THE SOUTHERN CHARACTER by Mario Fabbri is politically incorrect. It is also comprehensive in its evidence and rigorous in its argument. Fabbri’s thesis is straightforward: “For behaviors and institutions, what matters a lot, indeed above all, is DNA.” He rejects history and culture as adequate paradigms to explain such differences. Naturally, he also dismisses the identity politics premise that all differences in achievement are due to personal and social prejudices such as systemic racism or sexism. Fabbri is aware that his perspective will cause offence to the social justice crowd, but gives them short shrift. “Moralists make bad anthropologists,” he writes.
Fabbri’s genetic paradigm is applied to two very broad cohorts: “southern” covers the peoples closest to the equator, while “northern” are those whose ancestral populations come from the farthest northern regions. “We will make extensive use of rough stereotypes and generalizations setting southerners off against northerners as if our species consisted of only two peoples,” he explains. His analysis, he emphasizes, treats with a “limited but significant part of the great differences in behavior and aspirations among groups of peoples.”
The first part of the book outlines the theory of genes and behavior, drawing upon seminal texts such as Sforza Cavalli’s and Luigi Luca’s The History and Geography of Human Genes and the late Edward O. Wilson’s classic, Sociobiology. This first section includes chapters about “The genetic differences between human populations”, “Climate as a factor of biological differentiation”, and “The character of a population and its culture.” The second part amasses historical data that confirm differences in the character of southern and northern peoples. This includes case studies of Denmark, Peru, and Nigeria, with an in-depth look at Italy and the differences between the northern and southern cohorts of that nation.
THE SOUTHERN CHARACTER thus covers a gamut of disciplines, from evolution to history to politics to culture to psychology to economics. Similar arguments have been made by Charles Murray, Thomas Sowell, and Edward Dutton. But Fabbri’s book is more wide-ranging and his sociological analyses of specific societies add an extra dimension to the genetic paradigm. The translation is well done, preserving the clear and uncomplicated prose style. For readers unfamiliar with evolutionary psychology, THE SOUTHERN CHARACTER is a good introduction, while those familiar with the paradigm may gain new insights from the country case studies.
For readers unfamiliar with evolutionary psychology, THE SOUTHERN CHARACTER is a good introduction, while those familiar with the paradigm may gain new insights from the country case studies. The translation is well done, preserving the clear and uncomplicated prose style.
~Kevin Baldeosingh for IndieReader