Can society be constructed in a spiritual way? By this, I should clarify, I don’t mean that society itself possesses the inherent qualities or propensities of what is colloquially understood as “spiritual”, or that its individuals possess the inherent qualities or propensities of being spiritual. What I mean delves deeper into the ontological structure of how human societies are constructed, asking if there is a way to organize ourselves into functional social units—tribes, communities, nations, supranational entities like the EU or UN—that can be argued to be more spiritually aligned than others.
This may seem prima facie to be a notion relegated to only the craziest of hippy minds within the New Age community. But I argue that modern science can and does offer some perspective on this question, and the answer is a resounding “YES!” However, the ways in which we organize ourselves today in modern society are completely antithetical to what science says is a naturally ordained and spiritual way to organize ourselves.
The Human Need For Connection: The Rat Park Experiment
The famous Rat Park experiment, conducted by Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander in the late 1970s, turned everything we thought we once knew about addiction and mental illness on its head. It challenged prevailing notions about addiction by examining the role of the environment in addictive behaviors, demonstrating that social animals, including us humans, have a deliberate and evolutionary-ingrained need for social connection—as much as we have a need for food, water, and sustenance.
Before Rat Park, traditional addiction studies typically involved isolating rats in small cages and offering them two water sources: one plain and one laced with morphine or cocaine. These studies consistently found that the rats would consume the drug-laced water until they overdosed, suggesting that the drugs were inherently addictive.
Alexander hypothesized that the isolated, stressful conditions of the cages contributed significantly to the rats' drug consumption. To test this, he created "Rat Park," a large, enriched environment that provided ample space, toys, and opportunities for social interaction with other rats. In this stimulating and socially rich environment, he again offered the rats the choice between plain water and drug-laced water.
The results were counterintuitive to everything observed up to that moment in addiction research: rats in Rat Park consumed far less of the drug-laced water compared to their isolated counterparts. Many of the Rat Park rats preferred plain water, even when they had previously been exposed to morphine in isolation. This suggested that a supportive, stimulating environment drastically reduced the inclination towards drug use, challenging the received view at that time that drugs alone were the ultimate cause of addiction.
Alexander's experiment was the first to highlight the profound influence of environmental factors on addictive behaviors, which the preponderance of addiction studies have since validated. The main takeaway from these studies is that social enrichment can significantly mitigate the appeal of addictive substances, emphasizing the importance of social context and connection in understanding and treating addiction.
Just as the rats in Rat Park thrived with social interaction and a stimulating environment, humans also benefit from strong social connections and a supportive community—or what I define as spirituality herein. Spirituality often emphasizes interconnectedness, belonging, and a sense of purpose, which are critical for psychological and emotional well-being. A society that fosters these “spiritual” elements can help reduce the incidence of addictive behaviors and other maladaptive coping mechanisms.
We can also gather from Rat Park that the presence of addictive behaviors, or any mental illness for that matter, are robust yet subtle indicators of how well-constructed a society is; of how well your social environment provides for your needs as a social animal. This is to say that increasing rates of drug addiction and/or mental illness are symptoms of a dysfunctional society. They are indicators of what I argue to be a spiritless society or a society that fails to make its citizens feel connected to the larger and broader social consciousness.
Ego Extension and Ritualistic Senicide
The common thread that interweaves between the spiritual traditions of most modern religions is what I call ego extension, where practitioners extend their conceptions of self to include higher-level entities, making you a part of something greater than yourself. Practitioners of Abrahamic religions typically extend their self to encompass an anthropomorphic deity, seeing their-“selves” as part of the larger ongoings of an interventionist and omnipotent deity. Practitioners of Hinduism view the self as a balance between Brahman and Atman, with Brahman being the universal power, and Atman the non-material human “self” or soul, exemplified by the famous Hindu proverb “That art thou”. Practitioners of Taoism or Buddhism evolve to see their “self” as existing within everything and everyone, under a special kind of pantheistic view of selfhood.
Similarly, human societies can provide the social contexts necessary for ego extension, and I posit that this is the underlying X-factor of whether or not a society is deemed as a good (spiritual) or bad (spiritless) society. A society can be said to be spiritual when all of its constituents view a part of their “self” as existing at the level of said society; when individual egos are superseded or suppressed to an extent that benefits the common good over individual, selfish interests. A good indicator of a spiritual society is when its adherents are willing to offer their life in trade for saving space or resources for their social tribe since they view a part of their self as continuing to survive within the broader social unit after their death.
One of the most staggering examples of what exactly I mean by a “spiritual society” is reiterated by the strange ubiquity of ritualistic senicide in traditional societies. When elders in Norse prehistoric times would reach a certain point in their lives where they could no longer support themselves or assist in the household, it was common practice to fling themselves off cliffs to their demise below. The name for such a ritual is telling of why they would do so, Ättestupa, which is Swedish for “Kin/Clan precipice”. Older community members would throw themselves off a steep precipice, obviously not for any individual or selfish gain, but for the sake of the greater good during times of famines or crises. Norse elders would forgo their lives to protect the unity, sanctity, or continuity of their kin or clan—or what they viewed as their higher self.1
Examples of senicide, or the practice of the elderly committing altruistic self-sacrifice, have been found all over the world and practiced in many traditional societies. In The World Until Yesterday, Jared Diamond argues that these practices were often responses to extreme environmental pressures and the survival needs of the group. For instance, among the Inuit, when food was scarce, elderly individuals would sometimes choose to walk into the wilderness to die, thereby conserving resources for the younger and more productive members of the community. Similarly, in some Indigenous Australian cultures, the elderly would voluntarily end their lives during periods of famine or drought to reduce the burden on their kin. Diamond posits that these practices, though harsh, were considered rational and even honorable within the context of ensuring the group's overall survival and well-being.
Think about it. Would you readily die for your society? If your answer is “no”, then I suggest that this is a fairly reliable marker that you don’t live in a very good or spiritually-aligned society. If you don’t live in a society worth dying for, then the social constructs underlying your society are not doing a good enough job of providing for its members or making them feel as if they belong to the larger social identity. If your society withholds the tools necessary for ego extension, then I argue that this makes one more prone to sipping the cocaine-laced water or suffer from a plethora of mental illnesses.
The question underlying where exactly a society lives on the “spiritual” spectrum is, essentially, what amount of time or effort are individuals within the social unit willing to put forward to benefit the common good? Well-functioning, spiritual societies tend to have individuals who are readily willing to give their lives to benefit the broader social unit, whereas broken and spiritless societies tend to have individuals who won’t even return their shopping cart or take a vaccine to benefit the common good.
The mere existence of altruistic senicide in traditional societies is a staggering juxtaposition with societies today, thus begging the question, what did traditional societies have that we lack today? In our modern context, the act of killing oneself for the benefit of others within our societies is almost unthinkable. Yet, this precisely illuminates what is wrong with modern society, or what we have lost as we’ve transitioned into modern, higher-level societal structures. We have lost all conceptions of our group-self in trade for an individual-self, including a weaker “self” at the nation-state level. Today, the multilevel structures of our “selfhood” are incongruous with how we evolved.
Another Example: Gun Ownership and Mass Shootings in the USA and Switzerland
For another example of what exactly I mean by a spiritual society, let us consider the extreme juxtaposition between two of the most gun-owning societies, Switzerland and the United States. Switzerland has more guns per capita than the United States, yet profoundly fewer mass shootings on average. What is it about Swiss society, that makes it less likely to have mass shootings than the USA?
Of course, one explanatory factor is that the Swiss have stricter gun regulations, including mandatory training, regular certification, and psychological evaluations. However, this is not enough to explain the entirety of why the Swiss have fewer mass shootings than the USA. Like everything, there is a socio-spiritual dimension that often goes overlooked. This is why the question we should be asking ourselves is, what’s wrong with the social constructs of the United States that make mass shootings more frequent than in any other country on the Earth?
One thing that the Swiss do better than the US is that they maintain a strong social identity, where those from the lowest socioeconomic class are not as disenfranchised as they are in the United States. Homelessness is virtually impossible in Switzerland. The Swiss social system ensures that none of their citizens fall through the metaphorical cracks of society, by having equal access to housing, healthcare, and education, contributing to overall social stability and cohesion of their individual citizens.
Community-oriented values, comprehensive mental health care, and a robust social safety net contribute to a society where individuals are less likely to feel alienated or resort to violence. Switzerland also practices direct democracy, rather than representative democracy, where an individual citizen is allowed to challenge any law proposed by the parliament or propose a modification to the federal constitution. Direct democracy means that individual Swiss citizens vote directly on issues of merit, such as abortion, gun laws, welfare, healthcare, etc. Thus, such policies lead Swiss citizens to feel as if they have a more direct route to the decision-making process of their larger social unit; to feel as if they belong to the larger social unit.
In contrast, the United States grapples with significant social inequality, fragmented communities, and inconsistent access to mental health care, creating conditions where disenfranchised or mentally ill individuals may be more likely to commit acts of violence such as mass shootings. The US’ emphasis on individualism, laissez-faire economics, and neo-liberalism as its organizing philosophies has resulted in a more socially dispersed and separated populace than the Swiss. Recent studies have also shown that our democratic structures are profoundly unrepresentative, with our governmental officials being more aligned with corporate interests and profit than the individual citizens they took an oath to uphold and protect, hence why 72% of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Congress. All of these “spiritual” factors aforementioned, as well as many others, left unmentioned, result in a spiritless society of a magnitude presently unknown in human history.
Good scientific ideas lead to accurate and precise scientific predictions, and my prediction, based on the data of several millennia of societal history, is that the United States is on the cusp of collapse and social unrest due to its lacking the “spiritual” element of a good society that allows for the ego extension of its individual citizens. The history of human societies suggests that spiritless societies are doomed for collapse because they result in a spiritually disconnected populace that no longer cares to invest in or maintain the larger social unit. In the case of the United States, we no longer have a strong American identity, but rather suffer from something akin to split-personality disorder at a macrolevel scale, with rebellion rapidly ascendant on the horizon.
Now, I am not here to suggest that the Swiss are the epitome of a spiritual society, as I think there are profound “spiritual” issues with any state government, and Swiss society certainly comes with its fair share of negatives (e.g., having to share a border with France). However, what I am arguing is that the ultimate cause, or X-factor, of how well a society is constructed lies in its ability to allow its adherents to undergo ego extension in pursuit of a broader, coherent social unit. Gun violence and mass shootings, as well as nearly all the negative things becoming of a modern state society (e.g., mental illness, poverty, ecological destruction, etc.), are the broader consequences of spiritless societies that don’t allow for the ego extension of its individual adherents, largely because they don’t provide for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of their citizens.
This is a fact that, I surmise, will invariably continue so long as we have state societies. The higher-level structures of our modern sociopolitical landscapes foster egoism and antisocial behavior, selecting for narcissists and sociopaths in our most powerful positions (e.g., CEOs, and politicians). Modernity, with its emphasis on individualism and materialism,2 has led to weakened social identities and increased reliance on external affiliations (e.g., sports teams, gender identities, political party affiliations), contributing to widespread social and psychological issues. In his book Tribe, the war journalist Sebastian Junger notes that returning to community-level politics could restore a sense of purpose and solidarity, creating a more cohesive and resilient society.
Do I think a spiritual society can operate at higher levels of organization? Yes, but first we need to rebuild at the community level. For without a well-defined social unit in the community, the everyday needs of humans will never be met to allow for their inclusion into a broader social structure, at a level above the community. Without a strong community identity, I posit that humans cannot undergo ego extension to higher levels of social identity (e.g., nations/states, supranational entities). What we need is to construct society within a multilevel framework similar to those of our ancestors.
Learning From Evolution: How MLS Theory Shines Light On How We Should Organize Ourselves
Humanity can learn a lot from the oldest social process on Earth: evolution. Over a few billion years of evolutionary tinkering has afforded us some clues into how we can best construct a spiritual society that benefits members at all levels of existence.
From the available evidence within evolutionary biology, I believe level harmony—or the absence of interlevel conflict—between various levels of biological organization evolves over longer stretches of time and following the natural ebbs and flows of selective social pressures, similar to the evolutionary process. A balance, or “compromise”, between short-term and long-term evolutionary goals is thus the evolved result of many lineages that have stood the test of time, and I intuit that the same is true of any symbiotic, social, or cultural relationship.
For example, within biological evolution, the complex process of sexual reproduction affords individuals within a species a selective advantage by blocking or concealing deleterious mutations on one chromosome due to our diploid nature (i.e., the presence of two complete sets of chromosomes in an organism’s cells, with each parent contributing a chromosome to each pair). If one parent contributes a harmful or inefficient allele, then taking one from another parent increases the chances that our genes will function correctly, since we have a backup set of chromosomes from the other parent.3
At the same time, sex also enhances the long-term survivability of species by allowing them to be evolvable and generate enough genetic variation for natural selection to act upon individuals when environments change. Sex is thus a complex, bifunctional, multilevel process that enhances both the robustness of individuals and the evolvability of species alike, in the short-term and long-term. This is one of many reasons why sex is a nearly ubiquitous and highly conserved reproductive strategy within the eukaryotic domain because it stands as a prime exemplar of a biological trait that has been honed and tinkered over the many trials of evolution to the point where it now confers advantages to all parties, at all levels.
I posit that a successful and spiritual society evolves in much the same manner as sex, over time and following significant social pressures, since it leads to advantages at both the individual and societal levels. Pre-neolithic societies placed a strong emphasis on individual autonomy and freedom, and power over one another (i.e., leadership) was often earned or regulated to an extent that if an individual did not agree with any given initiative set by an interim leader, they weren’t required to participate. Recent anthropological studies suggest that our ancestors held more individual autonomy than we do today, and they always had the power to say no.
This is also the reason why I believe egalitarianism was the chosen mold for society throughout the majority of our evolutionary history because it maintains both the individual and social levels better than alternatives. It strikes a perfect balance between the short-term needs of the individual and the long-term needs of the society. When times are good, individuals can do as they please. But when times were tough, let’s say, during winter times or when war with a neighboring clan was imminent, then individuals often organized themselves into a larger and more efficient social unit, where everything was shared between members. This is the flexibility inherent in a spiritual society: it’s robust while remaining evolvable, benefiting both the individual and the society, in the short-term and long-term. Thus, as the evolutionary process suggests, we can and should build a robust and evolvable society akin to living organisms, that maintains the line of descent while also being flexible enough to adapt to novel circumstances.
Building A Spiritual Society
Today, most of us live in a spiritless modern society where the spiritual connection between individuals and society at large is cleaved, thereby denying the development of ego extension and the production of a strong group-self or identity. We have lost so much of what once made us humans great once we’ve opened up our social structures to nation-states, losing our evolutionary-adapted sense of self and spiritual connection to others within our community. It is a fact of our anthropological history that when humans exist in a spiritless society, they act out. They act out by killing and murdering, stealing and depraving, harming and corrupting other members of their society that they view as outside of their traditional “tribal”, social identity.
Most of us live under the confines of a modern society that is completely antithetical to a spiritual society. We live in a modern society where the individual ego not only often takes precedence, but is actively cultivated, thereby superseding higher levels of social organization and leading to what David Sloan Wilson commonly refers to as lower-level events disrupting higher-level formations—that is, events taking place at lower levels disrupting the evolution of positive change efforts at higher levels of organization. The negative effects of living in societies with weak social constructs that disincentivize ego extension include increasing rates of mental illness, depression, school shootings, ad infinitum.
I posit from the science, that there is a very specific way to live in relation to other human beings. I posit that there is a “spiritual” way to live that exists on a multilevel scale, that is now backed by good science and a non-spiritual way to live. And rather unfortunately, we’ve been living in the latter, non-spiritual way for too long.
A spiritual society never takes more than it needs, as it lives only to meet the needs of subsistence. In a spiritual society, egalitarianism is the chosen political strategy, because individual adherents have a well-defined multilevel conception of selfhood that balances the needs of individuals with their higher-level, group self.
In a spiritual society, obesity (and thus diabetes), mental illness, or addictive behaviors are nearly unheard of; they are the exception rather than the norm. No individual person must endure a life of hardship because everyone falls under the constant protection of the larger tribe. In a spiritual society, most people prefer to sip plain water, because the societal constructs provide for all their needs in a physical, emotional, social, and most importantly, spiritual sense, allowing people to feel connected and supported by the broader social unit. Modern science now offers a crystal clear roadmap to how we can and should organize ourselves, and it is almost completely antithetical to how we are currently organizing ourselves in modern society.
Notes:
1. Interestingly, several scientists have noted that the general idea behind “ättestupa” was existent in the Swedish response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Swedish response was largely herd immunity, or the idea that natural immunity should be built up in the population by either slow or fast speed in order to protect society at-large. In effect, the more vulnerable members of society would be sacrificed for the greater good.
2. It should be noted that a spiritual society is based on the opposite values of capitalism and consumerism. “Capitalism is the extraordinary belief”, wrote John Maynard Keynes, “that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all”. The precursor and over-riding philosophy of capitalism is materialism, which evolved once humans started settling down and losing their group-self.
3. This is a grave oversimplification of the “masking” nature of sexual species and how modern genetics actually work, since what allele is expressed also depends on a number of unmentioned key factors. It is used here for exemplary purposes only.
