Before I go to bed I will just add that it is Robin Dunbar's view that
nothing binds a community together better than religion, presumably because
we are hardwired for it. Nothing else has the same effect.
Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Clark" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2005 11:22 PM
Subject: Re: poets and shamans
> Now that I have a happy cat I will continue the argument. Last week I read
> Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone which demonstrates the decline in social
> capital in the US. I see much of it as being due to the decline of the
> small
> communities where everybody knew each other (the 200 people that we are
> programmed to cope with and can recognise) as society changes. There is
> also
> a generational effect as the very community minded generation born before
> the Second World War dies off. But much is due to the modern lifestyle.
> This
> doesnt tie in with the supposed American religious fundamentalism which
> must
> have a mythic element. Anyway Putnam's analysis from surveys doesnt
> support
> it.
>
> So if the West as it globalises is finding a significant reduction in
> social
> capital in its communities bringing with it all the relevant problems and
> religion is fast vanishing what is going to bind people together. The only
> answer given tonight was football. The only other thing I can think of is
> dialect..texting for example. Each generation replaces the exiosting
> dialect
> by a fresh argot. But the basic problem is that our mnds are programmed to
> live in communities of less than 200 people and the last 3-4,000 years of
> urbanisation have not been good for us.
>
> And oh there was another point re Theory of Mind. Women are better than
> men
> at it hence their superior verbal skills. Which are hardwired into the
> brain, as we know..left and right hemispheres, as are men's spatial
> skills.
> TOM is too complicated for me to explain in an email. Shakespeare was good
> at it.
>
>
> Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
> http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Douglas Clark" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, February 14, 2005 10:51 PM
> Subject: poets and shamans
>
>
>>I went to a lecture on region tonight by the evolutionary psychologist
>>Robin
>> Dunbar. There wasnt much new in it but it did draw the threads together.
>>
>> Our brains are programmed for us to live in communities of less than 200
>> and
>> it appears that each community has its own shaman. (He exampled army
>> companies being the largest viable military unit) As approximately 1% of
>> the
>> population is psychotic the inference is obvious. My calculations years
>> ago
>> re poets calculated that 1 in 5,000 is a poet so shamans are not shamans
>> because of their linguistic abilities but because in their trance states
>> they can contact other worlds. So that is 25 shamans to a poet, near
>> enough.
>>
>> Robin Dunbar conceded that we were hardwired for religion. (I have spent
>> the
>> day reading Michael Ruse's Darwin and Design which demolishes the
>> Intelligent Design people but he will not commit himself to a Dawkins
>> approach preferring some sort of Gaia approach). What Robin Dunbar was
>> stressing was that in large groups of people the problem was with
>> freeloaders who took all the advantages without giving anything back.
>> These
>> were the people who manipulated such structures as religion for their own
>> ends. One of the reasons we have developed dialect is to minimise their
>> influence. (This was new to me).
>>
>> There are several books which point out that the human brain is
>> fundamentally flawed which is why we have such a thing as religion which
>> Theory of Mind makes us capable of. But the chimps of Gombe demonstrate
>> that
>> we are not alone in being nasty bits of work.
>>
>> Now I must go feed the cat. I thought Liz would appreciate this report.
>>
>>
>> Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
>> http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
>>
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