Darwin's Dangerous Idea (99 page)

next Pope. Both are keeping alive traditions, rituals, liturgies, symbols, that I began this book with a song which I myself cherish, and hope will otherwise would fade.

survive "forever." I hope my grandson learns it and passes it on to his But hasn't there been a tremendous rebirth of fundamentalist faith in all grandson, but at the same time I do not myself believe, and do not really these creeds? Yes, unfortunately, there has been, and I think that there are no want my grandson to believe, the doctrines that are so movingly expressed in forces on this planet more dangerous to us all than the fanaticisms of that song. They are too simple. They are, in a word, wrong—just as wrong as fundamentalism, of all the species: Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Is-the ancient Greeks' doctrines about the gods and goddesses on Mount lam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as countless smaller infections. Is Olympus. Do you believe, literally, in an anthropomorphic God? If not, then there a conflict between science and religion here? There most certainly is.

you must agree with me that the song is a beautiful, comforting falsehood. Is Darwin's dangerous idea helps to create a condition in the memosphere that simple song nevertheless a valuable meme? I certainly think it is. It is a that in the long run threatens to be just as toxic to these memes as civilization modest but beautiful part of our heritage, a treasure to be preserved. But we in general has been toxic to the large wild mammals. Save the Elephants!

must face the fact that, just as there were times when tigers would not have Yes, of course, but not
by all means.
Not by forcing the people of Africa to been viable, times are coming when they will no longer be viable, except in live nineteenth-century lives, for instance. This is not an idle comparison.

zoos and other preserves, and the same is true of many of the treasures in our The creation of the great wildlife preserves in Africa has often been cultural heritage.

accompanied by the dislocation—and ultimate destruction—of human The Welsh language is kept alive by artificial means, just the way condors populations. (For a chilling vision of this side effect, see Colin Turnbull 1972

are. We cannot preserve
all
the features of the cultural world in which these on the fate of the Ik.) Those who think that we should preserve the elephants'

treasures flourished. We wouldn't want to. It took oppressive political and pristine environment
at all costs
should contemplate the costs of returning social systems, rife with many evils, to create the rich soil in which many of the United States to the pristine conditions in which the buffaloes roam and our greatest works of art could grow: slavery and despotism ("enlightened"

the deer and the antelope play. We must find an accommodation.

though these sometimes may have been), obscene differences in living I love the King James Version of the Bible. My own spirit recoils from a standards between the rich and the poor—and a huge amount of ignorance.

God Who is He or She in the same way my heart sinks when I see a lion Ignorance is a necessary condition for many excellent things. The childish pacing neurotically back and forth in a small zoo cage. I know, I know,
the
joy of seeing what Santa Claus has brought for Christmas is a species of joy lion is beautiful but dangerous; if you let the lion roam free, it would kill me; that must soon be extinguished in each child by the loss of ignorance. When safety demands that it be put in a cage. Safety demands that religions be put that child grows up, she can transmit that joy to her own children, but she in cages, too—when absolutely necessary. We just can't have forced female must also recognize a time when it has outlived its value.

circumcision, and the second-class status of women in Roman Catholicism The view I am expressing has clear ancestors. The philosopher George and Mormonism, to say nothing of their status in Islam. The recent Supreme 516 THE FUTURE OF AN IDEA

In Praise of Biodiversity
517

Court ruling declaring unconstitutional the Florida law prohibiting the sacrificing of animals in the rituals of the Santeria sect (an Afro-Caribbean those who blaspheme against a religion ( complete with bounties or rewards religion incorporating elements of Yoruba traditions and Roman Catholi-for those who carry them out) is beyond the pale. It is not civilized, and it is cism) is a borderline case, at least for many of us. Such rituals are offensive owed no more respect in the name of religious freedom than any other to many, but the protective mantle of religious tradition secures our toler-incitement to cold-blooded murder.1

ance. We are wise to respect these traditions. It is, after all, just part of Those of us who lead fulfilling, even exciting, lives should hardly be respect for the biosphere.

shocked to see people in the disadvantaged world—and indeed in the drabber Save the Baptists! Yes, of course, but not
by all means.
Not if it means corners of our own world—turning to fanaticism of one brand or another.

tolerating the deliberate misinforming of children about the natural world.

Would you settle docilely for a life of meaningless poverty, knowing what According to a recent poll, 48 percent of the people in the United States you know today about the world? The technology of the infosphere has today believe that the book of Genesis is literally true. And 70 percent recently made it conceivable for everybody on the globe to know roughly believe that "creation science" should be taught in school alongside evo-what you know (with a lot of distortion). Until we can provide an lution. Some recent writers recommend a policy in which parents would be environment for all people in which fanaticism doesn't make sense, we can able to "opt out" of materials they didn't want their children taught. Should expect more and more of it. But we don't have to accept it, and we don't have evolution be taught in the schools? Should arithmetic be taught? Should to respect it. Taking a few tips from Darwinian medicine (Williams and Nesse history? Misinforming a child is a terrible offense.

1991), we can take steps to conserve what is valuable in every culture A faith, like a species, must evolve or go extinct when the environment without keeping alive (or virulent) all its weaknesses.

changes. It is not a gentle process in either case. We see in every Christian We can appreciate the bellicosity of the Spartans without wanting
to
re-subspecies the battle of memes—should women be ordained? should we go introduce it; we can marvel at the systems of atrocities instituted by the back to the Latin liturgy?—and the same can also be observed in the varieties Mayans without for one moment regretting the extinction of those practices.

of Judaism and Islam. We must have a similar mixture of respect and self-It must be scholarship, not human game preserves—ethnic or religious states protective caution about memes. This is already accepted practice, but we under dictatorships—that saves superannuated cultural artifacts for posterity.

tend to avert our attention from its implications. We preach freedom of Attic Greek and Latin are no longer living languages, but scholarship has religion, but only so far. If your religion advocates slavery, or mutilation of preserved the art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. Petrarch, in the women, or infanticide, or puts a price on Salman Rushdie's head because he fourteenth century, bragged about the volumes of Greek philosophy he had in has insulted it, then your religion has a feature that cannot be respected. It his personal library; he couldn't read them, because the knowledge of ancient endangers us all.

Greek had all but disappeared from the world in which he lived, but he knew It is nice to have grizzly bears and wolves living in the wild. They are no their value, and strove to restore the knowl-edge that would unlock their longer a menace; we can peacefully coexist, with a little wisdom. The same secrets.

policy can be discerned in our political tolerance, in religious freedom. You Long before there was science, or even philosophy, there were religions.

are free to preserve or create any religious creed you wish, so long as it does They have served many purposes (it would be a mistake of greedy reduc-not become a public menace. We're all on the Earth together, and we have to tionism to look for a single purpose, a single
summum bonum
which they learn some accommodation. The Hutterite memes are "clever" not to include any memes about the virtue of destroying outsiders. If they did, we would have to combat them. We tolerate the Hutterites because they harm only themselves—though we may well insist that we have the right to impose 1. Many, many Muslims agree, and we must not only listen to them, but do what we can some further openness on their schooling of their own children. Other to protect and support them, for they are bravely trying, from the inside, to reshape the religious memes are not so benign. The message is clear: those who will not tradition they cherish into something better, something ethically defensible.
That
is—or, rather, ought to be—the message of muliiculturalism, not the patronizing and subtly accommodate, who will not temper, who insist on keeping only the purest racist hypertolerance that "respects" vicious and ignorant doctrines when they are pro-and wildest strain of their heritage alive, we will be obliged, reluctantly, to pounded by officials of non-European states and religions. One might start by spreading cage or disarm, and we will do our best to disable the memes they fight for.

the word about
For Rushdie
( Braziller, 1994), a collection of essays by Arab and Muslim Slavery is beyond the pale. Child abuse is beyond the pale. Discrimination is writers, many critical of Rushdie, but all denouncing the unspeakably immoral "fatwa"

beyond the pale. The pronouncing of death sentences on death sentence proclaimed by the Ayatollah. Rushdie (1994) has drawn our attention to the 162 Iranian intellectuals who, with great courage, have signed a declaration in support of freedom of expression. Let us all distribute the danger by joining hands with them.

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In Praise of Biodiversity
519

have all directly or indirectly served). They have inspired many people to lead lives that have added immeasurably to the wonders of our world, and

in the universe. There is much more to learn. There is certainly a treasury of they have inspired many more people to lead lives that were, given their ill-appreciated truths embedded in the endangered cultures of the modern circumstances, more meaningful, less painful, than they otherwise could world, designs that have accumulated details over eons of idiosyncratic have been. Breughel's painting
The Fall of Icarus
shows a plowman and a history, and we should take steps to record it, and study it, before it disap-horse on a hillside in the foreground, a handsome sailing ship way in the pears, for, like dinosaur genomes, once it is gone, it will be virtually impos-background—and two almost unnoticeable white legs disappearing with a sible to recover.

tiny splash into the sea. The painting inspired W. H. Auden to write one of We should not expect this variety of respect to be satisfactory to those my favorite poems.

who wholeheartedly embody the memes we honor with our attentive—but not worshipful—scholarship. On the contrary, many of them will view any-MUSEE DES BEAUX ARTS

thing other than enthusiastic conversion to their own views as a threat, even an intolerable threat. We must not underestimate the suffering such con-About suffering they were never wrong,

frontations cause. To watch, to have to participate in, the contraction or The Old Masters: how well they understood

evaporation of beloved features of one's heritage is a pain only our species Its human position; how it takes place

can experience, and surely few pains could be more terrible. But we have no While someone else is eatirig or opening a window or just walking dully reasonable alternative, and those whose visions dictate that they cannot along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately peacefully coexist with the rest of us we will have to quarantine as best we waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be can, minimizing the pain and damage, trying always to leave open a path or Children who did not specially want it to happen skating On two that may come to seem acceptable.

a pond at die edge of the wood: They never forgot

If you want to teach your children that they are the tools of God, you had That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course better not teach them that they are God's rifles, or we will have to stand Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

firmly opposed to you: your doctrine has no glory, no special rights, no Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse intrinsic and inalienable merit. If you insist on teaching your children false-Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

hoods—that the Earth is flat, that "Man" is not a product of evolution by In Breughel's
Icarus,
for instance: how everything turns away natural selection—then you must expect, at the very least, that those of us Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the the splash, die forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children failure; the sun shone As it had to on die white legs disappearing at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being—the well-being of all of us into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must on the planet—depends on the education of our descendants.

have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had What, then, of all the glories of our religious traditions? They should somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

certainly be preserved, as should the languages, the art, the costumes, the rituals, the monuments. Zoos are now more and more being seen as second-That is our world, and the suffering in it matters, if anything does. Reli-class havens for endangered species, but at least they are havens, and what they gions have brought the comfort of belonging and companionship to many preserve is irreplaceable. The same is true of complex memes and their who would otherwise have passed through this life all alone, without glory or phenotypic expressions. Many a fine New England church, costly to maintain, adventure. At their best, religions have drawn attention to love, and made it is in danger of destruction. Shall we deconsecrate these churches and turn them real for people who could not otherwise see it, and ennobled the attitudes and into museums, or retrofit them for some other use? The latter fate is at least to refreshed the spirits of the world-beset. Another thing religions have be preferred to their destruction. Many congregations face a cruel choice: their accomplished, without this being thereby their
raison d'etre,
is that they have house of worship costs so much to maintain in all its splendor that little of their kept
Homo sapiens
civilized enough, for long enough, for us to have learned tithing is left over for the poor. The Catholic Church has faced this problem for how to reflect more systematically and accurately on our position centuries, and has maintained a position that is, I think, defensible, but not obviously so: when it spends its treasure to put gold plating on the candlesticks, instead of providing more food and
better shelter for the poor of the parish, it has a different vision of what