Discover more from Overcoming Bias
Consider:
People often say “It’s not personal, it’s just business”, or “This is personal.”
We have laws to discourage discrimination based on gender, race, age, religion, etc., but they only apply at work, school, clubs, etc. and not to “personal” relations such as friends or lovers.
Law let’s us sue firms or schools that lie to us, to discourage such lies, but not only can’t we sue our friends or lovers for their lies, law prohibits blackmail, which would otherwise discourage such lies.
What are other key differences in how we treat “impersonal” from “personal” arenas? What is the essential difference that explains these differing treatments?
My tentative theory: our ancestors had different social norms for “personal” within-tribe versus “impersonal” between-tribe behavior. When you interacted with someone from another tribe, you had to be more careful to be neutral and inoffensive, since your whole tribe might suffer if you offended someone.
What Is “Personal”?
Marriage isn't just a financial arrangement- it's also an agreement to have and raise children.
"If we were to apply the unmodified, uncurbed, rules of the micro-cosmos (i.e., of the small band or troop, or of, say, our families) to the macro-cosmos (our wider civilization), as our instincts and sentimental yearnings often make us wish to do, we would destroy it. Yet if we were always to apply the rules of the extended order to our more intimate groupings, we would crush them. So we must learn to live in two sorts of worlds at once."
~F.A. Hayek
The Fatal Conceit