Chapter 9     Part B

     But if humans mostly act as they do because of programming from their parents, then why or how did some behavior patterns ever get established in the first place in the earliest of human societies? And why did many behaviors obviously possible for humans vanish totally or never get tried at all? Why don’t people in some societies on this planet eat Rowan berries or make their children into slaves? The answer is obvious: the morés that help us to live are kept; the ones that don’t serve the needs of survival aren't. We keep alive the morés that keep us alive.

 The second step in the explanation of social mores and cultures then is this: behavior patterns get established in a society, and passed on from generation to generation, if they enable the people of that society, first, to live, individually and as a community, second, to reproduce, and third, to program the behaviors into their young. If a new moré or behavior pattern is to last, it must foster the achieving of all of these results at levels of efficiency at least as high as the levels of efficiency that the community had before its people acquired this new behavior pattern. This is the theory around which is built the field of sociocultural evolution, a field of study which only began to develop as a branch of science in the twentieth century due to the work of people like Marshall Sahlins and Talcott Parsons. (3.)   

  Note that each of these steps in the adoption of a moré into the cultural code of the society in question is vital to the survival of the moré itself and that none of the parts or phases of this behavior or more’s becoming established is necessarily entailed by any of the others. A behavior recently acquired by one person on a trial basis may make that individual healthier and/or happier, but this fact does not automatically mean that he will reproduce more prolifically, nor does it mean he will nurture more effectively or teach his morés to his offspring more efficiently. Other factors can, and do, intervene.

       Many examples can be cited as evidence to support this generalization. Some of the tribes in Indonesia once taught every member of the community to go into the forest to defecate. The individual had to dig a hole in the earth, defecate in it, then cover the excrement with earth before returning to the tribe’s living spaces. Each child was taught that he or she must hide his or her excrement in order that no hostile shaman might find it and use it to cast an evil spell on such a careless child. (4.)

        In the terms of Western societies, the advantages of the practice are seen to lie in the reduced risk to the community of diseases such as cholera. Similar practices are taught to people in our societies (and described in cultural codes as early as that found in the Old Testament of the Bible).

               

       Orthodox Jews and Muslims have long been taught not to eat pork. What survival value lay in eating beef, chicken, fish, etc. but not pork? The answer, from a scientific perspective, is that pigs for hundreds of years have been the main intermediary hosts carrying trichinosis to humans. The early Jews and the Muslims did not know that such was the case; trichina eggs and worms are very tiny. But Jewish and Muslim communities benefited over the long haul by eliminating pork from their diets nevertheless.

       Many Europeans drank largely malt liquor, wine, beer, and, later, tea and coffee, for centuries. This moré was based in custom rather than religion, but its beneficial effect was felt just the same. Local water often contained dangerous bacteria. The blessings here were mixed ones because, of course, they often were counter-balanced by the negative effects of alcohol and caffeine abuse. But the important thing to see is that these people did not need to know anything about bacteria in order to arrive over generations, by trial and deadly error, at a set of behaviors which enabled them to survive in greater numbers over the long haul. Of course, in China, the drinking of tea had been looked on as a healthy practice for both the individual and society for much, much longer.

               

     The laws of Moses, in another area of life, instruct followers of the Hebrew, Christian and Muslim faiths: “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land that the Lord thy God hath given thee.” The words instruct the faithful to care for, treat respectfully, and consult, their parents (and therefore, by a small logical extension, all of the citizens of the community should be cared for in their old age).

               

       Honoring our elders means consulting with them on all kinds of matters. Before writing was invented, an old person was a walking encyclopedia that could be consulted for useful information on treatment of diseases and injuries, planting, harvesting and preserving food, making and fixing shelters and tools, hunting, gathering, etc. Knowledge and wisdom were passed down through the generations by oral means.  By honoring elders, the people in a community preserved, and thus had access to, much larger stores of knowledge than they would have been able to call on if they had simply abandoned their elderly as soon as keeping them seemed a net drain on the tribe’s resources. An elder’s knowledge often solved small problems, and sometimes solved major crises, for the whole tribe. Over many generations, societies which respected and valued their elders gradually outfed, outbred and outfought their competitors.

     "We have to boil the water. This sickness last came when I was seven summers old. Only people who drank soup and tea did not get sick. All who drank the water got sick and died." 

               

    It is worth noting that the commandment in its original wording said: “Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long ...” and so on. At first glance, this seems odd. If I honor my parents, they will likely enjoy a more peaceful and comfortable old age, but that fact will not guarantee anything about my own final years. By then, my parents, even if they are grateful folk, will most probably be long since dead. At that point, they can't do much to reciprocate and so benefit me. 

     On closer examination though, we see that there is more here. As one treats elders with respect in their last years, consults their opinions on a whole range of matters, includes them in social functions, and so on, one models for one’s children a behavior that is imprinted on the children for a lifetime; they, in turn, will practice this same behavior in twenty years or so. The wording of the commandment turns out to be literally true.

               

      Note also, here, the deep and complex relationship between our morés or patterns of behavior and our values programming. The common behavior patterns in a culture, patterns that we call “morés”, are just ways of acting out in the physical world beliefs that are held deep inside the individual in his or her mental world, beliefs about what kinds of behaviors are consistent with the individual’s code of right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, sensible and silly. But more on these matters as we go along.

               

      Honoring parents preserves, and enables the increase of, the tribe’s total store of all kinds of knowledge. Avoiding committing adultery checks the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. It also increases a man’s nurture behavior, as his confidence that he is truly the biological father of the child that he is being asked to nurture increases. Not stealing and not bearing false witness are ways replete with benefits for the efficiency of the whole community, in commerce especially.

               

      By this point in our argument, explaining the benefits of more of these moral commands should be unnecessary. It is clear that a moral value and the behaviors attached to it get well established in a tribe if the behaviors help the people who practice them to survive in both the short and long hauls. It is also clear that individuals usually do not see the large, long term picture of the tribe's survival. They just do what they were raised to believe is right.

      Notes 

3.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocultural_evolution    #Contemporary_discourse_about_sociocultural_evolution

4.http://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/    hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0205949509.pdf; p. 17