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What binds people together (?)


Rippounet

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I'd like to do some reading on what binds people together over the summer. Specifically how values come to be shared at various levels of human society, starting with the family and moving up to friends, colleagues, communities, cities, nations, or more. And since this is obviously a huge field I'm unsure where to start, so I thought I'd turn to the board to see what books you'd recommend.

I'm looking for works on various aspects of what is shared by people: culture, religion, ethnicity, political ideas and ideologies... Pretty much anything goes. I'm interested in how people come to view themselves as part of various "groups" and how that defines their identity in a multi-faceted way. I'm hoping that there are works that have tried to establish links between the different levels of social groups (sizewise). Also, how shared values eventually come to be represented in popular culture (i.e. movies, novels, comic books... etc).

Now, again this is a huge field, so assume I don't know jack about sociology or anthropology to begin with. Classics are good, but recent books on the topic would be nice as well, to have an idea of where the research is at today. Needless to say I'm more interested in serious stuff (i.e. written by scholars) but that still qualifies as light-ish reading on a beach.

The premise I'm starting with is that since humans are social animals they need a kind of "group spirit" to function and build societies (/civilizations). I'm basing this on Freud who theorized that civilization requires individuals to abide by social norms and thus repress some of their more individualistic/selfish tendencies. I've noticed that such social norms are widely different from civilization to civilization. For instance, the hero in Japanese culture tends to be one who can set aside their individuality for the common good, while American culture and heroes tend on the contrary to see the individual as paramount (with European culture being something in between). So obviously the "group spirit" is different from one place to another. I'm looking for studies that have analysed and compared such differences and -perhaps- drawn overarching conclusions about the nature of the human bond and its importance for all human societies. Such studies would likely be able to use a wide variety of works from psychology, history, sociology, anthropology, theology, politics... etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. And of course, any idea on the subject as well. ;)
 

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I haven’t read books spesifically about what you’re asking, but back when I was studying I was interested in questions about nationality. 

If that’s somewhat interesting to you, books like these are worth reading. 

Looking those books up, I really wanted to buy this one, if I can find the time to read it..

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2 hours ago, Rorshach said:

I haven’t read books spesifically about what you’re asking, but back when I was studying I was interested in questions about nationality. 

If that’s somewhat interesting to you, books like these are worth reading. 

Looking those books up, I really wanted to buy this one, if I can find the time to read it..

Thanks, these look amazing. I'm especially excited about Imagined Communities.

1 hour ago, Feologild said:

Hate binds us

It's certainly one of the many things that do, but certainly not the only one.

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I have been following this thread, curious about what people will say. I've a few theories, mostly based on work I did surrounding migrations in response to natural disasters in late antiquity. It's always interesting because not all people respond in the same way.

As a brief overview: the same pressures that wrought division in some communities made others become strengthened. The Arab communities unified in response to smallpox outbreaks, especially around Islam, eventually leading to the disparate Arabian communities in the eastern Mediterranean leading a series of conquests that wiped out the Persian empire and took two thirds of Rome's holdings in a few centuries.

Rome was seemingly unified as a Christian nation, but the different factions kept chipping away at each other's power bases, and this led to the rise of ethnic prejudices that didn't used to exist within their borders. In particular, the ethnic goths and other Germanians who followed Arianism were treated as inferior to those who were Nicene Christians. But within each of those communities, there were clear efforts to bind together and stick together.

The migrations that happened were often enormous - literally tens of thousands of people all moving together at more or less the same time. That takes incredible bonding between people.

There's much more to it, but I don't have the time right now to write all that I want to, and I can't think of how to word it all right now.

ETA: I might actually leave it like that. I have a habit of making everything about Rome and Persia. :P It's what I've researched, so it's always what comes to mind, sorry! :P

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1 hour ago, polishgenius said:


Via the medium of midi-chlorians.

 

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Actually according to recent retcons, midi-clorians are a by product of force use. :P

Pity. While it wasn't a necessary plot point, their presence explained how someone like Han Solo would be skeptical of the Force's existence. If it's all because of tiny germs living in you, that's a scientific explanation and "The Force" seems to be just a religious overlay that is subjective.

Which, to relate to the current thread, is a common source of bonding between people, one way or another.

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18 hours ago, Yukle said:

Pity. While it wasn't a necessary plot point, their presence explained how someone like Han Solo would be skeptical of the Force's existence. If it's all because of tiny germs living in you, that's a scientific explanation and "The Force" seems to be just a religious overlay that is subjective.

Which, to relate to the current thread, is a common source of bonding between people, one way or another.

I've been thinking for a while now that religion could be described as a kind of formulization of the social rules and bonds that humans require as social animals. For instance the first commandment of judeo-christianism "thou shalt not kill" could be seen as the primary requirement for a given group or tribe to function ; of course, this assumes that the commandment only applies to members of the same "in-group" but IIRC such a reading seems pretty consistent with the Books. Other rules could be described as actually logistical in nature, for instance pork being forbidden for "ecological-economical reasons" (Harris).
I'm 100% certain this has been theorized before, in actuality I'm just looking for the references. A quick google search gives me cognitive anthropologist Pascal Boyer for instance. Freud, Bergson, and Durkheim wrote some interesting things on the subject, though I think my musings would be closer to Alain's writings.

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1 minute ago, Rippounet said:

I've been thinking for a while now that religion could be described as a kind of formulization of the social rules and bonds that humans require as social animals. For instance the first commandment of judeo-christianism "thou shalt not kill" could be seen as the primary requirement for a given group or tribe to function ; of course, this assumes that the commandment only applies to members of the same "in-group" but IIRC such a reading seems pretty consistent with the Books.

The idea of a religion requiring an "in-group" is fascinating if you follow Judeo-Christian teachings over its first 700 years or so. The various factions began to splinter and consolidate around particular fundamental cultural traditions more than they did any religious differences. For instance, the formalised hierarchies that the Roman Empire mandated created a system of dioceses that the Catholic Church still uses today, even though they began as administrative, rather than religious, boundaries.

It's interesting how you point out the original logical reasoning behind certain religious taboos, which were once grounded in practices that ensured clean food and water supplies. Even the principle of sharing bread and wine at Church began as a normal, commonplace celebration of having guests. Bread was the only cheap and readily available food and wine was mixed with water to make it potable. The bonding ritual of Eucharist to celebrate Jesus stemmed from an entirely practical way of having meals with your family.

It's also interesting to note how other religions responded to each other over such time periods. Islam treats Jesus as a holy prophet and he is considered a Muslim to them.

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43 minutes ago, Yukle said:

The idea of a religion requiring an "in-group" is fascinating if you follow Judeo-Christian teachings over its first 700 years or so. The various factions began to splinter and consolidate around particular fundamental cultural traditions more than they did any religious differences. For instance, the formalised hierarchies that the Roman Empire mandated created a system of dioceses that the Catholic Church still uses today, even though they began as administrative, rather than religious, boundaries.

It's fascinating to me that religious splits could originate from administrative boundaries in Christianity, thanks for this nugget. I think there's also a twisted psychological phenomenon at play here: basically that it's not easy for humans to develop an identity/bond vis-à-vis groups beyond a certain size. If self-consciousness/identity requires otherness (Hegel) then the natural tendency to "look for" otherness would mechanically amplify differences that were originally minor, thus explaining why administrative entities could eventually develop their own variation of the same religion.
Which is precisely why I'm so interested in the mechanisms that allow for the construction of larger "in-groups" such as modern nations, cultures or civilizations. Obviously there are mechanisms that allow humans to bond within a group that far exceeds the size of an ancestral tribe. Though I'm starting to wonder if the answer isn't purely mechanical in nature. By that I mean geographical or historical determinism linked with administrative/logistical efficiency. In the article that Triskele posted earlier, Andreas Wimmer writes that one crucial factor in the successful creation of a nation is that it can start providing benefits for the citizens (public goods, infrastructure, rule of law... ). He also talks of the way voluntary organizations can create networks that build ties on an increasingly larger level, thus laying the grounds for a national identity. It might thus be possible to see the appearance of large in-groups as a mutually beneficial aggregation of smaller groups ; tradition would do the rest. And nations would mechanically fail when they are no longer seen as beneficial by the various sub-groups (cultural, religious, ethnic... ) that constitute them.

 

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Jared Diamond deals with stuff you might be interested in, with books like How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed or Guns, germs and steel (the latter considered his magnum opus). I haven't read them personally (though I'll change that quickly), so I can't personally recommend or disqualify them, however some great historical books and authors I've read (Harari included) put them on pedestal, so I'll assume there's something in them.

Here's the brief TED talk from the same man: https://www.ted.com/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse

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2 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Jared Diamond deals with stuff you might be interested in, with books like How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed or Guns, germs and steel (the latter considered his magnum opus). I haven't read them personally (though I'll change that quickly), so I can't personally recommend or disqualify them, however some great historical books and authors I've read (Harari included) put them on pedestal, so I'll assume there's something in them.
Here's the brief TED talk from the same man: https://www.ted.com/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse

Thanks. Found Guns, germs and steel easily. Not sure about the other one though ; after watching the TED talk it seemed to be slightly off my topic, despite it being very broad. ^^

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12 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

... then duck tape...

Bonus marks to Which Tyler, for correctly naming the all-purpose silver tape! Some erroneously believe it is called "duct" tape. But it's not; the "duck" refers to the way water is meant to slide off it, like a duck's back.

Like many things, it was invented for military purposes and found its way into the civilian world.

Details below.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/52151/it-duck-tape-or-duct-tape

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