Page 490 - Cultures and Organizations

The Evolution of Cultures 455

succeeded only in countries without a Roman tradition. Although today
most of northern Europe is Protestant and most of southern Europe is
Roman Catholic, what is at the origin of the cultural differences is not this
religious split but the inheritance of the Roman Empire. Religious affi lia-
tion by itself is therefore less culturally relevant than is often assumed. 32
Notwithstanding, once a religion has settled, it reinforces the culture pat-
terns on the basis of which it was adopted, by making these patterns into
core elements in its teachings.

Scientific discoveries and innovations, whether native or imported
from outside, as previously argued, tend to affect the practices more than
the underlying values. They also tend to operate worldwide. When cultures
change together because of a common cause, the differences between them
often remain intact. This is why common cultural origins can often be
traced many centuries back.

The End of History? No!

The time-machine trip showed that there has not been a mysterious break
between our times as primitive social mammals, our early human days, and
our centuries of living in civilizations. Nor is there any reason to believe
that evolution has come to a halt. Rather, there is ample reason to believe
that human evolution is accelerating. So, it is time to get familiar with
evolutionary thinking. Making sense of our history in the light of evolu-
tion will allow for better-informed guesses about what to do now in order
to improve our future. Cultural evolution is all around us. Far from having
ended, history is speeding up. It has recently seen the spectacular increase
in scale of societies in a few hundred generations. This process has not
ended yet. Some seven hundred generations ago, in 15,000 b.c., there may

have been 600,000 polities on Earth, each consisting of tens or hundreds
of individuals. Today there are 200, each consisting of millions of people.
We are in a rapid process of conquering nature, as a result of which our
human environment is becoming relatively more important. More and
more, threats as well as opportunities come from other people. In response,
we have embarked on a process of massive merging and expansion of our
moral circles. This process is probably the most conspicuous evolutionary
trend of the last few hundred generations. At the same time, we retain
many of the adaptations to life in small tribes that characterized our ances-