Anthropology and Religion: Culture

[path_of_one]

It was- and full of surprises! I will get out those materials ASAP- and the next installment. I'm so busy this week it may be a little late...

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

From what I gather about the development of alphabets, specifically Hebrew, the symbols *originally* were associated with what they represented. Now, I can agree that as the symbols gained new meanings and symbol combinations developed to expand writing to include far more meanings, then the original associations often became lost. The flip side is that in those cultures where symbolic representations did not gain as much combination, the result was an "alphabet" that sometimes includes in the neighborhood of 4000 common characters I think it is in the case of Chinese or Japanese.

Stumbled on this:
http://www.comparative-religion.com/...china-126.html

[Tao_Equus]

Another great OP Path-of-One.

Such OP's are indeed a great way to set the table for a good discussion. Simple unambiguous clarity with just enough direction to lead the way.

I have often meant to start a discussion on how recent changes in technology have affected culture on the personal, local, national and international level and perhaps when this thread has travelled a little it might do so.

Jung said something like "to be a truly modern Man you cannot reject history". Our biggest questions are not immune from cultural influence. And the questions we never ask are likewise never free of cultural paradigms. Sometimes you can know a persons start point better by the questions they do not ask than the ones that they do. Language and culture can combine in a terminology that makes some questions nigh near impossible. So in a sense it is good to remember that every paradigm is in essence a set of loaded dice.

Rather than look at who was the first with each cultural innovation I think it would be interesting to look first at what all cultures share and why. It is there we will find our base, or foundation, of that which we might call our humanity. As I see it you really are required to view culture on at least 5 levels to begin to get a handle on the sometimes conflicting manifestations of cultural phenomena. The personal, micro (family), local, (immediate community), national and international level. I think we see greatest concord when we view the first and last together and the middle three is where it gets more complicated.

On the personal level culture is everything, it defines us from birth. We could not survive without the collective, we are a social species incapable of survival alone not just without each other but also the countless billions of other individual organisms our lives ultimately depend upon. The web of life itself on this planet is what gives the possibility of any culture. Even a yoghurt has culture which may be an old joke but none the less can be taken quite literally. So our personal culture is tied in with everything. It is internationalist, global in the most elemental ways. Yet to some, and especially the types that inhabit these pages, it has become extremely complex and very rarely logical. The capacity for reason is defined by those paradigms we adopt as a facet of our interaction on all levels of culture. They are never definitive to everybody on any level because self is, at least amongst thinking people, always in conflict or trying to harness culture to its own desires. Culture is in some sense a tool that we use to shape our goals as much as it shapes us.

To spin it round again there is philosophy, religion, science and art, the human contrivances to bring some meaning to the world in which we find ourselves. How each of them combine in the individual psyche is what determines an individuals paradigm. Some people have one that dominates, others draw more equally. There is cultural bias from the moment we are born that in the majority of individuals will in large part determine their life-paradigm. There are no cultures that do not incorporate some balance of these 4 faculties but like in the individual the balance can be far from even. And I think here lays the root of my opposition to religion. For what it is it does not deserve, by evidence, its lofty position in the individual and cultural (on every level), psyche. Religion is no more tangible than abstract art. It is useful only in philosophical musing and should never have achieved its dominance over the four. But the way our minds work, and the imperatives of evolutionary progression found it a useful tool for cultural self-interest. Religion has only in recent times seen the rise of science and it struggles like a bad liar to jump from one explanation to the other. For the first time in history scientific knowledge is shared by sufficient individuals for it to have a voice independent of culture. Philosophy, the primary cause of our individual desire to be on this page, only now has some chance to gain a different paradigm based on empirical proof rather than naive supernatural causations. Religions and those with a spiritual paradigm would love to paint science as a religion, to bring it 'into the fold' but science deals with empirical truths that will ever leave it in conflict with pure faith based philosophy. To make logical sense to oneself we will invariably make some illogical connections due to all the cultural influences upon us. Those we choose, or think we choose, and those that are more insidious, the fuzzy communal paradigms, define the degree to which science will influence our philosophy. Unfortunately science is the route of infinite dissection and religion cannot handle dissection very well. Philosophy can. Philosophy is as much about dissection as collectivisation. Collectivisation is what religions do. But they ignore empirical proof in stating their conclusions. Indeed religions are about conclusional paradigms for reality where as science only asks why and how or vice versa. Science separates itself from philosophy by its own intrinsic qualities and this is what makes it the superior tool in philosophical musings.

So where am I going with this? I would say the elevation of science on the back of its experiential and pragmatic usefulness will continue to gain respect until it is culturally accepted on every level as the superior approach to answering fundamental questions. This will continue till religious belief in the majority is seen in a radically different way to today, a way that will see the demise of all organised religions and "revealed truths". What is happening in the internationalist culture of the selfish (non-pejorative) atheist is growing into a movement supported by every internet terminal on the planet. this will change culture. The religions are no longer in charge of science and are reduced to minnows on the scale of the knowledge available to anyone online. Steadily over the coming centuries religion will be viewed as archaic and hopefully we all adopt a neutral philosophy instead.

tao

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Our biggest questions are not immune from cultural influence. And the questions we never ask are likewise never free of cultural paradigms. Sometimes you can know a persons start point better by the questions they do not ask than the ones that they do.

Absolutely.

I think it would be interesting to look first at what all cultures share and why. It is there we will find our base, or foundation, of that which we might call our humanity.

Short answer: not much. There are so few human universals. Incredibly few. I mean, you can talk about broad swathes of stuff like: everyone shares food. Everyone lives in a family unit. Everyone has a language. But that stuff isn't tremendously helpful because there is an enormous amount of diversity there. What kinds of food? With whom and under what circumstances? Who is in a family? How is it formed and maintained? How does it function? Etc. For every "universal" there are hundreds if not thousands of variations on it.

What I find really interesting is the relationships between changes in one part of culture and changes in another, such that you get similarities in various aspects of culture based on economic/political similarities. Much more is shared by hunter-gatherers as a broad generalization, for example, than by all humans everywhere, and this is interesting to see how it stacks up against industrialized cultures, for example, and the stuff that they share. That kind of patterened, recognizable diversity is really fascinating to me.

One universal that was just too much fun was captured in Matt Harding's recent Dancing 2008 video. Basically, as one blog commenter summed it up: "I realize people everywhere like to dance like dorks." Now, THAT is interesting. What is it that allows people seemingly everywhere to recognize fun when they see it, and join in? Why are we dancing, singing, drumming animals? What's the purpose?

Yet to some, and especially the types that inhabit these pages, it has become extremely complex and very rarely logical.

Culture doesn't need to be logical because logic is not always the most beneficial thing for group survival. The purpose of culture is to allow our species to survive, which requires group survival. So, historically speaking, culture has been a way to get people to cooperate. It is a real struggle for a lot of people to cooperate based on logic, because it is not always immediately logical to cooperate if it involves sacrifice to the individual. This is the whole tragedy of the commons work, altruism, etc. What is often detrimental to the individual is advantageous for the group. It's the short-term/long-term planning horizon issue. Culture may provide us with all sorts of illogical stuff, but generally this is to give us short-term emotional payoffs for what is beneficial in the long-term for the group but is, logically, not immediately beneficial to the individual.

I have a lot of works in the reading list on this issue, and religion is a big player in that game. I'd recommend Gene Anderson's "Ecologies of the Heart" as a starting point, but there's a whole literature on the Tragedy of the Commons that is excellent and explains the value of religion in thwarting these issues.

Culture is in some sense a tool that we use to shape our goals as much as it shapes us.

Yep. Culture changes too. We manipulate it, it shapes us.

To spin it round again there is philosophy, religion, science and art, the human contrivances to bring some meaning to the world in which we find ourselves.

I don't think that's really how it works. There is some evolutionary payoff for this stuff, and that's why it is there. I don't think it's all about bringing in meaning to our lives and world. I mean, superficially, yes. But when you dig down, these things have purpose for group survival, generally speaking.

The fact that humans have a drive to seek meaning is itself interesting and noteworthy, since other social animals seem to get along just fine without this quality.

And I think here lays the root of my opposition to religion. For what it is it does not deserve, by evidence, its lofty position in the individual and cultural (on every level), psyche. Religion is no more tangible than abstract art. It is useful only in philosophical musing and should never have achieved its dominance over the four.

You may believe this, but the evidence says otherwise. I've listed some stuff on the reading list that goes into the details, but the evidence is that religion has historically been key to engendering cooperation and long-term planning in areas that would otherwise be like herding cats. And these things were necessary for group survival. Religion has evolutionary advantages that have allowed large-scale social cooperation, retention of ecological information, and other important advantages. It persists in part because science is lousy at making people care emotionally about what they should do, and most people make decisions based on emotions and not logic.

I'd recommend Atran's book "In Gods We Trust," Anderson's book, and then some of the ethnographies from cultural ecology-- they really demonstrate the complexity of environmental knowledge and decision-making in individual cultures and religion's role.

Unfortunately science is the route of infinite dissection and religion cannot handle dissection very well. Philosophy can. Philosophy is as much about dissection as collectivisation. Collectivisation is what religions do. But they ignore empirical proof in stating their conclusions.

First, I think some things are just not very amendable to dissection. Perhaps this is why science is lousy at making people cooperate for an end. In dissecting things, we lose emotion and many people become bored or apathetic. Not everyone is interested in dissection (in fact, most people don't seem to be interested in it). Many people I have met, whether religious or not, are not scientific. They just replace religion with some substitute that doesn't have gods but lacks all the logic and evidence-based analysis that science demands. This is why you can have very illogical, socially deleterious outcomes coming out of very atheistic philosophies.

Second, religions do not ignore evidence, but rather it is handled differently. I will try to explain. Take feng-shui as an example. It involves all sorts of religious/superstitious ideas- dragons and tigers in the mountains, the circulation of chi, ghosts, etc. Yet, it is feng-shui that enticed people to make very sound land use planning decisions for centuries. The explanation is illogical, but it gets people to have an emotional attachment to doing the right, beneficial actions for the community.

Contrast this with the US. Our land use planning is based in science. We don't talk about ghosts and dragons. We don't discuss circulations of energy. We have all the logical, "real" information about geology and urban planning and so forth. And, quite frankly, our land use planning sucks. Each year flooding washes away homes and landslides pile into the backyards of development tracts. We pave over our best agricultural land because that is cheap. The lack of any unified and emotionally relevant system means people just grab at whatever benefits them short-term and no one pays attention to what is best for the community or even themselves down the road. In short, the science is there and the explanations may be correct. But it simply reached all the same conclusions as feng-shui without any of the "bite" and so it is bulldozed by narrow-minded, short-term self-interest.

What good is having a logical system of understanding the world around us if its pragmatic ends are no different from the illogical, religious system-- and it is much worse at getting anyone to actually cooperate in beneficial action?

Unless people "grow up" and evolve to intrinsically desire cooperation, self-sacrifice, and long-term planning... science is no better off than religion is, and in many ways worse, for group survival. I heart science too, but I do recognize that it is science that has generated nuclear weapons and unsustainable agriculture. Technology and scientific knowledge without the underpinnings of emotion that lead to beneficial action is just as horrific as the way religion can be twisted.

[China Cat Sunflower]

Originally Posted by Poo

One universal that was just too much fun was captured in Matt Harding's recent Dancing 2008 video. Basically, as one blog commenter summed it up: "I realize people everywhere like to dance like dorks." Now, THAT is interesting. What is it that allows people seemingly everywhere to recognize fun when they see it, and join in? Why are we dancing, singing, drumming animals? What's the purpose?

That's a splendid question. The fact that we like to get inebriated, pound out some sort of groove, and dance like dorks around a fire says so much about who we, as humans, are.

Chris

[path_of_one]

I would say it is probably the crux of who we are, and how we are different from other animals. We evolved to really like BBQs- nothing says a good time the world over than a hunk of meat on a fire, some sort of alcoholic beverage, music, and dancing.

[LenoBee]

What a beautiful thread. I have enjoyed the reading from the OP.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

Absolutely.



Short answer: not much. There are so few human universals..... For every "universal" there are hundreds if not thousands of variations on it.

Yes there are few. But none the less that few are fundamental to what a human truly is. We are social apes with brains developed to take advantage of environment. We can think in the abstract to facilitate this and a consequence of abstraction is a lot variation. Much of it so far removed from reality as to have no relationship to it any more.

What I find really interesting is the relationships between changes in one part of culture and changes in another....

Nothing but nothing is unchanging. Even ones relationship with oneself is a flux. With family, extended family, community, city, region, country and international alliances the constant jostle of change is ever present. And the change can be massive and rapid. The complicity amongst the German people in the rise of the Third Reich is a good illustration. I too am fascinated by these changes and for a while this interest had me genuinely fearful about the direction in which the US was heading. Having travelled fairly widely I would say unequivocally that people are people, everywhere. They are far more alike than unalike in just being people rather than cultural paradigms. At least on the one to one level. We can always find common ground in our individual interactions.

One universal that was just too much fun was captured in Matt Harding's recent Dancing 2008 video. Basically, as one blog commenter summed it up: "I realize people everywhere like to dance like dorks." Now, THAT is interesting. What is it that allows people seemingly everywhere to recognize fun when they see it, and join in? Why are we dancing, singing, drumming animals? What's the purpose?

Feeling good. Being happy and sustained. Abandoning, for a time, the daily pressures of life. It strengthens community and family bonds and has it roots in us being a social animal. A pack of hungry wolves can show animated happiness at the conclusion of a kill. Give a mammal a big brain capable of abstraction and we have a ceilidh.

This is the whole tragedy of the commons work, altruism, etc.

I have a lot of works in the reading list on this issue, and religion is a big player in that game. I'd recommend Gene Anderson's "Ecologies of the Heart" as a starting point, but there's a whole literature on the Tragedy of the Commons that is excellent and explains the value of religion in thwarting these issues.

I realise that often my posts tend to ignore or even deny in religion that which is of some real value to self and community. Undoubtedly, for better or for worse, religious institutions have played a leading role in the structure and planning of every culture. This is political religion and I am in this case fast to call it a completely different entity to spiritual religion. For me this separation is easy and natural and this is why you may find me so cut and dried on certain pertaining issues. Very few examples of cultural altruism exist if looked at in any detail. The only good example is of the effectiveness of charities to raise money for disaster relief. But the majority of such organisations are secular and non-partisan. And many an atheist works to help them. Altruism on the cultural level is more likely thwarted by the mass religions than aided. If a massive earthquake was to devastate Tehran tomorrow then I doubt you would find many folk in Colorado Springs digging deep. Atheism on the other hand is not encumbered by the prejudices of faith. Religion is, as far as I can see it, always a superfluous addition to any thinking. It is irrelevant except by the power that the masses give it. Removing it from the equation makes the sums easier to quantify and removes obstacles of reason that hinder far more than they aid.

I don't think that's really how it works. There is some evolutionary payoff for this stuff, and that's why it is there. I don't think it's all about bringing in meaning to our lives and world. I mean, superficially, yes. But when you dig down, these things have purpose for group survival, generally speaking.

I would agree that they once did. I cannot see how they can be fairly be said to be aiding us now though.

You may believe this, but the evidence says otherwise. I've listed some stuff on the reading list that goes into the details, but the evidence is that religion has historically been key to engendering cooperation and long-term planning in areas that would otherwise be like herding cats. And these things were necessary for group survival. Religion has evolutionary advantages that have allowed large-scale social cooperation, retention of ecological information, and other important advantages. It persists in part because science is lousy at making people care emotionally about what they should do, and most people make decisions based on emotions and not logic.

I could pick this to bits. But I will make do with again stating here you are talking about politics, not religion. That the powerful love to mix the two does not make them the same thing.

This is why you can have very illogical, socially deleterious outcomes coming out of very atheistic philosophies.

Examples?

Second, religions do not ignore evidence, but rather it is handled differently.

lol. It sure is.

What good is having a logical system of understanding the world around us if its pragmatic ends are no different from the illogical, religious system-- and it is much worse at getting anyone to actually cooperate in beneficial action?

I think people mostly like truth. Being naggingly knowingly deceived, especially by oneself, sits heavy on the psyche.

Unless people "grow up" and evolve to intrinsically desire cooperation, self-sacrifice, and long-term planning... science is no better off than religion is, and in many ways worse, for group survival. I heart science too, but I do recognize that it is science that has generated nuclear weapons and unsustainable agriculture. Technology and scientific knowledge without the underpinnings of emotion that lead to beneficial action is just as horrific as the way religion can be twisted.

Science has given us terrible means of destruction but it is also delivering untold marvels that impact every life in positive ways. Spirituality, as opposed to organised religion, can give a comfort blanket and a grounding that some people need to be content. Religions tend to hijack this in the same way as the politicians harness science to make weapons. Religions may do the occasional beneficial act for the wider groups but overall my belief is that they do more harm than good.


tao

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

This is political religion and I am in this case fast to call it a completely different entity to spiritual religion. For me this separation is easy and natural and this is why you may find me so cut and dried on certain pertaining issues.

I think what I'm trying to say is that it is a modern Western notion to separate out aspects of social life. That we think this way does not make it the best or only way to think. I am operating from a point of view that attempts to capture the ways diverse societies throughout time have experienced religion in culture, without imposing a uniquely modern Western way of categorizing the world on it. I don't think the Western atheistic, scientific movement is the best result of cultural evolution. I value the ways other cultures have chosen to handle cultural continuity, using religion. I'm willing to meet them on their own terms.

Very few examples of cultural altruism exist if looked at in any detail.

What you speak of was traditionally unnecessary. Religion existed to uphold in-group altruism so that the group could continue to survive. This is part of the problem- much of human evolution geared us to live with about 20-30 people and we'd know no more than about 100 in our lifetime. The basic limitations in many people for what our psyche has evolved to deal with, and the cultural parameters that used to work under these conditions, are apparent now that we have a global system. But they crop up not only in religion, but also in politics, economics... all sorts of aspects of culture make it apparent that we evolved to be altruistic on a small-scale and that we have progressively more difficulty in being kind and egalitarian the bigger the group becomes. I've seen religious folks and atheists that get over this barrier. I've also seen a lot of folks in both camps that could give a flying fig about other people. Seems to be more a function of human psyche than religion.

Religion is, as far as I can see it, always a superfluous addition to any thinking. It is irrelevant except by the power that the masses give it.

Well, yes, as an atheist you would see it as superfluous. But the evidence shows otherwise. And all of the superstructure (ideas, institutions, etc.) is irrelevant except by the power that the masses give it. We are social animals. Without any power among the people, little is relevant to our lives.

I would agree that they once did. I cannot see how they can be fairly be said to be aiding us now though.

That's interesting. Last I checked, there are a lot of very large religious chaitable organizations that seem to be helping folks out. Within communities, many receive free psychological counseling from clergy that they could not otherwise afford. I've seen church congregations pitch in for those less fortunate among them. Nothing works perfectly, but to be honest I see a lot more barriers to our having a sustainable and egalitarian society in our government and economy than in churches. Not seeing much love coming from the industrial-military complex, though it is quite rational and logical.

I could pick this to bits. But I will make do with again stating here you are talking about politics, not religion. That the powerful love to mix the two does not make them the same thing.

And the Western Euro-centric tendency to pick them apart does not make it work that way in human history or in other contemporary cultures, or even in our own culture. Culture is messy. We can impose organization, but lose sight of the interconnections. Politics has always been integrated with religion. That is my point. There is no "pure spirituality" socially. Religion has always been tied, from the beginning, with getting people to behave in predictable ways that benefited the group. It has always had a messy overlap with governing systems, law/norms/social sanctions, arts, and science. Just because our first world Western cultures like to separate them into categories doesn't make it the best or most accurate of viewing the system.

Examples?

Off the top of my head, Communism. Some of the stupidest and least sustainable uses of the environment came out of atheistic political philosophy.

I think people mostly like truth. Being naggingly knowingly deceived, especially by oneself, sits heavy on the psyche.

Really? I live in a society where most people seem to be quite content to be deceived. Not too many people want the work of figuring out the truth. This is why few people actually read any data and why soundbite politics are really popular. It's why people run out and buy everything they are told to so they can get rich, beautiful, and young too. I think very few people want or like truth. Truth isn't often comfortable or convenient. I think whether or not it costs people, most of them have little or no interest in critical thinking and put little effort into finding truth. It's not high on their list of priorities.

Science has given us terrible means of destruction but it is also delivering untold marvels that impact every life in positive ways.

The religious would say the same. What is a marvel to you may be only "eh" to another. And vice versa. I find my spiritual experiences to be pretty marvelous. I'd definitely trade in my car, microwave oven, TV, and whatnot for the peace, joy, and expansion of consciousness I feel as a result of my spirituality. But to you, this stuff is just "eh."

That's humanity for you- we are all different. We like different things. What is clear is that both science and religion are compelling for some people and not for others. Who is anyone to say everyone should find the same things useful, marvelous, or compelling in their own lives?

Spirituality, as opposed to organised religion, can give a comfort blanket and a grounding that some people need to be content.

I think you miss the point of many folks' spirituality. Spirituality is not always comfortable, and it isn't always grounding. Any read-through of sacred text or the writings of mystics of any religion will show that often, the journey stands one's world on its head, expands one's awareness, and can be quite painful. I doubt that Mother Theresa, who experienced a total silence from God for most of her life, found her daily grind among the poor without any response from God very much a comfort. Indeed, it was sometimes very painful to her. But coming out of it was an amazing life. Who is anyone to tell another the purpose of their spirituality?

Religions may do the occasional beneficial act for the wider groups but overall my belief is that they do more harm than good.

I know this is your belief.

I think my point is that I abstain from telling others what would be best for them. I find that distasteful as it smacks of cultural imperialism. "We, the modern Western atheists and humanists, know what would be better for you all." Eh, I just don't think anyone has that much of a handle on how the world should work. I guess I just revel in the diversity and my own path, and I'm content with that. I don't need to believe I have enough answers for successful global cultural engineering. The vast majority of people now and in history have had some sort of religion and spirituality... to me, that says something important.