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For starters, culture is more malleable than biology. This means, on one hand, that present-day culturists might be more tolerant than traditional racists—if only the “others” adopt our culture, we will accept them as our equals. On the other hand, that could result in far stronger pressures on the “others” to assimilate, and in far harsher criticism of their failure to do so.
On one hand, it all sounds dangerously close to racism. On the other hand, culturism has a much firmer scientific basis than racism, and particularly scholars in the humanities and social sciences cannot deny the existence and importance of cultural differences.
Those who favor immigration are wrong to depict all their rivals as immoral racists, while those who oppose immigration are wrong to portray all their opponents as irrational traitors. The immigration debate is a debate between two legitimate views, which can and should be decided through the normal democratic procedure. That’s what democracy is for.
Terrorists are masters of mind control. They kill very few people but nevertheless manage to terrify billions and rattle huge political structures such as the European Union or the United States. Since September 11, 2001, each year terrorists have killed about 50 people in the European Union, about 10 people in the United States, about 7 people in China, and up to 25,000 people elsewhere in the globe (mostly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria).1 In contrast, each year traffic accidents kill about 80,000 Europeans, 40,000 Americans, 270,000 Chinese,
terrorists resemble a fly that tries to destroy a china shop. The fly is so weak that it cannot move even a single teacup. So how does a fly destroy a china shop? It finds a bull, gets inside its ear, and starts buzzing. The bull goes wild with fear and anger, and destroys the china shop. This is what happened after 9/11, as Islamic fundamentalists incited the American bull to destroy the Middle Eastern china shop. Now they flourish in the wreckage. And there is no shortage of short-tempered bulls in the world.
Provoking the enemy to action without eliminating any of his weapons or options is an act of desperation, taken only when there is no other option. Whenever it is possible to inflict serious material damage, nobody gives that up in favor of mere terrorism.
It is because the Pentagon is a relatively flat and unassuming building, whereas the World Trade Center was a tall phallic totem whose collapse created an immense audiovisual effect. Nobody who saw the images of its collapse could ever forget them. Because we intuitively understand that terrorism is theater, we judge it by its emotional rather than material impact.
Terrorists undertake an impossible mission: to change the political balance of power through violence, despite having no army. To achieve their aim, they present the state with an impossible challenge of its own: to prove that it can protect all of its citizens from political violence, anywhere, anytime.
During the modern era, centralized states gradually reduced the level of political violence within their territories, and in the last few decades Western countries have managed to eradicate it almost entirely. The citizens of France, Britain, or the United States can struggle for control of towns, corporations, organizations, and even the government itself without any need of an armed force. Command of trillions of dollars, millions of soldiers, and thousands of ships, airplanes, and nuclear missiles passes from one group of politicians to another without a single shot being fired. People
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In the last two decades the United States wasted trillions of dollars and much political capital on its War on Terror. George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, and their administrations can argue with some justification that by hounding terrorists they forced them to think more about survival than about acquiring nuclear bombs. They might thereby have saved the world from a nuclear 9/11. Since this is a counterfactual claim—“if we hadn’t launched the War on Terror, al-Qaeda would have acquired nuclear weapons”—it is difficult to judge whether it is true or not.
It is hard to set priorities in real time, while it is all too easy to second-guess priorities with hindsight. We
Polytheists found it perfectly acceptable that different people worshipped different gods and performed diverse rites and rituals. They rarely if ever fought, persecuted, or killed people just because of their religious beliefs. Monotheists, in contrast, believed that their God was the only god, and that He demanded universal obedience. Consequently, as Christianity and Islam spread around the world, so did the incidence of crusades, jihads, inquisitions, and religious discrimination.11
One obvious answer is that humans are social animals, and therefore their happiness depends to a very large extent on their relations with others.
You would not like to live in a society where strangers are routinely robbed and murdered. Not only would you be in constant danger, but you would lack the benefit of things like commerce, which depends on trust between strangers.
For some people, a strong belief in a compassionate god that commands us to turn the other cheek may help in curbing anger. That’s been an enormous contribution of religious belief to the peace and harmony of the world. Unfortunately, for other people religious belief actually stokes and justifies their anger, especially if someone dares to insult their god or ignores His wishes. So the value of the lawgiver god ultimately depends on the behavior of His devotees. If they act well, they can believe anything they like. Similarly, the value of religious rites and sacred places depends on the type
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“If marriage between two men is okay, why not allow marriage between a man and a goat?” From a secular perspective the answer is obvious. Healthy relationships require emotional, intellectual, and even spiritual depth. A marriage lacking such depth will make you frustrated, lonely, and psychologically stunted. Whereas two men can certainly satisfy the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs of each other, a relationship with a goat cannot.
Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.
“secular people reject all unscientific dogmas and are committed to truth, compassion, and freedom”—then
In the last few centuries, liberal thought developed immense trust in the rational individual. It depicted individual humans as independent rational agents
Democracy is founded on the idea that the voter knows best, free-market capitalism believes that the customer is always right, and liberal education teaches students to think for themselves.
behavioral economists and evolutionary psychologists have demonstrated that most human decisions are based on emotional reactions and heuristic shortcuts rather than on rational analysis, and that while our emotions and heuristics were perhaps suitable for dealing with life in the Stone Age, they are woefully inadequate in the Silicon Age.
When you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail; when you have great power in your hand, everything looks like an invitation to meddle.
Unfortunately, an inherent feature of our modern global world is that its causal relations are highly ramified and complex. I can live at home peacefully, never raising a finger to harm anyone, and yet according to left-wing activists, I am a full partner to the wrongs inflicted by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank. According to the socialists, my comfortable life is based on child labor in dismal Third World sweatshops.
The first is to downsize the issue. To understand the Syrian civil war as though it were occurring between two foragers, for example, one imagines the Assad regime as a lone person and the rebels as another person; one of them is bad and one of them is good. The historical complexity of the conflict is replaced by a simple, clear plot.4
The second method is to focus on a touching human story that ostensibly stands for the whole conflict. When you try to explain to people the true complexity of the conflict by means of statistics and precise data, you lose them, but a personal story about the fate of one child activates the tear ducts, makes the blood boil, and generates false moral certainty.5 This is something that many charities have understood for a long time.
People gave more money to the single child than to the group of eight.
Even if you start with a rejection of all religious dogma and with a firm commitment to scientific truth, sooner or later the complexity of reality becomes so vexing that you might be driven to fashion a doctrine that shouldn’t be questioned. While such doctrines provide people with intellectual comfort and moral certainty, it is debatable whether they provide justice.
In 1931 the Japanese army staged mock attacks on itself to justify its invasion of China, and then created the fake country of Manchukuo to legitimize its conquests. China itself has long denied that Tibet ever existed as an independent country. British settlement in Australia was justified by the legal doctrine of terra nullius (“nobody’s land” in Latin), which effectively erased fifty thousand years of Aboriginal history.
Indeed, Homo sapiens conquered this planet thanks above all to the unique human ability to create and spread fictions. We are the only mammals that can cooperate with numerous strangers because only we can invent fictional stories, spread them around, and convince millions of others to believe in them. As long as everybody believes in the same fictions, we all obey
We have zero scientific evidence that Eve was tempted by the serpent, that the souls of all infidels burn in hell after they die, or that the creator of the universe doesn’t like it when a Brahmin marries a Dalit—yet billions of people have believed in these stories for thousands of years. Some fake news lasts forever.
In fact, false stories have an intrinsic advantage over the truth when it comes to uniting people. If you want to gauge group loyalty, requiring people to believe an absurdity is a far better test than asking them to believe the truth. If a big chief says that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, loyalty to the chief is not required in order to applaud him. But if the chief says the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, only true loyalists will clap their hands. Similarly,
The difference between holy books and money, for example, is far smaller than it might at first seem.
We learn to respect holy books in exactly the same way we learn to respect paper currency.
don’t rely on the adults too much. Most of them mean well, but they just don’t understand the world. In the past, it was a relatively safe bet to follow the adults, because they knew the world quite well, and the world changed slowly. But the twenty-first century is going to be different. Because of the increasing pace of change, you can never be certain whether what the adults are telling you is timeless wisdom or outdated bias.
If I believe in some version of the Circle of Life story, it means that I have a fixed and true identity that determines my duties in life. For many years I may be doubtful or ignorant of this identity, but one day, in some great climactic moment, it will be revealed, and I will understand my role in the cosmic drama. Though I may subsequently encounter many trials and tribulations, I will be free of doubts and despair.
This grand narrative implies that my small but important role in life is to follow Allah’s commands, spread knowledge of His laws, and ensure obedience to His wishes. If I believe the Muslim story, I find meaning in praying five times a day, donating money to build a new mosque, and struggling against apostates and infidels. Even the most mundane activities—washing hands, drinking wine, having sex—are imbued with cosmic meaning.
While a good story must give me a role and must extend beyond my horizons, it need not be true. A story can be pure fiction, yet provide me with an identity and make me feel that my life has meaning.
