# Society and Ideology **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 3, 2000, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/society-and-ideology/18467 "2000-05-03T16:53:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2000, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/society-and-ideology/18467/21 "2000-05-07T13:13:49Z")
This is getting away from the OP a bit, but still. **DavidB** , I think it depends what you mean by “complexity”. I have no problem with the idea that the system may well become more complex, nor that more complex forms may evolve. Given that a still more complex form (a fancier phenotype) can only evolve from an already complex form, then sure, increasingly complex forms _may_ evolve. (btw, I’m taking a view of punctuated equilibrium which still involves step-wise improvements here, ignoring some of the more radical suggestions that occasionally flare up in the increasingly Quixotic Eldredge/Gould/Dawkins/Tooby/Cosmides debate) What the limit to development along particular lines of complexity are (if any) is another matter. All I was saying is that for a particular organism, a mutation which makes it more complex is no more and no less likely to assist it than a mutation that makes it less complex. This not being my area, I am more than willing to be guided in my understanding of this matter. In what sense have bacteria not evolved? Sure there are some that have been around in their present from for a long time, but there are also those that have evolved to defeat antibiotics. I hope you are not equating evolved with change in basic body plan. ## **SingleDad** said:quote: Whacking somebody upside the head with a 2x4 because they annoy you is wrong. * * * **DavidB** Now, I wouldn’t go that far. As long as it only applied to me (doing the whacking, that is), of course. A nice way of putting the OP: do societies tend over time to involve less whacking over the head? The tenor of my comments so far is that there is nothing to suggest that they _must_. picmr ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2000, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/society-and-ideology/18467/22 "2000-05-07T20:54:14Z")
> [@](#): > > do societies tend over time to involve less whacking over the head? > -picmr Yes, if only because guns get invented. > [@](#): > > A species can be successful without evolving, if they have a good niche and nothing happens to take it away. > -DavidB True. This even works in societies. Look at the Amazonian civilizations. They’ve had a good thing going for thousands of years simply because they were there first and nobody wanted to brave swamp and jungle to compete with them. The Plains Indians didn’t have it so lucky. When the Industrial Age Europeans came along, they were edged out rather effectively. Not just because of disease and guns, either. Whiskey helped, as did barb-wire fences and the railroad. And today, the simple agricultral and nomadic societies in Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia are being won over by McDonald’s and Levi’s. McDonald’s: Imperialism with a Smile. ---
**Author:** ![oldscratch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@oldscratch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldscratch)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2000, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/society-and-ideology/18467/23 "2000-05-07T23:20:57Z")
> [@](#): > > posted by SingleDad\*\* > > I would say that “social survival” and "societys’ survival are equivalent. We’ll talk about an idea that survives the first test I mentioned earlier: It don’t cause an individual to immediately reject it, nor does it cause the individual’s immediate destruction. > > The idea propagates to a large enough number of individuals that it gains wide enough acceptance to form a basis for individuals to judge and coerce each other’s behavior: It has entered the _zeitgeist_. At that point the second test will then apply: Can the society that now holds that idea survive and prosper? > > Violent nationalism is a perfect example of a destructive idea: the societies that held it as part of its _zeitgeist_ did not survive; the societies that did survive did so because they eliminated the idea. > > This is one of the areas, of course, in which the strict analogy between genetic evolution and the evolution of idea sets diverge. An organism cannot “reject” a specific gene if it believes that gene to be detrimental. But analogy of the concept of evaluating the idea or the idea set against its physical success in a competitive environment does still hold. > \*\* I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one. Destructive ideas are frequently embraced by large sections of populations. Those populations can not survive with those ideas. Those populations die out. True an organism can not reject a specific gene, but neither can populations. Ideas, while evolving much more rapidly than organisms, still evolve. Violent Nationalism can not just pop out of nothingness, there has to be a steady progress of ideas towards it. You have to first embrace nationalism. Once a society has embarked down that road, they can continue, or they can slowly back away from it. The idea can not be rejected wholesale without evolution of a competing meme. These two ideas fight for dominance over a society, much like competing evolutionary tendencies can compete. If a creature embarks down the wrong path, it will die out. I also don’t think you can characterize an idea as destructive in itself. It is only destructive in terms of how it reacts to its environment. Violent Nationalism could, in certain historical instances, enable a society to grow and prosper. If the environment changes so that that society’s ideas and practices no longer help it grow or maintain a level of equilibrium, then it will die out. Dinosaurs are a good example of the evolutionary counterpart. Yes they all died out, however small sections of them evolved and survived and they did last for quite a long time. You could say that Dinosaurs were a failure because they didn’t last. However, that would be trivializing a huge section of earth’s history. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/society-and-ideology/18467.md?page=1)