An exploration of how our evolutionary psychology of reciprocity, status seeking and the desire for adulation, might contribute to the purpose void many of us feel, and contribute to religions and ideological movements.
Many have written about meaning, from the ancient to the religious, it has been a preoccupation of most cultures at one point or another. In a more contemporary setting, we have examples as varied as Viktor Frankl, Joseph Campbell, Jonathan Haidt with his exploration of ancient wisdom in The Happiness Hypothesis, the Dalai Lama’s Art of Happiness and, more recently, Jordan Peterson with his 12 Rules for Life.
First, an apology. When discussing Meaning with a capital ‘M’ it might seem more appropriate to deal with matters spiritual and religious first, and discuss the ways in which ideological causes can become surrogates for spiritual belief systems. It is, after all, the preoccupation of our time- either how to convert more to the cause of wokeness, or how to inoculate others so that they won’t be susceptible to the ideology. But I have reasons for structuring my essay in this particular way, which will become clear as the essay unfolds.
The search for Meaning can best be likened to being in a vast freezing darkened chamber with a number of heat sources within it, with varying degrees of effectiveness in warming us. We can test the edges of the chamber using sound and hearing the echoes come back, like the white noise of various prescriptions which a culture feeds us, as to a happy, fulfilled and meaningful life, But we can only really learn by doing, through the experimentation which comes from trying different solutions and seeing what works for us. Ultimately, we are all seeking the warm comforting embrace of meaning, but it is by experimenting with what works for us, that we can avoid the chill of the purpose void.
We can, however, speculate as to the source of the urge to meaning- and in this vein I would posit that our urge for meaning is deeply rooted in our evolutionary psychology. Simply put, I believe that Meaning is an outgrowth or metastructure which forms from the deeply rooted urge for reciprocity. Some of our earliest experiences as toddlers condition us to seek out the companionship of others and play. We quickly learn that negotiation and reciprocal concessions are a necessary part of deriving the reward we receive from playing with others and being of value to them. We also learn that friendship and companionship is a solace to us, and far more preferable to its alternative, being alone. If we differentiate what gives us metaphysical meaning from the tangible, then this mechanism of reciprocity is what gives ours lives deeply personal and intimate meaning.
We can see this truth in the exceptions. Psychopaths have incredibly cynical views of the world and human nature. If they do have any internal values it is this- they seem to believe they are doing others a favour when they strip away the ‘illusion’ of human warmth and reciprocity- as though they were doing someone a favour when they victimise them, ‘teaching’ them a lesson. We also see it in the angst ridden nihilist who seeks to inflict their own suffering on the world. Once they have completed their horrible task of destruction, they often opt to suicide rather than face their day in court. What a horrible existence it must be for those who are capable of the reciprocal mechanism, but for whatever reason, find themselves ostracised and alienated.
And the school shooter leads us to another deep truth. They are almost always seeking significance in their nihilistic and destructive act. This was the primary reason for the ‘No Notoriety’ campaign being formed. Because in their grieving, and by consulting experts, these parents were able to correctly divine that often infamy or cultural relevance seemed to be the primary motive in these crimes, as the nihilist were rebelling against a world which saw them as an insignificance.
The truth which this exposes is the clear delineation between what might be called the social benign feedback of reciprocity, and the urge for status driven adulation which can tend towards the pathological. And whilst the former covers the domain of what might be construed as deeply personal meaning to the individual, the latter is meaning pursued as our relative status within the society in which we live. It could at best be described as a pursuit which is ultimately a fools errand.
Consider the now widely known story of the Hollywood Agent who admits that his job is preventing his multimillionaire clients from committing suicide. Why? Their jobs are highly valued and financially rewarding. They live in nice houses and their material needs are more than met. They have the adulation of fans, who in many instances imagine them as cherished best friends, or fonts of wisdom. It’s because adulation or the approval of others is a hollow chalice. It is only by providing others with something which is of clear value to them, because this what fills the empty space where the need for the acknowledgement of reciprocity lies.
It might be different if their fans acknowledged their craft. Or if someone just occasionally complimented James McAvoy for his incredible range in *Split* or *Glass*. But more often they tell the actor or actress that *they* are amazing, or quote the lines from their favourite movie, which would more properly be acknowledge as a compliment to the writer. And this in turn shows that adulation is ultimately an empty pursuit.
Oh sure, it’s nice to be King of the Hill, or of high status within your group. To watch your social capital accrue like money in the bank. But it is in the act of providing something which of clear benefit to others that we derive personal value from our efforts. This shows in the way in which men place high value on work. And it’s not just remuneration, although money helps. Men’s grooming company Harry’s partnered with psychologist John Barry in 2018 to research what made men happy (or fulfilled).
From the article: "The strongest predictor of men’s happiness and well-being is their job satisfaction, by a large margin—and the strongest predictor of job satisfaction is whether men feel they are making an impact on their companies’ success.”
“This measure, the study finds, is influenced by whether men feel they are using their own unique talents at work, whether they are surrounded by a diverse set of perspectives, how easily and often they can chat with co-workers, whether they feel their opinions are valued, and whether they’re inspired by the people they work with."
And, of course, value through vocation also brings value in the form of worth to your family, and to your community. In this sense the reciprocal value of being prized for the value you bring to your employer has a definable multiplier effect, as it provides for the needs and comforts of those you love, as well as the indulgences which can be shared and valued together. Generally, we can see personal meaning in life can be principally derived from providing value to others and recognising this value we bring to others adds to our own sense of purpose and meaning.
It’s also worth noting that a longitudinal Harvard study shows that both our marriages and our sense of community bring all sorts of health benefits, which can surely be added to the column of vital things which give our life meaning.
Employment and the market might appear mercenary at a superficial level, this probably has its roots in the behaviour of our primitive ancestors. Individuals who brought value to the group were likely prized and given a better share of resources as recompense for their labours, and it highly likely that this behaviour found its way into our cognitive prewiring through our genetics, with those whose brains received the greatest hormonal rewards for reciprocity more likely to survive, mate and pass on their genes to descendants.
At this point I am tempted to digress into the observation that contrary to expectations, it appears that rather than our evolution halting or slowing as a byproduct of our intelligence, we are evolving more quickly, and that primary trait of this speeding of evolution is towards more prosocial behaviour, or greater cooperation. It is also worth noting that competition also plays into this dynamic- with the ability to protect or nurture one’s loved ones seen as a highly desirable trait in prospective mates, which persists to this day. I could even make mention that each of us possesses twice the number of female ancestors as males ones, with the likely conclusion that males who didn’t possess these tendencies towards both cooperation and competition fell by the wayside, their genetic lines becoming extinct. But here I feel I am straying somewhat from the subject of Meaning, so I will only mention these ideas as an aside.
So what does the distinction between personally recognisable reciprocity (where we can see the positive effects of our actions on others), as opposed to the craving for reciprocity as a form of adulation, bring to our understanding of the roles of religion and ideology. Well, first we should observe that they are both memetic in nature, ideas which spread, almost like a form of contagion. Second, that although the distinction is by no means clear, religion generally tends to tilt more towards socially benign feedback, especially when it is healthy, while ideology tends to tilt towards the desire for adulation.
Both can be performative. The Salem Witch trials proved it, if we imagine that the primary motive for the event might have possessed a spark of suspicion and superstition, which ultimately lead to the desire for status and the attention of others. In this light it is easy to see how teenage narcissism and attention-seeking can be very harmful. But the more normal experience of religion is more mundane on a social level. Yes, it is communal and yes, as Jonathan Haidt has pointed out in one of his books (possibly The Righteous Mind), faith communities are more likely to give their time and money to worthy causes, with average donations of the latter 7% of income as an average, as opposed to 1.5% for the broader population. And he rightly states that the reciprocal urge is part of this greater predisposition towards charitable behaviour, because most of us possess the desire to be seen as moral and compassionate individuals by others. But it’s soft sort of adulation sought, when the end result involves us providing help to those less fortunate to ourselves, and the greater reward must surely reside in the giving, itself.
In order for a memetic virus to multiply, continue to exist over time, outcompeting other memetic viruses for the limited resource of hosts to inhabit, it must first make sure it doesn’t kill its host, second aid its transmission by making itself appealing to other hosts and optimally find a way to actually enhance the prospects and health of its host population. And believe it or not, a recent study from the UK demonstrates just that- parents who are part of religious communities seem to be somewhat immune to the rule that less attention given to each child, through having multiple kids, leads to lowered academic performance for each subsequent children. The study used standardised tests to find this out.
So not only do people in religious communities have more kids, but kids in larger religious families seem to suffer less from having less parental time invested in them. Ironic then, that if we examine the tetragrammaton found in the name Yahweh (one of the first names of God in the Abrahamic religions), some have claimed that the text YHWH is representative of Father, Mother, Son and Daughter. Of course, all of this neglects the often deep metaphysical meaning, comfort, consolation and morally informative reflections religion can bring to an individual, but one has to wonder to what extent this greater sense of metaphysical meaning springs from the social benign reciprocity a believer finds through the community of their faith, like a well-tended garden or a well-watered tree.
By contrast, ideologies have a natural tendency towards the performative and a craving for adulation. Ignoring the modern context for a second, we only need to look at the Chinese Struggle Session, the always lurking plague of denunciation in the Soviet era, or the ways in which the Nazi’s thrived upon informers to snitch out nonconformists or those who didn’t fit the perfect mould of the wolk or folk, to enforce their vision, to see just how much the individual was incentives to be cruel in return for the social incentives of raising their status within their group, with a view to climbing the greasy pole to adulation.
And whilst religion tends to encourage kindness to others, charity, hospitality and good manners, the social norms encouraged by ideologies are less obvious. At face value, the stated aim might be some imagined future utopian society, or the defence of some perceived victim group (who often have just cause to feel that their egalitarian future has yet to fully materialise, but ironically, also tend to join their self-proclaimed liberators with less frequency than the class from which the liberators are drawn). But when one scratches below the surface of the claim that they aim to help others- both ideologies, utopian or social justice orientated, tend to rely upon a common enemy, demonising some perceived oppressor group, for their solidarity and strength.
This is deeply dehumanising, because it relies upon reducing individuals to their arbitrary groups, making them little more than agents of their own self-interest. Yes, people are selfish. They tend to pursue their own self-interests. But to reduce all of human history and culture to this one single dimension, and to view everything through the lens of power, is to inevitable doom yourself to power as your only pursuit. Of course, the activist claims they will only use this power for good, but what good is power if, in achieving it, you’ve already thrown out everything good, wholesome and worthy of examination?
But what should also concern them is the hollow emptiness of it all. Because helping others bears tangible fruit- we get to see the positive effect on them, and this in turn gives our psyche a boost. Our self-image becomes one of which we can be proud, because even if we are only providing a service to our employer (for which we are paid), the understanding of our own relevance and impact, increases our sense self-worth. By comparison, the activist is forced into the performative to prove their value. It ultimately rings false because the acclaim of praise is only worth anything if we feel we deserve it. It’s like receiving a participation trophy for placing in the middle in the race. You know you’ve done nothing noteworthy or of merit- so the trophy becomes a consolation prize, which in many ways becomes the reverse- serving as a reminder that you didn’t place in the top 3.
And it’s a zero sum game, and an unhealthy one at that. Because whilst all competitions which are status games have definable winners and losers, many produce a spectrum of relative success and failure. If you compete in a race with twenty contestants, it is only when you finish last or close to it, that you really feel a blow to your pride. And if you do- so what? Because there are plenty of other games in which you might place far more favourably.
By playing an ideological status game across the medium of social media, the vast majority are setting themselves up to fail at something to which they attach a huge significance. Many have, at some point in their life, admitted to the ambition of wanting to be a social media influencer, but if we look music downloads by comparison we can see that activists on social media are setting themselves up for the motherlode of inequality and disappointment.
If we equate music downloads to social media activism, it's like a marathon in which almost everyone finishes last. Oh sure, most will receive conciliatory likes and shares from their closest friends and coworkers. They will feel as though they are in some small way contributing to the cause. But overall, it will leave them feeling hollow, empty and depressed, because in an attention economy, where the progress towards the cause is intangible at best, and at worst requires the sacrifice and denigration of others, it is bound to leave most feeling that they are mostly ignored and in some cases cheapened because they’ve had to hurt others. And of course, beneath it all is the ambient fear which was a feature of previous ideological movements, if your past deeds and words fail to pass the ideological purity test, or if you fail to demonstrate sufficient zeal at the next Struggle Session, you may well find yourself on the receiving end of the ire of the mob- your fairweather friends abandoning you out of fear for their own skins.
In the final analysis there are a fairly simple set of metric which can tell you whether you are on the path to True Meaning. Does what I am doing provide me with tangible results which increase my sense of self-worth? Are my labours of value to others, and do they appreciate my efforts? Can I see the beneficiaries of my help, and does their gratitude make me feel as though I am trying to be a good human being? Does the belief I have married myself to require me to see others as enemies, or does it encourage an attitude of charity, compassion and forgiveness even to those who have sinned? Above all, it the aim of my endeavour and belief the pursuit of reciprocity to others, hoping that in giving I shall also receive, or is a part of my ambition the adulation of others- a fantasy in which the world finally sees my true worth?
It should be noted that there are some who work diligently in the field of social justice to correct very real injustices. They might champion the cause of a man they believe to be innocent, or provide real and tangible investments of their time to communities which are struggling. At the same time religion at its worst invites us to condemn rather than forgive, to punish rather than render safe or heal. As a stated earlier in the essay religion tilts benign, and ideology tilts towards the pursuit of status and adulation- but its distinction with no fixed boundaries or delineations. Perhaps by knowing where the distinction lie between reciprocity and the pursuit of status, we can better know ourselves and become better judges. Only time will tell.
Thanks for the essay. I first started on this train of thought because I came across the concept of 'psychic profit'- a term in Austrian economics. In essence, it tries to explain why people still become doctors in the egalitarian economies of the Nordic model, where they have to spend numerous years in additional education, only to earn 50% to 75% more than a forklift driver, after taxes and transfers. This thinking provides us with social status as an answer, which is of course true, but I also think it runs deeper than that. On a far more wholesome and human level, we all have a desperate longing to be of service to others...
Interesting essay, Geary. It reminded me of this piece on Alexandre Kojève (never heard of him before): https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/04/masters-and-slaves. Kojeve "claimed that that human beings were not fundamentally motivated by a desire for knowledge, power, happiness, pleasure, or resources. They were driven by a desire for recognition." That is very similar to the thesis of your essay, and the more I have thought about it, the harder it is to argue with.
Wow, glad to see you started publishing. I've been reading your comments on Quillette for quite some time. I agree with quite a bit of what you say and it's always reassuring to see someone with common sense in a comments section somewhere. I subscribed and hope to read through a number of your posts.
Thanks for the essay. I first started on this train of thought because I came across the concept of 'psychic profit'- a term in Austrian economics. In essence, it tries to explain why people still become doctors in the egalitarian economies of the Nordic model, where they have to spend numerous years in additional education, only to earn 50% to 75% more than a forklift driver, after taxes and transfers. This thinking provides us with social status as an answer, which is of course true, but I also think it runs deeper than that. On a far more wholesome and human level, we all have a desperate longing to be of service to others...
Interesting essay, Geary. It reminded me of this piece on Alexandre Kojève (never heard of him before): https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/04/masters-and-slaves. Kojeve "claimed that that human beings were not fundamentally motivated by a desire for knowledge, power, happiness, pleasure, or resources. They were driven by a desire for recognition." That is very similar to the thesis of your essay, and the more I have thought about it, the harder it is to argue with.
Wow, glad to see you started publishing. I've been reading your comments on Quillette for quite some time. I agree with quite a bit of what you say and it's always reassuring to see someone with common sense in a comments section somewhere. I subscribed and hope to read through a number of your posts.