Henrich’s “The Secret of Our Success” also contains very relevant insights. It is a book about culture-gene co-evolution. He dedicates a significant portion of the book to cultural institutions.
Henrich spends the final chapters of the book talking about social institutions. He argues that social norms are especially strong and enduring when they hook into our innate psychology. For example, social norms for fairness toward foreigners will be much harder to spread and sustain than those that demand mothers care for their children.
Henrich further argues that the imposition of new formal institutions—imported from elsewhere—on other populations often creates mismatches. For example, when the USA imported and imposed state-of-the-art democratic institutions from the West in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein, the expectation was that the people of Iraq would suddenly change their social norms and adapt to these new institutions, but that was not what happened.
Henrich thinks that we are bad at designing effective institutions and hopes that we will get better at this as we gain a deeper understanding of human nature and culture. Henrich thinks that until we gain this deeper understanding, our best hope is to learn from the processes of evolution by experimenting with different types of institutions and seeing what works best.
Henrich’s “The Secret of Our Success” also contains very relevant insights. It is a book about culture-gene co-evolution. He dedicates a significant portion of the book to cultural institutions.
Henrich spends the final chapters of the book talking about social institutions. He argues that social norms are especially strong and enduring when they hook into our innate psychology. For example, social norms for fairness toward foreigners will be much harder to spread and sustain than those that demand mothers care for their children.
Henrich further argues that the imposition of new formal institutions—imported from elsewhere—on other populations often creates mismatches. For example, when the USA imported and imposed state-of-the-art democratic institutions from the West in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein, the expectation was that the people of Iraq would suddenly change their social norms and adapt to these new institutions, but that was not what happened.
Henrich thinks that we are bad at designing effective institutions and hopes that we will get better at this as we gain a deeper understanding of human nature and culture. Henrich thinks that until we gain this deeper understanding, our best hope is to learn from the processes of evolution by experimenting with different types of institutions and seeing what works best.
Here is Scott Alexander’s review: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret-of-our-success/