
Why Are We in the West So Weird? A Theory - fortran77
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/books/review/the-weirdest-people-in-the-world-joseph-henrich.html
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baxtr
_> The centerpiece of Henrich’s theory is the role played by what he calls the
Roman Catholic Church’s Marriage and Family Program, featuring prohibitions of
polygamy, divorce, marriage to first cousins, and even to such distant blood
relatives as sixth cousins, while discouraging adoption and arranged marriages
and the strict norms of inheritance that prevailed in extended families, clans
and tribes. “The accidental genius of Western Christianity was in ‘figuring
out’ how to dismantle kin-based institutions while at the same time catalyzing
its own spread.”_

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vinay427
I did very much like "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt, which mentions
this WEIRDness on several occasions to make a distinction so he is able to
speak about a certain cluster of political and social environments today.

The book actually tries to draw more evidence-based claims to explain some of
our core political differences as rooted in psychological differences that are
rarely salient to us, let alone mutable. It also makes a very compelling case
for trying to understand and empathize with core values that people on
different sides of the political spectrum fight for, which is especially
convincing if we accept that these values are not always the result of a
conscious decision. They rarely are the result of something egocentric like
selfishness but rather the result of how we prioritize different parts of
society, and some balance is probably desirable between opposing views here.

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nielsole
This reads like thinly veiled racism. Replace "weird people" with "superior
people" and "West" with "white" and this article leaves a bad taste.

> what it doesn’t need, and shouldn’t provoke, is ideological condemnations

The whole premise of western cultural superiority in this book is on very thin
pillars, I'd venture to guess.

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jmeister
It’s not racism to point out differences between cultures.

Is it racist to observe that homosexuality is severely punished in Islamic
societies?

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llamaz
It was severely punished in all societies until recently. Islamic societies
have not developed yet, and its not entirely clear that it's because of Islam.
First you have to accept that ideas, rather than the material conditions, are
primarily responsible for changing society. That's not obvious, and it's not
obvious that the material conditions primarily change society either. Both
culture and material conditions are responsible, and things are unimaginably
complex, to the point that we as humans collectively can't control the
direction of history.

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fourthark
> WEIRD: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic.

How precious.

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Animats
Right. That's the silly part.

As the reviewer says, "This book calls out for respectful but ruthless vetting
on all counts."

The main point seems to be “The accidental genius of Western Christianity was
in ‘figuring out’ how to dismantle kin-based institutions while at the same
time catalyzing its own spread.”

Do societies with strong kin-based structures have scaling problems?

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linspace
I would say they do have scaling problems in the form of rampant corruption.
You need to destroy local power to form a bigger nation. Nobility has always
resisted kings and kings emperors.

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newyankee
Looting and ruling most of the world did help. Too bad the locals could not
match up to the capability of the West.

~~~
rubble5
Too bad the locals were weakened by other overlords who already crushed their
armies.

The Indian Mughal Empire, the South American Incas, Maya and Aztec empires,
the Chinese Manchu - they were all already looting and ruling. For the locals,
nothing changed. The West just conquered conquerors.

Actually, life may have improved for the locals. The American slave trade
tapped into the already existing African slave trade. Where are the
descendants of the slaves who didn't make it to America?

~~~
newyankee
I do agree with this premise but many intellectual discussions in the West
simply gloss over the importance of colonialism in their history. Literally
having access to the most resource rich lands and conquering new territories
for yourselves (USA, Canada, Aus, NZ just a few examples). Till recently
(historically speaking) non whites were not allowed to these places unless as
slaves or for specific reasons (Chinese building first US trans continental
railroad).

Having said that a lot of importance should go to the internal fights between
European nations that helped them learn human behaviour to rule other
countries. Off course mainly though propelled by development and spread of
scientific ideas, industrial revolution and simply the need generated by the
same.

One of the problems in old India was that we always had enough: Culture, food,
weather and this led to many internal divisions and no need for invading
foreign lands. The internal divisions were nicely exploited by Mughals first
and British after.

I do not view these issues as Black and White, however i feel Western
intellectuals really does not give enough respect to Eastern schools of
thought. The Bhagavad Gita or Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' as well as Chanakya's
'Kautilya Arthashastra' etc. developed far before. The pertinent question is
why didn't these societies ever develop like the West ? The answer then always
takes a form of a thinly us vs them narrative.

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rubble5
>no need for invading foreign lands.

Apart from India itself being invaded by the Hindu culture. If I am not
mistaken, then the lowest castes are the tribes that resisted conquest the
most. It's conquests all the way down.

>The internal divisions were nicely exploited by Mughals first and British
after.

>The pertinent question is why didn't these societies ever develop like the
West ?

The usual argument is that Europe prospered because of the internal struggles
and conflicts. But as you write, India had them too. India also invented
'Arabic' numbers, and had iron very early on.

Similarly, why did Arabic culture stall when they translated and thus had
access to all the Greek treatises? Why didn't the Romans or Greeks get to it
initially?

Could Weird be right, and it was the destruction of tribal structures?

There was a submission about Singapore some days ago that mentioned in passing
that the long-term leader introduced Western thinking - whatever that is.

Personally, I think that it is observable in nerd culture. If you have a bunch
of nerds, but no math, chemistry or physics, then it will take some years and
it will be reinvented. With those weapons, whoever is left with some bully
tendencies can conquer the world.

The question is: why are there not enough nerds in other cultures? Maybe for
lack of the printing press? Not for the books, but books need paper, and you
need cheap paper to write down your notes.

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newyankee
Hinduism has been a part of Indian culture since times of recorded history. I
am not sure who told you that Hindus invaded India. A so called Aryan invasion
theory was promoted by British historians in India and has been disproved time
and again.

~~~
rubble5
Thanks for the correction.

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xtiansimon
I’m a huge fan of Dan Dennett’s online lectures. Reading a few comments here,
and the first few paragraphs of the text I started to despair. I fear in his
efforts to bring the reader into the piece, he is missing the current cultural
climate. Brrr.

Dennett’s lectures are very engaging, and I appreciate not being put to sleep
on a topic I only tangentially engage with, and I hope someone who is not in
his ‘ivory tower’ at Tufts mentions it to him.

Though, fear not, for Dennett rights the ship. In fact he seems to speak
directly to this community (and exchanges I had here recently about fake-
science) with this passage:

“A good statistician (which I am not) should scrutinize the many uses of
statistics made by Henrich and his team. They are probably all sound but he
would want them examined rigorously...”

On point I should say.

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Ozzie_osman
I'll try to read the book because maybe it answers this, but I struggle to see
how they determine causal relationship in the direction of "prohibiting cousin
marriage" to "more individualism and less kinship and less nepotism". Seems
more likely that it could have been the other way around (or, more directly,
cultures with strong kinship were just less likely to prohibit things that
strengthen those bonds, like allowing cousins to marry).

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kodyo
Good question. Did the church come up with accidentally ingenius doctrines, or
were they simply codifying cultural norms that emerged as people realized that
inbreeding had negative effects?

