In the research behind his Moral Foundations theory, Haidt identifies 'honour cultures' that have feuds as associated with herder cultures, where all accumulated wealth could be lost in one raid (vs more collectivist ethics of agrarians that must plant and harvest together). Jonathan Haidt has the idea of 'antifragility', that if we make everything too safe shocks can be catastrophic, and we need to practice settling things directly where there are disputes and tensions, rather than going to settling them by intermediaries or authorities as a first response, in order to become resilient (the linked answer further down about insults goes further into why this occurs).

I don't know about advocating for it, but explaining or justifying. And they should each follow their own rules. And the merchants should stick to trade aspects. So the government should stick to non-trade aspects of society. They should follow their rules to get cohesion and longevity.

Fail to follow all the rules and it will be corrupt and fragile. Follow all the rules and it will be cohesive and long lasting. Jacobs's thesis is that the set of rules for guardians is a system. So, to repeat, they must care about honor, exert prowess, be ostentatious, respect heirarchy, be suspicious of outsiders, shun trade. Government necessarily falls in the guardian ethic. And so they cannot also operate on the basis of trade. Recall that a government must wield force. Revenge is a vital part of the guardian ethic.Īnd guardians include the government of a country. This illustrates that ethics must correspond to the manner of life in the local culture.

They even are starting to send some of their children to college. Not exactly rich but they have more than bare survival. Today the Ik are subsistence farmers and doing OK. I suggest it is not good bedtime reading since several parts of it are truly horrific. You can read of this in The Mountain People by Turnbull. Learning this lesson was drastically harsh for them. Their ethics, which had worked well for centuries as nomads, was incompatible with a life as farmers who needed to cooperate and trade with their neighbors. And they took revenge.Īnd they very nearly died out. They cared about honor, exerted prowess, they were ostentatious, they respected heirarchy, they were suspicious of outsiders, they shunned trade. And seed to plant and animals, all similar to their nearby farming neighbors.Īt the start of the transition to farming they tried to follow the ethics they followed while nomads. They were given a segment of land sufficient to farm for the size of their tribe. Their language gave clues that they might have been there doing this since at least ancient Egypt times.īut the authorities made their territory a game preserve. They had followed this pattern for many centuries. They followed the migrations of wild animals, hunting for their food and clothing, and living where the hunting was good. She follows one such example, a hunter-gatherer tribe called the Ik. But break the rules and things go very badly and rather quickly. If you follow all the rules of the system then you will find that your culture is cohesive, persistent, and thrives. She builds a case that each of these corresponds to a system of ethics. Fish for flint, salt for antelope hides, and so on. The classic is the ocean-side people trading with the mountain people. This means making and doing things of value, then trading these with other people. But it also includes more modern institutions such as governments. This would include such folks as hunter-gatherers. Then extract a living out of this territory. This means getting hold of and keeping hold of a territory. The first, and probably older, she calls guardian. These systems correspond to the two means by which people get their living. In the book Systems of Survival, Jacobs makes the case that there are two systems of ethics that humans follow. There is a very old proverb: Revenge is the best revenge.

Thessa revenge reuencape