Most see sacred quests as optional, to be considered only after one has sufficient security and comfort. But in fact, our civilization will plausibly fall, to be replaced by other quite different ones, if we cannot manage to sufficiently organize around a shared civ-level sacred goal. Making that quest pretty essential. Let me explain.
Cultural drift threatens to topple our civilization, to be replaced by others with quite different values. I’ve talked often of three main solutions. But actually there’s a fourth similar option, namely fragmentation: break the world into far more insular cultures who have deep, not just shallow, differences in norms and values. E.g., values re war, democracy, gender equality, or beating kids. Like the other threes solutions, this one has a decent chance of working given a particular assumption about value change, in this case that there come to exist many places where most folks have and reliably pass on to descendants a strong value for (1) insularity plus deep value differences.
The other three solutions instead require many places where most people have and reliably pass on strong values for (2) not blocking capitalism from running all areas of life, (3) group adaptive success, or (4) a sacred civ trajectory goal in conflict with civ collapse, e.g., date when 1M live in space, or lifespans reach 1Kyrs.
#1 has the problem that it could cause overly slow cultural evolution, while #3,4 have the problem of requiring unusually competent governance, to allow ordinary people to induce leaders to actually achieve those values. That is, it seems easier to check that your places/groups are different and insular, or not blocking capitalism, than to check if they are being adaptive, or on track to achieve grand civ goals. I do think see more competent governance as possible, though alas the world hasn’t been moving that way very fast.
However, it seems to me that the most important consideration here, even more than how much governance competence is required, is: how plausible it is that large numbers of people will actually change to adopt these new values. Here #4 seems to me the clear winner. Yes, even the #4 value change seems a big ask, but the other options seem far bigger. It seems easier to get people to join sacred quests for goals like those that have long inspired great devotion, than to change values in historically strange ways. So let’s think about how to make #4 work.
Another problem with #4 is that, compared to #3, it seems to require a bigger group in order to enable competent governance. That is, it seems harder to reward leaders of small groups for contributions to civ scale goals, as their actions can’t much effect such big goals. I’ve favored number-go-up governance for #3,4, wherein leaders are rewarded for increasing price estimates of future success.
That could be done via either firing leaders when numbers go down, and keeping them when they go up, or by paying them more as the number increases. However, I’ve most favored using futarchy (a.k.a. decision markets), in part because that would let most people participate more in governance, which could help them feel more attached to their sacred goal and its process of achievement. And fortunately, I’ve just realized how a variation on futarchy could address this problem.
In simple futarchy, there’s a key success parameter S, and we approve a proposal when prices say E[S|Yes] > E[S|No] by a big/clear enough margin, rejecting otherwise. Now let me introduce lexicographic futarchy, wherein we have a priority list of success parameters S1, S2, S3, etc. We approve if E[S1|Yes] > E[S1|No], as in simple futarchy. But now if E[S1|Yes] ~ E[S1|No], so that neither the Yes or No value is big/clear enough above the other, we also approve if E[S2|Yes] > E[S2|No]. Furthermore, if E[S1|Yes] ~ E[S1|No] and also E[S2|Yes] ~ E[S2|No], then we approve if E[S3|Yes] > E[S3|No], and so on. If none of these forms can approve, then we reject.
I propose to govern small groups using #4, using a sacred civ goal, via lexicographic futarchy. The top parameter could be an estimate re achieving a civ level goal, but the next parameter might be a measure of the capacity of that group to contribute toward that civ level goal. That capacity parameter is one which group leaders could more substantially influence. So small groups would first try to increase their group’s influence capacity, and then switch to trying to more directly achieve the civ goal when their efforts there could be sufficiently measured by the governance system.
As many such small groups grew, each oriented around its own civ goal, groups might choose to merge together and adopt compromise goals. Lexicographical futarchy might approve such mergers, or they might happen via some other process.
I'm curious what you think of historical attempts at a sacred goal. Do you view it as something that was common in past societies or something that is basically unprecedented?
Although cultures can vary quite a bit my guess is there are some cultural changes that are much more difficult to achieve than others and sacred goal seems to me a) quite hard to achieve and b) certain flavors are much harder than others.
When I think of historical precedents, I think of things like the Carolingian courts interest in "correctio" (reforming society along the lines of the Kingdom of God), the Iranian revolutionaries, or Marxism-Leninism. The immediate things that come to mind are a) these were the focus of a small set of elites rather than broad based although the elites did a lot of compulsory "education" and b) they were generally more about establishing an ideology that would determine how the state should be governed more than a clear measurable objective.
When I think of clear measurable objectives these are rarer but you get things like the United States manifest destiny, the Crusades, or Nazi "lebensraum", which are basically expansion oriented. There was also the Kingdom of Babel which I think is included in the bible as a way of making the point that society _can't_ be structured that way because people just basically don't cooperate long enough to see it through.
I'm super curious to hear how you would see this idea stacked against historical examples.
The sacred goal is the same now as it has always been. The sacred goal is that we take care of each other.
What did change was the definition of “we” at the origin of our species. For our pre-origin ancestors, “we” were the members of the single-family (genetically homogeneous) social system. For our post-origin ancestors, “we” were the members of the multi-family (genetically heterogeneous and culturally homogeneous) band-sized (no bigger than Dunbar’s number of 150 individuals) social system.
The definition of “we” changed again when system size increased at the dawn of the Neolithic Period (because human population density exceeded the hunter-gatherer carrying capacity of roughly 2 square miles per mouth).
Today, we are all members of one global social system numbering more than eight billion individuals. Whether we have accepted that reality is readily apparent in our behavior.
Adam Smith expressed his acceptance of that reality in the name of his book, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759). Real capitalism thrives while it rests on that solid moral foundation. Phony capitalism exists because people (Milton Friedman and others) promote the idea that capitalism without morality is so much easier (and it is, but only for the powerful and only in the short term).