Joseph Henrich on how religion changed sex, families and culture

Dialogues with Richard Reeves

What made some societies so individualistic, so democratic, and so rich? The short version of Joe Henrich’s answer is: religion. By undermining kin-based networks, universalizing religions (especially Western Christianity) prompted the “big innovation” of impersonal trust, altered the Western brain and laid the foundations for free markets, geographical mobility and democratic institutions. In other words, some people became WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic). We discuss how the concept of coevolution helps to get us past the tired nature v. nurture distinction, the role of culture in shaping our biology, how polygamy causes a “math problem of surplus men”, the rise of the incel movement along with feminism, how monogamous marriage lowers testosterone (and why that’s a good thing), The Life of Brian, morality and politics and much more.

Joseph Henrich

Dr. Joseph Henrich is Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology and Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at the University of Harvard and Principal Investigator of the Culture, Cognition, & Coevolution Lab.

Joe’s research focuses on evolutionary approaches to psychology, decision-making and culture, and includes topics related to cultural learning, cultural evolution, culture-gene coevolution, human sociality, prestige, leadership, large-scale cooperation, religion and the emergence of complex human institutions. His latest book is The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous (2020).

More Henrich

The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter (2015).

“Do Markets Make Us Fair, Trusting, and Cooperative, or Bring out the Worst in Us?”, Evonomics (August, 2016)

Also mentioned

Michael Tomasello’s work on humans as “imitation machines” especially his book The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999)

Here is a good summary of Auguste Comte’s “religion of humanity”

“Longitudinal evidence that fatherhood decreases testosterone in human males”, Lee T. Gettler, Thomas W. McDade, Alan B. Feranil, and Christopher W. Kuzawa (2011)

“What have the Romans ever done for us” sketch from the 1979 Monty Python movie The Life of Brian

My previous episode on liberalizing Islam with Mustafa Akyol

The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

Book by Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett

For a good introduction to the politics of moral foundations theory see “Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Different Sets of Moral Foundations” by Jesse Graham, Jonathan Haidt, and Brian A. Nosek (2009)

“Moral Values and Voting” by Benjamin Enke (NBER, 2018)

The Dialogues Team

Creator: Richard Reeves

Research: Ashleigh Maciolek

Artwork: George Vaughan Thomas

Tech Support: Cameron Hauver-Reeves

Music: "Remember" by Bencoolen (thanks for the permission, guys!)