Human ultra-sociality is quite different from the communal networks formed among so many other species. As Durkheim showed in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, homo sapiens gains its distinctive powers from a systematic projection of social capacities:
that is, by inventing a ‘sacred’ dimension, which in turn both allows and demands a greater than familial entity, a ‘congregation’ or church. Far from being ‘irrational’, this tendency, as Durkheim suggested, may be what makes possible the emergence of ‘reason’, abstract thought and comparison. The forces of extra-kinship society – is far greater co-operative force than any extended family nexus could supply. After all, diversity has been the lever of survival and human advance,
It could be argued that humans are at home only in Babel, the common matrix of individuality, religion, spirituality and philosophy.
that is, by inventing a ‘sacred’ dimension, which in turn both allows and demands a greater than familial entity, a ‘congregation’ or church. Far from being ‘irrational’, this tendency, as Durkheim suggested, may be what makes possible the emergence of ‘reason’, abstract thought and comparison. The forces of extra-kinship society – is far greater co-operative force than any extended family nexus could supply. After all, diversity has been the lever of survival and human advance,
It could be argued that humans are at home only in Babel, the common matrix of individuality, religion, spirituality and philosophy.
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