Julie Rowe on Year of Polygamy Podcast

[_Dr Moore]

The narrative history in Sapiens suggests that it was the ability of Homo Sapiens to invent fiction, including telling and revising stories about temperamental spirits, that enabled the species to cooperate in large numbers. This in turn led to Sapiens dominating the world, wiping out the other humanoid species such as Homo Solensis, Homo Denisova, and the Neanderthal.

This was the key to Sapiens' success. In a one-on-one brawl, a Neanderthal would probably have beaten a Sapiens. But in a conflict of hundreds, Neanderthals could share information about the whereabouts of lions, but they probably could not tell - and revise - stories about tribal spirits. Without an ability to compose fiction, Neanderthals were unable to cooperate effectively in large numbers, nor could they adapt their social behaviour to rapidly changing challenges. (Chapter 1)

Telling effective stories is not easy. The difficulty lies not in telling the story, but in convincing everyone else to believe it. Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yes when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work toward common goals. (Chapter 2)

It goes without saying that belief in all sorts of spirit beings has played an important role in the development of our world.

In thinking about evolution of story telling, could a different framing of "science" be that the scientific method is nothing more than a repeatable model for telling new stories (hypothesis), convincing many others to believe it (testing) and then re-telling that story (theories) until a better one comes along (new hypothesis)?

Religions do the same thing, do they not? Revelation (hypothesis), convincing others (evangelizing) and then re-telling (scripture)... until a better hypothesis comes along (a new revelation).

So isn't the scientific method just a faster and more efficient model of what religions do, in context of bringing humans together in cooperation?

[_Symmachus]

That said, I do see the potential for harm, and I have my suspicions that the choice of obsessions matters. How many Jedi do we have running about doing things that end in the murder of innocent children in pursuit of their Jedi objectives? I hope we never have to find out, but maybe we just need the right ones to come along.

And how many of the billions of people who believe in Satan and evil spirits go on to murder children, or murder anybody for that matter? It seems to be vanishingly rare in context. I suppose it depends on how we apply the question of harm when it comes to ideas. If we apply it on the individual level, then you are certainly in right to see that certain ideas, when intersecting with certain personalities, can produce certain harms, though it is not easy to make predictions. Is that to be attributed to some inherent quality of the idea? It seems to me that these are generally on the distant side of a bell curve anyway, such that it becomes impossible to say whether or not some idea will have this or that effect on a social level.

Again, it's not to say that ideas are merely surface phenomena because they clearly do have profound consequences, but I would suggest they are inert rather than active. Ideas (ignoring for the moment just what we mean by this term) are not objects that affect other objects (and can be observed in the process) but theories that condition what objects can or will be observed in a given cultural setting in the first place.

I also think it depends greatly on how concrete the idea is, or in other words how many of its components involve something in the real world. Ideas that are more concrete—e.g. smaller government is inevitably better government, or the idea that the existence of billionaires represents a moral failing—are more likely to have a causal connection between the idea and actions performed by people who claim they are acting in service of that idea. But the idea of there being two cosmic forces overseen by two cosmic beings with subsidiary levels in each camp seems to me so abstract that I don't see how you could attribute effects to it without having a great deal of human agency intervening. There is so much agency in making an idea like that concrete in its effects that Occam's razor starts amputating the core claim.

[_Kishkumen]

It is difficult to convey sincerity on a message board, so no doubt I will fail to communicate my thoughts and feelings adequately, but so be it. I will nevertheless express my great gratitude for Symmachus and the thoughts S. shares with us here. Rare is the time when I feel I have not benefitted from Symmachus' participation in this forum. S. almost always challenges me to think about things more carefully and to think of them in new ways. If S. can achieve that with this hard noggin, then I can only imagine many others are even more profoundly impacted for the good by what S. communicates. Thank goodness for S. and people like S. True teachers are difficult to find.

And how many of the billions of people who believe in Satan and evil spirits go on to murder children, or murder anybody for that matter? It seems to be vanishingly rare in context. I suppose it depends on how we apply the question of harm when it comes to ideas. If we apply it on the individual level, then you are certainly in right to see that certain ideas, when intersecting with certain personalities, can produce certain harms, though it is not easy to make predictions. Is that to be attributed to some inherent quality of the idea? It seems to me that these are generally on the distant side of a bell curve anyway, such that it becomes impossible to say whether or not some idea will have this or that effect on a social level.

Thanks for this. Yes, the situation is really complicated. There are many factors to take into consideration. Surely the mere belief in the existence of Satan and demons will have a different impact at different times and contexts. For many people and communities, it is probably not that big a deal. Even when it gets to the nature of Satan, there will be a broad range of beliefs. The Latin American Satan is not necessarily the New England WASP Satan, etc. So, I would differ with you perhaps in thinking that there can be differing community impacts and not just differing individual impacts.

Again, it's not to say that ideas are merely surface phenomena because they clearly do have profound consequences, but I would suggest they are inert rather than active. Ideas (ignoring for the moment just what we mean by this term) are not objects that affect other objects (and can be observed in the process) but theories that condition what objects can or will be observed in a given cultural setting in the first place.

I absolutely adore this part of your post. Magnificent. I agree that often ideas are inert rather than active. Would it be too bold to say that once activated, however, their potential impact is, to an extent, written into their code? Looking at what you have written more carefully, it seems to me that you are avoiding a software metaphor for a reason. At the risk of abusing a different metaphor, are they perhaps like epigenetic factors? I don't know that I see them as being so passive that they do no more than "condition what objects can or will be observed in a given cultural setting." What about what they are observed as? Or are there objects that are only objects because ideas allow them to be such?

I would love to have you expand on this part. I don't know that I am reading you correctly, but what you have written really gets my wheels turning.

I also think it depends greatly on how concrete the idea is, or in other words how many of its components involve something in the real world. Ideas that are more concrete—e.g. smaller government is inevitably better government, or the idea that the existence of billionaires represents a moral failing—are more likely to have a causal connection between the idea and actions performed by people who claim they are acting in service of that idea. But the idea of there being two cosmic forces overseen by two cosmic beings with subsidiary levels in each camp seems to me so abstract that I don't see how you could attribute effects to it without having a great deal of human agency intervening. There is so much agency in making an idea like that concrete in its effects that Occam's razor starts amputating the core claim.

But what if the belief involves a conviction that these invisible forces are at work in tangible ways all around us all the time? Some theists are encouraged to look for the tangible impact of God or communications from God all the time. If one is encouraged to see the agency of demons in daily affairs, then how is that so much less tangible? The believer ascribes real phenomena to demons, after all. Others will disagree that demonic agency is at work, but for the believer the impact of demonic forces is very real indeed. That is my initial reaction to your claim that the idea is terribly abstract. My understanding is that for believers it really isn't so abstract. A whole way of interacting with the world can be conditioned by belief in demonic influence.

[_huckelberry]

Because there is a few interesting exchanges above I decided to disregard the warning made that the interview linked was a waste of time. I listened and having expended the attention made some effort to put it to some bit of use. Now at least I have some more context for the lethal couple in Idaho. They are practicing witchcraft.

I wonder if I transgress using that word. The amount of evil done by people involved in the craft is very small compared to the evil done by people hunting and making war against it. I am pretty sure that the fear of evil magic and the fear of evil spirits, connected ideas, is not limited to any one culture in the world.It has been pandemic to my understanding. Different cultures have different stories related to the fear which may influence how people react to the fear.(and the paths by which a few individuals may try to pursue magic power.) I doubt getting rid of any one story would get rid of the fear or occasional desire to find magic power.

I think people all over the world have feared evil spirits because the idea makes a representation of process which are difficult to fully explain. I admit to being a person doubtful that there are evil spirits independent of the people generating them but also unable to completely block the possibility such exist. Evil spirits seem to work better as storytelling devices than scientific reality. For example, I find the idea that Trump is wielding an evil spirit which controls a certain percentage of the population difficult to absolutely discount. It explains in simple form something difficult. Now I prefer to think that a certain group finds demands for change in our country regards racial inequality threatening. Sure none of those people think they are racist but they don't like the possibility of change or feeling guilt. This of course links with other fears to create a suprapersonal power in the country.

perhaps one could wish that there was an exorcism program for that. For better or worse I believe that the spirit generated by groups of regular natural human being is considerably more dangerous than any supernatural spirits hanging about.

[_Symmachus]

I do not deserve your kind words, Reverend Kishkumen, but I cannot fail to admit their soothing quality as I gaze upon the Altar of Victory—or rather its smashed remnants, drizzled in illiterate at attempts at obscene graffiti about the police here. But Mike and his comites are pretty harmless guys, although I have to admit that some of their speed traps are a bit devious. Anyway, the Senate House I built for myself here on my Parowan estate had only this altar as its shrine, and now amid its fragments and the ruins of my ambition I munch on Wendy's and philologize, because there is nothing else to do when Relief Society is not meeting here in Parowan. The only other consolation I take amid this sand-scape is that you take my little nugae with enough interest to offer compelling challenges to some of their loftier implications.

Surely the mere belief in the existence of Satan and demons will have a different impact at different times and contexts. For many people and communities, it is probably not that big a deal. Even when it gets to the nature of Satan, there will be a broad range of beliefs. The Latin American Satan is not necessarily the New England WASP Satan, etc. So, I would differ with you perhaps in thinking that there can be differing community impacts and not just differing individual impacts.

That is fair. An example comes to mind, one which shows how even within this dualistic belief structure, conflict can arise.

Islam has Satan, invoked against in a kind of apotropaic charm before washing or at the start of prayer or Qur'an recitation ("a3udhu bi-llāhi min ash-shaytāni rr-ajiim...") or a hundred other times and places, but yet Satan, under either that name or the name Iblis, is not nearly as prominent a feature of Islamic theology, and certainly not Islamic practice, as in Christianity. To attribute all that much power to Iblis/Satan would be to diminish the absolute power of God, in the Islamic way of thinking, whereas Christianity—and Mormonism in particular—seems to grant Satan a great deal of power, albeit temporary. And while Islam has the concept of satans (plural, shayātīn) that tempt and afflict humans through their whispering to the mind/heart towards sin, I don't think the practice of exorcism of these Satans has been incorporated on a mass scale or become a prominent feature of any of the strands of it, although I know it is part of Islamic folk religion in many places. So I must agree with you here, and I can think of a one small example of how this can collide, despite the best efforts and intentions of individuals. When Americans or Europeans interpret the title of the official state enemy of the Islamic Republic of Iran ("The Great Satan," the sheytān-e bozorg), they will interpret it in a way that I don't think is meant: that America plays the role of the Christian conception of Satan, making Iran a cosmic hero and doing the work of god in battling the devil, whereas I think it is much less grandiose in its meaning in an Islamic context, where demons are primarily dangerous for their seductive influence as tempters. Khamenei actually elaborated on this in a speech some years ago. Understood in terms post-Qajar history (or even Qajar history, come to think of it), it is a symbolic slur that defines western power (economic, cultural, political, military) as essentially a destructive temptation to which previous regimes had succumbed (a not inaccurate read of modern Iranian history). The current regime will have none of this: no western aid, no western advisors etc., because all of these are mere blandishments that will only subjugate Iran. They are temptations.

But Americans and many Europeans have interpreted it as a statement of apocalyptic intent, even if they have completely disregarded it as an irrelevant slogan. In this case, a certain view of what Satan means has had effects on how a belligerent Iran has been interpreted and approached. Hawks tend to interpret it not merely as an aggressive statement, which it obviously is, but in Christian terms (even if they are not Christians: it's just what's out there in the culture)—the implication in those terms is that Iran is daily working out how to eradicate Satan, because that is what a fanatical Christian would be required to do. Christians fight the devil, so that is obviously what Iran intends to do as well, in this way of thinking. Doves, on the other hand, imagine that the Satan rhetoric is not serious, and consequently they are unable to understand that the current regime in Iran cannot tolerate any interference from western governments, even if well-intentioned—that would be the negation of its self-identity—and Iran with its current state is not ever going to join the international system, such as it is, unless it does so on its own terms, which is something even the doves in the west apparently cannot tolerate. All attempts at discovering the mysterious "moderates" in Iranian politics are thus a game of self-delusion because there are no such moderates within the bounds of this thought-world—just as there are no American "moderates" willing to allow some aspects of Shiite jurisprudence at the Supreme Court, provided it is not "extreme"! No, actually the people with the most power in the Iranian regime really do believe that America is a great satan, maybe the greatest ("they're sayin' we're the greatest satan, and it shows in our ratings. All those other Satans—they're like a 3, maybe a 4, but no one cares about them; they used to be great but their ratings are terrible. Sad!"); they just mean something somewhat different from what people raised in a Christian or post-Christian environment expect. Nevertheless, there are real effects of this misunderstanding.

My original point is just about whether actions that occur within a thought-world that includes Satan and his demons can be attributed to those beliefs per se in the absence of other factors, particularly on the scale of a whole society. Implied in that point is a question: what is the alternative? Would things be any different without this belief? I think the answer on a large scale is "no"—people will still meet harm and violence, just different people—yet perhaps a worthy corollary is that we should try all the same to be aware of how the "genetic" features of an idea can be activated in world of things and people, and critiques of the ideas serve that function. I just think its hard to evaluate the ethical value of ideas that are this abstract (and by abstract, I mean ideas whose component parts do not have real-world referents, even though I agree that adherents of an idea may not experience them as abstract. To me, though, their experience is irrelevant, and the abstract idea only starts to matter when it gets attached to real things and real people. I have to say that even cultures where the elites espouse a philosophical monism are not known for their humane treatment of other cultural groups, either. I wonder what many Alan Watts admirers and Zen-enthusiasts would make of the role which that cult played in the military culture that nearly destroyed east Asia in the 1930s and 1940s, killing nearly 20,000,000 Chinese. I understand the San Francisco version, imported into the US in the 1950s by some who had proponents of the Emperor's Holy War in the 1930s and 40s, is rather benign, but it was not always so).

Unfortunately, I am afraid this may be yet another banal observation. Yet no one who has read all the volumes of my letters can fail to notice that banality has been the default state of my existence, and such emptiness thus forms the substance of my thought.

Anyway, this is acutely difficult:

Would it be too bold to say that once activated, however, their potential impact is, to an extent, written into their code? Looking at what you have written more carefully, it seems to me that you are avoiding a software metaphor for a reason. At the risk of abusing a different metaphor, are they perhaps like epigenetic factors? I don't know that I see them as being so passive that they do no more than "condition what objects can or will be observed in a given cultural setting." What about what they are observed as? Or are there objects that are only objects because ideas allow them to be such?

Yes, I have long struggled with this. I am sure that, when he gets a break from the black toil of his colliery and after he clears his lungs a bit, the great Stakhanovite can solve it for me, as I am no philosopher, but for now I am not as sure about the validity of the second bolded part as I am about the first. Patterns of thought—ideas?—clearly affect how we do observe certain objects. The problem for me is the link between the idea and the action. For example, the informal propaganda organs of the managerial and educated class in this country are going to great mental lengths to theorize statute toppling, statute removal, etc. As I say own kitschy Altar of Victory became a victim—a sad metaphor for the topsy-turviness of the times here in Parowan—despite my explaining to the Christians that I harbor no disrespect towards their god and despite suggesting as a compromise, in fact, to offer sacrifice to Jesus the Sun Christ (or whatever he is) on my little altar. Alas, they destroyed it—unlike Gratian, who had manners, of course, and was a true credit to his teacher and my friend—and only later did I learn how futile my attempts at reconciliation were. As I learned, their universe of theological discourse has room for only one being, though strangely he himself cannot be contained, and that one being, as it seems, was himself a kind of sacrifice. I can't say I understand it, but even if they had explained this bit of their Christianity to me and even if I then failed to understand it, I don't see what my Altar of Victory has to do with any of it. As you might agree, they observed this object as something completely different from how I observed it—but the smashing of it was clearly not motivated by an idea. They could simply have put it in storage until all such monuments be banned. Clearly, there were other forces stirring those more interested in action than theorizing. No one hitting a piece of bronze is wrestling with an idea.

And yet, the pencil twirlers at National Review and the like would have me believe that this is the result of ideas: if it hadn't been for those pesky left-wing professors, people with more cleverness than knowledge, we wouldn't be in all of this. It's the fruition of ideas that they've been teaching to students for 30 years, you see, that we are seeing. All this time, while they've been getting paid to think thoughts in thinkology over at the thinkery, they were not only reposing with health insurance amid a gang of adjuncts but they were actually subtly encouraging debtor-students to smash statues. Hmmm...I am a bit skeptical that very many of these bronze-wackers were paying much attention in class at all. The ones most likely to have done the reading assignments are the ones least likely to have thrown a statue of a guy who's been dead half a millennium into Baltimore Harbor, even if each of them holds the same idea about the statue in their respective heads, as they probably do. Something else besides ideas explains the Vandals.

I agree with you,then, but only up to the point of individual action. I can see how ideas motivate action, but I cannot see how they determine the form of that action.

[Guest]

Statues of dead people weren't originally put up to inspire sober reflection on historical limitations. They weren’t even put up as mere typical threads in the seamless robe of cultural heritage. They were set up in prominent places, mounted on pedestals, as the time-honored highest civic tribute that a community could bestow. For over two thousand years the meta-text of a public statue has unambiguously been, “This guy was great.”

If all those old statues of slave masters were set down at eye level in a somber historical park with plaques of unvarnished text, they would be good reminders of the past. They don’t need to be canceled. They need to be pulled down from their places of honor.

I don’t want to go all post-modern. I doubt I could pull it off if I did want to. But I think it’s true that a lot of the power in ideas is implicit rather than explicit—the assumptions that are enshrined by being taken for granted without even being mentioned, the opportunity costs that are picked from our pockets when we focus as we are led. The pedestals more than the statues.

[_Physics Guy]

Weird double post.

[_Symmachus]

Statues of dead people weren't originally put up to inspire sober reflection on historical limitations. They weren’t even put up as mere typical threads in the seamless robe of cultural heritage. They were set up in prominent places, mounted on pedestals, as the time-honored highest civic tribute that a community could bestow. For over two thousand years the meta-text of a public statue has unambiguously been, “This guy was great.”

Yes, but also no. No one put up statues merely because they admired something but rather because they thought the person enstatued had done something admirable.

According to Plutarch, old Cato even got a statue once—Romans didn't wait till the honorands were dead—and he gives the reason: people thought he had done just an outstanding job as Censor. But Cato himself, says Plutarch, used to laugh at the ambitious who took pride in receiving a statue: "I'd rather have people ask why I didn't have a statue than why I had one." The reason is that the memory and respect of his fellow citizens was, to Cato, the real monument that mattered.

Some years later, his great grandson (also called Cato) was thrown out of the forum in one of the many raucous confrontations between contending factions in the tumult of the 50s BC. Supporters of Cato vented their anger at this effrontery by vandalizing the statue of the Pompey (still alive then). Cato put a stop to it but was not clever enough or was too principled to exploit it for his own advantage.

I don’t want to go all post-modern. I doubt I could pull it off if I did want to. But I think it’s true that a lot of the power in ideas is implicit rather than explicit—the assumptions that are enshrined by being taken for granted without even being mentioned, the opportunity costs that are picked from our pockets when we focus as we are led. The pedestals more than the statues.

I'm not sure that is all that post-modern, but it's parallel to the view I have expressed here. Kish adds a key element, though, if I understand him rightly, that ideas have a deterministic quality to them. If one thinks race is the defining feature of American identity and the central theme of American history and a supreme criterion in evaluating anyone, it is inevitable that you will have to start diminishing George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and renaming this or that. The point where I differ is that I just don't think it determines the nature of the action to be pursued, or even the motivation behind some action in service of an idea. I can see how retiring Christopher Columbus from public respect might lead from the premise of the idea, but I don't see how the idea determines that his statue should be smashed and thrown into a harbor.

[_Physics Guy]

Statues of dead people weren't originally put up to inspire sober reflection on historical limitations. They weren’t even put up as mere typical threads in the seamless robe of cultural heritage. They were set up in prominent places, mounted on pedestals, as the time-honored highest civic tribute that a community could bestow. For over two thousand years the meta-text of a public statue has unambiguously been, “This guy was great.”

Yes, but also no. No one put up statues merely because they admired something but rather because they thought the person enstatued had done something admirable.

I'm not sure how your distinction between admired things and admirable accomplishments is a contradiction of my view that public statues declare the represented guy to have been great. If you are saying that the statue honors the deeds rather than the doer then I don't think I agree, because in all the cases I know of this kind of statue, what is actually represented on the pedestal is the guy himself (and perhaps the horse he rode in on). The guy is normally just posed there being awesome, not doing anything at all let alone anything admirable. I can't recall ever seeing any effort in a public monument to depict the particular deed for which the monumental dude is best known. On top of Nelson's Column is a statue of Nelson, just standing there holding up pigeons, not a marble diorama of Trafalgar.

The point where I differ is that I just don't think it determines the nature of the action to be pursued, or even the motivation behind some action in service of an idea. I can see how retiring Christopher Columbus from public respect might lead from the premise of the idea, but I don't see how the idea determines that his statue should be smashed and thrown into a harbor.

Hmm. Are you denying that ideas ever motivate actions? I can't agree with that, because I find that when I believe I'll have another drink, I frequently do. If ideas about drinks can motivate actions, why can't ideas about race motivate actions? Where's the line? What's the difference between Columbus and beer?

[_Symmachus]

I'm not sure how your distinction between admired things and admirable accomplishments is a contradiction of my view that public statues declare the represented guy to have been great. If you are saying that the statue honors the deeds rather than the doer then I don't think I agree, because in all the cases I know of this kind of statue, what is actually represented on the pedestal is the guy himself (and perhaps the horse he rode in on). The guy is normally just posed there being awesome, not doing anything at all let alone anything admirable. I can't recall ever seeing any effort in a public monument to depict the particular deed for which the monumental dude is best known. On top of Nelson's Column is a statue of Nelson, just standing there holding up pigeons, not a marble diorama of Trafalgar.

Sounds like you went for that drink.

Lots of great human beings don't have statues (I don't have one, for example), and people commemorated in statues are not randomly selected for the honor. Perhaps they should be, but they're not and have not been. I would not have thought this needs explaining. Nelson doesn't have a statue because he was just some "great guy" but because he was instrumental in bringing something about that some significant part of the British people at the time and until recently considered valuable. Why do you think they thought he was a great guy in the first place?

I don't know physics, obviously, but do they give out Nobel prizes to physicists for being great guys, or is for doing something that people consider to have value?

The point where I differ is that I just don't think it determines the nature of the action to be pursued, or even the motivation behind some action in service of an idea. I can see how retiring Christopher Columbus from public respect might lead from the premise of the idea, but I don't see how the idea determines that his statue should be smashed and thrown into a harbor.

Hmm. Are you denying that ideas ever motivate actions? I can't agree with that, because I find that when I believe I'll have another drink, I frequently do. If ideas about drinks can motivate actions, why can't ideas about race motivate actions? Where's the line? What's the difference between Columbus and beer?

Beer is what you were drinking before posting; Columbus is being drunk by a harbor in Chesapeake Bay.

No, I don't deny that ideas ever motivate actions (though I am skeptical in the case of iconoclasm, as is clear from what I wrote; such anonymous uprisings are seized upon by the ideas people but not initiated by them). As I wrote, I don't think "ideas determine the nature of the action to be pursued." I don't think the urge to have alcohol constitutes an idea, and thus not a useful comparison (and anyway, knowing you have an urge to drink does not allow me to predict whether you will have a drink, what the drink will be, and so on, let alone any of the other consequences that come from drinking—do we attribute alcohol poisoning to the urge people have to drink to alcohol or to the actual drinking of it?). But as to motivation, my thinking remains the same as it was when I began responding on this thread: an idea may motivate some people, but I don't think the idea itself is an indicator of whether or not such people will be motivated by it.