Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

I know *a lot* of culturally and intellectually secular people who are adopting religion just to have some semblance of a safety net built on being seen, understood and cared for as an individual rather than just being a diligent taxpayer or someone who constantly upskillshttps://twitter.com/HelloShreyas/status/1287522332890865665 …

Do you think it also works in the other direction, too? It seems to me one thing functioning communities have is legible opportunities for successful people to be seen as being pillars w/o having to spend brainsweat on moral entrepreneurship. Car dealer buys church a roof, etc.

(I’d note that there are all sorts of these things, including non-monetary ways to climb the status or warm fuzzy ladders, such as “The person everyone knows will always make themselves available to sing for a funeral no matter how little notice is available.”)

AFAICT, in highly functional communities it's generally not possible for wealthy people to purchase moral standing with cash alone. The social obligation can be in the form of offering good work terms, freeing up a prosocial spouse to be heavily community-involved, etc