I hear that obesity is an epidemic in this country and worldwide, and that even those whose innate nature tends towards the sin of gluttony must overcome their unhealthy tendencies before they collectively undermine our wonderful commons, by not only consuming all our resources directly, but also when they inevitably sicken and drain our hard-earned healthcare system’s resources. Fast food, a sedentary lifestyle, a computer, a sofa, a TV, a car… these are the symptoms of a dangerous world, a modern disaster poised to bring down this house of cards we call a culture.
Those fat people are gonna mess it up for us. We need to, in essence, evangelize among them, to get them healthy and better.
Sitting in cars listening to NPR and zapping the TV in hotels a lot lately, I also hear that many other sorts and groups of people are at least as bad as us, the fat-assed: somebody, somewhere is immoderate, unthinking, uncaring, antagonistic, illogical, unpatriotic, intrusive, totalitarian, freedom-hating, uncooperative, self-endangering, or some other Bad Bad Thing. These variously include terrorists, fundamentalists, bigots, atheists, zealots, scientists, socialists, Republicans and a number of others.
[chorus]: It was ever thus.
Ah, but this is new: It has produced in me a new hypothesis.
Changing gears before we come the the New Hypothesis: Let’s talk a bit about sociobiological just-so stories. Having to do with religion.
We have heard just-so stories about how our brains used to talk to themselves, and by this mechanism we naturally heard voices in our heads as the Left spoke to the Right (or vice versa), and that those voices were gods, and so (even though the voices went away) there is a physiological basis of some memory of supernatural experience.
We’ve heard stories about the amazingly intense personal experience of the numinous, the supernatural, the divine, the visionary — whether through temporal lobe epilepsy or a funny mushroom or two — and how that gives rise to shamanism and flying dreams and suchlike. Even though not everybody takes an Amanita tisane of a wintry afternoon, there is somehow a reason for stained glass and altarboys in the fruiting bodies of certain botanicals, or perhaps in some individuals’ tendency to see lights around people’s heads when they have a headache.
We’ve heard stories about how religion arose for social gain; that long ago in the land between the rivers, agriculture drove people to live sedentary lives, and there arose an opportunity for a hierarchical controlling classes… blah blah blah. Or maybe patriarchy over the Goddess-worshippers. Cf. “blah”.
A story or two about how people’s brains are different. Amusing, but unconvincing. Sorry. Mainly because people’s heads are tied together now, so no matter what the bicameral mind was once, we got but one camera runnin’ now.
Bunch of stories about the personal experience of the numinous. Never had one. Most people never do. Most people who belong to religions never do. And yet they belong.
Bunch of stories about how a select few dominate whole cultures by being proxy enforcers of supposed divine will. Why then do so many belong to the religion? They get a piece of the action? As believers, they get a lion’s share of grain? Shyeah, right, as the kids say these days.
Humbugs all.
So, on to my New Unfounded Hypothesis, based on my recent inundation with prescriptivist pontificatory heavy-handed advice about food, drink, religiosity, scientificism, puritan work ethic, &c &c &c.
It is this: Religion arose and flourished because it justifies and enhances an innate and universal human need to boss other people around.
I’m not talking about priests telling believers what to do. I’m talking about everybody telling everybody else what to do. Evangelism is the innate trait of humanity, not experience of the numinous. We all want to tell people how to be better. We all want to pontificate.
What any religion does is provide a coherent cultural framework for all participants, upon which they can express disapproval of somebody, or reach out and improve some poor soul’s wayward lot in life.
And better yet, I expect you can make a strong sociobiological argument for East African plains apes’ need to boss one another around. Once language entered the game, it inevitably undermined the old alpha males’ physical dynamic with a social one.
But you can’t justify split brains, mushroom visions, or even agricultural power-grabbing as a selectable behavior.
Nope. People want to tell other people what to do. That’s the universal.
Look around you. There’s no need to be religious to preach among the tubbies.
[and no, this is not what I've been working on. Back to that....]
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