Donald Trump and Dictatorial Taste

[David Horn]

(07-09-2022, 03:21 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(07-09-2022, 09:33 AM)David Horn Wrote: Interesting.  You are a tribalist, then.  So are 80+% of my neighbors.  It's intrisic in some parts of this country, but certainly not all.  For me, I'm more closely aligned with Eric's camp here: human first and foremost, with differentiations cascading down from there where approriate.

Yes. Morality is mostly a set or principles for survival and making the most out of life on an individual and group level. If you can't look out for your own, they are meaningless. For those with exceptional wealth, and whose families are taken care of, one's circle of concern can gradually grow outwards to encompass larger communities, but even then, when is that ever going to really be past the level of the country (excluding individuals from other countries you actually have a real relationship with)?

I guess it's time to pitch The WEIRDest People in the World, How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich.  Henrich is an anthropologist of some renown, and wrote this book after collaborating on several cross-disciple papers with fellow Harvard faculty members.   

The book is a weighty read, and the data are numerous and varied, but the essense of the book is the postive but totally inadvertant effect the Roman Catholic Curch had on Western society by purposely destroying the family/tribal model over roughly 10 centuries.  In short, lack of focus on family and tribe made collaborative efforts with strangers more likely and far more profitable.