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Resumo

Durkheimian solidarity, especially in regard to religion, is reanalyzed in terms of recent developments in the neurosciences and evolution. Neurophysiological studies indicate that religious arousers can piggyback on reward circuitry established by natural selection for interpersonal attachments. This piggybacking is rooted in uneven evolutionary changes in cognitive capacities, emotional arousal capabilities, and preconscious screening rules for rewarding arousal release. Uneven development means that only a special class of enhanced arousers embedded in macro social structures can tap some of the reservoirs of expanded arousal release protected by these screening rules. It becomes imperative that part of collective social life offers these special arouser packages. Beginning with religion and inequality, the social construction of enhanced arousers leaves a trail across human history. However, this trail is not quite what Durkheim had in mind.

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