Morality: Part Five - Specialization

When societies changed from a nomadic or hunter-gatherer phase to agricultural one, often with a pastoral intermediary step, human interaction, and therefore ethics, was bound to change. During a time when a clan group derived all of its needs by hunting animals for food, clothing and implements, supplementing their diet by harvesting wild plants, an ethical system whereby everyone had to pull their own weight would have prevailed. In addition to equal division of labor and intolerance of freeloaders, there could, by necessity, be no "free time". Defending against encroaching neighboring tribes with violence would be the rare diversion from the daily routine of staying alive. In such a society, everyone had to be more or less equal since it took everyone to supply the needs for everyone.

Domestication of animals and agriculture were two developments that led to specialization, i.e. the division of labor whereby not everyone was doing the same thing. These advances also made for more stable food sources. Taking care of the animals and working the fields were still pretty labor intensive, but the daily, 24 hour per day dedication to just staying alive was somewhat relived. Specialization was a natural outgrowth of these changes. Granted, in very small groups, everyone would still be involved in all aspects of living: farming, milking and slaughtering the animals, but in larger groups, even in small tribes or villages, it would become obvious that it was more efficient for different people or groups of people to take on certain tasks exclusively. What this leads to is different people in the group having different responsibilities, or jobs. Some people would be raising the crops, others perhaps baking the bread; niches for people who fashioned the tools of farming, hunting or building - carpenters or blacksmiths rose up. Of course there was still a place for the hunters, for the warriors; if the earlier version of society had religious rituals, the solitary shaman or wise woman might now give way to priests and temples and an ethic that the larger society should physically support the priests rose.

In some cultures this specialization evolved into a caste system, where everyone was required to follow the profession of their parents. Even in areas with no rigid caste framework, social mobility was very limited. Those in power always want to stay in power. And this is where you see a shift in how morality was defined: obedience became paramount, respect for authority, everyone knowing their place, the political leaders, the kings, became allied with the priests to provide divine justification for their continuance in power. The concept of kingship became more important than how well a king ruled. Obeying the rules became more important than the rules making sense. Morality became defined as "whatever the god said" (interpreted, of course, by the priests and enforced by the king). And despite many changes in society over the centuries, this is where morality still is for those who look to "scriptures" for their moral framework.

This is not to say that there is nothing moral in scriptures. Jesus said some cool stuff. There are some decent things in the Qur'an. The Hindu texts have some great things to say about duty. But to imbue writings from thousands of years ago, written in different times for different societies in wholly different situations where in many ways people were fundamentally different than they are today is to place an ethical straitjacket on our collective selves.