Two books I read in recent years stay with me and keep bouncing off each other:
One is called “The Invention of Good and Evil”, and one of its core themes is that human society is the product of evolution just as much as any species. That what that society considers important and moral and ethical is shaped by its response to the pressures on it and the solutions collectively found that allow it to thrive. And this is why our societies enforce behaviour that even a majority of individuals may not like, because it has a benefit to the group as a whole.
The other is called “The Geography of Thought”, and is about the difference in basic human assumptions between different times and places in the world. It’s particularly aimed at the common Western person who finds it difficult to imagine what other assumptions and philosophies might even be like.
I recommend both of them, incidentally. They have a lot of food for thought, and help to provide new ways of thinking about certain problems, at least for me.
Anyway, as I spend a fair bit of time with East Asian people and ideas, having been as throughly and normally British all my life, I notice in reality some of the ideas from both books playing out.
The central point, for this little essay: Western society is built around the assumption that everything should be universal and generalisable, while Eastern tradition assumes that nothing is ever consistent because everything is made up of its relationships with everything else and will appear different according to particular circumstances.
An example given in one of the books is of our attitude if a close friend or family member has done something against the law. While actual behaviour may not bear it out, most Western people will say that the closeness should make no difference, and it is our duty to see that the law is applied fairly even if we love the person affected by it. By comparison, East Asians consider it completely natural that we might want to vigorously pursue justice against a stranger and resist it for someone close to us, because the relationship is more important than the abstract ideal of equality.
When we look at this in terms of evolution, we can see that both assumptions resulted in successful and long-lasting human societies, within their own spheres of influence.
As the world grew interconnected enough, and societies grew and became denser, the universalism proved a tougher competitor in the fight for survival, though. Having universalism as an ideal proved extremely powerful, because every time it was successfully applied, another idea became easily transferable and could be repeated. Looking for common laws, underlying principles, consistent mechanisms, meant an exponential improvement in the way many things were done. And by happy coincidence, that habit of thought applied to human relations, insisting that the same laws and treatment were due to every person, meant that high-trust societies developed because stable relations with strangers became easier.
Obviously this is slightly simplistic, but I find it compelling as a broad-brush explanation of a lot of Western history over the last thousand years or so.
On the face of it, this attitude has won out across the globe. And “the international community”, as it sees itself, certainly assumes so. The very structure of everything rests on universalism and equality of application.
Meanwhile, though, as the studies in the Geography of Thought book make clear, it has been internalised in Western people to the point that it’s difficult to imagine anyone thinks otherwise … even as a lot of the world actually treats it as no more than window dressing, with their older attitudes remaining firm underneath. They have readily adopted the universalism of science, technology, engineering and so on, the hard mechanisms of the physical world, but it hasn’t affected how they see human relations, except in so far as they see the need to pay lip service for the sake of harmony with those who can’t see things any other way.
And in the evolutionary tussle of systems, we can start to see adaptation as this plays out.
Universalism took over because it had key advantages. Standardisation enables scale, rigorous enforcement of rights and responsibilities brings stability, trust and confidence. Overall, that means growth and expansion, the world we see. And, by definition, anyone can be involved, and the best boosts the whole.
But evolutionary adaptation can overshoot, and universalism isn’t the answer to everything, or always an advantage. When we insist that something must always apply, and can only accept absolutes, those who are willing to be flexible and let circumstances alter cases can exploit that. Which is, I think, what we are now seeing in the world generally.
Eastern cultures don’t even attempt to codify laws that apply the same to all. They’re seen as a means of getting a result, and framed and used accordingly. Western cultures fight amongst themselves over interpretations if they’re even perceived as unfair.
Idealists are still insisting that only things that are always and everywhere true are worthwhile, and striving to bring all human behaviour and interaction within a framework that everybody can abide by. Laws, contracts, agreements, regulations, rights … all increase and lengthen in the attempt to catch every possibility, eliminate any contradiction and unfairness. The vision is of a world where everybody knows where they stand, everything is done the same, and everybody treated equally.
This, though, leaves aside what all that is for, by neglecting to check whether that vision makes humanity flourish and thrive. It’s treated as an end in itself.
What’s more, it actually shuts down the real driver of development and improvement, which is evolution. Because evolution can only work if there are alternatives and variation, jostling and doing their best, with better and more flexible coming out ahead.
And that, I conclude, is already forming the destruction of the universalist outlook. For the most part it’s already collapsed, and it only appears otherwise because of the weight and influence of those whose way of life depend on it.
Harsh as it may appear, it looks as though while Western ideals may have enabled a certain type of civilisation to dominate for a long time, those who can take the advantages and not be dogmatic about them where flexibility is better are starting to win, with the non-aligned taking notice. And a nice life for rich countries who’ve grown comfortable and complacent may be sunk because we let the perfect vision be the enemy of the good.