July 15, 2023

"One reason that may be behind the shrinking — if it is not just anecdotal evidence from a really small sample size — is that westernisation/modernisation/feminism encourages us to seek out and approve of 'safer' men."

Said Peter Karl Jonason, of the University of Padua, who has studied "the relationship between height and traits of narcissism and psychopathy," quoted in "Rise of the ‘short kings’: Can you guess how our leaders measure up? Size is being overlooked by voters as the idea of the ‘alpha male’ loses resonance, say experts" (London Times).

Googling the term "short king," I found this Vice article from last year: "I Asked Short Kings How 'Short King Spring' Is Going/I wanted to get a sense of what men like me are making of our time in the spotlight." I didn't notice that trend last year. Is it still going on? Is there still a trend of naming trends after a particular season? I remember "Hot Girl Summer." 

42 comments:

rhhardin said...

Short men never describe anybody as tall lest people wonder what height he considers anybody to be tall.

rehajm said...

Inbreding…

gilbar said...

Mike Pence is 5' 9"..
Here's What Happens, if you trust Short People..
Mike Pence Says Crumbling Cities ‘Not My Concern’ as He Calls for More Aid to Ukraine

That's Right, scumbag beta males like Mike Pence think America and American cities are 'Not My Concern'..
His only concern is: starting WWIII and boosting Raytheon's stock price
Short People got no reason to live

cassandra lite said...

Does it not go without saying that 5'4" James Madison towers over 6'8" John Fetterman--or, for that matter, 6' even Joe Biden and 6'3" Donald Trump? I'd vote for Peter Dinklage if he had the right stuff.

Big Mike said...

The notion that he needed to be tall to be an effective leader might have surprised Napoleon Bonaparte.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Holy cope. Remember a while back we were discussing cringe and trying to figure out what "cringe" was? Yeah.

Yancey Ward said...

Rise of the Eunuchs.

The Drill SGT said...

Woman like safe men, until it's unsafe

"Gentle folk sleep peacefully in their beds at night, because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf"

- maybe not Orwell

lonejustice said...

In my professional career I had multiple encounters with "short man syndrome" among lawyers, judges, and especially law enforcement officers. The shorter they were, the more arrogant and narcissistic they were. There were lots of exceptions, of course, but you couldn't help but notice the trend.

Skeptical Voter said...

Napoleon was the first documented sufferer from "short man's disease". Like a terrier they want to conquer the world.

Ah but my time has passed. I was 6' 5" at 21, now as I approach 80 I've shrunk to 6' 3".

Blastfax Kudos said...

How much of this is actual preference vs. perceived shortage? Anecdotal evidence on the ground suggests the dating market isn't slim pickings, it's completely collapsed, at least regarding everyone's idealized preferences. Tons of women have suddenly found themselves 3 years after the great global social experiment known as covid realizing something better isn't coming along. This phenomenon is global. Even among the gays, which is highly unusual. It's everywhere. Milo Yiannopoulos, pedo though he is, was right that "The Sexodus is real". It has now gone mainstream, but it wasn't when he wrote it.

Will Cate said...

It was only about... oh, yesterday or so when I learned that "king" was current complimentary slang for any sort-of generic alpha male character.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The two men threatening to start WW3 (Putin and Zelenski, in case you just joined us) must've been left out of the small sample size, making the sample size a REALLY small sample size.

Oh, wait a minute, the article is talking about American voters, and how they view the size of Americans seeking the White House.

If the experts are right, that size is being overlooked by voters, the article is a nudge to readers to consider voting for a woman?

Right now, the only women candidates are GOP.

Prediction: A new Democrat candidate coming soon

FastFreddy said...

You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall

hstad said...

Classic example of an 'Academic' trying to be a relevant 'Feminist'. Feminism's attack on men will not go well within our Western Culture. There is an African Proverb which states - 'If the young men are not initiated into the tribe, they will burn down the village just to feel its warmth.'.

wild chicken said...

Tall men are smug. About being tall.

Medium guys are the most fun, or so I hear.

West TX Intermediate Crude said...

Good times make weak men.
And so on.

Narr said...

Napoleon was not that short; he was about average for his time and class. He did surround himself with some large fellows though.

Frederick the Great was a real shrimp.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Skeptical Voter said...

Napoleon was the first documented sufferer from "short man's disease". Like a terrier they want to conquer the world.

Napoleon Bonaparte wasn't short. The idea that he was short was British propaganda based on reports from France that he was 5'2" by the French measure which converted to 5' 6" by Imperial measure, the key difference being that the French inch was longer than the Imperial inch.. The average Frenchman of the time was 5' 5" Imperial, so Bonaparte was slightly taller than average.

Mikey NTH said...

Sounds to me like someone is trying to make a trend happen.

Political Junkie said...

There is "short man's" complex. There can also be the tall man "teddy bear" complex.

gadfly said...

cassandra lite said...
Does it not go without saying that 5'4" James Madison towers over 6'8" John Fetterman--or, for that matter, 6' even Joe Biden and 6'3" Donald Trump? I'd vote for Peter Dinklage if he had the right stuff.

I'll likely write-in Peter Dinklage for President and Kareem Abdul Jabbar for Veep in the Republican primary. Never Trump nor any running mate he chooses.

Charles de Gaulle at 6'5" is the tallest national president that I have ever seen (at the JFK gravesite in Arlington on 11/22/63) but in his military uniform, his Kepi cap made him look taller.

gadfly said...

"Size is being overlooked by voters . . ."

Jimmy Breslin nailed short male politicians:

"A small man in search of a balcony."

Jamie said...

Napoleon was the first documented sufferer from "short man's disease".

He may have suffered from the chip in the shoulder that seems to be the hallmark of this condition, but it's my understanding that he was of about average height for Frenchmen at the time. Wellington was an inch taller at 5'7".

Bob Boyd said...

Hand size is being overlooked by voters.

Jamie said...

There is an African Proverb which states - 'If the young men are not initiated into the tribe, they will burn down the village just to feel its warmth.'

That is excellent; I hope it's real. If it's not, it nonetheless rings true, based on how young men behave all over the world: channel their energies, ensure that they know they have a valued place in society, and you have civilization; fail to do so (or worse yet, make them outcasts) and you have brutality and destruction.

Women's supposed "civilizing influence" only works when young men know there is a valued place for them if only they choose to strive for it. And ISTM that a lot of the time, women use the "let's you and him fight" strategy, either to reduce the perceived threat to her or, in this time and place in which a woman doesn't expect to be a spoil of war, for their own fun. (Or, in a nicer cast, to take the decision of which man to choose out of the woman's hands, to avoid hurt feelings.)

Ann Althouse said...

The article is about short leaders and talks about Napoleon.

Fun fact: Napoleon was of average height for a man of his time and place.

Ann Althouse said...

But 5’9” is average height for an American man of today.

Jamie said...

But 5’9” is average height for an American man of today.

I'm pretty sure the average height of an American man was 5'10" when I was a kid and young woman. I thought I had read that the recent decrease can be chalked up to immigration from places where people are shorter.

Indigo Red said...

Napoleon was of average height. In pre–metric French measures, he was a diminutive 5′2.” But the French inch (pouce) of the time was 2.7 cm, while the Imperial inch was shorter, at 2.54 cm. Three French contemporary sources put Napoleon's height was just over ‘5 pieds 2 pouces’ (5’2”). Applying the French measurements of the time, that equals around 1.67 meters, or just under 5’6”, which is a little above average for a French man in the early 1800s.

However, I don't think folks were talking about his physical height by saying Napoleon was a small man. Adolf Hitler was 5'9" and was a small man. Ludwig von Beethoven was 5'4" and continues to be a big man. The measure of a person matters.

Laughing Fox said...

Philip Sheridan of Civil War fame was noticeably short--shorter even than Ulysses S. Grant!

madAsHell said...

“The Short Kings”........great name for rock band!

tim maguire said...

People don’t “want” a tall man, they don’t look at two men and think, “the taller one looks more presidential.” They simply look at two men, one of them seems more presidential and, if you were to measure them, you’d find that, most of the tine, the man who looks more presidential just happens to be taller.

Bruce Hayden said...

“The two men threatening to start WW3 (Putin and Zelenski, in case you just joined us) must've been left out of the small sample size, making the sample size a REALLY small sample size.”

“Oh, wait a minute, the article is talking about American voters, and how they view the size of Americans seeking the White House.”

“If the experts are right, that size is being overlooked by voters, the article is a nudge to readers to consider voting for a woman?”

The experts are full of shit. In good times, it is safe to be led by women, and some women can be strong enough to deal with adversity (e.g. Margret Thatcher). But we have had an extremely weak President for the last 2 1/2 years, and the country is in the crapper as a result. Trump is likely the Republican nominee, simply because he is the alpha male in the room. Putin, or the Chinese, Iranian, etc, leader, aren't going to push him around. Who else walks into UFC 290*, and has the crowd explode? The way that the Dems plan to beat him again, is the same way they did it last time - with massive, even larger, voter fraud. They are losing Black men now - I have been complimented several times by them for my (this one is beige) Trump hat. The sentiment continues to rise that this feminization has to end. Not by the elites, or those who have graduated from more elite colleges and universities, but seems like everyone else.

*The law firm I retired from represented the UFC** up through roughly UFC 100. I was their patent attorney. Then several of the partners in our IP practice area left to form their own Entertainment Practice, with the UFC as their core client. I remained their patent attorney until I retired. In any case, we had 4-5 guys who made every local (Las Vegas) fight. They were fanatics. But we had one woman working on the account, who finally got comped in. She thought that she would have to suffer through, for her job. She was so wrong. She absolutely loved the fight. It was so atavistic. So brutal and primal. Men are typically more visual, so probably enjoy fighting more on TV than women do. But that apparently doesn’t apply live.

**And a quick note on the UFC - that’s real violence, and not the choreographed violence of professional wrestling. The NV fighting commission (that also regulates boxing) has online information about every fight. Cage fighters are routinely suspended medically for several months, up to maybe a year, after a fight. My rough statistics were that there were more medical suspensions than fights - maybe an average of 1.2 or so medical suspensions to fights. That means that the loser of a UFC fight is unlikely to be able to fight again for 3-4 months, at least, after losing.

RideSpaceMountain said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
walter said...

Remember when women were finding Fauci sexy?

gilbar said...

Serious Question... Isn't EVERY summer, a Hot Girl Summer?

Narr said...

I was a tall boy for my age and reached my maximum 6'1" pretty early. It always seemed to me that some short guys had to be assertive and even combative if they wanted respect--or at least they thought that was the route to take.

MikeD said...

If one were to "search" the internet for "short kings" and "The Wizard of ID" wasn't one of the first few results, one shouldn't trust their search engine.

Mikey NTH said...

Napoleon likely had no problems with his height, and his personal magnetism, charisma, was so strong he didn't have any problems leading. At most it was being a Corsican in the French army before the Revolution. That said, his talent, ambition, and energy drove him to the top.

As another example, Nelson wasn't physically imposing, but he could lead and command loyalty.

Ambrose said...

Men will do anything for sex. Fly to the moon - check. Be a little shorter - you got it babe.

Big Mike said...

In my comment at 8:46 am yesterday I did not say Napoleon was short. I merely implied that he was not tall.