Chapter 15            Western Worldviews till The Renaissance

 

Every society must work out and articulate a view of the physical universe, a way of seeing the world, a way that then becomes a key part of the system on which the society’s values and culture will be built. This is no minor issue; philosophers may dally over the matter in a theoretical way; real folk have to deal with life. They have to have some code in place that helps them decide, individually and collectively, how to live. Worldview, values, and behaviors form a single system under which each individual is able to make decisions and act so that the whole society can operate, cooperate, and survive in its always-changing environment. Software directs how hardware runs. In real life, the hardware (humans) must run if the society is to deal with reality – to get food, raise kids, avoid lions, heal the sick, etc.  

All societies, in deep ways, know this. Societies have always worked to integrate their worldviews, values, and morés because people everywhere knew implicitly that their worldview was their guide when they were trying to decide whether an act that felt morally right was practicable. Can the act that I believe I should do actually be done? My worldview gives me my answer. No one aims to achieve what she truly believes cannot exist.

This is hard thinking we’re embarking on. We need to get into our best analytic mindset in order to consider the major peaks in the histories of some societies of the past, to see how their worldviews, values, and morés worked: how ideas shape behavior. In short, we now need to get used to thinking in the terms, axioms, premises, and methods of our theory of cultural evolution.

In the scientific study of Moral Philosophy, History is our data bank. From studying History, we get insights into how societies work, and from the insights, we can form models/theories. Then, we also can find in History the evidence against which we may test our theories. Always, it is observable evidence that confirms or disconfirms any theory, including our grand theory of cultural evolution.

It is the history of the Western nations that I know a little about and so it is that I ask: How have some Western societies of the past formed, evolved, and in some cases died out? Let’s take a look at a few.

 

     

                       

   “Saturn devouring one of his children” (Goya) (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

 

For instance, let’s consider the ancient Greeks, the ones who came long before Socrates’ time. They portrayed the universe as an irrational, dangerous place. To them, the gods who ran the universe were capricious, violent, and cruel, a phrase which also described the Greeks’ worldview. Under this view, humans could only cringe fearfully when facing the gods’ testy humors. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Ares, Hades, Athena, Apollo, and the rest were lustful, cruel, and unpredictable. Zeus punished with thunderbolts, Apollo, plagues, Poseidon, earthquakes. The ancient Greeks knew how terribly the gods could punish.

But as individuals experimented with new ways, Greek culture evolved. A few individuals attracted groups of followers who multiplied when their set of new beliefs and ways worked. By the Periclean Age, a few daring Greek plays were showing people how to defy the gods. After all, under their evolving worldview, they had been given the powerful gift of fire by their patron, Prometheus.

As the Greek worldview – with its attached system of values – evolved, it guided them toward a smarter, braver lifestyle. They began trying to explain reality in ways that let people believe they could take effective action, and understand and control at least some events in the world, not always cringe before them. Once their worldview included such possibilities, they began to create action plans that enabled them to cause, hasten, or forestall more and more events in the world. They tried out the action plans. Early forms of maps, mining, cranes, gears, underground water pipes, and roof trusses all came in these times. When some daring ideas worked, more followed. ¹

It is important to also note here, however, that human individuals and groups normally will not attempt any action they think of as “taboo”. The majority of the ancients who happened upon an action that seemed contrary to, or outside of, what in their worldview was appropriate for humans only grew upset and fearful. Whether the action got results or not, the thing the less-daring people wanted to learn was how to avoid putting themselves into that situation again. They sought to avoid it for fear of bringing the gods’ wrath down on them. But taboos got tested now and then when a genius questioned society’s worldview, or even described an alternative. Sadly, he often paid dearly for his audacity by being ostracized or killed. Like Socrates.

Taboos are usually few in number, but they are not things to be toyed with. For example, in Ancient Egypt, if you questioned the custom of burying a dead man with food, sandals, jewels, and gold, or worse yet, if you robbed a tomb of such contents, you could be put to death by any of several means: decapitation, drowning, burning, etc. Every society has at least a few taboos. The existence of taboos only shows how subtle cultural evolution is. Like biological evolution, it contains myriads of nuances and sub-routines. But in spite of all the nuances, the overarching principle is that cultures must evolve or die. Like living species.

                                                                    

                                                              

             

                                                 Euripides, Greek tragic playwright

                                (credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen, via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Most changes in a society’s worldview and then in its values and morés happen because of genius individuals. But some evolve more gradually, helped by many lesser geniuses. The Greeks had both kinds of geniuses. By the Golden Age of Athens, these people were offering works that a few centuries earlier would have been unthinkable. Their worldview had evolved to allow for more human freedom. The works of Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Euripides, and Pythagoras were produced under a worldview in which humans could conceive of actions that challenged the old beliefs and even the gods. They made later, brilliant men like Archimedes, possible.

The challenge might only rarely succeed, but if it worked, it drew followers. Some of the new beliefs and ways just made life safer and healthier. Better. 

 

 

                                                       

                

                                     Spartan woman giving a shield to her son  

                                  (credit: Le Barbier, via Wikimedia Commons)

 

In the Athenians’ golden era, their neighbors, the Spartans, were evolving a very different society, a perfect military state. The Peloponnesian War (Athens vs. Sparta) became inevitable; Athens lost. A few years later, the Macedonians out-did the Spartans. Then, the Romans, with even better military technologies and more numerous armies, ended the matter by conquering them all.  

In each case, one culture’s worldview, values, and set of behavior patterns – all integrated into a system, was tried against one of that culture's neighbors and proved more vigorous. This cultural evolution kept bringing new human social systems to the top. This whole picture of History is harsh, but real.

Note also how cultural evolution works by variation and selection of memes rather than genes. Roman society got stronger than its adversaries because it was more efficient. This mode of evolution appears tenuous, even shaky, but it is much faster and more responsive to change than is evolution by the genetic mode. We can adapt culturally to changes in climate and grow a new kind of crop to eat because we can watch the change, form concepts, build new mental models of reality, then new action plans, and then implement them. Or new weapons and tactics. Or new ways of curing diseases. We can update our culture rather than our genes. And humans do these things in a generation or two, which does not seem really fast, but it is much faster than evolution by the genetic mode. The memetic mode of evolution is our way, the human way. 

In short, we have been constantly adjusting our cultures – the concepts with which we think, the customs we practice, the values we believe in, and the way we view the world – in order to adapt to our ever-changing environment. We evolve by adjusting the ideas we pass down to our young. Little to none of our evolving and adapting happens via changes to our genes.