LITMIR.BIZ

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or snakes than they do of cars or guns, even though in a modern world people are much more likely to be killed by cars and guns than they are by spiders or snakes. The psychiatrists Isaac Marks and Randolph Nesse regard panic disorders, phobias and chronic anxiety as evolutionary adaptations to an environment which required human beings to be very readily alarmed at the possibility of danger.⁶ Fear serves to keep us alive.

      This fear not only drove us to flight or fight but also inspired our ancestors to devise ways of outwitting the powerful beasts. They would have noted that the beast was often satisfied with just one kill. They might have reasoned that if they gave the beast some food, even if the food was one of them, the rest of the group might be spared. Thus the idea of appeasing a great power with a sacrifice could have been born, and then flourished as an integral part of the ritual of religion. The idea of sacrifice allows us to reconstrue a disaster over which we had no control as a sacrifice which we had chosen to make. Barbara Ehrenreich considered the possibility that

      Sacrifice, in its most archaic form, was not a ritual at all, but a face-saving euphemism for death by predation. Perhaps no victims were ever thrown to the wolves or lions, but it somehow pleased our hominid ancestors to think of those who died in the jaws of predators as victims voluntarily offered up by the group.⁷

      The concepts of prey and predator, sacrifice and appeasement are still today central to the way in which we define the groups with which we identify. We might no longer think of ourselves as prey to the beasts of the African savannah, but in the economic jungle we’re either the exploited or the exploiter.⁸ Modern religions might not demand blood sacrifices, but the belief in the importance of sacrifice still operates powerfully. In Hinduism, as recounted in the Rig-Veda, the entire world is a result of a sacrifice by the gods. All Christian churches remind the faithful that Christ sacrificed himself for them, and, in all religions, the faithful are reminded of the necessity of personal humility and abasement.

      The concepts of prey, predator and sacrifice are central to our definition of the group because they are central to our experience of being an individual in a group. In the hierarchy of the group we might have enough power to prey on others and force them to make sacrifices, but each of us started life as small and weak and at the mercy of people around us, so even the most powerful know what it is to be prey. This is one of the reasons why the powerful usually hate to relinquish power.

      The concepts of predator, prey and sacrifice have both good and bad implications. To be prey is bad, but if there is a power strong enough to prey on us it might also be strong enough to look after us. The beasts which preyed on our ancient ancestors also provided our ancestors with much of their food. They could scavenge the kills made by the beasts. Thus a sacrifice was both an appeasement and a reward. A savage god might be appeased by a sacrifice and coaxed into generosity. Throw in a few hymns of praise and the prey might be safe.

      Being the predator has its disadvantages too. If the prey becomes an enemy the predator can become prey. When our ancestors turned from being prey to being predators, the most successful predators the world has ever seen, they remained mindful of the dangers of being a predator. It was not just a matter of being mindful of the dangers of having an enemy. To become too strong, too powerful as an individual, was to invite retaliation either by the gods or by the group. The Greek gods punished anyone who displayed hubris, while every group developed its own way of punishing those who were not mindful of the necessity of humility. In Australia, as they say, tall poppies get cut down, in Japan the nail that sticks up gets hammered down, while the English quietly damn those who are too clever by half. A popular group pleasure is that of schadenfreude, the joy felt at the spectacle of someone who has flown too high being brought down to earth.

      Thus the group constantly presents us with a conflict between pride and humility. We need pride, both moral pride and primitive pride, to maintain our individuality. Too much humility threatens our meaning structure because humility requires us to value other people’s ideas more than our own. Most of us deal with this conflict by developing ways of appearing to be humble while privately maintaining our pride. However, this is merely a tactic. The overall strategy is always problematic because this strategy is always about justice.

      Every meaning structure, left to itself, would seek to make the entire universe conform to its expectations and demands. In real life other meaning structures get in its way and spoil its plans. Every meaning structure has to compromise, and the compromise always has to do with justice. The idea of justice is essential to the maintenance of the meaning structure. Long before a child can utter the words, ‘It’s not fair!’ the child will demonstrate the anger we all feel when life is not fair to us.

      Life is rarely fair. We do not mind that when we are the ones benefiting from its unfairness, but when we feel hard done by we want justice. We want this justice to be applied to all the trades we do with other people. These might be trades in goods or services, or simply in feelings. We can believe that ‘If I am patient with you, you must be patient with me,’ or ‘If I love you, you must love me.’ Sacrifice is a trade. ‘I give you this offering. Now you must benefit me.’

      Every group develops its own rules or laws about justice. Our ancestors lived in small bands which, as the centuries passed, swelled into or came together as a tribe. Tribal law could deal with goods and services trades between people and sort out some of the issues which arise in relationships, but it could not deal with disasters which were beyond the control of the tribe. A brave man who had led a blameless life might die in an avalanche, a good wife and mother might die in childbirth, or the tribe itself might be threatened with starvation by an unforeseen change in the climate. How can such disasters be explained? How can good people be recompensed and rewarded? How can the wicked who go beyond tribal law be punished?

      Now the meaning structure’s great capacity for fantasy could come into play. What if there was a law of justice greater than the tribe, something that covered the land, sea and sky which the tribe knew and beyond to realms which could only be imagined? What if this justice decreed that ultimately all people get their just deserts. The good are rewarded and the bad are punished. Thus the idea of the Just World was born.

      It seems that all tribes at some point in their existence arrived at the idea of a Just World. In their imaginations what that Just World looked like was different for different people, and so a vast number of religions came into being, each with its own story which gave a meaning to death and the purpose of life, and an explanation of why suffering exists.⁹ The supreme power which administered universal justice took on the features of those who had conjured it into being, and its abode took on the features of the territory the conjurers inhabited. The practices of tribal law were enlarged and elaborated to become the practices of the universal power, and the rewards and punishments of tribal law were transformed into universal rewards and punishments whose enactment might take an instant or an eternity. However terrible and mysterious the power might be, weak, frail humans could know that they were secure provided they were good.

      But what was ‘good’? The power might demand absolute belief and constant praise, and the tribe might have rules about good behaviour, but what was good enough? What was an adequate sacrifice – one virgin or twenty? Would a smidgen of doubt about the existence or competence of the Almighty cast you into hellfire for ever? If you coveted your neighbour’s wife but did not act on your thought did that make you a good person or a bad person?

      You could spend your life trying to be a good person and still be struck by disaster. Did that mean that you had not tried hard enough and this was your punishment? Or had there been some failure in the system of justice and you had been treated most unfairly? Or had the suffering been sent to try you and, if you suffered expertly enough, would you get your reward? The highly talented but severely disabled actor, film-maker and broadcaster Nabil Shaban told how

      Many disabled friends have admitted to me they think they are disabled as a punishment. My own mother told me I was born disabled because I had been very bad in my past life – and that, if I continued to be an atheist, I would be in an even

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