Belief (in) Systems (Part II)
This is a sort of thematic sequel to a previous post, in which I wrote about some fundamental underpinnings of worldviews. In that post, it turned out that the punishment-reward or scoring sub-system tended to trump the altruism sub-system in human individuals. Some people think that is natural (it's like the concept of 'original sin') and some people think it is unfortunate (it's like evolutionary biology going up a dead end).
The world today is messy, but the thing about history is that we could have seen it coming a long time ago. Right now, there are five key belief systems out of the thousands of belief systems there are. These five key belief systems may not be important to everyone, but their sheer size (in terms of numbers of adherents), ubiquity (in terms of geographic spread) and significance (in terms of people and policies affected by adherents) make them worth looking at.
The five belief systems I am referring to are (in alphabetical order): Capitalism, Christianity, Globalism, Racism and Secular Humanism. It is quite possible for a person to believe in more than one of these, but it is unlikely that any given person will believe in all five, especially since some of them don't 'play nice' with the others.
Why are these five systems so important?
Capitalism, to begin with, is the child of that long and painful era known as the industrial revolution. Descended from the merchant cartels of the 16th century, it eventually became the guiding economic philosophy of empire-building. Its assertions that people should strive to control the means of production individually, in an environment of free choice (the 'market') and thus create prosperity for all, have been tested and sometimes found wanting. Nevertheless, it has been the dominant economic belief system of the 20th and 21st centuries so far.
Christianity, an eastern religion which sprouted from Palestine about 2000 years ago, is now the world's most widespread and influential religion. Monotheistic and proselytizing, it has butted heads with almost every other belief system on the planet. Although Jesus and his followers seemed somewhat socialist (if not communist) in ideology, for some reason American Republicans seem to conflate extreme capitalism with empire-building AND fundamentalist Protestant (there's an oxymoron for you) Christianity. It blows the mind.
Globalism seems like a modern trend. But it is a venerable belief system espoused by most ancient civilisations; it believes in things like the unity of the world under a single integrated programme (philosophy, creed, religion, whatever) in which individual cultures and ideas can flourish. The Pax Romana and Pax Britannica were pretty supportive of this ideal; the Pax Americana not so much. The United Nations and other international umbrella organisations are all children of this belief system.
Racism, unfortunately, is the extreme and somewhat common response to the Other. In racism, a group of humans believes that by virtue of their narrowly-defined genetic pool, they are superior to all others. This genetic virtue, already a somewhat dubious construct, is supposed to provide intellectual, moral, and even aesthetic superiority. It often co-opts other belief systems to establish itself, and has been shown to have a neurobiological origin in terms of the way humans differentiate between like and not-like.
Secular Humanism (as opposed to other kinds of humanism) is a creed which believes that a rational human, free of all supernatural influences and ideas, is a happy human. Although there are many flavours of secular humanism, the core ideals are a) secular—i.e. without religions or non-rational constructs, and b) humanist—putting human life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness first. It is an ancient creed, often veiled by the fact that earlier societies tended to pay at least lip-service to the idea of the divine, and to frown on those who didn't.
All five of these will crop up as the shadowy or not-so-shadowy influences behind almost every piece of news you encounter, in every medium of communication. I think it is not possible to find any news source which isn't influenced by at least one of these forces. This means that an educated human must at least be able to state and understand the basics of these belief systems, whether he or she (or zie) believes in them or not.
The world today is messy, but the thing about history is that we could have seen it coming a long time ago. Right now, there are five key belief systems out of the thousands of belief systems there are. These five key belief systems may not be important to everyone, but their sheer size (in terms of numbers of adherents), ubiquity (in terms of geographic spread) and significance (in terms of people and policies affected by adherents) make them worth looking at.
The five belief systems I am referring to are (in alphabetical order): Capitalism, Christianity, Globalism, Racism and Secular Humanism. It is quite possible for a person to believe in more than one of these, but it is unlikely that any given person will believe in all five, especially since some of them don't 'play nice' with the others.
Why are these five systems so important?
Capitalism, to begin with, is the child of that long and painful era known as the industrial revolution. Descended from the merchant cartels of the 16th century, it eventually became the guiding economic philosophy of empire-building. Its assertions that people should strive to control the means of production individually, in an environment of free choice (the 'market') and thus create prosperity for all, have been tested and sometimes found wanting. Nevertheless, it has been the dominant economic belief system of the 20th and 21st centuries so far.
Christianity, an eastern religion which sprouted from Palestine about 2000 years ago, is now the world's most widespread and influential religion. Monotheistic and proselytizing, it has butted heads with almost every other belief system on the planet. Although Jesus and his followers seemed somewhat socialist (if not communist) in ideology, for some reason American Republicans seem to conflate extreme capitalism with empire-building AND fundamentalist Protestant (there's an oxymoron for you) Christianity. It blows the mind.
Globalism seems like a modern trend. But it is a venerable belief system espoused by most ancient civilisations; it believes in things like the unity of the world under a single integrated programme (philosophy, creed, religion, whatever) in which individual cultures and ideas can flourish. The Pax Romana and Pax Britannica were pretty supportive of this ideal; the Pax Americana not so much. The United Nations and other international umbrella organisations are all children of this belief system.
Racism, unfortunately, is the extreme and somewhat common response to the Other. In racism, a group of humans believes that by virtue of their narrowly-defined genetic pool, they are superior to all others. This genetic virtue, already a somewhat dubious construct, is supposed to provide intellectual, moral, and even aesthetic superiority. It often co-opts other belief systems to establish itself, and has been shown to have a neurobiological origin in terms of the way humans differentiate between like and not-like.
Secular Humanism (as opposed to other kinds of humanism) is a creed which believes that a rational human, free of all supernatural influences and ideas, is a happy human. Although there are many flavours of secular humanism, the core ideals are a) secular—i.e. without religions or non-rational constructs, and b) humanist—putting human life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness first. It is an ancient creed, often veiled by the fact that earlier societies tended to pay at least lip-service to the idea of the divine, and to frown on those who didn't.
All five of these will crop up as the shadowy or not-so-shadowy influences behind almost every piece of news you encounter, in every medium of communication. I think it is not possible to find any news source which isn't influenced by at least one of these forces. This means that an educated human must at least be able to state and understand the basics of these belief systems, whether he or she (or zie) believes in them or not.
Labels: Belief, Capitalism, Christianity, Globalism, Humanism, Humanity, Media, Philosophy, Racism
etched with acid at 11:27:00 am
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