[I did a YouTube Video reading this Blog if anybody wants to watch]
This morning I was reading On Line News and Opinion when someone mentioned James Q. Wilson, a renowned 20th Century Moralist. Well, that was enough to get me going and so let’s all think about this together.
Firstly, Wilson didn’t suppose that people put much thought into Morality. I gather from what I learned from the Amazon Reviewers of his books that the Morale Impulse stems from 4 capacities that were products of social evolution: sympathy, fairness, self-control, and duty.
Okay, now we should ask how Human Evolution developed this Moral Social Impulse? Well, modern research in Anthropology, Sociology and Psychology point to Human Social Development as not having been formed within the small nuclear family or even extended family units, but in units of between 100 and 150 people. First, there’s been studies that had people associate names to photos. People are really good at that, if given time to look, compare and shuffle through and study, but the difficulty factor sky-rockets as the stack of photos exceeds 100 and becomes confused and frustrating past 150. Also, observational studies of Social Groups points to fragmentation of Groups into Us Vs Them Subgroups when membership much exceeds 100. Migratory Hunting-Gathering Groups and Nomadic Groups also tend to subdivide at these levels. Modern Military “Companies” are kept at about 100 where Military cohesion and efficiency hit the high mark of the combat readiness curve. So we get the idea that Social Impulse Cohesiveness works best for groups of about 100 people. SO, if we expect there to be Social Cohesion for Societies greater than 100 people, then that would require that people somehow Generalize their Feeling for their Moral Impulses from people they know ‘by name’, to those in the greater society.
So let’s see how this played out in History. The very first Civilizations were with the River Valley Settlements. Archeological evidence suggests that Priesthoods stepped in and provided some structured Generalization, what we would call RELIGION, that could buttress the Social Impulse so that thousands of people could cohere as an integrated social group. We have Archeological Hints that such Societies were Egalitarian and not Master Slave Societies. You see, unlike in later “Civilizations” it seems that the Priesthoods were serious City Planners, and there was not much difference between the plans of the Big Houses and the smaller ones. Also, there were puzzling rectangles being built in the Residential Blocks which were finally determined to have been ‘regulation size ball courts’. That meant that the People were being provided with Leisure Time Recreation. So It couldn’t have been all bad, huh?
But here comes the counterargument to the one that History always Progresses Forwards. We had the Rise of Barbarism with its sense of a Two-Tiered Humanity. Let’s look at that development. First, we are aware that the River Valley Civilizations were able to secure Surpluses in both Food and Fabrics. The peoples in the Hills were often exposed to hunger and, except for the itchy and scratchy skins of animals, they were naked. So, at first in small groups they would conduct bandit raids, and grab what they could, including girls, from the Blissfully Happy Egalitarian Civilizations in the Valleys and then flee back to the Hills. This forced the Civilizations to create a Militarized Defense. From that the Hill Peoples were incentivized to form military coalitions, for both offense and defense, and so the fighting intensified. At a certain point the Militarized Cadres in the Civilizations overthrew the Priesthoods, and then asserted a Privilege over the outraged general population. Then the Militarists diverted resources to opportunistic Wars which would often enough lead to ruin and thereby impoverish the People. All of this destroyed the strong sense of Social Cohesion that could only flourish in a perceptibly Egalitarian Society. And, of course, a Military Dictatorship is naturally less Religiously persuasive then an Independent, Educated and Benign Priesthood and so the influence of Socially Harmonious Religion declined with the rise of Militarism. Thereafter, the Militarized Cadres in these “Civilized” Societies would be beset from both sides: Military Challenges from the Hill Peoples, as well as from dissention from within their own City Walls. Pure Egalitarian Civilizations disappeared and has yet to return.
The ensuing Pattern for thousands of years would be for the Outer Raw Barbarians to achieve their Conquests and take the place of the Militarized Cadres within the “Civilizations”. Often the Barbarians would assume the language and manners of the Cities they conquered and most changes would be marginal. The one continuing Constant in all of this would be the notion that the Militarized Cadre was Divinely Appointed Ruling Class and somehow Intrinsically and Substantially better and more deserving than the Common People. This is why even today we refer to Barbarians with the euphemism of “Aristocracy”.
The best example of a Barbarian Conquest would be the Aryan-Brahmin subjugation of the Indus Valley and the implementation of its Caste System. It’s Philosophical and Religious Justifications were founded in the notions of Karma and Past Life Reincarnation. The Subjugated Masses, were indoctrinated to believe that they had lived innumerable Past Lives, and in all of those lives they had somehow insulted, disobeyed, offended or failed to thoroughly and completely serve the Brahmin Caste, thus propelling them to their present downtrodden lives which they completely deserve because of their Bad Karma. Even the Higher Castes lived under the Karmic Threat – Step out of Line and be “Caste Down”.
But Progress in the collapse of the Moral Impulse marched on. In the 18th Century we had the Age of Enlightenment and the Ascendency of Reason. Now, Imagine having to justify every moral act by a rational justification. The more Primitive elements of our Emotional Drives – the Sense for Beauty, Aesthetics and Fine Feelings were far better containers for Sympathy, Fairness, Self-Control and Duty. Forcing that structure to depend on Solid Logical Points of Proof constricted the Moral Sense: Sympathy once examined set up boundaries. Fairness decided that it would be impossible to be fair to everybody. Self Control was attacked on the grounds that it curtailed individual growth and development. And Duty? Well, Duty to whom: Self, Family, Society, Nation, World? Well, Duty to the Self somehow won out.
Thereupon we then had the Rise of Individualism and Predatory Capitalism. Just think of the Social Milieu of the Age of Reason – People tossed into an Urban Society, “liberated” from Small Town Moral Expectations, and allowed to roam wild in the Anonymity of the City Crowd, where their most predatory instincts would be encouraged by Laws which upheld unrestricted Property Rights. WELL, given those conditions, Individuals had every “reason” to engage in economic and even military predation. And over it all hung the abiding aura of Aristocratic Privilege… with the improvement that they only had to become rich to become tyrannical.
But somehow the quatrain of Sympathy, Self Control, Fairness and Duty hung on. After all, Civilization would collapse if everybody went on an Individual Rampage against all others, wouldn’t it?
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