What We Talk About When We Talk About Religion
If Graeber and Wengrow open by observing, "Most of human history is irreparably lost to us", they are not wrong. Not only is it a true statement, it actually has narrative value:
This is of litte consequence to most people, since most people rarely think about the broad sweep of human history anyway. They don't have much reason to. Insofar as the question comes up at all, it's usually when reflecting on why the world seems to be in such a mess and why human beings so often treat each other badly—the reasons for war, greed, exploitation, systematic indifference to others' suffering. Were we always like that, or did something, at some point, go terribly wrong?
It is basically a theological debate. Essentially the question is: are humans innately good or innately evil. But if you think about it, the question, framed in these terms, makes very little sense. 'Good' and 'evil' are purely human concepts. It would never occur to anyone to argue about whether a fish, or a tree, were good or evil, because 'good' and 'evil' are concepts humans made up in order to compare themselves with one another. It follows that arguing about whether humans are fundamentally good or evil makes about as much sense as arguing about whether humans are fundamentally fat or thin.
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As a matter of narrative form, they consider "the Christian answer" having to do with original sin, and then go on to frame a dualism juxtaposing Rousseau and Hobbes, and as a matter of documentable political history that really isn't so wrong. But as "accounts of the general course of human history", the authors remind, "they: 1) simply aren't true; 2) have dire political implications; 3) make the past needlessly dull."
Which brings us to the moment:
This book is an attempt to begin to tell another, more hopeful and more interesting story; one which, at the same time, takes better account of what the last few decades of research have taught us. Partly, this is a matter of bringing together evidence that has accumulated in archaeology, anthropology, and kindred disciplines, evidence that points towards a completely new account of how human societies have developed over roughly the last 30,000 years. Almost all of this research goes against the familiar narrative, but too often the most remarkable discoveries remained confined to the work of specialists, or have to be teased out by reading between the lines of scientific publications.
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What do we actually talk about when talking about religion? These notes set a tone for
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2021), an ambitious weight in paper intending to reconsider the shape and detail of human history.
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Once upon a time not really so long ago, somebody pointed out to me that nobody seems much interested in discussing religion according to history, or art, and dismissed considerations of anthropology and psychology airily, because apparently someone else complains if we don't. And no, that doesn't need to mean much to anyone because it didn't mean much in its moment; it was just something to say in an otherwise empty moment moment. The actual discursive meaning of his words, if we try to take them at face value, is entirely its own, wholly contained in itself.
Still, one of the glittery contrasts that stands out has to do with a contextual implication of boasting the lowbrow. And it's true, sometimes when we're talking about religion we might troll the gutter; in a relativist framework, we need not wonder at what progress such discourse seeks, and neither would it be appropriate to juxtapose questions of progress against any iterated pretext of interest or concern. Satisfaction, after all, bears its own value.
It seems inevitable to wonder what we talk about when we talk about religion.
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Graeber and Wengrow are not writing explicitly about religion; in their context, it is an inevitable consideration along the way. As an inquiry toward what is "basically a theological debate", it is important to observe that the question itself is fallacious: "Were we always like that, or did something, at some point, go terribly wrong?" The inquiry occurs within the narrative framework.
What stands out is a different sort of reflection on religion, an indictment
in medias res, having to do with interpreting metaphors literally. And while the political implications are not invalid in an historical context, even the most sympathetic simplifications of interpreting metaphors literally must necessarily wonder whence come which metaphors. The figurative ideas and representations did not arise
ex nihilo. If something, at some point, went terribly wrong, what is the idyllic comparison? Was there ever a time in antiquity or prehistory when people interpreted the metaphors properly?
And if the etymological and behavioral heart of religion has something to do with obligation, we might consider here the metaphors, the ideas and objects of focus, around which religion orbits. These metaphors emerged from the noise of human experience, and compared to the evolution of civilization and authority, we might wonder at the last thirty thousand years, but with evidence of ritual reaching back seventy thousand years, some degree of participation well prior to neocortical conformity in socialization might seem more a limbic experience. The perception of obligation might well precede the metaphors.
Is it history, or psychology, or the in-between ranges of anthropology? Behavioral econ marketing research? Testimony and evangelism? Maybe politics and critique? An easy joke, perhaps? There are many reasons, and many different things we talk about when we talk about religion.
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But it is also worth noting that one need no explicit deity in order to consider Graeber and Wengrow's "theological debate"; the standard of good and evil is itself elevated to the ambit of the sacred when a godless prospect of
just because or
the way things are functions in lieu of a more religious declaration about what
God says.
Consider the implication: The fallacy is not the fact of a discussion that is "basically a theological question"; the fallacy is in the false dichotomy of something going terribly wrong. There is a reason Graeber and Wengrow seek to tell a different story: A question of corruption versus catastrophe, inherence versus consequence, is a mythopoeic fragment describing a perspective from which human society is emerging. To describe our transition as a question in mythical terms of good and evil speculates according to the priorities of our ignorance; to consider the transitions of our evolution according to what science affords reserves the question of good and evil to an object of inquiry.
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If the symbols emerge from the noise of experience affirmed, so also do we consider the prospect of a new history emerging from a predecessor that is itself a catalogue of symbols shaped and affirmed from testimonial noise.
And, yet, this is where things seem complex. Graeber and Wengrow consider egalitarianism in prehistory, information sources and narrative, and changing perceptions about human societal development. "But to begin making sense of the new information that's now before our eyes," they write, "it is not enough to compile and sift vast quantities of data. A conceptual shift is also required."
It is in seeking this shift we see hints of how old symbols emerged. To wit, in contrast to the "indigenous critique" and the importance of "taking seriously contributions to social thought that come from outside the European canon", especially "from those indigenous peoples whom Western philosophers tend to cast either in the role of history's angels or its devils", there is an obvious answer that runs through historical nexes and mythopoeic loci according to the axiom that winners write history. The traditional historical telling that emerged, which isn't true, has political implications, and seems needlessly and even extraordinarily dull is necessarily so; its symbols emerged from the noise, and were affirmed after the fact.
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This question, what we talk about when we talk about religion, is one of purpose.
Semiotics, anthropology, psychology, history, literature, philosophy. We all have our reasons, and nothing says they will necessarily be sensible or not dysfunctional. Still, our reasons set our priorities, which in turn shapes what we talk about when we talk about religion.
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Notes:
Graeber, David and David Wengrow. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giraux, 2021.