The first problem is arrogance

I have long been trying to figure out exactly what type of role a religious belief system plays in the long term success of individuals and cultures. It seems indisputable to me that it does play a role but teasing out which are the key attributes that are the causative components to survival and productivity is extraordinarily difficult.

My suspicion is that certain religious traditions, by their stated value systems, encourage certain behaviors that contribute to productivity and discourage other behaviors more contributive of destructive outcomes. But which values and which behaviors, "ay, there's the rub!"

Walter Russell Mead has an interesting essay that contributes some thoughts on this issue, Is Meritocracy a Sham? Mead is discussing some of the weaknesses that undermine an otherwise generally positive picture of meritocracy as a useful model for social organization. Essentially Mead's answer is that there tends to be a correlation between meritocracy and atheism. This is important because, from Mead's perspective, meritocracy needs religion to serve as a restraint on megalomania; in this instance Mead is speaking specifically to some of the attributes of Christianity in general and Protestant Christianity in particular. I think he is on to something.

This has to do with another dimension of today’s American meritocracy that I think is deeply problematic: atheism.

Now before all the atheists out there ignite a new flame war in the comments pages, let me make some points. I’m not about to argue that all religious people are nicer or better than all atheists. And there are many atheists who avoid some or all of the pitfalls I’m about to explore. I am not writing this as a criticism of particular individuals; there are lots of atheistic meritocrats in America today who I consider friends and for whose achievements and character I have both admiration and respect. And before the foreign readers go incandescent in gibbering rage, let me also point out that I’m talking much more about atheism in an American context than in a European one. The dynamic Whiggish optimism that is such a deep element of American culture needs the kind of balance that, classically, comes from a theologically grounded sense both of Original Sin and of God’s transcendence of all human history and thought.

But caveats and cautions aside, there are certain consequences of success in a meritocracy that put people, and especially American people, without a strong religious faith at great risk, and I think we can see today in American life some of the consequences that come when a powerful but to some degree godless social elite lacks the spiritual resources and vocabulary that would better equip it for its role.

The first problem is arrogance. A practicing and committed as opposed to a theoretical or a birth Christian (and I talk about Christians rather than Jews, Muslims or Hindus or other people because this is what I know best, not because I’m trying to say that only Christians derive these kinds of benefits from their faith) who succeeds in a meritocratic structure has all kinds of inner convictions and reflections that can keep his or her arrogance within limits. This doesn’t always work; the case of Woodrow Wilson is one that we should all study.

Read the whole thing. Mead identifies humility, sanctity of life, equality of life, duty, obligation to serve, personal agency, necessary acceptance of variation in behavior (Original Sin) among other values as ones which Protestant Christianity inculcates and which in turn serve as necessary behavioral attributes to the succesful functioning of a system of meritocracy. He seems to be raising the valid concern that meritocracy absent certain critical values derived from religion might be as bad a system of governance and social organization as many others which we more readily recognize as flawed.

Then there is Doomsday Scenarios Make Better Fiction Than Science, Says Researcher Karl Butzer by David Ochsner in which Butxer comments vis-a-vis the historical record regarding societal collapses:

“There are cultural and psychological factors to consider that are grounded in human perceptions, values and solidarity, factors that cannot be measured through examination of physical evidence alone,” says Butzer, who notes that wars, foreign trade, internal power struggles, even personality quirks of certain leaders are all major factors in the success or failure of a society. He adds that the belief in a “cosmic order” — which gives power and legitimacy to a ruling elite — is a critical factor that is often overlooked in empirical, data-driven research.

For example, Butzer describes the immense complexity of collapse in Egypt after the long but unsteady reign of Pepi II (2278 to 2184 BCE) that was marked by internal power struggles and loss of foreign markets — both part of an intricate, downward spiral of cascading feedbacks. A semblance of order was eventually restored by the high priesthood, legitimized by their connection to the gods or the “cosmic order.”

So in one case we have religion serving as a necessary vehicle for cultivating the values and behaviors that enable systems of governance and societal interaction to work and in the second case we have religion serving essentially as a default system of governance when the primary system fails. I like A better than B but suspect both have a degree of truth.