Monotheism and social contracts

M

Michael

歌舞伎
Valued Senior Member
I was wondering: Do you know of ANY positive social contracts that arise in monotheistic philosophy that are unable to coalesce from within a polytheistic philosophy?

That is, does monotheism offer something unique to society that polytheism simply can not likewise accommodate?

Is monotheism superior to polytheism in ANY real fundamental way?



Does ANYONE have ANY ideas???
Michael
 
All the people who complain about monotheism continue to live in societies defined by monotheistic social contracts.

You rarely find people from polytheistic societies having these complaints. Unless they choose to move and settle in societies with monotheistic social contracts.
 
S.A.M. said:
All the people who complain about monotheism continue to live in societies defined by monotheistic social contracts.

You rarely find people from polytheistic societies having these complaints. Unless they choose to move and settle in societies with monotheistic social contracts.
Click to expand...
Well, you didn't really answer the question yet.


So? Are you saying that Western nations success is based on monotheism? Why do you think that?

What about modern Japan?
Ancient Rome?
Ancient China?
Modern India

All of these have been primarily polytheistic. Morally many of the same values we share today they shared then.


Anyway, any ideas as to the OP?
 
If I answer your question will you PRETTY PLEASE with sugar AND a cherry on top address the question in the OP?

I love living in polytheistic societies. I have lived in Japan. I was offered a really great job there for a 150 year old company. Just before I started (as in 2 weeks) this company got bought by a German firm for 15 Billion. They then proceeded to shut down the Research Labs I was employed to work at. Because I hadn't made even to make one day of work, let alone the 90 day "trial" period, I walked away with only my hat :( errrr Kimono :p

I was also going to take a job in mainland China supervising the destruction of Western biotech/pharma research jobs (aka: that's also being outsourced to China now). I simply had a love for living there. Great food nice people. Not too many Temples left in China..... Alas, the person who was going to hire me, turned down the job for a different one :(

Such is life.

Maybe in the future I'll take a job in a "polytheistic" country?



Now about the OP?
 
Be interesting to see how you cope with living in one.

I live in a polytheistic society. Or a so-called polytheistic society. I find polytheism to simply mean more names for the same concept. But the variety requires maintenance, which is why such societies are defined first and foremost, by rigid social conformity. So what do monotheistic societies have in common? Flexibility. Every single social contract is flexible. All inflexibility has to be imposed from without.
 
You think Islamic nations are LESS ridged than polytheistic ones?
Is Thailand more ridged than Malaysia (they're right next to one another)?

KSA is more easy going than India?

maybe... ???



I think the West was very ridged. It only loosened up recently. I'd say my parents generation. My grandparents are easy going now, but, I'm sure when they were young it was a lot different.
 
Oh, just to be sure, you're answer is that monotheism encourages a sort of social flexibility that's just simply not possible to achieve in polytheistic societies?
 
Well I know what polytheistic societies are like. They are based on ritual, class structure and conformity. All such societies create strictly demarcated work strata with clear dilineations of whose place is what. People from such societies are more structured in their thinking and more accepting of their predefined roles in society. Its why it was easier to enslave barbarians than Christians, Africans rather than Arabs. The tall poppy syndrome will flourish in such societies.

Oh, just to be sure, you're answer is that monotheism encourages a sort of social flexibility that's just simply not possible to achieve in polytheistic societies?
Click to expand...

Not entirely, I think polytheistic societies are dominated by group think, monotheistic societies are inherently individualistic. I think societies cycle between them.
 
Last edited:
I was thinking that language was a bigger determinant of group think. For example, if you say the word "self" to Chinese in China and Chinese-Americans who only speak English, the same area of the frontal cortex becomes active. If you say mother, the same area of the China-Chinese brain becomes active (which suggests they relate mother and self, both as self). American-Chinese brains act like all other Americans brains and relegate mother to an entirely different category. As in a wholly different area of the brain becomes active. Which means two things to me. One, the importance language has on culture. and also that not all brains physically process ideas similarly. That said, it's a bit of a chicken and the egg.

Reza has told me that life will be difficult in Iran because the society is less open and less about the individual. There's a lot of expectations about behavior and there's a lot of pressure to conform. I wouldn't know.




I think your idea is worth running a test on (if that's possible). We should look to see if anyone has run the experiments before. First, we need a test that tests for how "individual" a person is versus "group oriented". Then run tests on Christians versus Polytheistic Japanese, Indians and Chinese. Maybe, once language is accounted for, we'll find that monotheists are more self centered? It seems reasonable.

Come to think about it, what about Christian versus Muslim Iraqi's? That could be interesting. The reason I say this is because Muslim's (Arabs) actually were enslaved. They were Slaves to Turks. There were large Arab Slave markets in the times before the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
 
Last edited:
Michael said:
I was wondering: Do you know of ANY positive social contracts that arise in monotheistic philosophy that are unable to coalesce from within a polytheistic philosophy?

That is, does monotheism offer something unique to society that polytheism simply can not likewise accommodate?

Is monotheism superior to polytheism in ANY real fundamental way?



Does ANYONE have ANY ideas???
Michael
Click to expand...
What clues do you have for unifying polytheistic society?
Individual desire?
:confused::confused:
 
Michael said:
I was thinking that language was a bigger determinant of group think..
Click to expand...

Thats quite possible. Have you read "The Geography of Thought"? Its an interesting view of concept formation in eastern and western societies and could be related either to their social structure based on their religious belief or their language.

I consider modern day Christianity to be more polytheistic in its practice than Judaism Islam Zoroastrianism or Sikhism, which are closer to the monotheistic pattern. Shia Islam also leans towards a less monotheistic pattern of society due to the investiture of faith in intercessories [but Shia Muslims need not]. So accurately speaking, no society is purely monotheistic or purely polytheistic. But clearly, the effects of monotheism can be seen in societies where monotheism is practised closer to ideal.

Among other things, one of the strengths of monotheism to me, is the individuation of women [individuation: from Jung, a process of psychological maturation]. I don't know about any other societies but I know that in no social order in India except monotheists, do women even have the option of not consenting to marriage. Like chattel, they are donated by a male relative [kanyadan] (literally, gift of a virgin) a concept that has been retained in the father of the bride in Christianity [but where women are still asked if they do take this man]. Rituals about women in polytheistic society revolve around reproduction, with celebration of their first menstruation, celebration of their marriage, pregnancy. Even widowhood is a ritual, where there is public removal of the symbols of her suhaag, which constitutes the man who gives meaning to her existence and disrobing of colourful clothes and cutting off or shaving off of the hair and then consignment to a status poorer than a lower class. Women = Fertility. Widow = out of the running and hence valueless [but still used for sport]. Women who lose "status" may be shared for sex among male relatives or passed around among friends and employers. They simply exist as abstract wombs for the purpose of providing pleasure or continuity [this is a recurrent view of women in polytheistic societies]. A woman is blessed if she dies before her husband and burned with him if he precedes her. She must have a son to be of value and excess daughters are consigned to a quiet drowning or burial. This kind of thinking disappears in monotheism, although remnants of polytheistic society may still persist.


In Christianity women can choose to forsake the married status altogether and are respected and protected by society. In Hinduism, they become prostitutes or starve.

Christianity also I think, [but could be mistaken] was the first religion which broke the barrier of birth as a prerequisite to salvation. An African slave could be saved by Jesus as easily as a Roman Emperor.
 
Last edited:
Michael said:
I was wondering: Do you know of ANY positive social contracts that arise in monotheistic philosophy that are unable to coalesce from within a polytheistic philosophy?
Click to expand...
No; ancient societies had social contracts of varying levels of sophistication. It is just that, by the time Western philosophy, political organisation, and economics developed to the point that people conceived of the more complex, modern social contract theory, monotheism was dominant.
Though it does depends on what model. Hobbes' ideas were based strongly on a monotheistic religion; Locke and Rousseau, on the other hand, were decidedly more secular.

That is, does monotheism offer something unique to society that polytheism simply can not likewise accommodate?
Click to expand...
No.

Is monotheism superior to polytheism in ANY real fundamental way?
Click to expand...
No.
 
John Locke?

I think he was strongly influenced by Islam. He studied it enough and many of his notions about liberty and justice are reflective of Islamic jurisprudence.
 
SAM said:
Well I know what polytheistic societies are like. They are based on ritual, class structure and conformity. All such societies create strictly demarcated work strata with clear dilineations of whose place is what. People from such societies are more structured in their thinking and more accepting of their predefined roles in society. Its why it was easier to enslave barbarians than Christians, Africans rather than Arabs.
Click to expand...
Either that, or monotheism better encourages and supports slave-taking and conquering in general.

Seems to me more likely the other way around - there's a chicken and egg problem with polytheism enforcing rigid class structure.

We have very few "monotheistic societies" of the necessary scale, so all such comparisons are suspect, but in my experience individual people are not more flexible, socially, as they are more theistic, regardless of the number of gods involved. Is it possible, as appearances suggest, that all deities enforce social rigidity and obligation - that such is their role?
 
Last edited:
btw: So you are agreed, then, that NA Reds such as the Navajo are not polytheistic? They will supply numerous counterexamples, otherwise.
Click to expand...

How did I agree? Did they not share their women as abstract wombs?
 
SAM said:
How did I agree? Did they not share their women as abstract wombs?
Click to expand...
No. And irrelevant. And therefore gratuitous in its offense.

I apologize for creating the opportunity for you to once more display your inbred cultural bigotries. The oddity about John Locke was poor excuse, an obvious troll, and I withdraw my comment.
 
Well I assumed, since I "agreed" that it had something to do with the point I made. I'm not entirely certain what your point is. Would you care to enumerate?
 
S.A.M. said:
John Locke?

I think he was strongly influenced by Islam. He studied it enough and many of his notions about liberty and justice are reflective of Islamic jurisprudence.
Click to expand...
Strongly? I'm not suggesting that John Locke didn't read the Qur'an, nor that some Islamic ideas didn't intrigue him. I'm not sure which ones.

I'd be curious as to which ideas in the Qur'an strongly influenced Locke.

I suppose you have to look at it like this. I once asked you what was novel and enlightening in the Qur'an (aka: some new inspirational ideas) and you said nothing. Why then would Locke be strongly influenced by Islam. I'd think he'd be much more strongly influenced by Greece and Rome and the idea of Citizenship and representation by vote.

Anyway, illuminate me :)





I was also thinking of the role of women in early England. For example: Boudicathe queen of the Brittonic Iceni tribe of England led an uprising against the forces of the Roman Empire. Boudica's husband, Prasutagus, an Icenian king who had ruled as a nominally independent ally of Rome, left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Roman Emperor in his will. However, when he died his will was ignored. The kingdom was annexed as if conquered, Boudica was flogged and her daughters raped, and Roman financiers called in their loans.

Then we have women in polytheistic Greece - they were virtually held as prisoners in their homes.

In polytheistic Rome once a woman was married she had a pretty free life. More so than women in many monotheistic societies today. For example: A Roman wife was generally understood as her husband's companion and helper. Perhaps a bit like my great grandparents generation? Roman women shared banquets and parties with their husbands (Greeks would have been appalled by this behavior), Roman women shared authority over the children, slaves and the household. It was often the wife who would oversee the slaves. Nobody required Roman wives to live secluded lives. They could freely receive visitors, leave the house, visit other households, or leave to go shopping.

It's possible that in prehistoric polytheistic Japan, before patriarchal Chinese culture came to, and "civilized" the Japanese, a woman named Himiko was the Empress/Queen. Also during the Kamakura Period (~1200-1350) women raised their children as samurai, were allowed rights to inheritance and to bequeath property, controlled the household finances and managed the staff. Then after things settled down and became "Civilized" again they were re-regulated to the role of pawns in marriage contracts. Why :shrug:

Women of northern Christian Europe were probably more "free" before Christianity, not afterward.

It seems to me that Christian women in Iraq are treated more equal by their husbands then Muslim women in Iraq. I wonder why. Culture? I wonder if it's because of Islamic polygamy versus Christian monogamy? Are Iraqi Christians monogamous? I'd like to see a study on the attitudes of Kurdish, Christian, Shia and Sunni women of Iraq.




Anyway, it's an interesting topic. Historically speaking, it seems that women can gain similar levels of equality in polytheistic societies. So I would have to say that this isn't a singular aspect of culture only possible in a monotheistic society.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top