Emile Durkheim, the classic forefather of sociology, wrote extensively about “totemism,” the human tendency to form our conception of God in our own image. He said that oftentimes what human beings do, whether aboriginal tribes in the jungle or sophisticated clans (or not-so-sophisticated Klans) in industrial countries, is take the values and traditions that we most admire about ourselves and project them onto a totem. Eventually, we stand in awe of that totem and end up worshiping an incarnation of the things we love about ourselves.
