In response to my post on equality vs. evolutionary psychology, Mom Loves Me More: Why Violence and Not Marriage Proliferate in Harlem, my brother wrote me an interesting email:
"My younger brother wrote: 'Are we dealing with truth, regardless of the effect on stubborn notions of equality? Evolution is a scientific theory,not a moral judgement.'
Anything of value: say love, art, community, family, is built not onflickering truth, but on enduring belief."
Is understanding of value? And if so, what are the bases of our enduring beliefs? Could evolutionary psychology play a role in our belief in family, the notion of love? I think it does.
What fascinated me most about his point is the subtle conflict of belief and truth. Is a belief more valuable or more powerful the harder it is to explain and the less based in truth or provable fact? Does it galvinize its believers more?
Believing the obvious is easy. Investing, pursuing, or commiting to the subtle, the complex, the elusive, or even the farfetched builds a community.
What do you believe in that you can't prove? What about the farfetched? How does that belief affect who you are and who you are with?
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