The idea about mass-communication starting moral progress is interesting.
Historically though, the first group of people with moral norms similar to modern ones seems to have been the Pennsylvanian Quakers in the 17th/18th century. They started the abolitionist movement, were unusually not-sexist for the time, had surprisingly progressive attitudes towards childrearing etc.
I don't think Pennsylvania in the 1700s would have been especially cosmopolitan or interconnected, most of the frontier was just rural homesteads. The most morally fanatical Quaker, Benjamin Lay, was a vegetarian who isolated himself from mainstream society because of its complicity in slavery and lived in a cave.
Hm, interesting, thanks. That’s a good counterexample. I haven’t read much about the Quakers but they did seem to be morally ahead of their time. Do you know if anyone has a good explanation for why?
Albion's Seed documents the cultural differences between the various founding colonies in the early US. I haven't read the whole thing but I think the author's agnostic as what caused those difference, he does emphasis that the different groups originally came from different class backgrounds and geographic areas in England though. The Quakers were middle class Northerners if I remember.
But there's also a review of the book on Slate Star Codex that strongly implies it's genes.
There is a very interesting if somewhat unhinged book called Suicide Note (it also served as a literal suicide note). It talks about the history of Normans subjugating England and the Anglos developing a ‘slave’ culture as a response--glorifying morality/equality, etc. in this view the Quakers are an extension of this trend, and the original progressives in American politics.
They were also literally outcompeted to leave for Pennsylvania from the mainland. Colonies are founded by losers, those with winning tactics stay in metropolies.
ThanksDavid, enjoying this. if you want a book that can spark a lot of future material for you, read The Listening Society by Hanzi Freinacht , and if you like it, his 2nd book - Nordic Ideology. it would be very interested to hear your thoughts on how the morality argument especially is taken further there and on the concept of the 'liberal innocent' and 'game acceptance' and the new ideas of metamodernism.
Well I suppose it could be both, but I think most people would view them as antithetical. But insofar as your idea of “good” includes competing and dominating, sure. Or did you mean morality does both good and bad things separately? If so, I agree; I just think we really overlook the bad things, and the badness is more central to morality than people think.
Obviously people have a lot of naive views of morality. But yea, I more or less see no reason why "good" should not include competing and dominating. I think there is a cycle where 1) someone (or some group) achieves dominance by virtue of their physical excellence/intelligence, this enables some stability to emerge (e.g. Pax Romana), so law is established initially by force. 2) Morality emerges, which legitimise the social structure and extends the peace -- but it ultimately corrupts the leadership (they no longer need to be excellent to retain power). 3) Philosophers come along who see through the fog of morality, they see that the social structure is corrupt and the leaders and not worthy. These ideas eventually trickle down to the population, which weakens the social structure and leads to the breakdown of society. rinse and repeat.
Interesting idea. I think I buy it. There's a fragility in 3) though, in that it's hard to get the masses coordinating well enough to see through the corruptness of the regime, and trust that everyone else trusts that everyone is going to oppose it and not chicken out (it's a tricky coordination problem). I suspect that is where the advancement and proliferation of communication technology comes into play. It creates focal points and common knowledge among the masses. I talk about my favorite explanations for moral progress in this post if you're interested: https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/p/darwin-the-cynic
People do things like buy bed nets for Africans, which needs a bit of explaining in evolutionary terms, but I don’t think it’s particularly hard. Something like we benefit from virtue signaling plus we are better at virtue signaling if we aren’t conscious that is what we are doing. I assume we would also agree that truth seeking is also a form of veiled status seeking.
Intellectual clarity can be helpful in demonstrating intelligence, and therefore advancing within the existing hierarchy. But focusing your rational capacity on that which society holds sacred is dangerous for both you and society.
As you say, there is a coordination problem. I think this is where Straussian communication comes in. Maybe you can have your cake and eat it too by impressing the normies without threatening them too much, while also signaling to the intelligent that you know...
Thank you—glad you liked the piece. Yea I basically agree, though I’d add a bit more detail. Truth-seeking isn’t just about signaling intelligence but also about signaling honesty, reasonableness, non-gullibility, and perhaps eliteness. Bednets aren’t just about (unconscious) virtue signaling but also about (unconsciously) making ineffective altruists look bad, (unconsciously) signaling that one doesn’t care about virtue signaling, and perhaps even convincing oneself that one is truly altruistic (I have an upcoming post on self-convincing as a strategy for convincing others).
lol...I actually never made the connection! No wonder your post reminded me so much of the article. Thank you, your work has really opened my eyes on a few things.
Your article is hypocritically moralistic. You are implying throughout that we as Human Being ought to not be violent, intolerant, tribal, close-mined, self-righteous, etc. If morality is bullshit then there's nothing objectively "evil" about violence, rape, bigotry, narcissism, misery, hatred, child abuse, dominating others, etc and there's no particular way Humans "ought" to live at all.
"The features of our society that make us anomic and angsty—the endless superficial relationships, the lack of fierce loyalty, the feeling that we’re constantly being watched and judged—might be the very same features that keep us from killing each other."
None of those things are unique to the Modern World and have nothing to do with why the Post-WW2 world is less violent.
"Existential malaise—the feeling that everything is bullshit—might be the price of peace. I think it’s a price worth paying. In fact, I think it’s nice. "
You'd have to be a soulless shallow nihilist to actually think this. People who value peace and comfort above all else (like Utilitarians) almost always tend to be, they are the "Last Man" that Nietzsche warned about.
War is less common in the Postmodern era because the incentives for it have declined. While war has declined, non-war violence isn't any less common in most parts of the world today and if anything hyperviolent men have even greater reproductive success today worldwide compared to non-violent men than they did in the past according to research
Citation? What incentives are you referring to (other than the greater ability of groups to mobilize via communication tech that I mentioned in the post, or the other incentives I mentioned in “Darwin the Cynic”?)
Looks like Starbucks changed (upgraded?) their mission statement: "In everything we do, we are always dedicated to Our Mission: With every cup, with every conversation, with every community - we nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection."
The idea about mass-communication starting moral progress is interesting.
Historically though, the first group of people with moral norms similar to modern ones seems to have been the Pennsylvanian Quakers in the 17th/18th century. They started the abolitionist movement, were unusually not-sexist for the time, had surprisingly progressive attitudes towards childrearing etc.
I don't think Pennsylvania in the 1700s would have been especially cosmopolitan or interconnected, most of the frontier was just rural homesteads. The most morally fanatical Quaker, Benjamin Lay, was a vegetarian who isolated himself from mainstream society because of its complicity in slavery and lived in a cave.
Hm, interesting, thanks. That’s a good counterexample. I haven’t read much about the Quakers but they did seem to be morally ahead of their time. Do you know if anyone has a good explanation for why?
Albion's Seed documents the cultural differences between the various founding colonies in the early US. I haven't read the whole thing but I think the author's agnostic as what caused those difference, he does emphasis that the different groups originally came from different class backgrounds and geographic areas in England though. The Quakers were middle class Northerners if I remember.
But there's also a review of the book on Slate Star Codex that strongly implies it's genes.
There is a very interesting if somewhat unhinged book called Suicide Note (it also served as a literal suicide note). It talks about the history of Normans subjugating England and the Anglos developing a ‘slave’ culture as a response--glorifying morality/equality, etc. in this view the Quakers are an extension of this trend, and the original progressives in American politics.
They were also literally outcompeted to leave for Pennsylvania from the mainland. Colonies are founded by losers, those with winning tactics stay in metropolies.
You Sir, are my new hero! Amazing thread of work, thank you.
ThanksDavid, enjoying this. if you want a book that can spark a lot of future material for you, read The Listening Society by Hanzi Freinacht , and if you like it, his 2nd book - Nordic Ideology. it would be very interested to hear your thoughts on how the morality argument especially is taken further there and on the concept of the 'liberal innocent' and 'game acceptance' and the new ideas of metamodernism.
Thanks for the recommendation, Anna! I’ll check it out.
"Morality emerged not as a force for good, but as a tool for social competition and domination."
why not both?
Well I suppose it could be both, but I think most people would view them as antithetical. But insofar as your idea of “good” includes competing and dominating, sure. Or did you mean morality does both good and bad things separately? If so, I agree; I just think we really overlook the bad things, and the badness is more central to morality than people think.
Obviously people have a lot of naive views of morality. But yea, I more or less see no reason why "good" should not include competing and dominating. I think there is a cycle where 1) someone (or some group) achieves dominance by virtue of their physical excellence/intelligence, this enables some stability to emerge (e.g. Pax Romana), so law is established initially by force. 2) Morality emerges, which legitimise the social structure and extends the peace -- but it ultimately corrupts the leadership (they no longer need to be excellent to retain power). 3) Philosophers come along who see through the fog of morality, they see that the social structure is corrupt and the leaders and not worthy. These ideas eventually trickle down to the population, which weakens the social structure and leads to the breakdown of society. rinse and repeat.
Interesting idea. I think I buy it. There's a fragility in 3) though, in that it's hard to get the masses coordinating well enough to see through the corruptness of the regime, and trust that everyone else trusts that everyone is going to oppose it and not chicken out (it's a tricky coordination problem). I suspect that is where the advancement and proliferation of communication technology comes into play. It creates focal points and common knowledge among the masses. I talk about my favorite explanations for moral progress in this post if you're interested: https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/p/darwin-the-cynic
I read the Darwin article and I loved it.
People do things like buy bed nets for Africans, which needs a bit of explaining in evolutionary terms, but I don’t think it’s particularly hard. Something like we benefit from virtue signaling plus we are better at virtue signaling if we aren’t conscious that is what we are doing. I assume we would also agree that truth seeking is also a form of veiled status seeking.
Intellectual clarity can be helpful in demonstrating intelligence, and therefore advancing within the existing hierarchy. But focusing your rational capacity on that which society holds sacred is dangerous for both you and society.
As you say, there is a coordination problem. I think this is where Straussian communication comes in. Maybe you can have your cake and eat it too by impressing the normies without threatening them too much, while also signaling to the intelligent that you know...
Thank you—glad you liked the piece. Yea I basically agree, though I’d add a bit more detail. Truth-seeking isn’t just about signaling intelligence but also about signaling honesty, reasonableness, non-gullibility, and perhaps eliteness. Bednets aren’t just about (unconscious) virtue signaling but also about (unconsciously) making ineffective altruists look bad, (unconsciously) signaling that one doesn’t care about virtue signaling, and perhaps even convincing oneself that one is truly altruistic (I have an upcoming post on self-convincing as a strategy for convincing others).
here is a great article about the game theory of morality:
https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/e2uhc
You know I wrote this, right?
lol...I actually never made the connection! No wonder your post reminded me so much of the article. Thank you, your work has really opened my eyes on a few things.
Thank you for the kind words.
Your article is hypocritically moralistic. You are implying throughout that we as Human Being ought to not be violent, intolerant, tribal, close-mined, self-righteous, etc. If morality is bullshit then there's nothing objectively "evil" about violence, rape, bigotry, narcissism, misery, hatred, child abuse, dominating others, etc and there's no particular way Humans "ought" to live at all.
"The features of our society that make us anomic and angsty—the endless superficial relationships, the lack of fierce loyalty, the feeling that we’re constantly being watched and judged—might be the very same features that keep us from killing each other."
None of those things are unique to the Modern World and have nothing to do with why the Post-WW2 world is less violent.
"Existential malaise—the feeling that everything is bullshit—might be the price of peace. I think it’s a price worth paying. In fact, I think it’s nice. "
You'd have to be a soulless shallow nihilist to actually think this. People who value peace and comfort above all else (like Utilitarians) almost always tend to be, they are the "Last Man" that Nietzsche warned about.
I’m not a moral nihilist, so there’s nothing hypocritical here. Do you have a good alternative explanation for why the post-WW2 world is less violent?
War is less common in the Postmodern era because the incentives for it have declined. While war has declined, non-war violence isn't any less common in most parts of the world today and if anything hyperviolent men have even greater reproductive success today worldwide compared to non-violent men than they did in the past according to research
Citation? What incentives are you referring to (other than the greater ability of groups to mobilize via communication tech that I mentioned in the post, or the other incentives I mentioned in “Darwin the Cynic”?)
Looks like Starbucks changed (upgraded?) their mission statement: "In everything we do, we are always dedicated to Our Mission: With every cup, with every conversation, with every community - we nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection."
Damn! That's a lot to expect from a cup.