The News So Far
So far, Joseph Henrich says that western people are very unusual.
Of course this comes as a big shock to many of them who arrogantly assume they live in the stratosphere of human existence and that everyone is - or should be - like them.
But compared to the majority world, and the majority of people who have ever lived they really do occupy the extreme end of most behavioural spectrums. They are WEIRD - not a term intended by Henrich to bring them down, by the way, though at first sight it may seem that way.
WEIRD stands for:
W estern
E ducated
I ndustrial
R ich
And the reason, suggests Joseph, is that they can read. And they can read because of the Reformation....1500s onwards.
I don't believe that's all there is to it, because in the very first chapter of his book, which he calls "Weird Psychology" Henrich begins to list all the features of Weird people....
...and some of them sound very much like the fruit of the Gospel.
What are Weird People actually like?
What then is so unusual about westerners? Are you ready? Some of these attributes are positive, some are clearly not.
Henrich is always, by the way, comparing Weird people with majority world people.
Here goes:
"Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, we Weird people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. We focus on ourselves - our attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations - over our relationships and social roles." (page 21)
We are very individualistic. One indicator of this is the way Weird people focus on guilt while majority world people focus on shame. Guilt is something internal. We set personal standards and aspirations for ourselves and when we don't meet them we feel guilty. These standards and aspirations are really important to us. By contrast, the priorities in the majority world are relationships. And so their primary negative feeling is shame - they have let others down.
Another way our individualism is manifested is the way we answer the question, "I am......" Weird people answer it with personal qualities or achievements. I am a mechanic, I am curious, and so on. Majority world people answer the question with "I am the daughter of", "I come from the tribe of" or "I do this role in society".
There are some positive traits Weird people exhibit. Weird people, lacking deep social ties tend not to give family members jobs, while nepotism is rife across the majority world. Weird people tend to be more friendly across the full range of their relationships, while majority world folks tend to be friendly to those in their social groupings or tribe but cold to those outside (see Hutu and Tutsi).
Weird people are obsessed with what they think about themselves, their self-esteem, while majority world people are concerned about other-esteem, how they are viewed by others.
I'm just listing all this stuff.
Weird people don't care what others think about them, they're not prepared to conform to a group, majority world people care a great deal what others think about them and tend to conform. Weird people are prepared to wait for a future reward if its better than a present one, majority world people prefer the here and now, making Weird people appear more patient. Weird people obey rules better than majority world people. Weird people are prepared to risk a friendship if it means the difference between telling the truth and loyalty. Majority world folks are prepared to lie in court to protect a friend. Weird people trust strangers more than majority world folks. Weird people tend to make more judgements about the inner intentions or motives of people. Weird people think analytically rather than their holistic majority world pals.
See the list below for a fuller analysis.
Some Reflections
Joseph Henrich - I've read the conclusion! - is going to say that reading plus some Catholic family rules are responsible for all this Weirdness, but lets remember that an unbelieving scholar is spiritually blind, so we should listen to his facts but not follow his conclusions.
It seems to me that not literacy, but high literacy, may be the cause of some of the traits listed above, in particular analytical thinking. Anyone who has studied a subject for a few years on the trot in a western college will have developed an analytical mind. These kinds of minds, because they break problems down into constituent parts, find big picture holistic thinking difficult.
But there are positive traits among weird folks that I would suggest owe themselves much more to the widespread impact of the Gospel spreading out from the Reformation, than from the simple act of reading.
If Weird people really are more reliable across the whole spectrum of their relationships (faithful), prepared to face up to friends when they want them to lie (honest), struggle with personal failure (which causes guilt), more obedient to rules (law-abiding), trust strangers (trusting) and are prepared to wait (patient), well these qualities look much more like the fruit of the Spirit. Not directly in the lives of western unbelievers, of course, but the spin-off of Gospel lives lived in the west.
The negative weird traits listed above, such as obsession with self, rank individualism, our inability to see holistically (because of the worship of high education which turns minds into analytically narrow-minded computers), our neglect of communal ties and our resistance to conform; all these I see as step-children of the so-called Enlightenment (a lexical oxymoron if ever there was one).
Jesus once told a parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” (Matthew 13)
The church which started with the Twelve has become the largest tree in the garden and it blesses non-tree life such as the birds.
In this parable Jesus teaches that the influence of the church goes far and deep into the structures of the society where Christians are found to live.
Surely it is this truth Henrich is charting, albeit unwittingly? Christians have let their light shine and that light has lit up Weird cultures who have then been blessed with "Christian" graces?
We'll have to see...
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