Imagined orders -- like religions -- depend on shaky myths

Today I hit a sweet spot in my reading of Yuval Noah Harari's book, "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind." Harari is a historian who has a knack for explaining the past and present in some wonderfully fresh ways.

In his Building Pyramids chapter Harari describes the Code of Hammurabi, circa 1776 BC, and the United States Declaration of Independence, which was created in 1776 AD. Each claimed to be founded on sacred principles.

So how do we know which is right? Or more right? Harari says:

The two texts present us with an obvious dilemma. Both the Code of Hammurabi and the American Declaration of Independence claim to outline universal and eternal principles of justice, but according to the Americans all people are equal, whereas according to the Babylonians people are decidedly unequal.

The Americans would, of course, say that they are right, and that Hammurabi is wrong. Hammurabi, naturally, would retort that he is right, and that the Americans are wrong. In fact, they are both wrong.

Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens [human beings], and in the myths they invent and tell one another. 

These principles have no objective validity.

Harari then shares the most famous sentence in the Declaration of Independence, explains why it is factually wrong, and suggests a more biologically accurate alternative wording -- boldfacing crucial words in the original.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.

So what makes us prefer one way of looking at things over another way? Here's Harari's answer regarding why most Americans prefer the Declaration of Independence statement instead of his.

Advocates of equality and human rights may be outraged by this line of reasoning. Their response is likely to be, "We know that people are not equal biologically! But if we believe that we are equal in essence, it will enable us to create a stable of prosperous society."

I have no argument with this. This is exactly what I mean by "imagined order." We believe in a particular order not because it is objectively true, but because believing in it enables us to cooperate effectively and forge a better society. 

Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies and useless mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of humans can cooperate effectively. 

Bear in mind, though, that Hammurabi might have defended his principle of hierarchy using the same logic: "I know that superiors, commoners and slaves are not inherently different kinds of people. But if we believe that they are, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society."

The cultural trick, then, is getting most people in a society to accept various imagined orders that aren't objectively true, but inter-subjectively true. Harari defines these terms.

An objective phenomenon exists independently of human consciousness and human beliefs. Radioactivity, for example, is not a myth. Radioactive emissions occurred long before people discovered them, and they are dangerous even when people do not believe in them.

...The subjective is something that exists depending on the consciousness and beliefs of a single individual. It disappears or changes if that particular individual changes his or her beliefs.

...The inter-subjective is something that exists within the communication network linking the subjective consciousness of many individuals. If a single individual changes his or her beliefs, or even dies, it is of little importance. However, if most individuals in the network die or change their beliefs, the inter-subjective phenomenon will mutate or disappear... Many of history's most important drivers are inter-subjective: law, money, gods, nations.

Since imagined orders are inter-subjective, their survival depends on people continuing to believe in them. This obviously is way different from the existence of entities that are objectively real.

A natural order is a stable order. There is no chance that gravity will cease to function tomorrow, even if people stop believing in it. In contrast, an imagined order is always in danger of collapse, because it depends on myths, and myths vanish once people stop believing in them. 

This can be done through violence, but forcing people to believe is difficult, costly, and often not effective. Societies have evolved better ways, as Harari explains.

How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined. You always insist that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature. 

People are unequal, not because Hammurabi said so, but because Enlil and Marduk declared it so. People are equal, not because Thomas Jefferson said so, but because God created them that way. Free markets are the best economic system, not because Adam Smith said so, but because these are the immutable laws of nature.

You also educate people thoroughly. From the moment they are born, you constantly remind them of the principles of the imagined order, which are incorporated into anything and everything. They are incorporated into fairy tales, dramas, paintings, songs, etiquette, political propaganda, architecture, recipes and fashions.

Now, here's my favorite part of Harari's argument: there is no way to escape the web of imagined orders. Whenever you try to do this, you're just following some strands of a different imagined order. So good luck on trying to live in an unimagined order that isn't the objectively real natural world.

Can't be done. There simply are more-preferred and less-preferred imagined orders. Here's quotes from the last page of Harari's Building Pyramids chapter.

If I alone were to stop believing in the dollar, in human rights, or in the United States, it wouldn't much matter. These imagined orders are inter-subjective, so in order to change them we must simultaneously change the consciousness of billions of people, which is not easy.

A change of such magnitude can be accomplished only with the help of a complex organization, such as a political party, an ideological movement, or a religious cult. 

However, in order to establish such complex organizations, it's necessary to convince many strangers to cooperate with one another. And this will happen only if these strangers believe in some shared myths. It follows that to change an existing imagined order, we must first believe in an alternative imagined order.

...There is no way out of the imagined order. When we break down our prison walls and run toward freedom, we are in fact running into the more spacious exercise yard of a bigger prison.

Beautiful! Lovely! Excellent news!

Since there's no escaping human inter-subjectivity -- it is impossible for anyone to exist completely isolated from other people -- we're always embracing some sort of imagined orders.

Choose the ones you like best, so far as you're able. That's all we can do. Live as happily as possible, in line with Harari's alternative wording of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.

Comments

[Richard van Pelt]

Thus there is no basis for moral values?

The late Ronald Dworkin wrote that “No government is legitimate unless it subscribes to two reigning principles. First, it must show equal concern for the fate of every person over whom it claims dominion. Second, it must respect fully the responsibility and right of each person to decide how to make something valuable of his life.” (Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs 2)

“. . . [I]n a genuinely democratic community each citizen participates as an equal partner, which means more than just that he has an equal vote. It means that he has an equal voice and an equal stake in the result.” (Dworkin, 5)

These two principles place boundaries around theories of distributive justice - theories that stipulate the resources and opportunities a government should make available to those it governs. There can be no politically neutral distribution. A laissez-faire political economy that leaves unchanged the consequences of a free market does not show equal concern for everyone. The opposite fails to meet the second principle. Distributive justice calls for a solution to simultaneous equations - balancing the two underlying principles that are the basis of a legitimate government.

[Brian Hines]

Richard, moral values are determined by people. They aren't inherent in the natural world, as the laws of nature are. So morality is an inter-subjective choice.

As Harari discusses, the truth of "equality" may seem inarguable to the modern mind. Bu, again, we need to remember that these sorts of truths are subjective, not objective.

We imagine an order that appeals to us. This is a great strength of the human mind.

Also, a weakness -- when we forget that imagined orders can be questioned, debated, altered. They aren't handed down by God, but are our own creations.

[Richard van Pelt]

I think there is one overarching principle that applies to all societies at all times in our history, and which is the basis for all government: hubris.

Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but I think that hubris, or overweening pride is the human failing, which all strictures hope to help us avoid. Plato has Socrates and Glaucon discuss Gyges' Ring which I interpret as hubris without consequences.

I could argue that all human transgressions (upon which values, morals, laws, and the state ultimately exist to constrain) derive from acts of hubris.

[777]

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In view of Love collection, . . The Almighty Supreme Power has only one all covering request ( law ):

BE NICE
<3
The nicer , . . The better

777

[Germaine Descant]

Is the concept of an objectively true intersubjective order an aspect of human social biology? It looks that way to me since social biology has to do with the biology of how humans interact with each other.

See the oldest comments after this discussion, which reference this discussion: https://disqus.com/home/channel/biopoliticsandbionews/discussion/channel-biopoliticsandbionews/americas_dunning_kruger_president/#comment-3409544678

Thanks.