Two views of history

First, Daniel C Dennett writes an enthusiastic review of a book about how we became WEIRD.  Here are some parts (from the New York Times):

How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
By Joseph Henrich

According to copies of copies of fragments of ancient texts, Pythagoras in about 500 B.C. exhorted his followers: Don’t eat beans! Why he issued this prohibition is anybody’s guess (Aristotle thought he knew), but it doesn’t much matter because the idea never caught on.

According to Joseph Henrich, some unknown early church fathers about a thousand years later promulgated the edict: Don’t marry your cousin! Why they did this is also unclear, but if Henrich is right — and he develops a fascinating case brimming with evidence — this prohibition changed the face of the world, by eventually creating societies and people that were WEIRD: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic.

In the argument put forward in this engagingly written, excellently organized and meticulously argued book, this simple rule triggered a cascade of changes, creating states to replace tribes, science to replace lore and law to replace custom. If you are reading this you are very probably WEIRD, and so are almost all of your friends and associates, but we are outliers on many psychological measures.

The world today has billions of inhabitants who have minds strikingly different from ours. Roughly, we weirdos are individualistic, think analytically, believe in free will, take personal responsibility, feel guilt when we misbehave and think nepotism is to be vigorously discouraged, if not outlawed. Right? They (the non-WEIRD majority) identify more strongly with family, tribe, clan and ethnic group, think more “holistically,” take responsibility for what their group does (and publicly punish those who besmirch the group’s honor), feel shame — not guilt — when they misbehave and think nepotism is a natural duty....

WEIRD folk are the more recent development, growing out of the innovation of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, the birth of states and organized religions about 3,000 years ago, then becoming “proto-WEIRD” over the last 1,500 years (thanks to the prohibition on marrying one’s cousin), culminating in the biologically sudden arrival of science, industry and the “modern” world during the last 500 years or so. WEIRD minds evolved by natural selection, but not by genetic selection; they evolved by the natural selection of cultural practices and other culturally transmitted items. 

Sounds interesting.    Other reviews have appeared in The Atlantic and (ugh) Quillete, amongst other places.

Secondly, a short article at Philosophy Now makes the case that Kant was pretty progressive in his thoughts on history:

In 1784, three years after the publication of his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant published a curious article in a prominent intellectual newspaper titled: ‘Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective’. Made up of nine Propositions, the article attempted to outline the necessary elements a future historian would have to consider if he or she wanted to compile a universal human history. This may not seem like such a curious idea today, as we see this type of history frequently published, with various subjects as their catalyst. For example, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel (1997) or Harari’s Sapiens (2015) are both attempts to construct a universal history from a particular point of view. But what is curious about Kant’s short article is its discussion of conflict in history, as well as nature’s role in conflicts....

In Kant’s view history tells us that conflict is not simply a set of randomly occurring mindless acts, nor is it a sign that we are heading toward an apocalyptical nightmare. Rather, there is something integral to all conflicts no matter how multifarious they are and in what context they appear.

In Proposition Four, Kant outlines a notion commonly linked to a concept of the ‘cunning of nature’ (Hegel’s later doctrine of the ‘cunning of reason’ is a clear reference to Kant). The cunning of nature involves a feature of human social interaction which Kant calls ‘unsociable sociability’, which he defines as the human “tendency to enter into society, a tendency connected, however, with a constant resistance that continually threatens to break up this society.” Put simply, it is a natural human inclination to connect with other people and to be part of a larger whole; yet it is also part of our natural inclination to destroy these social bonds through isolationism and divisiveness. Kant argues that this dichotomy is the source of all human conflict, even attributing conflict between states as emanating from unsociable sociability: countries entering into conflict break sociable links, resulting in a state of war. We need only look at the Cold War for a striking example of unsociable sociability propelling states into dangerous and unresolvable deadlocks.

Yet Kant also attributes historical progress to it – which means that unsociable sociability is responsible for humanity developing toward more enlightened states. Without the antagonistic aspect of humanity, Kant thinks we wouldn’t be compelled to grow culturally or intellectually. In these senses, unsociable sociability is the driving force behind all human history.....

.....According to Kant’s Proposition Five, the point toward which human historical development tends is a perfectly just civil constitution, meaning an egalitarian or ‘cosmopolitan’ society where all are welcome, and equal. Kant attributes this utopian goal also to unsociable sociability, because we may learn from the conflicts it catapults us into. This is the crux of Kant’s article, and perhaps its most peculiar feature: unsociable sociability pushes human beings into conflict with each other, forcing them to learn how and how not to treat one another, and so develop moral laws. Moreover, according to Kant, this will all lead to a state whereby conflict is necessarily eventually abolished. Hence the cunning of nature: conflict occurs in the pursuit of a developmental end we are oblivious to by helping us learn from the mistakes made in history on both an individual and a global level. In a note from 1776, Kant already had a clear inkling of this idea, writing, “The useful aim of philosophical history consists in the preservation of good models and the display of instructive mistakes.”

I think this teaches us a key lesson about today. It is easy to lose sight of our ability to construct laws and institutions which prevent harm to others. It’s easy to look at the social and political situation, globally or in our own country, and determine that things can never improve – that we’re on course to collide with catastrophe. What Kant teaches us is that no matter how unlikely it appears, we must not lose hope that a perfectly just society is possible, and that the social antagonisms and conflicts we see are steps toward this goal. Without this hope we are rendered powerless to change anything.

I like his optimism.   And how ironic is it that to fulfil his vision, the side of politics in America that is most aligned in his stern view of morals is the one that must be defeated in order to make for a better future.