I'm starting to view the relationship between the religious part of our society and the secular as being symbiotic in a sense.
What makes people defect from religious communities on the border to secular centers? Some combination of money, freedom, and power (to participate in shaping the wider society at scale). The cost of that defection is an uprooting and disconnection from "traditional values". I'm not as certain about this part, but part of it seems to be that it's easier to do the work of having and raising children on the border.
What makes people defect from the secular centers back to religious communities on the border? Just the opposite trade off -- less money, freedom, power. But you'll be more grounded and connected to a community, which can be immensely satisfying. And it's easier to raise kids.
Also I should note here that the borders and centers I'm talking about aren't necessarily physical -- in fact increasingly they are very much not, especially with the rise of remote work.
People in the secular center are doing a tremendous amount of very valuable and high leverage technical work to make a scaled civilization like ours function on a day-to-day basis. That's super important stuff.
People in religious (or cultural) communities at the border are doing a tremendous amount of cultural work to sustain a reserve of human values that can fuel those at the center when hard times come. Also super important stuff.
A balance in the tradeoffs between these places and a continuous cycling of people between them seems healthy to me.
I'd argue the religious are actually causing cultural destruction and are a net loss in every way except raw childbearing output. Having been born into one and 'defected', I found the community insular, stuck on platitudes, little to no critical thinking, full of unspoken rules and expectations, and with a ever shrinking dating pool.
They produce poorly educated children, heartache, cognitive dissonance, and perpetuate destructive traditions in the name of long dead / imaginary people.
I love this, but there's one thing I'd point out. With few exceptions, there's little defection from secular society into fundamentalist religious communities. Almost everyone in those communities was born there.
Reminds me of the period of people coming to America during colonial times. That there were stories and tales of people joining Native American tribes, completely leaving their old lives behind and becoming happier but you never heard accounts of the reverse. Native Americans willing joining the colonist, this rarely, if ever, happened.
I don't think is a good comparison. Native Americans couldn't join the colonists because the colonists were very racist against them, whereas apparently the Natives were more accepting of colonists who wanted to join them.
"...when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them."[0]
I don't think "Natives were less racist" is a convincing explanation for how badly white colonists wanted to return to living with them (even when, according to Franklin, the white society they had returned to was as kind as possible to convince them to stay). It may be a part of it, but doesn't explain why everyone who lived in Native culture was so disgusted with white culture after.
>I don't think "Natives were less racist" is a convincing explanation for...
No, it doesn't explain that part at all. It does explain why the Natives never tried joining and integrating into the white colonial society.
Honestly, I'm curious why white people who had been taken prisoner wanted to go back so badly, but sadly, I doubt anyone ever asked them and then accurately recorded their testimony for people to read 250 years later.
> What makes people defect from the secular centers back to religious communities on the border? Just the opposite trade off -- less money, freedom, power. But you'll be more grounded and connected to a community, which can be immensely satisfying. And it's easier to raise kids
I feel like this is a more recent trend than vice versa
Another thing that the "religious" parts provide is population, some of which will flow to urban centers. Which will probably be exacerbated in the US in coming decades because of growing cultural divide between different states
What makes people defect from religious communities on the border to secular centers? Some combination of money, freedom, and power (to participate in shaping the wider society at scale). The cost of that defection is an uprooting and disconnection from "traditional values". I'm not as certain about this part, but part of it seems to be that it's easier to do the work of having and raising children on the border.
What makes people defect from the secular centers back to religious communities on the border? Just the opposite trade off -- less money, freedom, power. But you'll be more grounded and connected to a community, which can be immensely satisfying. And it's easier to raise kids.
Also I should note here that the borders and centers I'm talking about aren't necessarily physical -- in fact increasingly they are very much not, especially with the rise of remote work.
People in the secular center are doing a tremendous amount of very valuable and high leverage technical work to make a scaled civilization like ours function on a day-to-day basis. That's super important stuff.
People in religious (or cultural) communities at the border are doing a tremendous amount of cultural work to sustain a reserve of human values that can fuel those at the center when hard times come. Also super important stuff.
A balance in the tradeoffs between these places and a continuous cycling of people between them seems healthy to me.