Is religion the problem or it's antecedent, tribalism?
Offline We all grieve over the death of Arthur C. Clark whose stories depicts transcendant human societies freed of primitive ideologies such as religion. He foretold bold utopian futures with societies that placed greatest emphasis on science and reason. Yet he died in a country wherein the tribal warfare between Tamils and Sinhalese wages on.
The Sri Lanka conflict is an admixture of religion (Hindus, Buddhists and Christians) and language (Tamil and Sinhalese). Over many years, faith and language shaped the ethnic identities. And we can make similar analogies everywhere else in the world.
Irrationalist claims such as the universe being only 6 thousand years old seem to only create problems when they become part of the dogmatic rules which govern a collectivist, tribal society. Isn't the tribal instinct the problem to begin with? If tribalism is controlled then wouldn't irrational memes simply fail to spread?
Although tribalism is part of our innate nature, what social mechanisms keep that in check? Historically, it is the free and open liberal western societies which champion individualism that provide the best solution. The tribal meme is counterbalanced by the individualist meme. However, in times of economic chaos, war or physical disaster, does reason succumb to our "primitive" chimpanzee natures and religious fervor thrives. And by religion, I would also include political ideologies of fascism and communism which appealed to tribal zealotry during economic collapse of the the early twentieth century Germany and Russia.
- Login to post comments
Which should, logically, lead to the question, "Is our capacity to transmit memes responsible for this kind of problem?" This leads to questioning the origin of memes, which seems to coincide with big brain separation between australopithicus and erectus, and to the incredible leaps in social institutions that stemmed from female selection of clever (smart) males.
The best model I'm aware of says that the menstrual cycle (as opposed to estrous) allowed sexuality to become more than reproductive, which encouraged females to select more clever males, which led to complex social structures, which led to tribalism.
Of course, tribalism/sexuality/culture is literally what makes us human. So... we can ask the question, "Isn't our humanity the problem with our humanity?"
I've observed that societies haven't managed to keep these ideals in any meaningful sense, at least not in large enough swaths of humanity to say that it's a successful experiment. America didn't make it more than fifty years as a liberal country championing individualism. That's another topic entirely, but my point is that innate to humanity are two conflicting and paradoxically complementary drives -- the individual and the superorganism. I suspect that the degree to which individualism would have to be favored to be truly successful makes it inherently next to impossible.
I would suggest that our logic occasionally rises above our 'primitive' natures. Industrialization was necessary for globalization, which is necessary for accountability, which is necessary for true individualism. Of course, industrialization is anti-individual. Industrialization didn't happen because it would lead to more individualism in political philosophy. It happened because rich men were able to become much richer by exploiting cheap and non-individual labor. The political consequences were secondary and essentially irrelevant.
I think that when culture achieves a certain level of egalitarianism, it's usually more a result of its functionality than its philosophical merit.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism