So which gender has more motivation to enter the political arena?
* I shall now slowly tip-toe my way out of this minefield *
While modern media may have intensified and, in some cases, distorted/twisted these tendencies beyond what found in nature (Kate Moss? Pamela Lee Anderson?), this tendency existed millennia before colossal-sized media companies such as Sony unleashed the likes of Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears and now Brooke Hogan (daughter of Hulk) upon us. Helen of Troy, after all, didn't launch 1,000 ships because of her abilities as a sailor or shipbuilder.
As a result of these deeply ingrained tendencies, investments in publicly speaking, writing, or organizing around any political issue, particularly one with implications as grim as Peak Oil, yield on average far fewer evolutionary returns for women than for men. Whether we like it or not, such efforts will have proportionally little impact on a woman's social status or attractiveness because these things are dictated far more by her looks than her political or financial acumen. (Again: sorry but it's true.) As anecdotal proof of my point, I offer you the following picture from the 2005 Denver Peak Oil conference:
Pictured above: Some guy on the left,
hot babe actress Melody Chase on the right
Now let's be frank for a moment. If Mrs. Chase, an actress whose only background in Peak Oil was her role in the film "Oil Storm", looked like a female version of Dr. Deffyes pictured above, do you really think she would have been invited to the conference? Furthermore, do you really think anything she said at the conference significantly affected her social status or attractiveness?
These are the reasons why most, but not all, women who become involved in these issues focus on preparing their own children/family/home for energy descent rather than attempting to increase their social status & power through political activism, article writing, public speaking, etc. (Obviously, as these are trends not absolutes, there exist notable exceptions.)
"I'm busy teaching my babies how to graze
sustainably so they are prepared for Peak Oil."
Consider as another anecdotal piece of evidence the yahoo group Running on Empty 3. The moderators (Lise, Kathie, and Lua) are all women with children and/or grandchildren. None of them show any indication of a desire for public acclaim or ambition for political power on any level. This is also true for the female posters over on Running on Empty 2 such as "Sharon Down on the Farm." Their posts (which I consider must-reads when going through the archives) tend to focus on preparing their families for energy descent rather than arguing over economics, geopolitics, or whose got the most accurate data on how much energy it takes to manufacture a pencil. That's mostly the province of us guys who, even out in the wilderness that is the Peak Oil blogosphere, can't help but attempt to jockey for alpha male status. (I'm as guilty of this as anyone.)
"Dude you clearly have no understanding of
the latest in tertiary recovery techniques!"
Over at Paula Hay's site, Adaptation Zine reader Gina noted these trends in a recent comment she made to Paula's blog:
I’ve often puzzled over the idea that peak oil seems like a
"man’s” issue, when so many of the people who will be
directly affected are women. My husband gets together with
his “peak old buddies”: all men. He organized a local
conference. Attendance: Mostly men. Perhaps it is the
“gloom and doom” aspect that turns off women, or the fact
that many are so busy with day-to-day life, caring for kids,
etc??
If it's any consolation, Gina, you are far from the only woman who feels this way. In fact, your feelings/observations seem to be shared by women across the political spectrum and even into the highest offices of our land. Consider, for instance, what Maria Shriver has decided to focus on while her husband is out beating his chest and making lots of loud noises in his attempts to achieve alpha status within the Republican tribe. Maria writes:
The most important (role) for me is motherhood. As first
lady, I will work to bring respect and recognition to the
extraordinary job of motherhood and parenting. (Source)
Some folks will take notice of these trends and then announce we should take steps to alter or influence them. I say good luck, you may as well try altering or influencing the social trends of a giant colony of chimps. Because, in the end, that's essentially what we are: chimps who have developed the capacity for complex endeavors like literature, medicine, and managing to burn up a trillion barrels of oil faster than "a stick of dynamite stuck up the timeline of man", as James Johnson would say.
"Hey Frank, you ever hear about this Peak Oil thing?"
Best,
Matt
Comments: If you want to comment on this, feel free to speak your mind over in the comments section at the LATOC blog. I don't delete posts unless you post something that might attract increased scrutiny from our NSA overlords.
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