The Weirdest People in the World - a few gems from an unusual book

 

A (very) Long Read

It's taken me yonks to plough through the 489+ pages of this book, but finally I've made it and there are a few gems to be found here. Let me outline the main arguments of the book and then share four insights.

Joseph Henrich's basic contention is that we who have been brought up and shaped by the West are WEIRD, acronym for W-western, E-educated, I- individualistic, R-rich, D-democratic. 

More than an acronym, he means by 'weird' something close to the other meaning of that word: unusual.

(This review supersedes the partial reviews I've written in the past...)

How and Why are we Weird? 

"Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, we Weird people are (i) highly individualistic, (ii) self-obsessed, (iii) control-oriented, (iv) nonconformist, and (v) analytical. We focus on ourselves - our attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations - over our relationships and social roles." (page 21)

Most people in the world today, most people who have ever lived, do not, did not, bear these five traits, argues JH. And it is not just that we are different, it's that from many perspectives, westerners have been remarkably 'successful.'

Why are we so different?

Well, argues Joseph, the Church's teaching on marriage and the family made the primary and fundamental difference. The Bible's view of sex and marriage transformed European society and played a major role in Western Weirdness. 

Let's hear him out.

Before the Gospel took root in Europe, people related to one another, much as they still do all around the world, through intensive family kinship ties. These wide networks and relational webs - created through marriage of one kind or another - had a profound effect on how the whole society operated. 

The Bible's vision of sex and marriage - one man + one woman for life - revealed for example in Ephesians chapters 5 and 6, radically altered society by breaking down those extensive networks of obligations. Polygamy and marrying close relatives were all banned - and along with them a wide and inevitable tangle of relational obligations was severed. Freed from the duty to make every decision based on what my relatives or clan expects, I am now free to think and act in new ways (there's some individualism coming in). 

The primary societel building block became husband plus wife plus kids.

In effect, the Bible's vision of the nuclear family dissolved extensive tribal and kinship-based ways of doing things, ways that hinder 'progress.'

The impact of this seemingly benign new way of organizing society - around the nuclear family -  had profound impacts everywhere. 

Take commerce, for example. Most trade took place via relational - family - tribe lines. Now that these are dissolved, how will trade take place? New voluntary associations and guilds replaced family networks. If before I felt obliged to buy something from a distant relative even though it was much better and cheaper elsewhere, now I am free to buy it at a reduced price.

If before I had no motive for hard work and saving money because I may be obligated to give it all away to a cousin twice removed who was getting married, now, with that obligation removed, I have a motive to save.

If before I would only ever choose someone in my own tribe to rule, (not that a choice was available) now severed from that tribal obligation I can choose more objectively; observe here the seeds of democracy. 

If before I would not be prepared to think outside my tribe's box, lest I am excluded, now I am prepared, like Copernicus, to imagine that the sun not the earth is the centre of the solar system; observe the seeds of scientific endeavour.

The Reformation in Europe was then both a fruit of these deep societal changes (we don't need to dispute the fact that God can till the soil of a continent before planting Gospel seed) and a turbocharger of those changes, adding new components to this heady mix of Weirdness.

Martin Luther was prepared to go out on a limb - yes, a courage given to him by God - but also seeded by the dissolution of tribal impulses to conform.

And then, since the restored Gospel of the Reformation was based on a Book and required every believer to read, the Reformation spurred literacy (among men and women) and along with it analytical thinking. 

Innovation, wealth, democracy, science - all these were fruits of Western Weirdness. These products did not flow from the Enlightenment, very helpfully, argues JH. No, instead Enlightenment authors were merely the aristocratic spokespersons responding (rather late in the day), to the grassroots changes already running through Western society, changes seeded by the Bible.

Well, that's the argument of the book in a nutshell - I think.

Some Gems

There is a ton of stuff that we cannot take on board. Henrich, deeply influenced by the zeitgeist of the day uncritically accepts the concept of evolution and simply applies it to culture. Not only is the idea of evolution an increasingly discredited idea, the use of it to describe something as complex as human culture seems, itself, weird. Yes culture changes, but evolves?

Henrich seems to think that it is possible for small human minds to understand the whole world of human nature, behaviour and culture, and to gain a grand metanarrative all on our own. But of course that is impossible since we are so tiny. The Bible is - of course! - a far more reliable guide to the world of human nature and culture than this or any other humanly authored book.

In addition, we must surely question the intrinsic value of some of the qualities that make westerners seemingly unique. Is not individualism just as much a curse as a blessing? And is being rich really such a blessing?

And above all else, the true success of any people is the degree to which they believe the Gospel and follow Jesus Christ. And there is no J or C in Weird.

In spite of these faults, one can discern a few interesting gems...

#1  Modern Psychology is hopelessly non-representative

Many of us were already highly sceptical of psychobabble, now we know why. It's 'sure' findings are based not only on the strange behaviour of purely western subjects (who are unrepresentative of the peoples of the world) but even more narrowly, on the world views of graduate students in western universities! If ever there was a more unrepresentative group of people in the world...

So, putting it bluntly, we should place very little trust in the discipline of psychology: for sure it can offer no global analysis - or solutions.

#2  The Scriptural View of sex and the Family has very wide Impacts and multiple Benefits

Whenever sex is allowed to flow outside of the God-designed boundaries of one man one woman for life, it devastates not only the people involved but whole societies are impacted negatively. Tangled webs of relationships are formed which severely curtail the prospects of their members and people groups.

This should not surprise us since sexual immorality is regarded in Romans chapter 1 as the greatest indication of a society that has turned its back on God. 

Reversing that sinful trend, says Henrich in effect, makes a culture more prosperous in every way.

We can now see why Ephesians chapters 5 and 6 focus on relationships between husband and wife, between parents and children, and why they fail to mention obligations to wider kinship relationships created by webs of sexual infidelity outside of marriage.

If Henrich is right then if the church wants to see global reform its only route is to preach the Gospel. The Gospel will then reform sexual behaviour and family life, transforming both the individual and the surrounding society.

There is no way to transform a corrupt society directly, the only way is to preach the Gospel.

#3 The Influence of the Reformation

It is an intriguing notion that the Reformation both fed off the changes already seeded in European society through a Biblical view of marriage and turbocharged those changes. 

Some of the many historical facts, charts, tables and maps in this book are intriguing. In one chart (page 8) Henrich shows that literacy rates took off after around 1550. The only explanation for this is the Reformation, where an understanding of the Bible was regarded as vital. Interestingly, in Catholic regions literacy rates were much lower (page 10). 

This concern to read the Scriptures had knock on effects, including analytical thinking. Also, the reformation spurred the Industrial Revolutions; by the time of the Industrial Revolutions there was a pool of literate and educated people ready to understand and serve in the new industries. 

Notably, for those who falsely think Christianity is sexist, the Reformation "specifically drove the spread of female literacy." (page 14). 

Driving up literacy then drives up analytical thinking. 

#4  Cancelling the so-called Enlightenment

Secular boffin-types tend to give all the credit for democracy and science and innovation to the so-called Enlightenment.  These clever chappies influenced the plebs; it was all top-down, or so the arrogant theory goes. 

Not one bit of it, argues Henrich. The influence came from the Church, subversively, if you like, bottoms up. As a Biblical view of sex and marriage spread throughout Europe, and then as the Reformers insisted on the necessity of reading the Bible, so were the seeds of science, democracy and the industrial revolution sown. 

No help from the clever chappies.

We shlould have known the place of the so-called 'learned' from this one fact: it was unlearned disciples of Jesus that turned the world upside down.

"The bottom line is that the Enlightenment thinkers didn't suddenly crack the combination on Pandora's box and take out the snuff box of reason and the rum bottle of rationality from which the modern world was then conceived. Instead, they  were part of a long cumulative cultural evolutionary process that had been shaping how European populations perceived, thought, reasoned and related to each other stretching back into late Antiquity (300-600). They were just the intellectuals and writers on the scene when WEIRDer ways of thinking finally trickled up to some of the last holdouts in Europe, the nobility." (427-8)

These are a few of the many fascinating insights in this book. 

The real problem with books like these is that they are not written for the man in the street. The author is wanting to convince his peers, fellow boffin-types, making the book almost impossible to read for the rest of us.

What these authors need to do is to ditch their pride and write a book 40 pages long in simple English, for the ordinary reader. Who cares if the intellectual world moans and groans, the rest of us will be delighted.