PET PEEVE: Theorists who use "superstition" as a buck-stopping explanation for broad patterns of human behavior. Below: A passage from "The Origins of Political Order" by Francis Fukuyamapic.twitter.com/gEGTidYCuW
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If everyone formed political alliances only with their friends, the resulting network would be a stringy mesh, centerless and incoherent. Instead, when people unite around a common (patrilineal or matrilineal) ancestor, the political network takes the shape of a firm knot.
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Superstitions then get grafted on later, as stories to tell children. "Don't disrespect your cousins or Great Grandpa will be mad." Crucially, these fables reinforce political ties **that make sense for other reasons**. The dead are just a Schelling point.
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I’d suggest that many of these superstitions may even be interpretable simply as metaphors for the Schelling point.
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totally. i’ve been doing that translation in my head for years and it almost always produces something i can make sense of :)
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Fukuyama nowhere uses the term "superstition" in the quoted passage. Nor does he refer to supernatural retribution. Are you equating those notions with the religious beliefs and practices he refers to?
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Not sure what you're objecting to with "superstition." I didn't mean that FF used that word, but the concept applies. Fair point that I may have extrapolated too far with "retribution."
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Supernatural superstitions about moralizing spirits and kin cohesion probably co-evolved. So there’s no simple way to say one came before another.
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the schelling point is definitely on my top 10 list of powerful concepts that everyone should know i think my eyes almost popped out of my head when i first read the strategy of conflict. "this man is a GENIUS!"
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