For everyone waiting on the sidelines not speaking your mind hoping you'll escape herding into a neo-feudal re-education camp because you keep your dissident beliefs to yourself, behold! It will soon be trivial for the technocrats to employ AI to identify likely dissidents via physiognomy to be targeted for isolation and destruction.
Hi Grant, I agree with your broader point about how those on the sidelines are merely a bit lower in the queue to be purged. Unfortunately, globohomo has a much more accurate method than judging physiognomy for its targeting of dissidents: using the NSA search database queries which has every email, text, phone call, internet search, one has ever written on their computer or the internet. They can/will have a woke AI trawl it, and it can target and purge dissidents at will (by cutting off bank funds, internet use, whatever):
"A declassified FISA report stated that the FBI ran 3.1 million illegal FISA searches on American citizens in 2017 alone, compared to 7,500 combined searches by the NSA and CIA in the same year. It later came out that the law firm Perkins Coie had its own NSA search terminal set up in its D.C. offices to spy on domestic opposition; it was placed there to provide the perpetrators protection. In 2023 the DOJ Inspector General revealed that more than 10,000 federal employees have access to the NSA database for surveillance inquiries (which show everything you have ever typed electronically on your computer or used on your phone), more than 3.4 million search queries were ran between 12/1/2020 and 11/30/2021, and approximately 30% were outside the rules and regulations that govern warrantless search, showing the pattern of illegal governmental behavior is extreme and only expanding."
Yes, that is bad, but I imagine there are some with such discipline that they confine their dissident thoughts to their head space. If we don't unify and act out of our mutual hatred of big brother it is technically feasible for the enemy to purge all those who don't actively love their own submission.
We don't have details on what those search queries actually involved or who they targeted, but I have a strong hunch they are targeted at politicians, high profile businessmen, and other prominent figures as ways to gain leverage on them or destroy them. A million of these search queries targeting this subset of the population would have very outsized effects. And one can expect that this process, as it is being systematized and streamlined, will gradually impact more and more people over time...
This article looks increasingly to me that the current philosophy of the pursuit of pleasure and crusade against the idea of any self-policing is the root of all evil.
Pretty much most of the things we find unattractive are usually signs of bad behavior and lifestyle.
Bad tongue posture and low testosterone affect speech and jawline.
Mindless screen use causes people to be unfocused and look visibly less alert.
Lack of self-discipline and deep seared neuroses typically result in an ‘off’ look due to people simply just not schooling their expressions.
Obesity of course need not be elaborated on.
Personality really does contour your face. It doesn’t make you an iron jawed chad, but I’ve seen full well that a good chunk of ugly people can become solidly average just by fixing what it is they’re signaling.
Yes, I agree with you that while much of physiognomy is fixed, there is definitely a cultural/societal component (i.e. everyone is obese and tattoo'd today) and a component that is variable depending on one's willpower - you can change your weight, exercise routine, how you dress, your diet, haircut, posture, screen use, who you associate with and who/what you listen to, and these all have an impact on how you are judged by others.
To add on, it explains certain things about the modern court eunuch caste as well.
The book Deep Work, if you’ve never read it, for example does corroborate that actual work involved in modern clerical duties and management pretty much stifle deep thought and focus.
As modern managers are basically taught to be human network routers mindlessly passing in and passing out information. Outsourcing all the cognitive heavy work onto other people and machines.
I would argue that the current lifestyle of Matrix addicted Last-Men is probably a dark reflection of this.
More than this, Cal Newport more or less condemns the modern work place, in particular the short focus, constantly interrupted aspect. Emails, instant messaging etc. It is almost designed to destroy any ability to focus which is required to train ourselves to work deeply.
> "the current philosophy of the pursuit of pleasure and crusade against the idea of any self-policing is the root of all evil."
1. I would expand on this that modern hyper-Christian normies have a keen smell for sensing any sort of a holistic, reductionist view of the world. Case in point - the queer reaction to my culture maps on Reddit.
2. Regarding your other point - it is an objective fact that the current Occident hates the very idea of beauty - see the uglification of females in computer gaming (Mass Effect Andromeda is the classic case, but feel free to compare League of Legends to Mobile Legends or Eternal Return).
And recently, ZeroSpace's Discord has had a heated discussion - simply because its box art features attractive female faces (as opposed to StormGate)! Yes, having attractive characters is a sin, and normies immediately pick up on it. It was fascinating for me to witness it for myself, in real time. Now I know that just as "anti-racist is a code word for anti-White", so is "anti-AI-art" a codeword for "anti-beauty".
Leftists conceive of the world as a global version of World Market, with different cute sections with kitschy ethnic foods and products but where the employees all ultimately have the same psychology, regardless of which section of the store they are working at that day...which just so happens to be the psychology of a 21st Century White female shitlib. Heterosexual White men are conceived of as a sort of schizophrenic vandal who goes around the store destroying stuff and assaulting employees.
> "Leftists conceive of the world as a global version of World Market, with different cute sections with kitschy ethnic foods and products but where the employees all ultimately have the same psychology"
And proper™ rightists see the world as a god eat god battle of spiders stuck in a bottle, indeed the direct opposite, so much so that these spiders are only united in their passion to survive, but their ways of survival are abominable to one another's sensibilities.
Heterosexual White men are the backbone of another Shoah if left alone, hence could use extermination. This is why I'm a huge proponent of a nuclear strike on Poland, I would I could petition the supreme Jew.
The same phenomenon has been noted in Hollywood films. A definite decline in classically beautiful women, and the corresponding promotion of plain looking women.
This was a fascinating read! My mother is an artist and she instilled in me an eye for observing the features of others. This was not to judge per se, but rather to observe. Through carefully studying the face, the body, its features, we can see what we have in common with all other humans, and what makes us distinctly individual.
I have often been a pretty perceptive judge as a result of this. However, I have had to overcome a lot of shame for “judging” that has been conditioned into me by my education.
I have found it is true, we can often be mistaken on first appearances, but our gut instinct is often more correct than we may care to admit.
A distinction should be drawn between the features one has that are permanent or semi-permanent (it's possible to change them slowly as an adult) and what would be called "facial expressions" and the like. The passive physiognomy and the active physiognomy. You can see the latter change quite markedly in Asians who move to the USA early in their life. Their whole resting face structure changes due probably to the muscles they habitually use, and of course their expressions are very different.
'It can be argued that repeated positive social interactions for the version on the right compared to the version on the left would result in much higher extraversion for the Chad, for example, because of the more positive results from such interactions.'
I think this is true but once attractiveness goes past a threshold the beautiful one is subject to everyones projected pathologies and the net benefit diminishes. Better to just be 'pretty good looking'
i agree. as a female ive tried to convince incel types who believe women want chads and are settling for everone else, that being a male 9/10 with model good looks really isn't the most appealing. first thoughts are usually looks gay. too pretty. probably a player. dumb. materialistic. probably prissy about getting dirty.
All I know right now is that I have always had a deep distrust, dislike and disdain for Adam Schiff. If i was congregating with people and a face like that was there I would remain completely at a distance. He is from the Black Lodge in David Lynch movies.
The bureacrats in modern academia and the regime narrative apparatus have their work cut out for them on resuppressing sciences which are making a resurgence due to better understandings of genetics and algorithmic analyses. Race science, comparative mythology and prehistory, physiognomy, evolutionary psychology, and more are all being rediscovered and it remains to be seen whether the mental castration of the masses or the overwhelming nature of the evidence for the truth will win out.
Interesting, but somehow disturbing. Is character set THAT much by genetics and what happens in the womb?
I can think of a few outs. Face width is a function of diet, as shown by Westin Price. How much of that is nutrients and how much is chewing tough food is still up for grabs. Lots of trans fats produce frog fat. Low fat high carb diets produce a stretched face -- especially as one grows older. Exercise affects facial appearance as well as time in the sun. Someone who sits slack faced at the computer for hours on end is going to have fewer wrinkles than someone who makes lots of facial expressions.
----
And, finally, I figured out who Governor Murphy reminds me of: Conrad Janis ("Quark" and "Mork and Mindy"), albeit with worse teeth.
Hi Fabius, what did you find disturbing about it? Is it that if character is to an extent set in the womb, what does that say about the nature of free will and then of Heaven and Hell?
I agree with you that one's actions have an impact on one's physiognomy to an extent, and being supplied enough nutrients do as well.
God has handcrafted each person, it would make sense that He would design them holistically. The remarkable part of humans is actually moreso that we’re all unique even tho theres so many of us.
Whereas it is absolutely true that almost all of us make instantaneous judgements of others, and that pretending we do not is hypocritical (or perhaps simply mistaken, since probably lots of people honestly think they don't instantly judge others), I am not sure it is a wise practice. Judging others by their looks and expression, or by their physiognomy for that matter, overlaps--when not plain matches--the definition of prejudice (pre-judge); which is, by the way, also common practice and nothing we should feel guilty for. An openly prejudiced person is speaking here. :-)
Certainly, it is inevitable to make such judgements, but this does not mean it is good practice. In my opinion we should be very cautious with any conclusions thus reached, and should behave according to them only when we have no other way of assessing someone else's personality, character traits, etc. And even so, we should probably endow most unknown persons with the benefit of the doubt unless doing so entails some sort of potential danger.
As one can easily see by carefully watching the composites in figure #1 in your article, the shades of expression (presumedly revealing personality traits) are extremely subtle and difficult to perceive, even giving ourselves all the time allowance we need; so, imagine how is it when we can only get a glimpse of someone's face, or under an unsuitable angle or light, or when we need to judge by a photograph published perhaps precisely for portraying a favourable or unfavourable image of that person, which is by the way, unfortunately, common practice in journalism (to which Rolo is no exception, sorry to say). Not to talk about dissimulation, despite Schopenhauer's opinion.
What I'm trying to say is that the probability of making a mistake when judging others by their physiognomy is, I guess, quite high. And on the other hand, when thus judging we surely contribute to potential explanation #1 (which I found quite predictable, btw), which is certainly not a very positive thing to do. In any case, most of the very interesting studies you reference admit that the correlation between physiognomy and character trait is rather weak, except for the case of political orientation, which to be honest I find too astonishing to be trustworthy. How on earth is it even conceptually possible to predict our political orientation (which is not even a proper "character trait") from just facial recognition, unless the study has also taken into account other things like clothing, body ornaments, etc?
Hi Freelander, you're touching on a larger point here, which is: to what extent should we in general follow our instincts, and to what extent should we overrule them? Before the neolithic agriculture revolution, our instincts and our thoughts and actions were in tune, because we had evolved for an environment of small groups of hunter gatherers for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. But when thrust into cities with the advent of agriculture, we suddenly found our instincts and our thoughts to be in opposition. We were suddenly surrounded by lots more people, with trade with other groups, and we couldn't simply bash an enemy's skull in if we got mad (and those that did were quickly removed from the evolutionary genepool). Personally, I think instead of rejecting our instincts we need to acknowledge and integrate them. With respect to our instinctive snap judgments of other's physiognomy, that would mean respecting that judgment while leaving room open to be wrong about it (and hence grow our worldview) by talking and getting to know the person before solidifying any of those snap judgments, if possible.
Re: political orientation, that's an easy one. Higher testosterone levels are pretty strongly correlated with political orientation, to the point that injecting liberals with testosterone turns them Republican, lol: https://dcenquirer.com/testosterone-red-shift/
I think that often our assumptions about somebody’s inner world, their heart, their struggles and insecurities, can be judged somewhat presciently from their physiognomy. However as a Christian this actually gives me a chance to approach the person more at their speed, anticipate the underlying sorrows of their soul, and love them/minister to them better. A person is a whole embodiment with a demeanor, expressive tendencies, a gait, a smell, a laugh, a handshake, and of course their facial structure. Being a loving Christian includes me using these markers (and assumptions) to probe a person more deeply so we can get to the root of the matter that may be unwell with their soul. Its not pre-judging, bc Im not castigating them with a glance (unless theyre clearly somebody demonic or dangerous or cantankerously atheist), but Im using the clues of their body and expression to meet them where theyre at and love them accordingly
Gait, laugh, handshake... yes, that can tell me something about the person I have in front of me, as can his clothes, tatoos or even his expression (a frown, a smile, lips parted or tight, eyes wide open or partly closed...) But pure physiognomy? The size of their eyes or ears, the form of their nose, their cheekbone, lips' thickness, the form of their skull? I do not think so.
Insightful, yet how can you have a more charitable view of prejudice as opposed to physiognomy? Physiognomy might have evolved as an intuitive personality detector, whereas prejudice is merely a regurgitation of a particular cultural milieu. I have recently experienced prejudice when proclaiming myself to be an incel in several Discord channel introductions - causing a reaction as unmistakable as that of a bus-driving Negro in the 1950s.
What to say of even more subtler political leanings (NazBol, White Sharia/Juche), or the opposite - more blunter realities (Trump and Biden are the same, being prejudiced against one makes you blind against the other's similarities)?
On the other hand, intuitive facial readings might give false positives when dealing with those same finer details - such as my natural revolution at seeing Revilo Oliver's photograph (as opposed to reading his prose).
"how can you have a more charitable view of prejudice as opposed to physiognomy?"
Good question. I would say that, on the one hand, hopefully I am not particularly charitable towards prejudice, in the sense that I consider it a flaw, albeit a minor and pardonable one, because it is quasi universal and near to inevitable. On the other hand, I think there is no real divide between prejudging ("judge beforehand", "pass judgement on prematurely or without sufficient reflection or investigation") and physiognomy-based judgement, both concepts overlapping each other to a fair degree. And lastly (on the third hand? Ha, ha!) but most importantly: whereas prejudice is generally considered and admitted to be a mental attitude (therefore fully subjective), physiognomy aims for being a science, and I am infinitely more critical towards presumed sciences (supposedly fully objective) than towards human flaws. To clarify: one thing is to admit a prejudice or a baseless/vaguely founded idea about someone (which may be mistaken, but it is admittedly an opinion), and quite another thing is trying to show someone's physiognomy as objective evidence of a given trait. In other words: the "A face you can trust" emphatic statement sounds a bit boastful and pontificating to me.
For some reason, this piece made me undertake a keyword brain search that eventually turned up Georges Dumézil. Aside from his work in comparative mythology, I recall reading a book by him (I think) in which he linked ethnicity and physiognomy. Maybe it was someone else.
Hi R. Toney, I agree there is definitely an ethnic component to physiognomy, but it's already covered in depth by the HBD right and it's very hot button, so I thought a post on the non-racial components would be interesting, which I think have been downplayed and mostly ignored.
I had no idea the word physiognomy existed, but I've used that technique since I was little to understand what people were thinking, and why they behaved the way they did. Instinct is a necessary and powerful tool that must be used in conjunction with reason and models to recognize deception. It has saved my skin more times than I can count.
I also loved the deleted scene, and didn't realize they intended to have that in the movie.
Thanks Theodore! It's great to have you back, I've been wondering where you were. I think I saw on notes that you had moved across the country? Hope it was an easy move and that you're settling in nicely.
And going a bit further on that topic, men seem to soften, facially, and in body with age and sometimes it feminizes them. And the opposite is true of women but it may also be shorter hairstyles. The genders make a switch with advancing age. I’ll be vilified in some quarters if say that aging is nature’s “transition.” And that in my opinion, that’s as it should be.
What's not clear to me is the proposition. Is it proposed that:
a. The innate, cannot-be-changed, physical, bone-structure-based features of the face tell us about the person's psychology?
b. The way that people hold their faces, the expressions (muscle positioning), tell us about their psychology? Another way to say this is: "Are you saying that the low agreeableness face is detecting that from the actual skull structure wholly outside the person's ability to control, or are you saying, instead, that the way people arrange their facial muscles, consciously and unconsciously, tell us something about their state of mind"?
Hi Josh, the proposition is a combination of a and b. We can tell elements of a person's physiognomy by their immutable and mutable characteristics, and we further make snap judgments about that person's psychology based upon their movements, how they carry themselves, their reactions, etc.
However, it's actually a deeper and subtler proposition being made about integrating and not rejecting our instincts, even though society encourages us to reject them at every turn. Our instincts have evolved over hundreds of thousands or millions of years and ably served the natural selection processes of our ancestors, and I think we remain lesser beings by rejecting and not integrating them. I am using science here as the means by which to push this point because people have so much faith in official science, but ultimately the hope is that science isn't needed to do so.
Thank you. I agree that we can tell a lot from a face and that we are actually imperiling our own interests by denying that this is real. The modern ethos wants us to disconnect from our intuition, are evolved psychology, and actual tells that we all secretly know really are tells but we will not admit that we know that.
For everyone waiting on the sidelines not speaking your mind hoping you'll escape herding into a neo-feudal re-education camp because you keep your dissident beliefs to yourself, behold! It will soon be trivial for the technocrats to employ AI to identify likely dissidents via physiognomy to be targeted for isolation and destruction.
Hi Grant, I agree with your broader point about how those on the sidelines are merely a bit lower in the queue to be purged. Unfortunately, globohomo has a much more accurate method than judging physiognomy for its targeting of dissidents: using the NSA search database queries which has every email, text, phone call, internet search, one has ever written on their computer or the internet. They can/will have a woke AI trawl it, and it can target and purge dissidents at will (by cutting off bank funds, internet use, whatever):
"A declassified FISA report stated that the FBI ran 3.1 million illegal FISA searches on American citizens in 2017 alone, compared to 7,500 combined searches by the NSA and CIA in the same year. It later came out that the law firm Perkins Coie had its own NSA search terminal set up in its D.C. offices to spy on domestic opposition; it was placed there to provide the perpetrators protection. In 2023 the DOJ Inspector General revealed that more than 10,000 federal employees have access to the NSA database for surveillance inquiries (which show everything you have ever typed electronically on your computer or used on your phone), more than 3.4 million search queries were ran between 12/1/2020 and 11/30/2021, and approximately 30% were outside the rules and regulations that govern warrantless search, showing the pattern of illegal governmental behavior is extreme and only expanding."
Underlying links:
- https://theintercept.com/2019/10/10/fbi-nsa-mass-surveillance-abuse/
- https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/05/31/breaking-the-fbi-maintains-a-workspace-including-computer-portal-inside-the-law-firm-of-perkins-coie-the-ramifications-are-significant/#more-233701
- https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/04/28/wait-what-doj-inspector-general-reveals-more-than-10000-federal-employees-have-access-to-nsa-database-for-surveillance-inquiries/
Yes, that is bad, but I imagine there are some with such discipline that they confine their dissident thoughts to their head space. If we don't unify and act out of our mutual hatred of big brother it is technically feasible for the enemy to purge all those who don't actively love their own submission.
> "more than 3.4 million search queries were ran between 12/1/2020 and 11/30/2021, and approximately 30% were outside the rules"
Considering the population of America (330 mil.), that number seems ridiculously minuscule?
We don't have details on what those search queries actually involved or who they targeted, but I have a strong hunch they are targeted at politicians, high profile businessmen, and other prominent figures as ways to gain leverage on them or destroy them. A million of these search queries targeting this subset of the population would have very outsized effects. And one can expect that this process, as it is being systematized and streamlined, will gradually impact more and more people over time...
Are you kidding me?
And the converse; quickly identifying those most likely to be useful idiots and enforcers.
This article looks increasingly to me that the current philosophy of the pursuit of pleasure and crusade against the idea of any self-policing is the root of all evil.
Pretty much most of the things we find unattractive are usually signs of bad behavior and lifestyle.
Bad tongue posture and low testosterone affect speech and jawline.
Mindless screen use causes people to be unfocused and look visibly less alert.
Lack of self-discipline and deep seared neuroses typically result in an ‘off’ look due to people simply just not schooling their expressions.
Obesity of course need not be elaborated on.
Personality really does contour your face. It doesn’t make you an iron jawed chad, but I’ve seen full well that a good chunk of ugly people can become solidly average just by fixing what it is they’re signaling.
Yes, I agree with you that while much of physiognomy is fixed, there is definitely a cultural/societal component (i.e. everyone is obese and tattoo'd today) and a component that is variable depending on one's willpower - you can change your weight, exercise routine, how you dress, your diet, haircut, posture, screen use, who you associate with and who/what you listen to, and these all have an impact on how you are judged by others.
To add on, it explains certain things about the modern court eunuch caste as well.
The book Deep Work, if you’ve never read it, for example does corroborate that actual work involved in modern clerical duties and management pretty much stifle deep thought and focus.
As modern managers are basically taught to be human network routers mindlessly passing in and passing out information. Outsourcing all the cognitive heavy work onto other people and machines.
I would argue that the current lifestyle of Matrix addicted Last-Men is probably a dark reflection of this.
More than this, Cal Newport more or less condemns the modern work place, in particular the short focus, constantly interrupted aspect. Emails, instant messaging etc. It is almost designed to destroy any ability to focus which is required to train ourselves to work deeply.
> "the current philosophy of the pursuit of pleasure and crusade against the idea of any self-policing is the root of all evil."
1. I would expand on this that modern hyper-Christian normies have a keen smell for sensing any sort of a holistic, reductionist view of the world. Case in point - the queer reaction to my culture maps on Reddit.
https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/ydgp4i/incredibly_detailed_and_biased_ethnocultural_map/
https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/cl30tr/the_ultimate_cultural_map_of_the_world_by_adûnâi/
2. Regarding your other point - it is an objective fact that the current Occident hates the very idea of beauty - see the uglification of females in computer gaming (Mass Effect Andromeda is the classic case, but feel free to compare League of Legends to Mobile Legends or Eternal Return).
And recently, ZeroSpace's Discord has had a heated discussion - simply because its box art features attractive female faces (as opposed to StormGate)! Yes, having attractive characters is a sin, and normies immediately pick up on it. It was fascinating for me to witness it for myself, in real time. Now I know that just as "anti-racist is a code word for anti-White", so is "anti-AI-art" a codeword for "anti-beauty".
Leftists conceive of the world as a global version of World Market, with different cute sections with kitschy ethnic foods and products but where the employees all ultimately have the same psychology, regardless of which section of the store they are working at that day...which just so happens to be the psychology of a 21st Century White female shitlib. Heterosexual White men are conceived of as a sort of schizophrenic vandal who goes around the store destroying stuff and assaulting employees.
> "Leftists conceive of the world as a global version of World Market, with different cute sections with kitschy ethnic foods and products but where the employees all ultimately have the same psychology"
And proper™ rightists see the world as a god eat god battle of spiders stuck in a bottle, indeed the direct opposite, so much so that these spiders are only united in their passion to survive, but their ways of survival are abominable to one another's sensibilities.
Heterosexual White men are the backbone of another Shoah if left alone, hence could use extermination. This is why I'm a huge proponent of a nuclear strike on Poland, I would I could petition the supreme Jew.
The same phenomenon has been noted in Hollywood films. A definite decline in classically beautiful women, and the corresponding promotion of plain looking women.
This was a fascinating read! My mother is an artist and she instilled in me an eye for observing the features of others. This was not to judge per se, but rather to observe. Through carefully studying the face, the body, its features, we can see what we have in common with all other humans, and what makes us distinctly individual.
I have often been a pretty perceptive judge as a result of this. However, I have had to overcome a lot of shame for “judging” that has been conditioned into me by my education.
I have found it is true, we can often be mistaken on first appearances, but our gut instinct is often more correct than we may care to admit.
A distinction should be drawn between the features one has that are permanent or semi-permanent (it's possible to change them slowly as an adult) and what would be called "facial expressions" and the like. The passive physiognomy and the active physiognomy. You can see the latter change quite markedly in Asians who move to the USA early in their life. Their whole resting face structure changes due probably to the muscles they habitually use, and of course their expressions are very different.
'It can be argued that repeated positive social interactions for the version on the right compared to the version on the left would result in much higher extraversion for the Chad, for example, because of the more positive results from such interactions.'
I think this is true but once attractiveness goes past a threshold the beautiful one is subject to everyones projected pathologies and the net benefit diminishes. Better to just be 'pretty good looking'
And also you just know they are potentially conflicted about cashing in on the extra currency they hold. They are less of a safe bet.
i agree. as a female ive tried to convince incel types who believe women want chads and are settling for everone else, that being a male 9/10 with model good looks really isn't the most appealing. first thoughts are usually looks gay. too pretty. probably a player. dumb. materialistic. probably prissy about getting dirty.
All I know right now is that I have always had a deep distrust, dislike and disdain for Adam Schiff. If i was congregating with people and a face like that was there I would remain completely at a distance. He is from the Black Lodge in David Lynch movies.
The bureacrats in modern academia and the regime narrative apparatus have their work cut out for them on resuppressing sciences which are making a resurgence due to better understandings of genetics and algorithmic analyses. Race science, comparative mythology and prehistory, physiognomy, evolutionary psychology, and more are all being rediscovered and it remains to be seen whether the mental castration of the masses or the overwhelming nature of the evidence for the truth will win out.
Interesting, but somehow disturbing. Is character set THAT much by genetics and what happens in the womb?
I can think of a few outs. Face width is a function of diet, as shown by Westin Price. How much of that is nutrients and how much is chewing tough food is still up for grabs. Lots of trans fats produce frog fat. Low fat high carb diets produce a stretched face -- especially as one grows older. Exercise affects facial appearance as well as time in the sun. Someone who sits slack faced at the computer for hours on end is going to have fewer wrinkles than someone who makes lots of facial expressions.
----
And, finally, I figured out who Governor Murphy reminds me of: Conrad Janis ("Quark" and "Mork and Mindy"), albeit with worse teeth.
Hi Fabius, what did you find disturbing about it? Is it that if character is to an extent set in the womb, what does that say about the nature of free will and then of Heaven and Hell?
I agree with you that one's actions have an impact on one's physiognomy to an extent, and being supplied enough nutrients do as well.
Yes, the bit about free will.
God has handcrafted each person, it would make sense that He would design them holistically. The remarkable part of humans is actually moreso that we’re all unique even tho theres so many of us.
Very interesting topic!
Whereas it is absolutely true that almost all of us make instantaneous judgements of others, and that pretending we do not is hypocritical (or perhaps simply mistaken, since probably lots of people honestly think they don't instantly judge others), I am not sure it is a wise practice. Judging others by their looks and expression, or by their physiognomy for that matter, overlaps--when not plain matches--the definition of prejudice (pre-judge); which is, by the way, also common practice and nothing we should feel guilty for. An openly prejudiced person is speaking here. :-)
Certainly, it is inevitable to make such judgements, but this does not mean it is good practice. In my opinion we should be very cautious with any conclusions thus reached, and should behave according to them only when we have no other way of assessing someone else's personality, character traits, etc. And even so, we should probably endow most unknown persons with the benefit of the doubt unless doing so entails some sort of potential danger.
As one can easily see by carefully watching the composites in figure #1 in your article, the shades of expression (presumedly revealing personality traits) are extremely subtle and difficult to perceive, even giving ourselves all the time allowance we need; so, imagine how is it when we can only get a glimpse of someone's face, or under an unsuitable angle or light, or when we need to judge by a photograph published perhaps precisely for portraying a favourable or unfavourable image of that person, which is by the way, unfortunately, common practice in journalism (to which Rolo is no exception, sorry to say). Not to talk about dissimulation, despite Schopenhauer's opinion.
What I'm trying to say is that the probability of making a mistake when judging others by their physiognomy is, I guess, quite high. And on the other hand, when thus judging we surely contribute to potential explanation #1 (which I found quite predictable, btw), which is certainly not a very positive thing to do. In any case, most of the very interesting studies you reference admit that the correlation between physiognomy and character trait is rather weak, except for the case of political orientation, which to be honest I find too astonishing to be trustworthy. How on earth is it even conceptually possible to predict our political orientation (which is not even a proper "character trait") from just facial recognition, unless the study has also taken into account other things like clothing, body ornaments, etc?
Hi Freelander, you're touching on a larger point here, which is: to what extent should we in general follow our instincts, and to what extent should we overrule them? Before the neolithic agriculture revolution, our instincts and our thoughts and actions were in tune, because we had evolved for an environment of small groups of hunter gatherers for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. But when thrust into cities with the advent of agriculture, we suddenly found our instincts and our thoughts to be in opposition. We were suddenly surrounded by lots more people, with trade with other groups, and we couldn't simply bash an enemy's skull in if we got mad (and those that did were quickly removed from the evolutionary genepool). Personally, I think instead of rejecting our instincts we need to acknowledge and integrate them. With respect to our instinctive snap judgments of other's physiognomy, that would mean respecting that judgment while leaving room open to be wrong about it (and hence grow our worldview) by talking and getting to know the person before solidifying any of those snap judgments, if possible.
Re: political orientation, that's an easy one. Higher testosterone levels are pretty strongly correlated with political orientation, to the point that injecting liberals with testosterone turns them Republican, lol: https://dcenquirer.com/testosterone-red-shift/
I think that often our assumptions about somebody’s inner world, their heart, their struggles and insecurities, can be judged somewhat presciently from their physiognomy. However as a Christian this actually gives me a chance to approach the person more at their speed, anticipate the underlying sorrows of their soul, and love them/minister to them better. A person is a whole embodiment with a demeanor, expressive tendencies, a gait, a smell, a laugh, a handshake, and of course their facial structure. Being a loving Christian includes me using these markers (and assumptions) to probe a person more deeply so we can get to the root of the matter that may be unwell with their soul. Its not pre-judging, bc Im not castigating them with a glance (unless theyre clearly somebody demonic or dangerous or cantankerously atheist), but Im using the clues of their body and expression to meet them where theyre at and love them accordingly
Gait, laugh, handshake... yes, that can tell me something about the person I have in front of me, as can his clothes, tatoos or even his expression (a frown, a smile, lips parted or tight, eyes wide open or partly closed...) But pure physiognomy? The size of their eyes or ears, the form of their nose, their cheekbone, lips' thickness, the form of their skull? I do not think so.
Insightful, yet how can you have a more charitable view of prejudice as opposed to physiognomy? Physiognomy might have evolved as an intuitive personality detector, whereas prejudice is merely a regurgitation of a particular cultural milieu. I have recently experienced prejudice when proclaiming myself to be an incel in several Discord channel introductions - causing a reaction as unmistakable as that of a bus-driving Negro in the 1950s.
What to say of even more subtler political leanings (NazBol, White Sharia/Juche), or the opposite - more blunter realities (Trump and Biden are the same, being prejudiced against one makes you blind against the other's similarities)?
On the other hand, intuitive facial readings might give false positives when dealing with those same finer details - such as my natural revolution at seeing Revilo Oliver's photograph (as opposed to reading his prose).
"how can you have a more charitable view of prejudice as opposed to physiognomy?"
Good question. I would say that, on the one hand, hopefully I am not particularly charitable towards prejudice, in the sense that I consider it a flaw, albeit a minor and pardonable one, because it is quasi universal and near to inevitable. On the other hand, I think there is no real divide between prejudging ("judge beforehand", "pass judgement on prematurely or without sufficient reflection or investigation") and physiognomy-based judgement, both concepts overlapping each other to a fair degree. And lastly (on the third hand? Ha, ha!) but most importantly: whereas prejudice is generally considered and admitted to be a mental attitude (therefore fully subjective), physiognomy aims for being a science, and I am infinitely more critical towards presumed sciences (supposedly fully objective) than towards human flaws. To clarify: one thing is to admit a prejudice or a baseless/vaguely founded idea about someone (which may be mistaken, but it is admittedly an opinion), and quite another thing is trying to show someone's physiognomy as objective evidence of a given trait. In other words: the "A face you can trust" emphatic statement sounds a bit boastful and pontificating to me.
For some reason, this piece made me undertake a keyword brain search that eventually turned up Georges Dumézil. Aside from his work in comparative mythology, I recall reading a book by him (I think) in which he linked ethnicity and physiognomy. Maybe it was someone else.
Hi R. Toney, I agree there is definitely an ethnic component to physiognomy, but it's already covered in depth by the HBD right and it's very hot button, so I thought a post on the non-racial components would be interesting, which I think have been downplayed and mostly ignored.
Fascinating!
Good stuff! Very glad to see someone is writing about this neglected topic.
For the German speakers, I'm reading selected chapters from Johann Caspar Lavater's 1775 book "Physiognomische Fragmente" over the next months and will publish them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaI2FLKhEww&list=PLgQGY3RhnbpLP22g2EceFDSHfKD4eGUrn&index=1
Great post; I'm tempted to print a miniature book out of it to consult on the go.
Let's try to distill the facial differences in the Big Five Personality Traits image.
-High agreeableness: Wider face and more marked philtrum.
-High conscientiousness: The face looks more mature, with more "empty space" not occupied by facial features (eyes, nose, mouth)
-High extraversion: A wider and face, with flat cheekbones and an absence of tear throughs.
-High emotional stability: Almond-shaped eyes (maybe hunter eyes/positive canthal tilt?), tear throughs, and a pointier chin.
-High openness: Tear throughs, rounder eyes, compact face (less "empty space") and pointed chin.
What a wonderful article!
I had no idea the word physiognomy existed, but I've used that technique since I was little to understand what people were thinking, and why they behaved the way they did. Instinct is a necessary and powerful tool that must be used in conjunction with reason and models to recognize deception. It has saved my skin more times than I can count.
I also loved the deleted scene, and didn't realize they intended to have that in the movie.
Thanks Theodore! It's great to have you back, I've been wondering where you were. I think I saw on notes that you had moved across the country? Hope it was an easy move and that you're settling in nicely.
It was pretty brutal haha, but totally worth it. It's beautiful out here. I'm definitely a country person, minus the country music.
Agree. & that may be a valid assessment.
And going a bit further on that topic, men seem to soften, facially, and in body with age and sometimes it feminizes them. And the opposite is true of women but it may also be shorter hairstyles. The genders make a switch with advancing age. I’ll be vilified in some quarters if say that aging is nature’s “transition.” And that in my opinion, that’s as it should be.
What's not clear to me is the proposition. Is it proposed that:
a. The innate, cannot-be-changed, physical, bone-structure-based features of the face tell us about the person's psychology?
b. The way that people hold their faces, the expressions (muscle positioning), tell us about their psychology? Another way to say this is: "Are you saying that the low agreeableness face is detecting that from the actual skull structure wholly outside the person's ability to control, or are you saying, instead, that the way people arrange their facial muscles, consciously and unconsciously, tell us something about their state of mind"?
Or a combination of both?
Hi Josh, the proposition is a combination of a and b. We can tell elements of a person's physiognomy by their immutable and mutable characteristics, and we further make snap judgments about that person's psychology based upon their movements, how they carry themselves, their reactions, etc.
However, it's actually a deeper and subtler proposition being made about integrating and not rejecting our instincts, even though society encourages us to reject them at every turn. Our instincts have evolved over hundreds of thousands or millions of years and ably served the natural selection processes of our ancestors, and I think we remain lesser beings by rejecting and not integrating them. I am using science here as the means by which to push this point because people have so much faith in official science, but ultimately the hope is that science isn't needed to do so.
Thank you. I agree that we can tell a lot from a face and that we are actually imperiling our own interests by denying that this is real. The modern ethos wants us to disconnect from our intuition, are evolved psychology, and actual tells that we all secretly know really are tells but we will not admit that we know that.