Keywords:: PermanentNote
The intersubjective nature of humans also means that all philosophies, values, morals, truths, traditions, and so on are malleable because they are dependent on the historical context. Usually, similarly to how our brain works [1], our subjective theories of how the world should be are a post hoc fabrication of the pragmatic needs of survival.
For example, women were once slaves to men. It wasn't because God said so—it was because 90% of people had to toil all day on the farm to survive and the wife and children were the only hands available to work. We haven't yet had the technology to make women's emancipation possible. This opened a door to frame another intersubjective reality that said that women were inferior to men.
Harrari gives a great example: "The Agricultural Revolution seems to have been accompanied by a religious revolution. Hunter-gatherers picked and pursued wild plants and animals, which could be seen as equal in status to Homo sapiens. The fact that man hunted sheep did not make sheep inferior to man, just as the fact that tigers hunted man did not make man inferior to tigers. Beings communicated with one another directly and negotiated the rules governing their shared habitat. In contrast, farmers owned and manipulated plants and animals, and could hardly degrade themselves by negotiating with their possessions. Hence the first religious effect of the Agricultural Revolution was to turn plants and animals from equal members of a spiritual round table into property."
The lesson here is that nothing in our culture is set in stone. What's good or bad, and what's true or false, will change with what's beneficial for our survival in the current historical context [2]. And probably today's virtues will become tomorrow's vices.
Lesson of history virtues become vices
However, it doesn't mean that these institutions, traditions, morals, and so on are superfluous. They are necessary to maintain the stability of the civilization (religion is a preserfer like Durant said). Revolutions are rare and usually have dramatic consequences. Change should come gradually elaborate
Relevant notes (PN: )/questions (Q:):
Furthermore, it turns out that what is good and bad, or what is true and false, depends on the times you live in. Most of our perspectives are shaped by the collective stories of our society. These intersubjective stories change with when the external circumstances change like when new technology comes along or a natural disaster surprises us or war hit us. Morality— i.e. what's good and bad—is one of those stories and it's malleable. Don't believe it? Two hundred years ago, slavery was a regular thing, and we thought that diseases were transmitted through 'bad air.'