What you call law fetishism I call ensuring high fidelity in meme transmission while at the same time trying to make irrational memes that are adaptive easier to rationalise.
The whole collection of memes that lead to this “ridiculous situation” was fitness enhancing, even from a genetic perspective, but people who transmitted it didn’t know why it worked (note: We probably still don’t appreciate how culture modifies behaviours and expectations in unknown ways).
It was improved mostly via groups that where unfortunate enough to stumble on a variation that didn’t work dying off or being out-shined. The Shakers are a example of a Christian group stumbling upon a variation (or mutation) of Christianity that unfortunately doesn’t work, However over time people found it harder and harder to execute all these seemingly random instructions (junk memes build up over time), that is where scholarship comes in.
Sometimes you can streamline the rules, at the price of adding a few more junk memes, other times you can create convoluted rationalizations that most never study but helps those in positions of authority being more or less sincere in promoting the rules.
Abrahamic faiths are basically elaborate collections of scripts that when executed in the “ancestral” environment helped the entire list of memes come down to the present. They like I previously stated often even helped general genetic fitness (just look at the increase in numbers of Jews in Eastern Europe from the 16th century onwards, or the increase in Amish numbers since the early 20th century) They could employ a much longer list of behaviours than the limited lists of taboos and rituals of older traditions because of writing and boon that is the idea of a omnipotent omniscient agent which basically acts as universal solvent for the feeling of cognitive dissonance.
Religious scholars and leaders where in times when they where greatly respected basically social engineers who tried to tweak the DNA of their society to keep it competitive or to enhance their own benefit from the super-organism.
What you call law fetishism I call ensuring high fidelity in meme transmission while at the same time trying to make irrational memes that are adaptive easier to rationalise.
The whole collection of memes that lead to this “ridiculous situation” was fitness enhancing, even from a genetic perspective, but people who transmitted it didn’t know why it worked (note: We probably still don’t appreciate how culture modifies behaviours and expectations in unknown ways).
It was improved mostly via groups that where unfortunate enough to stumble on a variation that didn’t work dying off or being out-shined. The Shakers are a example of a Christian group stumbling upon a variation (or mutation) of Christianity that unfortunately doesn’t work, However over time people found it harder and harder to execute all these seemingly random instructions (junk memes build up over time), that is where scholarship comes in.
Sometimes you can streamline the rules, at the price of adding a few more junk memes, other times you can create convoluted rationalizations that most never study but helps those in positions of authority being more or less sincere in promoting the rules.
Abrahamic faiths are basically elaborate collections of scripts that when executed in the “ancestral” environment helped the entire list of memes come down to the present. They like I previously stated often even helped general genetic fitness (just look at the increase in numbers of Jews in Eastern Europe from the 16th century onwards, or the increase in Amish numbers since the early 20th century) They could employ a much longer list of behaviours than the limited lists of taboos and rituals of older traditions because of writing and boon that is the idea of a omnipotent omniscient agent which basically acts as universal solvent for the feeling of cognitive dissonance.
Religious scholars and leaders where in times when they where greatly respected basically social engineers who tried to tweak the DNA of their society to keep it competitive or to enhance their own benefit from the super-organism.