Worlding: the minimum standards
It is likely that the worlding we do as religion or even philosophy, as drama or even industry, is a pre-existing condition. As such we tend to notice its success and take credit for them, even if they are natural to us, and blame them others over there… for their failures in the light of our own luck/efforts.
Part of this is to hit upon an outcome of the worlding urge: a religion, a philosophy, a civilisation and by its measures, by its success, which is our world, declare those without that particular standard to be barbarians, wildlings, uncivilized. This is a common enough recognition to have its own label, of othering the other, or, especially those peeps one would not have as members but must have around (the poor, the criminal, the sick, the enslaved, or the actual competition of peers but who have bad taste in clothes).
It is curious here, that this posturing is consciously-held, but unconscious to these 'othering' thoughts, is that we are dependent on inter-group competition for our human success, so it is very unlikely these other human groups do not in fact world, but for the sake of argument (and competition) we pretend otherwise. No doubt this informs our commonplace attitudes that those others who we deal with on a regular basis with distaste, are not, in fact, human, but not because they are animals but because we reject them. Or vice versa.
In order to allow the outcomes (civilisation/religion/morality/Tjukurpa) of social learning in populations widely-coupled across continents and along coastlines, or densely associated in cities and their outgrowing countrysides of retreat, these outcomes always include, or at least allow, the grounds of their comparison, of their rejected inter-kin. In these, the wildly-coupled wastrels, barbarians and other uncivil kith of comparison, who might make friends or frenemies like Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Perhaps the oldest story we have, when we see success in the face of our enemies. Bromancing the world.This is why the grid-group theories of Mary Douglas et al are so very interesting to me, they explore the boundaries of our rejection, and what it means for the world. See linkpost.
BTW --if the ethics discussion in animals rights circles explores and expanding circle of moral inclusions, it might be wise to see how this started in Homo species when it first included others of the same species, but differing groups. If we can consciously expand the circle to include species with limited social learning facilities on the basis of the social institution of the individual, surely we can do so for humans?We need to cooperate in order to compete, but in order for competition to mean anything, we restrict the pool of potential winners to those regarded as having winning potential. Humanity is a confidence trick. But at least potentially including everyone as a winner, despite the losers among us, is probably the way to 'win'.
So what is the minimum of worlding that allows us to win in order to compete in order to co-operate?
Interestingly the minimum is often sub-optimal. Partly because it is confounded, and partly because we are so good at it, that we do not have to be consciously aware of it, which when we do get all hissy about it means we stuff it up. When those two parts meet we may realise they are the same thing. We usual don't.
What is the minimum, the urge to world must deliver? First, we look at: how many?
There are two minimums, and they dance in our heads, sometimes without us being there, when we think with institutions without realising it, but are proud to defend as natural, or godly, or civil, or…
When we think/feel/assume/should, we do the two things:
① Without god then morality would disappear, or, without karma the world would collapse, or worse, without belief in god or karma, there is no meaning. Without some XY, there is no YX. The later labels are not actually necessary for this fear, the fear, however must be shared. ① = a shared fear about the sharing.
②That this fear about sharing is how "it" is, how the 'world' is, and not that how we make it so in our self-fulfilling bad worlding. I.E. we make the shared fear into the world itself.
These minimums are sub-optimal. Confounded. The basic minimums do not lead to good worlding, even if this is the pathway out towards good worlding evolutionarily speaking.
However, evolution itself does not care. The minimums are not maximal in aspiration, they only just make do, good enough for evolution but not our own standards, which often stall here, but good enough to build ‘civilization’ or tjukurpa. We get by.
They are sub-optimal because while the worlding urge delivers the possibility of the world in the recognition of self among others, but in that possibility, also allows death to threaten the world ‘itself’. Because the self can die 'it' assumes the world will die, but the world goes on even when a religion or all civilisations do not. To assume that "the world = civilisation" is the result of the shared stupidity of being aware of a personal mortality. This stupidity is why they built pyramids for pharaohs BTW. The impressiveness is a by-product. But then, you know, I’ve been impressed by hoarfrost on a winter’s morning.
Death is no drive, fear is no drive. It is a constraint, a discipline, a whip. It is seen as a drive when it or we suppress the recognition of our own agency.
Recognition of our selves is the drive we suppress when we fear the end of the world, in that personal extension of our own mortality, and so conscious of death we forget to be conscious of where we should along in our lives among others, kin and kith, othered and mothered, and so we fear the end of hope.
Hope is often confused by our social institutions with an outcome of the worlding urge (morality/religion/polity).
But the world does not end.
The world goes on regardless, but our mortality, or more likely the fear for our children once abstracted by our cultural stories, feeds into our stupidity. The reality of death as a fear is a multiplier of our stupidity. Fear is also the heart killer on a social scale. Kindness is the minimum intelligence of all societies. Fear kills and we end up thinking of kindness too kindly... as if that were all it were.
For we should call 'it' kindness, not morality, we should call it compassion, not karma. Morality and karma are emotionally lazy terms, institutionally stunted.
Don’t put kindness in a ghetto of others, as if it was some barbarian mother. That is an error of our fear-full thought. We often think it this way though and end up world-building dogmatically, rashly, too hard and fast.
Unfortunately that which selects our worlding urge does not care if we output hopes&fears as morality, or ethics, or tjukupa. That bit is up to us. Our widely-coupled paleontological success stories have not been able to incorporate that very well, and we will not until we better police narcissism, or at least, have social institutions that ‘understand’ they are social institutions with a job to do, and not be a pyramid to be impressed by. Nor be a platform for selfing without the world. Unfortunately, social institutions do not understand anything, there is just us here, being ourselves, worlding badly, worlding well on occasion.
Crossposted on whyweshould.loofs-samorzewski.com