Humanity's Search for Meaning as Adaptation

• Welcome to the BOL Forum on Evolutionary Psychology by John Grohol, 3/19/97
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    • Cerebral Cortex and the need for Meaning by Dr Anjum Madani, 1/2/98
      
      

Thank you for raising a thought-provoking question. I have also puzzled over the nature of humanity's quest for meaning in the context of evolutionary adaptation.

The search for meaning has certainly played a crucial role in the course of human prehistory and history in terms of its use in the form of organized religion and ritual myth-making to reinforce the current cultural "order." For example, Christianity's metamorphosis in the second throught the fifth centuries C.E. from a straggling bad of "Jesus Followers" to a state-sponsored religion (which largely jettisoned many of the original beliefs of the Jesus followers) provided those in power with a mechanism by which they could maintain their power - through oppression via organized religion. In the case of Christianity, its history consists primarily of those in power concentrating their power in the name of God, and separating themselves as much as possible economically from those who serve them, because God ordained that those in power have the right to divide and conquer, thus creating the feudal society of medieval Europe.

So if one takes a step back to look at this from the perspective of selective adaptation, one could argue that of the various strategies humans may draw upon to improve the appearance of fitness to potential mates, one can see that what has been occurring in a concentrated manner in the last two millenia in Europe is a strategy that has been employed heavily by pockets of humanity for probably about 6,000 years. It is a form of enforced polygyny, and organized religion is used as one of the rationalizations or tools for its enforcement. For example, Western religions at their "inception" are believed to have co-opted earlier Mediterranean/Fertile Crescent god/dess figures (e.g. Tiamat, Isis) in order to replace the god/dess, or Earth Mother figure, with a warrior male god who overcomes all previous god/desses through force (e.g., Marduk, Osiris). This in turn promotes subjegation of the believers of the god/dess to a new order.

This new order is likely actually being imposed by peoples who are experiencing resource constraints (through advanced glaciation)in their home range (1), forcing them to use warlike behavior to move into areas occupied by less warlike cultures. In all likelihood, the constrained resources include female reproductive resources, and, therefore, males of the invading cultures use this strategy to rationalize and enforce rape and slavery as part of their invasion - Our God is more powerful than your God, and our God says it's okay for us to do this to you. One need only refer to the scripture of Genesis to see this theme played out explicitly, from the co-option of the tree and serpent symbology (symbols of wisdom and healing) in Adam and Eve's explusion from the Garden of Eden to the gang rape of Lot's daughters. Most of the symbology of the Torah is a reworking of Assyrian and Babylonian myth, and where the myth of the male warrior god(s) is not already in place, the myths have been adjusted to accomodate him/them. And the theme has been played out repeatedly throughout Western history, right through the present day. We are only just now coming to terms with the Holocaust, let alone our history in the Americas of slavery, and the traditon of Caucasians/Europeans usurping indigenous cultures in the Americans in the name of God, Europeans believing themselves to be God's "chosen people" who are carrying out their "manifest destiny."

I will openly admit a feminist and anthropological bias here; however, this has only served to make me more familiar with Western history from a feminist perspective. It does not negate what I believe is a distinct possibility that the human search for meaning is primarily a mechanism to reinforce the cultural order - whatever that order might be, whether it is based on polygynous, polyandrous, polygamist, or monogamist strategies of sexual selection. If the cultural order is adaptive, conferring appropriate sexual advantages based on the resources available, then I believe humans will likely find ways to reinforce that order through rational mechanisms.

Elizabeth Rose

(1) James DeMeo, “The Origins and Diffusion of Patrism in Saharasia, c. 4000 BCE," World Futures 30 (March-May 1991), 247-271.

• Can you supply reference material? by Tom Jurcak, 3/9/99