To fully understand this post, you will need to read the first page of this website, which explains the relationship of r/K Selection Theory to political ideology, here:
Most Liberals who see this theory are immediately enraged. They do not want to be the Bunny Rabbit people in our populations. The response is visceral, and deeply emotional. There isn’t much I can do about that. However I do think one should examine how this work may illuminate underlying forces driving our political battles, before discounting it.
Take, for example, the immigration debate, and view it in terms of a fight between the r and K-selected psychologies, in the context of the environments they evolved within. Remember, the K-selected psychology evolved in an environment where resources were limited, and they were forced to form groups to fight for them. The r-selected psychology arose in an environment of free resource availability, where competing for resources was dangerous, foolish, and wholly unnecessary, since they were freely available everywhere.
Those who oppose immigration display a psychology innately prone to assume resources are limited and someone is not going to have enough. They also, in the context of this perception, seek to ally with in-group members, against whoever appears as an out-group, in an effort to make sure it is the out-group member who suffers resource insufficiency.
Those who support immigration display a subconscious assumption that resources are freely available, and there is no reason for anyone to suffer. Furthermore they oppose group/nationalist type competition, and they exhibit no real perception of any in-group they must ally with.
Of course, the more K-selected psychology will oppose immigration, even when resources are plentiful, just as the r-selected psychology will support immigration, even when the economy is in the gutter.
Clearly, this is an interesting way to view the two psychologies involved in this issue. It shows how one can dissect the emotional battles inherent to politics, so that they may be viewed in a less emotional context.
It is for that reason that I view this work as a powerful way for ideologues on both sides to better understand each other, and their respective behavioral urges – if they can set aside the immediate emotional response produced by the work. Here, what is otherwise an emotional battle between two firmly entrenched ideologues, becomes a simple logical examination of how r-selected and K-selected psychologies view the world.
The one environmental variable which the r-selected psychology does not seem to consider however, is the possibility that they may import a K-type psychology. (Indeed, r’s seem baffled by the desire to form groups and compete with other groups, viewing it as an unnatural tendency that is to be suppressed.)
When imported, individuals with such a psychology may instinctually form an in-group, and seek to battle with other K’s that are indigenous to the nation, at least until they feel fully assimilated. It might pay, if r’s are to fully understand their social environment, to grasp that the groupist, conflict-prone psychology they abhor in domestic Conservatives will exist within every race and nationality, and by importing other groups with such a nature, they may foment the very battles they so abhor.
There are some things in human nature you cannot change.
