Toward a Biology of Collectivism: Reducing the East West Divide to Its Physical and Physiological Substrates

The signs of mating competition are written into the physiology of the human male, but they are not written equally into the physiology of all racial groupings of human males. It seems that Asian males are different, different in that they are more fully dissimilar from the gorilla than are other races, showing less sexual dimorphism, muscularity, and less marked secondary sexual characteristics, and different in that they are more fully dissimilar from the chimpanzee than are other races, showing less sexual drive and activity as well as smaller testicles and lower sperm counts. It is presently argued that such anatomical differences are a testament to a more peaceably monogamous mating history. In turn, it is then argued that such physiological markers are directly associated with the collectivist ethos that has been historically, anthropologically, and sociologically observed among the Asian people. It is the purpose of the present article to review these intraspecific biological differences across racial groupings, as they relate to interspecific biological differences across primates species. After extrapolating from animal models, the present work thereafter argues that Asian biology minimizes mating competition, promoting a more peaceable monogamous mating style, which, in turn, provided a biological substrate out of which collectivism could grow.

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