That irony strikes me as maybe having a slightly optimistic aspect to it. It suggests that political tribalism is actually more fundamental than supposed ethnic/racial social divisions. Addressing and working through political differences might be more straightforward than reducing every social problem to identity based inequity.
Interesting links. The Meaningness discussion of pattern recognition makes an interesting juxtaposition to the Ronfeldt essay on social evolution. From the modern evolutionary perspective we reject the creationist/intelligent design explanation, only to replace it with a teleological view of evolution. As if evolution has humanity on a trajectory of тАЬprogress.тАЭ Pascal Boyer calls this anthropomorphizing the human condition:
тАЬour evolved capacities and dispositions do explain the way we live in societies, and many important differences between times and places. But we cannot, and should not try to, demonstrate that in theoretical terms.тАЭ
тАЬWe should not expect the new scientific convergence I describe here to yield a general theory of human societies. But it can produce something vastly more useful and plausible, a series of clear explanations for the many different properties of human minds involved in building human societies.тАЭ
Boyer, Pascal. Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create
That irony strikes me as maybe having a slightly optimistic aspect to it. It suggests that political tribalism is actually more fundamental than supposed ethnic/racial social divisions. Addressing and working through political differences might be more straightforward than reducing every social problem to identity based inequity.
Interesting links. The Meaningness discussion of pattern recognition makes an interesting juxtaposition to the Ronfeldt essay on social evolution. From the modern evolutionary perspective we reject the creationist/intelligent design explanation, only to replace it with a teleological view of evolution. As if evolution has humanity on a trajectory of тАЬprogress.тАЭ Pascal Boyer calls this anthropomorphizing the human condition:
тАЬour evolved capacities and dispositions do explain the way we live in societies, and many important differences between times and places. But we cannot, and should not try to, demonstrate that in theoretical terms.тАЭ
тАЬWe should not expect the new scientific convergence I describe here to yield a general theory of human societies. But it can produce something vastly more useful and plausible, a series of clear explanations for the many different properties of human minds involved in building human societies.тАЭ
Boyer, Pascal. Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create