How Testosterone and Serotonin Drive the Shift in Global Power Dynamics, and Geopolitics of Social Conflict in the Clash of Civilizations

Introduction

The Russia-Ukraine border conflict is at the center of the Eurasian supercontinent, representing not only a topographical divide but a much greater civilizational divide between cultures and political and economic systems. This divide demarcates the West from the Eastern sociopolitical system. Since the Enlightenment, the West has been associated more with liberty, independence, individual rights, and capitalism, favoring independent nation-states with the rule of law, equal rights, and limited government authority. The East, on the other hand, is more authoritarian, centralized, collectivist, and socialistic, and tends toward a globalist empire.

The focus of this article is to study this geopolitical conflict from an interdisciplinary scientific point of view termed sociophysics. The founder of sociology, Auguste Comte, defined “social physics” as that science which occupies itself with social phenomena, considered in the same light as astronomical, physical, chemical, and physiological phenomena, that is to say, as being subject to natural and invariable laws. Sociophysics seeks to understand the dynamic behavior of human crowds in terms of complex systems moved by physical, biological, and social forces.

This work further develops the theory suggesting sex and growth hormones, driven by seasonal solar patterns, are the driving force of human social dynamics. Solar energy levels determine human sex hormone levels, regulating biological behavior and driving social mood trends. These behaviors manifest in the rhythm of human history, from the fall of civilization into a Dark Age to rebirth into an Enlightenment. Émile Durkheim determined that human society is unified by a collective force manifested in its moral and religious sentiments, similar to an electromagnet that brings components to circle around its center of power. Jonathan Haidt echoes this, noting that sacred values act like a powerful electromagnet generating moral flux lines.

Sociocultural differences seen across the East–West divide are evident in our very genetics. According to “culture–gene coevolutionary theory,” these differences originate in biological genetic inheritance. Research on the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) indicates that collectivist mindsets correlate with the prevalence of the S allele. Asian males, according to Steven C. Hertler, display less sexual dimorphism and muscularity, associated with the collectivist ethos observed among Asian people.

The geopolitics of unipolar versus bipolar worlds

The emerging bipolar world with the rise of China and Russia represents a paradigm shift shaking the old order established since 1987. While the United States emerged as the only superpower after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the East has since grown in power and prosperity. The convergence of military and economic factors has transitioned the global environment from cooperation into growing distrust, trade sanctions, and wars. The current global scenario resembles the path that led from the Great Depression of the 1930s to World War II.

Sociobiology versus the individual man

Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson suggested humans are a eusocial species, evolving at a group level like a superorganism. This collectivist nature is in contrast to the Enlightenment vision of the independent and rational man. This article suggests the decline in Western man's autonomy of will is an evolved psychological adaptation generated by a gradual decline in sex and growth hormones, primarily testosterone and serotonin, since their peak during the Enlightenment. While the Russian Empire once emulated Western culture, today, as solar and sexual energies are in global decline, Russia is forging an alliance with China and Iran against the West, a pattern similar to the thirteenth-century Mongol Empire.

The Bioenergetics of social dynamics

Sex hormones, synchronized according to solar cycles, shape the sociocultural evolution of the Eurasian supercontinent. Rising solar activity correlates with high fertility rates and the rise of industrial civilization. Conversely, declining solar activity leads to a pessimistic worldview. Oswald Spengler recognized cultures as organisms evolving with a lifespan of about a thousand years. He suggests the Western world is ending, witnessing the "winter" of Faustian Civilization.

Bioenergetics: How cultural evolution shapes modern science

Douglas C. Wallace explains that biological complexity is driven by energy flux. This process is observed in the rise of modern science during the Enlightenment, where Isaac Newton's physics depicted a clockwork universe. However, this orderly view was diminished in the counter-Enlightenment, transforming our view of nature into a chaotic flux. This was evident in the rise of electromagnetism and Einstein’s relativistic paradigm, culminating in Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which cast doubt upon meaning inherent in the physical world.

The wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics mirrors the conflict between individualist and collectivist ideologies. A pattern of declining solar energy causes diminishing levels of testosterone, changing our perception from an orderly universe to a state of chaotic flux. This shift was realized during the twentieth-century World Wars and the emergence of a new Darwinian evolutionary paradigm, leading to Nazi eugenics and biological race wars.

Dark winter environmental conditions and stress response

The stress hormone cortisol is associated with the fight-or-flight response. In order to save resources during threats, allocation for growth and fertility is reduced, increasing social conflict. In periods of low solar activity, such as the Spanish Flu or COVID-19 pandemic, the human social organism adapts by reducing fertility and increasing social cohesion to fight foreign enemies. The immune system, an energetically costly system, is suppressed when other activities like fight-or-flight are prioritized.

Testosterone, the power hormone, and energy dominance and independence

The low testosterone and low energy environment today shapes our sociopolitical systems regarding economic energy utilization. The rise of complex societies depends on huge energy resources. However, the green environmental mentality exhibits a primordial fear of Mother Nature, which may lead to the collapse of modern civilization. This is observed in Europe's dependence on Russian energy due to climate alarmism. Historically, Napoleon’s and Hitler’s invasions failed due to cold winters and energy shortages. A similar collapse is probable today as Russia exerts energy dominance during the cold winter.

A Twenty-first century view of the historically recurring life-cycle of civilization

Historical cycles suggest seven-century cycles of civilization, including the Bronze Age Collapse and the fall of the Roman Empire. Valentina Zharkova predicts a "grand minimum" in solar activity in the forthcoming cycles 26–27 (around 2030-2040), leading to strongly reduced solar activity.

Conclusion

This historical research suggests we are reaching the end of a seven-century grand supercycle starting from the fourteenth century. Society is falling into a low energy, low testosterone state characterized by asexual behavior, low fertility, transgenderism, pandemics, and wars for empire. We must seek to understand these negative trends from a broader biosocial perspective, including the chronobiological effects of solar activity. The question remains whether we are in a deterministic system doomed to collapse, or if the rational man of modern science can rise up to utilize energy resources to further the prosperity of mankind.