Dennett and Dawkins Circle Around Dragon Theory
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| Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins share ideas on religion. |
Dawkins focused originally on the idea that memes survived in a way analogous to evolution (In his preface to "The Meme Machine", Dawkins admits that he's surprised that people took the idea seriously). The conversation struggles to keep this analogy going, trying to make the case that religion is a parasitic meme, surviving at the expense of the believer. It seems that Dawkins uses "meme" mainly as a rhetorical device -- part of his arsenal of weapons to attack what he imagines to be "religion". Dennett, on the other hand, generalizes he idea and takes it into some very interesting territory. In either case, it can be asked if the "meme" analogy tells us anything useful about the way humans think.
Returning to the meme analogy, both of these guys miss the obvious fact the meme doesn't need to "infect" individual brains. More precisely, memes help to assimilate the individual, but this doesn't go all the way to explaining religion. The cluster of memes that give religion its ability to survive and "morph" to meet challenges from the environment include those that assimilate believers but there are others that are strictly necessary for the survival of the religion as a human organizational structure. These memes are not so different from what we find in other "Dragons", such as nations and corporations. For example, every Dragon must "feed" (find resources), protect its form (protect itself from "infection" from outsiders) and simply survive. To survive in the long run, a religion needs to make the transition to some kind of corporate structure. Otherwise, the "religion" will fizzle out as a mere "cult".
The best way to see this is by analogy. An ant doesn't "understand" that it's part of an ant colony, yet the colony as a whole acts in a very purposeful way. It's not correct to say that the colony itself "knows" that purpose. Dennett is good at pointing out that a meme can emerge without anybody actually "knowing" the meme (Dawkins doesn't seem to get this). His favorite example, mentioned in this discussion, is the way canoes are "designed" by the sea by the simple process of copying the ones that don't sink. Ant hills are "designed" by Nature, simply by randomly stumbling into a working "design". Corporations "evolve" in the same way, converging on the psychopathic "person" described in The Corporation.
Interestingly, Dennett and Dawkins discuss the problems faced by professionals in the Church. Seen from the perspective of Dragon Theory, these people are trying to escape assimilation. But Dennett and Dawkins address this as if it's simply a matter of recovering rationality. This keeps them from drawing parallels with other people escaping assimilation, such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Is it really about "rationality"?
Not surprisingly, Dennett and Dawkins agree that religion is doomed to wither away in the near future. You can make this case, if at all, by a suitable definition religion. You must/ignore the religions of militarism, nationalism, consumerism. and all the varieties of ignorance people refer to when they identify themselves as "spiritual". In a broader sense, they are predicting the end of assimilation, which seems to be a core aspect of being human. You must assume that everyone but you is "irrational" and somehow the laws of nature dictate that, sooner or later, everyone will see the world the way you do.
It's always fun to watch these two guys circle around the issues that religion deals with (or tries to deal with). They are crippled by their lack of deep understanding that would have come with a serious investigation into what religion is and why people are swept up in it. They gave up too soon. Here, they try to glorify death in an echo of the stories religion tells in the West, failing to take account of the stories he Buddha told.
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