RE: Does the positive side of tribalism/racism outshine the negative side?
August 12, 2020 at 10:37 am
So, here's another good one. We note that the abrahamic religions all endorse and legitimize slavery - and we see that as a failure from great authority. Consider that every abrahamic religion was born into a society of slavery, and none of them were the dominant cultural power from the moment of their birth.
Railing against slavery, then, may have very likely consigned their new faiths to obscurity. The instrumental good, here, was to endorse slavery - to go along to get along...but we can see by the mere existence of provisions against slavery in those same ideologies (often contained to benefiting the in-group exclusively) that they thought there was some moral problem with slavery.
As far as my own universe, no? This isn't an endorsement of the process, it's the observation that we engage in it. We like stories more than we like lectures...so if you want alot of people to learn something (true or false), and you can put it in a story, you do that. This is what makes fantasy an instrumental good. It's good-for smuggling boring truths into packets of exciting and engaging lies.
Railing against slavery, then, may have very likely consigned their new faiths to obscurity. The instrumental good, here, was to endorse slavery - to go along to get along...but we can see by the mere existence of provisions against slavery in those same ideologies (often contained to benefiting the in-group exclusively) that they thought there was some moral problem with slavery.
As far as my own universe, no? This isn't an endorsement of the process, it's the observation that we engage in it. We like stories more than we like lectures...so if you want alot of people to learn something (true or false), and you can put it in a story, you do that. This is what makes fantasy an instrumental good. It's good-for smuggling boring truths into packets of exciting and engaging lies.
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