Who knew that by banning incest we would create our modern Western society?
To clarify, this wasn't about banning brothers from marrying sisters, which is taboo in almost any society. We're talking about cousins... distant cousins. The Catholic Church was so intent on prohibiting familial marriages that, at some points in history, marrying your sixth cousin was forbidden.
The Catholic church took “incest” to a new level, thereby destroying the kin-based societies that existed in Western Europe. As Christianity’s influence grew and spread, European clans were forced to intermingle – to go out to other clans to seek marriage, all because the church decreed it.
Together with an emphasis on monogamous relationships, this had a profound effect on Western society. Author and researcher Joseph Henrich suggests that over time this set Western countries apart from the rest of the world, where many kin-based societies are still thriving.
We’re so different that we’ve been ascribed our own acronym: WEIRD, as in Westernized, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. We have become psychologically distinct in this respect, so much so that we can no longer relate to historical societies. To give some perspective, among 1,200 societies prior to industrialization, only 15% exhibited monogamous marriages and only five percent exhibited traits of the modern nuclear family.
Individualism is a prime example of how different we are. Our children do not necessarily conform to family customs – instead, they are their own unique persons. In fact, we encourage independence. Not so with kin-based societies, where children must conform to community norms through adulthood, lest they be ostracized.
Kin-based societies use shame to control behaviour, whereas Westerners are more prone to feelings of guilt. Individually, we monitor ourselves, at times incessantly. We don’t much care what people do on their own time, so long as they don’t break the law or hurt other people. You might feel guilty about eating high-fat-and-fructose snacks while watching football all day, but no one else cares (other than maybe your spouse).
What we do care about is people being given positions of power without earning them. The gradual removal of nepotism from government and society has been positive for our society, both politically and economically. Merit-based hiring has become so normal that we look down upon other countries where nepotism still exists. Yet for the most part, these societies don’t have a problem with it.
Henrich sites an example from Afghanistan, where a citizen was asked who he would vote for in an upcoming democratic election (a Western idea if ever there was one). The man immediately replied that we would be voting for his relative, of course – why would he vote for anyone else? This is a tribal, kin-based mentality that, historically speaking, is normal.
In Western culture we’ve not only altered society but also our psyche in fundamental ways. Even literacy changes the way we think; a trade-off of being able to read is the diminished ability to recognize faces. I would argue we’ve become so culturally analytical that we’ve lost some of the positive elements associated with community, including story-telling, awe and wonder.
Both good and bad comes with a WEIRD culture. As Westerners, we are less conformist, more trusting of outsiders and more committed to fairness. We are also more isolated, more guilt-ridden and less committed to our families.
Most of us treasure the rights of free speech and equality, not to mention the freedom to pursue happiness, but as is the case with our personal Netflix accounts, we’re more likely to do so alone.
Book Reference: The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich
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