Status runs societies, and historically that status was concentrated in families protecting their ‘line’. We…

Status runs societies, and historically that status was concentrated in families protecting their ‘line’. We still have dynasties (Murdochs, anyone?), but something in history profoundly weakened them. It’s not what you expect, I will bet. /1 https://t.co/7BBeUT4zoF

Many of these family dynasties were maintained by inter-marriage between blood relations. Up to 10% of marriages in the world to this day are between blood relations. What weakened this form of status hierarchy was the Catholic Church, with its campaign against incest. /2

Joseph Heinrich, a Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology, and colleagues, have amassed amazing evidence of the impact of this breaking down of familial lines as the status hierarchies dominating societies. This led to the rise of the now common ‘nuclear family’. /3

Where children are expected to leave the family unit and establish independent families of their own. No historical change is neat, of course we still see significant use of familial lines to create and maintain status. /4

‘The bank of mum and dad’ is in some ways a returning to that model. We’re heading backwards in history in multiple ways in modern ‘economies’, towards older social forms. That’s what ‘the economy’ remains, a social mechanism to displace modern States. /5

Returning us to older social forms. Monarchy, churches, and the use of status hierarchies more generally to dominate collective life, in a way the public life led by public officials post-WW2 suppressed. /6

Humans as status-loving creatures (nothing drives us more) always actually hated public administration, as the continuous calculation and implementation of a public good. The social model that gave us public health and social welfare. The darling targets of modern politics. /7

What we call a ‘cost of living’ crisis is really the collapse of the social model of the nuclear family. Also a collapse we see in the epidemic of domestic violence. Many children now live with their parents again, well into adulthood. /8

Will we see a return to inter-marriage, to incestuous family lines in the medieval way? To generate and protect status? There is no necessary direction to history, anything is possible. Many such lines still exist, in watered-down ways. /9

Societies are 100% social. I’m hoping people can see that the childish, simplified framing of societies using our traditional political categories like Left and Right explains almost nothing at all. Always look for current ways to generate and hoard status. /10

That’s what society is really all about. The team sports of rival status groups, or status games. Imitative rivalry. Every ‘issue’ you see debated daily is really a battle for status. Information doesn’t run societies. You’re watching rival social groups. /end