In his book, “Foragers Farmers and How Society Evolves," Morris reasons that the mode of energy capture in a society holds contingently on the social organization of the given society. Moreover, he asserts that the cultural principles embraced by a given people apply efficiently for their social group. He states that “Each age gets the thought it needs.” Through this materialistic approach, Morris postulates that cultural values remain autonomous in the history of humanity and change with changing the environment. Further, he applies the same approach to addressing fundamental changes in human history. The same approach holds regarding the extensive movement of human societies and their shift from hunting and gathering to the adoption of agriculture (Morris, 2015). He postulates that the best value and institution evidenced today stemmed from the evolutionary selection process. This way, group efficiency becomes a reality as the team manages to overcome hurdles along their path.
Moreover, Morris asserts that competition that arises from the process of natural selection results in evolutionary changes in all life aspects. Looking into cultural aspects, the possibility of individuals conforming to a social norm seems likely as dictated by natural selection. Moreover, the complete overhaul on cultural and social norms results from the convergence of the differences in culture and an ultimate change to superior cultural norms. Regarding institutions, Morris presents a model depicting the possibility of an inefficient institution getting wiped out overtime. However, he does not discuss the possibility of retention of these inefficient institutions as they need to exist in the equilibrium. Nevertheless, historical variations on widely shared values seem well covered, especially regarding equality and violence. He argues that a great majority of institutions that present in the current society resulted from the industrial revolution. With these newly found institutions, methods of handling violence and conflict dramatically changed. For instance, he brings a scenario of the hunter-gatherer society that hugely relied on violence to solve their cultural issues. However, the coming of industrialization brought respectable institutions that required a less frequent use of violence to decide conflictual situations.
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On his part, Korsgaard questions the model brought forth by Morris regarding the ideal types of society values and the resultant shifts. From his perspective, the simplification of changes that occur in the human societies inexplicably stems from varied factors. Therefore, the model brought by Morris is at fault for trying to eliminate the reasonable features presented in actual communities. Moreover, the understanding of hunter-gatherer society seems unclear thus keeping it impossible to comprehend the lifestyle and lives lived in the past societies. As a matter of fact, Korsgaard questions the integration of different cultures that occurred all over sudden with the coming of the industrial revolution. From his view, different societies experienced various factors that reshaped their institutions and hierarchy of leadership. In this regard, an explanation for the disappearance of the ancient chiefdoms and kingdoms seem mysterious since these societies existed independently.
Notably, a vast majority of ancient societies existed and held onto their cultural and leadership values. Moreover, the disparities regarding the wealthy and poor still existed as Morris puts across. Nevertheless, the question remains on the ease of understanding of new systems that almost every ancient society seemed to embrace. Moreover, Korsgaard challenges the conviction that these societies had regarding the new systems that eventually caused them to disregard their previous systems. In response, Morris asserts that with the increase in wealth, the societies embraced tranquility. Moreover, the domestication of animals and crops destroyed the hunter and gatherer societies, eventually abolishing them all together. Morris further explains that the gradual change in communities resulted from their perception of the changes. Also, most societies deemed various elements presented by the new society as foreign to them. Therefore, embracing the changes depended largely on the perception of the members thus accounting for the varied ways of cultural change over the industrial revolution.
Morris holds that historical patterns observed point out the genesis and spread of cultural traditions. Further, he applies different classes of models to elicit the persistence and shift of cultural and religious traits. From this perspective, Morris holds that cultural values tend to show rigidity, but with time, cultural evolution eventually occurs. Particularly important factor remain as the distribution of populations possessing the given cultural trait. In this connection, geographical distribution plays a significant role in shaping different value systems. Therefore, Morris implies that cultural values change in consistency with environmental changes. For instance, with the rise of the industrial revolution, different values came into being, and the geographical locations affected easily embraced the changes. However, Morris still maintains that cultural values possess a non-erogidic aspect, thus, do not get completely abolished but get shaped to suit the changing circumstances. Eventually, certain cultural traits remain dominant and thus survive in the long run. On this point, Korsgaard questions the accuracy of these historical patterns that Morris seeks to establish, taking note of the missing links in the empirical model postulated by Morris. This lack of factual accuracy remains unclear on understanding the mechanisms that result in the distribution of a given cultural trait in populations.
Remarkably, different populations depict different cultural traits. In this regard, Morris explains that the implications of these traits essentially depend on the socio-economic environment of the given population. He implies that the interplay between the mode of economic activities and institutional system form the bottom-line in cultural dynamics. However, Korsgaard points out a missing link in the model presented by Morris. On his part, Korsgaard argues that the direct link between cultural values and institutions seems lost by the integration of the environment. Further, the relationship between cultural values regarding violence and institutions implicates different outcomes on the society. On the one hand, embracing values that limit violence guarantees the optimal function of systems. On the other hand, the application of political techniques of manipulation in limiting violence creates privileged interests. Therefore, the efficiency of the society equally requires a proper understanding of violence in the society.
Morris postulates that the mode of energy capture explains the variations among different communities. At this point, Korsgaard differs by asserting that civilizations founded on the same mode of energy capture possibly display significant differences from each other. These differences hold in as much extent on cultural values as from societies founded on a different mode of energy capture. Therefore the cultural values and institutions held by a given people work beyond the mode of energy capture (Korsgaard, 2015). In fact, the epistemological and social forces in play at a given society influences the values embraced in society regardless of its mode of energy capture. Similarly, various organizations display remarkable differences in their values and institutions with similar differences in moral dispositions. Ultimately, Morris responds that although the similarities shared by people concerning cultural values depict missing links, the common evolutionary history accounts for the variation.
In conclusion, Morris postulates that changes in forms of energy capture stem from evolutionary changes in the features of a population. He asserts that the population size and density in the given geographical location serve as the causal factor in changing the mode of energy capture. Moreover, the shift in the mode of energy capture comes accompanied by changes in values held by the society. However, Korsgaard points out that there exist huge gaps regarding the idea of changes in cultural values and the energy capture mode. For instance, looking back at the Axial Age values of the Agrarian Revolution, Morris fails to explain the link between capture of fossil fuels and the change in democracies operating under this mode of energy capture.
References
Korsgaard, C. M. (2015). Eternal Values, Evolving Values, and the Value of the Self . Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve, 184. Princeton University Press.
Morris, I. (2015). Foragers, farmers, and fossil fuels: How human values evolve . Princeton University Press.
