Or
On the intentional construction of society.
I’ve alluded to this concept a few times, today I think I’ll dig in a bit more. Society is a construct humanity dabbled with in fits and starts a long time ago. When the tribe became larger than we could recognize we became something else. Something we’re still trying to fully understand because, we might actually not be meant for it.
Today I want to point out two things about society that are worth exploring as a thought experiment. First off, it’s that major societal changes generally only occur after large disturbances in populations and food distribution. The good news from these events is that when societies change it’s generally towards a more efficient model. The bad news is because the efficiency race is usually a death sentence for those that don’t adapt, and many times it’s not even an option.
The second thing, the one that I’m most interested in focusing on is the minor societal change that occurs slowly over time. Most of the major issues we face today were not issues created intentionally with the goal of disruption in mind. Virtually everything we face today is a result of an unintended consequence. Because it’s a consequence, an event has already occurred, a decision has been made and society as a whole moved, generally in a direction. We then learned that was poor decision, and as a whole society has to move away from it. Smoking is a great example of this, we leaned into it, then realized, whoops this may not have the best results.
It’s hard to fathom how the combination of slow societal changes and the Plink-o Ball of Time have brought us here but, here we are. While it may not seem so great, (I mean, it’s easy to complain but, it’s probably the most amazing society that’s ever existed), it’s important to remember very little of it was intentional. Here are three social decisions that have had massive long-term impacts on humanity. These still have significant impacts today that no one at the time would have thought had the ramifications that occurred.
On the other tribe:
(Debt: the first 5000 years, David Graebor, Them, Jon Ronson)
This tidbit blew my mind when it came into focus for me about two years ago. I have noted the two books that helped construct the lens that I currently see antisemitism though because it’s not obvious. The long and the short of it is this: in the ancient world it was frowned upon to charge interest in lending. Lending is tricky because it is both business and personal making it undesirable. Interest is also one of the only ways to inject money into an economy without causing massive inflation, which is desirable. It wasn’t a thing that was done because it was seen as amoral to do to your kin. However, within the Jewish tribe, so long as the people you were lending to were not your tribe, lending wasn’t a sin. Thus, a loophole was formed between Christians and Jews where by the Jewish people could lend the gentiles.
Predictably, with the monopoly on violence firmly in the hands of Christians, King and lords could quite easily force Jewish families into the banking industry against their will, and then, should the debt burden become too much for the elite hierarchy to repay, trump up charges or simple tribal antisemitic hate and remove the debt with violence. The tripe of a global Jewish banking conspiracy is literally a medieval boogeyman that we have refused to allow to die. Troublingly though, because it is so old, there’s documentation that’s hundreds of years old to the extent of a cabal of Jewish conspirators. The documentation is real, the conspiracy is not. Any time anyone ever blames the Jewish people for a global conspiracy, fill that in with werewolves, vampires and goblins because it’s cut from the same fantasy cloth.
I’m not certain, but I think if you explained the Holocaust to early Hebrews, they may have revised that one.
On cousin love being off limits
(The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, Joseph Henrich, Guns Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond)
The first book I mention above will begin to change the way we see the history of world, so feel free to read it your self. I don’t want to give it away but the short, short version is that the breaking up of kin based societal institutions by forbidding cousin marriage is the biggest policy whoopsie in human history.
Cousins’ marriage and Uncle – Niece relationships were highly normal and not considered taboo or incest in most kin based cultures because of inheritance. The Church had a plan to get in on that sweet, sweet inheritance land and money by quashing cousin marriage, knowing eventually there will be a childless lord without an heir and that they can get in on the land. Couple that with selling the privilege of marrying your cousin at elevated prices and it IS a good plan when you look at it like that.
Problematically it also forces people to move from town to town, build rule based communities and local laws that become charters and eventually, should some asshole decide to declare that everyone needs to learn to read, the whole thing becomes self aware.
There is substantial and compelling evidence to suggest that humanism, and scientific theory that led to atheism is a long-term unintended consequence of the cousin marriage decision. People may want to get all fatalistic, that God intended this, but I am dubious that any god will push any believer down a path that leads to atheism.
There are of course, many other little Plink-o Ball of Time moments in there, Guns Germs and Steel is very clear that this was never a direct path and luck very much was a factor. One of my favorite games is a game called Civilizations (currently VI), and it is vividly obvious that starting conditions and resources are a significant part of success.
I am intentionally leaving a lot the details out of this because W.E.I.R.D. is absolutely worth the read and the data contained in it is very compelling. Dito GG&S.
On a Beautiful day in the Neighborhood
Lastly, I have no book on this just several YouTube channels and various other learnings on history, so no reference included. Yet. I am always reading and I may find something, I’m certain much has been written I just have yet to read it.
I’m not the biggest fan of the concept of suburbs. I grew up in one and when the zombie movies of the early 20th century began to foment their own niche in culture, I sensed the truth in the cause. Sub-urbs are miles of faceless hordes where you are one of so many homogenous drones going through the same motions over and over. Industrial scale work is the reason for the motions, but, the place, the faux escape paradise of neighborhoods is problematic for a variety of reasons.
First, they were originally designed specifically as a racist zoning feature to ensure a segregated life for the white middle class. This is evident in early suburban advertising and while the original ideological reasons have changed, the restrictions are strikingly similar. That’s not the unintended consequence that I’m interested in about though, that is one hundred percent an intended consequence. While the poverty of the many minority families who never had those opportunities is an un-documentable absence of wealth, that is a consequence that was desired.
No, the unintended consequence to the suburban lifestyle is that it is in fact very pleasant, almost impossible to resist and it requires a reliance on expensive infrastructure and automobile transportation. This has a horrific ecological impacts, it has horrible socioeconomic impacts (suburbs are hard to tax, but require high maintenance), and it’s a djinn that’s basically impossible to get back into the bottle.
The cure to global warming isn’t electric cars, it’s unselling the dream of suburban lifestyle. Good luck with that.
Good luck adjusting a culture that worships cars and tells every man woman and child that the ideal life involves owning their own tiny little Versailles, complete with manicured flower gardens and ornamental lawns. With a personal carriage that you can direct to take you to any place you want at any time.
Have fun un-selling that. Which is why it’s such a brutal un intended consequence. Morally, this whole thing is a train-wreck but aesthetically. Well, where do you live?
Every time someone says,” Let’s burn it all down!” in regards to society, that is a big major change and it isn’t impossible, but it’ll only happen if all our food goes away. Which it might. It might. We’re not there just yet though and that is a good thing because there will be major losses in such a scenario. “Apocalyptic” I think is the word. Let’s make an effort to avoid that.
In the fantasy realm where we burn down society then replace it with something… well… It’s not really like that. Even if you could sit down as a society and make those decisions, the decisions aren’t strait forward, When and if they are, they usually have massive long term unintended consequences. How do you rebuild society with that in mind?
The answer is easy, you don’t. You can’t.
Society doesn’t need to be rebuilt just yet; it first needs to be better understood. We’re very new to this, believe it or not, societies in their earliest form are maybe 10000 years old, tops. We haven’t evolved fast enough to catch up. It’s vividly clear we’re new to the concept and don’t understand it with just a cursory glance at the mental health videos on social media. This whole thing requires better understanding which requires a lot of honest, open and non-judgemental dialog for everyone. Probably some etiquette as well but that’s another diatribe for another day.
Like I’ve always said, we can easily solve every problem in the world so long as we can sit down at a table and have an adult conversation without the human concepts of, money, nationality, religion and vengeance coming into it.