He could issue some sort of a vocal bulletin

The other morning I was reading two different texts in close temporal proximity with one another.  To odd effect.

The first is The Weirdest People in the World by Joseph Henrich.  The subheading is How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous.  I generally agree with his thesis and think it is an interestingly provocative book.  However, at times, his arguments feel underpowered by the evidence.  Perhaps directionally true but not yet convincingly true.  

One argument he makes is how individualism has come to the fore in the West in a fashion not seen in history and not as common in the rest of the world.

To understand individualism, let’s start at the other end of the spectrum. Throughout most of human history, people grew up enmeshed in dense family networks that knitted together distant cousins and in-laws. In these regulated-relational worlds, people’s survival, identity, security, marriages, and success depended on the health and prosperity of kin-based networks, which often formed discrete institutions known as clans, lineages, houses, or tribes. This is the world of the Maasai, Samburu, and Cook Islanders. Within these enduring networks, everyone is endowed with an extensive array of inherited obligations, responsibilities, and privileges in relation to others in a dense social web. For example, a man could be obligated to avenge the murder of one type of second cousin (through his paternal great-grandfather), privileged to marry his mother’s brother’s daughters but tabooed from marrying strangers, and responsible for performing expensive rituals to honor his ancestors, who will shower bad luck on his entire lineage if he’s negligent. Behavior is highly constrained by context and the types of relationships involved. The social norms that govern these relationships, which collectively form what I’ll call kin-based institutions, constrain people from shopping widely for new friends, business partners, or spouses. Instead, they channel people’s investments into a distinct and largely inherited in-group. Many kin-based institutions not only influence inheritance and the residence of newly married couples, they also create communal ownership of property (e.g., land is owned by the clan) and shared liability for criminal acts among members (e.g., fathers can be imprisoned for their sons’ crimes).

This social interdependence breeds emotional interdependence, leading people to strongly identify with their in-groups and to make sharp ingroup vs. out-group distinctions based on social interconnections. In fact, in this world, though you may not know some of your distant cousins or fellow tribal members who are three or four relationship links removed, they will remain in-group members as long as they are connected to you through family ties. By contrast, otherwise familiar faces may remain, effectively, strangers if you cannot link to them through your dense, durable social ties.

Success and respect in this world hinge on adroitly navigating these kin-based institutions. This often means (1) conforming to fellow in-group members, (2) deferring to authorities like elders or sages, (3) policing the behavior of those close to you (but not strangers), (4) sharply distinguishing your in-group from everyone else, and (5) promoting your network’s collective success whenever possible. Further, because of the numerous obligations, responsibilities, and constraints imposed by custom, people’s motivations tend not to be “approach-oriented,” aimed at starting new relationships or meeting strangers. Instead, people become “avoidance-oriented” to minimize their chances of appearing deviant, fomenting disharmony, or bringing shame on themselves or others.

That’s one extreme; now, contrast that with the other—individualistic—end of the spectrum. Imagine the psychology needed to navigate a world with few inherited ties in which success and respect depend on (1) honing one’s own special attributes; (2) attracting friends, mates, and business partners with these attributes; and then (3) sustaining relationships with them that will endure for as long as the relationship remains mutually beneficial. In this world, everyone is shopping for better relationships, which may or may not endure. People have few permanent ties and many ephemeral friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. In adapting psychologically to this world, people come to see themselves and others as independent agents defined by a unique or special set of talents (e.g., writer), interests (e.g., quilting), aspirations (e.g., making law partner), virtues (e.g., fairness), and principles (e.g., “no one is above the law”). These can be enhanced or accentuated if a person joins a like-minded group. One’s reputation with others, and with themselves (self-esteem), is shaped primarily by their own individual attributes and accomplishments, not by nourishing an enduring web of inherited ties that are governed by a complex set of relationship-specific social norms.

A reasonably persuasive argument but it also feels lacking in nuance.  Henrich does multiple times make the point that the differences at the margin can be very consequential even if the average is not that different.  True.  But still, there feels to be a disconnect between the argument being made and our culture, literature and quotidian experience.

And sure enough, half an hour later, I happen to be reading Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages by Harold Bloom.  I come across The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane.  Not having read anything by Crane in a long time, I gave it a read.  

American individualism is there of course.  But there seems also more than an echo of the old kin-based systems as well.  

Indeed, one of the peculiar aspects of American culture is that we are both strong on individualism but there is also a very strong element of communalism as well.  It is not kin-based communitarianism, and therefore Henrich is correct in that respect.  But sometimes communitarianism can echo kin-based systems.  

It feels as if kin-based systems of relations and obligations and individualism within communitarianism are both constraining, just in different fashions.  

In this story, the Sheriff of Yellow Sky has run off to the nearest city to find a wife.  He is returning to his job and town with her in tow.  An  individual on the frontier in an individualist culture.  But . . . the communitarianism is there and can seem as constraining as a kin-based culture.  It isn't, but the resemblance is there.

To the left, miles down a long purple slope, was a little ribbon of mist where moved the keening Rio Grande. The train was approaching it at an angle, and the apex was Yellow Sky. Presently it was apparent that, as the distance from Yellow Sky grew shorter, the husband became commensurately restless. His brick-red hands were more insistent in their prominence. Occasionally he was even rather absent-minded and far-away when the bride leaned forward and addressed him.

As a matter of truth, Jack Potter was beginning to find the shadow of a deed weigh upon him like a leaden slab. He, the town marshal of Yellow Sky, a man known, liked, and feared in his corner, a prominent person, had gone to San Antonio to meet a girl he believed he loved, and there, after the usual prayers, had actually induced her to marry him, without consulting Yellow Sky for any part of the transaction. He was now bringing his bride before an innocent and unsuspecting community.

Of course, people in Yellow Sky married as it pleased them, in accordance with a general custom; but such was Potter's thought of his duty to his friends, or of their idea of his duty, or of an unspoken form which does not control men in these matters, that he felt he was heinous. He had committed an extraordinary crime. Face to face with this girl in San Antonio, and spurred by his sharp impulse, he had gone headlong over all the social hedges. At San Antonio he was like a man hidden in the dark. A knife to sever any friendly duty, any form, was easy to his hand in that remote city. But the hour of Yellow Sky, the hour of daylight, was approaching.

He knew full well that his marriage was an important thing to his town. It could only be exceeded by the burning of the new hotel. His friends could not forgive him. Frequently he had reflected on the advisability of telling them by telegraph, but a new cowardice had been upon him. He feared to do it. And now the train was hurrying him toward a scene of amazement, glee, and reproach. He glanced out of the window at the line of haze swinging slowly in towards the train.

Yellow Sky had a kind of brass band, which played painfully, to the delight of the populace. He laughed without heart as he thought of it. If the citizens could dream of his prospective arrival with his bride, they would parade the band at the station and escort them, amid cheers and laughing congratulations, to his adobe home.

He resolved that he would use all the devices of speed and plains-craftin making the journey from the station to his house. Once within that safe citadel he could issue some sort of a vocal bulletin, and then not go among the citizens until they had time to wear off a little of their enthusiasm.

A piece of literature neither affirms nor contradicts an empirical argument.  But it can provoke deeper consideration and refinement of thinking.