Toward Resilient Democracy

American Immanence, an important and insightful work, offers an analysis of the existential crisis facing American democracy, and a possible path through this crisis. In developing this path, Michael Hogue asks, “can the feeling and awareness of the precarious value of life . . . awaken us to the precious depths of immanence, to living as if this, our one and only world, matters ultimately?”1 Such an awakening, he argues, is vital to developing a “resilient democracy.” I believe the answer to his question is “yes,” and a positive answer to this profound question is sufficient warrant for exploring the path Hogue sets out. However, there is another question, one with broader implications: can this moral vision be adopted on a wide enough scale to attain the critical mass necessary to develop a democracy sufficiently resilient to weather this crisis? I will explore this second question using the insights derived from cognitive science, and particularly from the cognitive science of religion. This approach picks up on Hogue's invitation to interpret religion “within the evolutionary contexts of natural history,”2 and concurs with his claim that in “demystifying religion” an “evolutionary account . . . opens the way to a religious experience.”3The Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) is grounded in an evolutionary understanding of human cognitive and emotional processes, as these processes have developed to enable the species to respond to the challenges of survival and reproduction in dynamic environments, both physical and social. These cognitive tools were not shaped to discern some pre-given reality, but rather to serve the practical goals of natural beings embedded in natural situations. CSR, then, is congruent with the immanental philosophy, grounded in pragmatism, that Hogue develops in his book. Indeed, it can be argued that the methodology of CSR implicitly entails a pragmatist epistemology4. The various mental tools and resultant religious beliefs and rituals all serve the ultimate goal of successful action within natural situations. CSR, then, can provide an empirical account of at least some of the processes that would be involved in actualizing an immanental political theology, and may identify some of the cognitive obstacles to that project.It is beyond the scope of this essay to set out a detailed account of CSR, but it will suffice to introduce some general tenets that have played a seminal role in the field.5 Those elements of a cultural system that we would deem religious are derived from natural cognitive processes that evolved to allow our earliest ancestors to successfully navigate an uncertain and dangerous environment.6 As an example, let's consider the gods, understanding by the “gods” any of the various beings that might commonly be termed “supernatural” (e.g., gods, spirits, ghosts, demons, fairies, divine ancestors, etc.). Belief in gods is theorized to flow, in part, from natural cognitive mechanisms for the detection of agents (that is, beings that act with intent). The ability to detect such beings—beings that might pose a danger—is essential to surviving in an uncertain and dangerous world. This ability was so vital that natural selection favored the evolution of a cognitive process for detecting agents that is hypersensitive.7 Detecting the presence of an agent when none is actually present is a much safer error than failing to detect an actual predator, and so this cognitive strategy could regularly give rise to false positives.Detecting the presence of an agent is the beginning phase of devising effective action, but to determine how to respond to this perceived agent, we must make sense of its possible intent. Therefore, we do not merely perceive a presence, we ascribe intention and purpose to that agent. In doing so, we engage the mental process termed Theory of Mind (ToM).8 Detecting the action of agents, and determining intention and purpose, are vital to successful action. In a dangerous and uncertain world—i.e. the world in which humans have lived for millennia—these skills are essential to survival, and it follows that natural selection would favor cognitive processes that erred on the side of over-interpreting. The result is that searching for and finding meaningful patterns and purposes throughout the natural world is a cognitive default position, what psychologist Deborah Keleman has termed “promiscuous teleology.”9 Thus, were the gods born.10This is just to give a sense of how CSR is developing a naturalistic model for an aspect of religion (i.e. belief in gods) grounded in an evolutionary context. However, from an evolutionary perspective, the most important fact about the human species is that we are social mammals. Indeed, the most distinctive trait of humans is the extent of our prosociality. No other species lives in groups as extensive and as complex as homo sapiens. One of the key projects in telling the evolutionary story of humanity is to explain how moral cognitive tools which evolved to deal with social exchanges in relatively small, largely kin-based groups of perhaps a few hundred individuals, have been extended to allow societies of thousands and millions to function effectively. The answers to this puzzle—and there is not a single answer—are all cultural innovations, and one of the most important of these cultural innovations is religion. From an evolved cognitive scientific perspective, religions are cultural systems, grounded in natural cognitive processes, which function to unite individuals into morally bounded communities.11Religions do this through a complex system of ritual practices—behavior, badges, bans, and beliefs.12 These religious elements serve as “signals of commitment” to the group and its moral code, and serve to identify who is part of the in-group and who is not.13 Significantly, these signals also trigger the empathy systems in the brain, and this imbues these in-group social bonds with deep emotional resonance.14 The symbolic representations of religion, by signaling in-group identity, allow our moral sensitivity toward the in-group to extend beyond kin and to strangers. Hogue expressed this evolved function of religion succinctly: Religions. . . . are historically adaptive cultural projects that transforms humans who merely happen to be grouped together in space and time into human communities bound together with identities and purposes that transcend space and time.15From the perspective of CSR, it is the fact that religions trigger and modulate our moral cognitive processes, including powerful moral emotions (e.g., compassion, anger, loyalty, care) that explains how religions come to have such morally and socially significant impact, on both individuals and groups. However, CSR also shows that it is not the specifically “religious” aspects of religious systems that carry this moral and social import; that import comes from triggering and modulating our moral cognition. While religion has been and continues to be one of the most effective and common means for doing so, it is not the only one—secular systems may, and in fact do, often serve the same moral/social function.An appreciation of the essential moral/social function of religion, one grounded in our nature as evolved, biological beings, has prompted a call for a recasting of the study of religion. Rather than studying religion as a distinct phenomenon, it may be more productive to view it as a subset of a superordinate category of Worldviews. Worldviews are systems of beliefs and practices that address several fundamental questions16: What is (ultimately) real? [Ontology]What is true/false? [Epistemology]What is good/evil? [Axiology]How should we act? [Praxeology]Where does it all come from? [Explanation]Where is it all going? [Prediction]Studying religion as worldviews is not a new approach, per se, but a Scientific Worldviews Studies project, recently proposed by Ann Taves and Egil Asprem, seeks to move this approach into more scientific territory. Its aim is to: Ground the interaction between explicit, reflective, worldviews and everyday ways of life in the subpersonal appraisal processes that are operative not only in humans, but in other animals as well. In short, we envision a scientific worldview studies that grounds human meaning making capacities in species-independent biological processes.17The context for this approach to Worldviews is a conception of humans as fully embedded in nature, and of human capacities arising from evolutionary processes that underlie all biological organisms—or in Hogue's language, it sees humans as terra bestiae.18 The existential concerns that find answers in worldviews, such as religions, are ultimately grounded in biological responses to challenges that, although manifested in very different ways, are common to many/all non-human organisms (e.g., negotiating the environment in pursuit of survival goals; negotiating group dynamics to maintain group stability while pursuing goals of survival and reproduction). The scientific study of worldviews rejects the “bifurcation of nature”—a move that is, as Hogue points out, central to the American Immanental tradition.19Hogue's proposal for an immanental political theology is, in effect, a proposal for a Worldview. Therefore, the science of worldviews will be of material relevance to addressing Hogue's project.20 While the Scientific Worldview Studies project proposed by Taves and Asprem is in its nascent phase, there is a substantial body of research on the moral and existential function of worldviews that is clearly applicable to this project. One major vein of such research comes from work on Terror Management Theory.21TMT is predicated on the notion that terror in the face of mortal threats is a biological response common to all animals.22 Humans, however, are unique in being aware of our eventual demise and as a result can experience that terror in response to cues of mortality, even in the absence of any actual danger being present. Since one cannot live a functional life in the throes of terror, humans have developed protective strategies that serve as buffers against this existential dread—the most important of these are Worldviews. Research into TMT finds that in the face of mortality salient (MS) cues—anything that brings the thought of death to mind—the human response is to cling more tightly to their cultural worldview and to be more critical of, even hostile to those who challenge that worldview, or to those who share a competing worldview.23 To quote one review of the research: When reminded of their deaths, people attempt to enhance their self-esteem, express a desire for more offspring, become more punitive of cultural norm violators, become more nationalistic, become more racially prejudiced, and become more likely to support politically conservative leaders.24TMT research also highlights the connection between worldviews, self-esteem, and death anxiety. Research suggests that higher self-esteem correlates with a host of health-factors including decreased levels of anxiety and depression, and an increased ability to tolerate pain.25 TMT posits that self-esteem arises from a sense of being a valued member of a cultural worldview, or from contributing to one's cultural worldview.26In over thirty years since the introduction of TMT, hundreds of papers have examined its various claims. In 2010, a meta-analysis of the first twenty years of research into TMT—a study that looked at over two hundred papers—found “that the MS hypothesis of TMT—that death affects us without our conscious realization—is robust and produces moderate to large effects across a wide variety of MS manipulations.”27The authors of the TMT theory explain the effectiveness of these particular strategies for dealing with existential anxiety results from our evolution as a highly social species.28 Throughout our evolutionary history, the in-group was our most important resource against actual existential threats. When one of our ancient ancestors found themselves face-to-face with a mortally dangerous situation, their greatest protection from that threat was the support of the group. To be rejected or not valued by the group was itself an existential danger, and so self-esteem naturally is rooted in our place in the group.29In addition to evidence coming from TMT, cognitive science reveals that our moral is a be toward the are more of in-group more to the of in-group and respond with empathy to those we as is a of evidence that we are to the in-group we come to as our on a very and or symbolic representations of an Worldviews their moral and social by into these deep and dynamics of our evolved social when Hogue this “can the feeling and awareness of the precarious value of life . . . awaken us to the precious depths of immanence, to living as if this, our one and only world, matters the evidence from an evolved cognitive science is a sense of is, in effect, an evolved trigger for emotional and moral project to develop and for an immanental political theology is a call for an Immanental Worldview. those fundamental and existential of worldviews, and as such may into the even of the of our understanding of both the religious and the moral empirical support to Hogue's claim that an evolutionary approach the way to a religious In of an sense that the is with that we are to than that our lives purpose through being part of and contributing to this reality, can all be as the experience of the of evolved cognitive and emotional as I this question in the a sense of can awaken us to a sense of to for this world, and not sufficient to that an immanental worldview can a resilient to the for such a worldview to become sufficiently I believe cognitive science has a to in of both the obstacles to a resilient democracy, and perhaps a way those a resilient political theology as an to the and as as and political of the threat to an grounded in and to life in uncertain and in uncertain just that I in with his proposed However, the research us that the evolved response to living in an uncertain world and uncertain is not a of our but a for that to a strategy of belief and rather than through scientific the set of not merely mortality threats that we have been not in the a crisis than any of the with its of millions of people a crisis than any other in the levels of social and are the of the evolved response to cling tightly to the in-group and to and the concerns of the out across the and across the immanental that of us of our in and a theology that highlights American and out the of not merely that some of the most on the political are those who a worldview shaped by a political theology of there is the of who to believe the that the was from and the of and most is the central role religion played in the at the a resource that has been and the role of religion at the religion was not just one aspect of the on the it was a that through the of the of . . . The we have not only that religion was central to the but also the of American religion and its with American political and significant finding is the the religions that The the of religious from the other to identify with as as of and even the new the between these religious what than being of their that their were by even In with Hogue's of the authors of this explain that their of religion” as the of the project that the of religious to a political goal can also have and these we the dynamics of in-group and and the existential function of cultural worldviews, at their most and the empirical research that a political theology on a of and as a means of the threats to democracy this, there I grounds for a more while it highly to much to an immanental political theology from those on the or there is a large of the American religious that does not such worldviews, even if do a there is a large and of the that has from religious the so and those who as but not from the most Research on religious in the shows that of identify as points from years and points from years This is for Hogue's project as this has a different on those beliefs that Hogue as a of the crisis facing American and its to the by the Religion Research of all with the has been a for in the This is higher for than but even the political with in at The by religious also shows of with the with and coming in at just a higher than with this of American was for all but the only group to come in was the at While these of some of American the fact that the and one of the is the most of this view does the of an for an understanding of and role in the more important for Hogue's proposed to the crisis is the in toward divine The looked at the between in the of who with the has a role in human The of all who with that has from in to just years this has been across the political the as move from to is that a of all with that In of religious the are with the coming in at just from in these there is a for the that the for the and that the dangerous the stability of there is such an is of central to the of a resilient democracy, but are there cognitive that may allow the of that of the proposed of a Scientific Worldview Studies project is that worldviews in natural processes a and of all Worldviews to the existential and common to all human beings, and on and moral by all human This is common which to or that may serve as a of to a democracy of is a strategy for communities together for a common much so, that it being more than an but I believe the cognitive can some to this of cognitive science and scientific worldview studies to this strategy are provide a model for both religious and worldviews as humans to make sense of their world and a to living a meaningful and morally significant As worldviews to be on and not value not in are but serve those these provide an account of the dynamics involved in both the of worldviews, and of between these of cognitive science and worldview we can a unique of Hogue's immanental challenge to into our system is finding ways for those from worldviews to to the political and moral that democracy However, it is over central moral that often place some of the greatest on a to democracy, and one of the how to a over moral or religious To address this challenge we to to research into over that to of any material often have their in religion, but such as a belief in the of and for can also be These will often or of are through those systems more involved in as to systems This to In research shows that to over when material or to are However, there are which to is when one side a symbolic for the when both are making over their and when come to a of This is Hogue's political theology comes theology, in the of religion and can a with more religious While it sees the of the embedded in the natural world, it not that religious worldviews its immanental vital to space for is an of the of human and the of central to the fact that it sees and the as in a natural opens space for value with worldviews that also the and of the human as research on it is in up space for value that we the for and enable the call to to be without moral In research into TMT and is with research: to the of in-group people on a common mortality challenge in and at least the of the in-group and and are mortality threats that transcend all in-group I the immanental worldview an over and to between Hogue the notion of the which not the of religion, since religion an but the of new of religion and immanental political theology as a worldview is an of such As as it may what is of practical import is that this worldview can engage our moral and emotional cognitive capacities in a way that an and system may from and developing the of the project of democracy, not as a political system for negotiating competing political processes against a as a of our of and as the political of a in and to the challenges of this uncertain and precarious world, in pursuit of existential and existential in this is a as it can into all the moral cognitive that allow worldviews to people into a moral democracy as a worldview, it also possible to as and to those with all the that In cognitive it can to moral and emotional that are embedded in human that are evolved tools for bonds with our in the to make sense of our lives and our place in the world, and the to and our from the of danger and These are the of in the face of existential conception of democracy, as embedded within and an of an immanental theology, may be to on these evolved cognitive for the it to the allow to up what I as the from a cognitive of Hogue's As worldviews are to be on rather on However, from an to a does not us to cultural with grounds for of Worldviews. As the moral question comes to of is in the what of world is in the different worldviews give very different answers to these I would and I believe Hogue would from other Worldviews in one vital is a worldview within which competing of the may be but ultimately is to serve as a superordinate is, the only worldview that can the of worldviews, religious or that are of the world, and do so in a way that the of to live in with one's In an uncertain world, by existential but one which rise to the of meaning and a morally all individuals, of their worldview, are to the value of being to live in with their Therefore, also share an value to that system which the that this and this is The as is to make that and I believe Hogue's of this would be to make this and with all to I believe this and us for the

Cognition · Democracy · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Resilience and Mental Health