Me: What would Peter Turchin say about this quote: ”There is vigorous debate about the precise timing of Big Gods and big groups… […] But… there’s pretty decent evidence connecting religious beliefs to important outcomes for cultural groups: Big Gods make cooperative people, which in turn make and sustain big groups.”?
(quote taken from: Gervais, W. M. (2024), Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious World, p. 191)
Claude: Let me analyze this quote from the perspective of Peter Turchin's theoretical framework, particularly his work on cultural evolution and historical dynamics.
Turchin would likely have several nuanced reactions to this statement. First, he would probably appreciate the focus on how religious beliefs affect social cooperation, as this aligns with his broader theory of cultural multilevel selection. However, I think he would take issue with the simple causal direction suggested by "Big Gods make cooperative people."
In Turchin's work, particularly in "Ultrasociety" and his research on historical dynamics, he argues for a more complex, co-evolutionary process. Rather than Big Gods simply creating cooperation, he emphasizes how intense inter-group competition (particularly warfare) created selective pressures that favored both scaled-up cooperation AND more complex religious systems that could sustain it.
For example, Turchin points to how early chiefdoms and archaic states developed increasingly elaborate religious systems alongside more complex military organizations. The relationship wasn't just one-way - the need for coordinated military action created pressure for religious innovations that could bind larger groups together, while those religious innovations then enabled even larger-scale cooperation.
Turchin would likely agree about the importance of studying timing, but I think he'd emphasize examining the specific historical conditions under which religious and social complexity co-evolved. He's particularly interested in how cycles of competition and conflict drive cultural evolution.
Perhaps most importantly, Turchin would probably want to situate this discussion within his broader framework of Cliodynamics, which looks at multiple interacting factors including:
- Demographics and population pressure
- Elite overproduction and social instability
- Economic inequality
- Military technology and organization
- Religious and ideological systems
Rather than seeing Big Gods as simply making cooperative people, he would likely argue for examining how religious beliefs interact with these other factors in specific historical contexts to either promote or inhibit large-scale cooperation.
Would you be interested in exploring any particular aspect of how Turchin's theoretical framework relates to the evolution of religion and cooperation in more detail?
Me: In Turchin’s view, could there be big cooperative societies without Big gods?
Claude: Based on Turchin's work, particularly his writing on secular belief systems and cultural evolution, I believe he would argue that large-scale cooperation is possible without "Big Gods" specifically, but requires some form of what he calls "prosocial ideology" or "sacred values" that can motivate people to cooperate beyond their immediate kin groups.
Turchin points to several examples of large-scale cooperation without traditional Big Gods:
1. Modern secular states, particularly those with strong civic religions or nationalist ideologies. He discusses how nationalism and other secular ideologies can serve similar social functions to traditional religions in binding large groups together.
2. Communist societies, which despite their official atheism, developed elaborate systems of ritual, symbolism, and shared beliefs that functioned similarly to religious systems in promoting cooperation.
3. Some pre-modern examples like the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan, which while having religious elements, achieved large-scale cooperation primarily through military organization and a shared elite culture rather than through Big Gods per se.
However, Turchin would likely emphasize that these secular alternatives still share key features with religious systems:
- They create shared sacred values
- They involve ritual and symbolic practices
- They promote self-sacrifice for the group
- They include mechanisms for monitoring and enforcing cooperative norms
So while Big Gods aren't strictly necessary in Turchin's framework, he would likely argue that any large-scale cooperative society needs some functional equivalent - what he might call an "ideological glue" that can motivate and sustain cooperation at scale.
The key insight from Turchin isn't that Big Gods specifically are necessary, but rather that some system of shared beliefs and practices that can overcome individual self-interest is required for large-scale cooperation. Whether religious or secular, these systems need to be able to coordinate behavior and motivate people to contribute to collective goals.
