Cold, heat, wealth, and culture
This chapter entertains the question of how, or rather, why fundamental freedoms are unevenly distributed around the globe. We propose an explanation in terms of climatic cold and heat ranging from undemanding to demanding, and economic wealth ranging from poor to rich. Fundamental freedoms appear t...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Other Authors: | , |
| Format: | Book Part |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford University Press
2019
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/11370/eadff2a3-bc58-4267-a90c-c0c21ca6bd2d https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/eadff2a3-bc58-4267-a90c-c0c21ca6bd2d https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/213343080/2019_Handbook.pdf |
| Summary: | This chapter entertains the question of how, or rather, why fundamental freedoms are unevenly distributed around the globe. We propose an explanation in terms of climatic cold and heat ranging from undemanding to demanding, and economic wealth ranging from poor to rich. Fundamental freedoms appear to increase in a stepwise manner in populations faced with threatening (demanding, poor) to unthreatening (undemanding, poor) to unchallenging (undemanding, rich) to challenging (demanding, rich) places of residence. This ecological regularity applies to freedom from ingroup-outgroup discrimination, freedom from hierarchical discrimination, freedom from corruption, freedom from aggression, freedom to trust, and freedom to be creative. As an additional discovery, we find increases in cultural expressions of freedom away from the threatening places of residence around the equator toward the challenging places of residence at higher latitudes in both hemispheres. The observed ecological and latitudinal trends are generalizable across cultural freedoms, across space, and across time. Many civilizations have worshipped the Sun or the Earth—and for good reasons. If the Sun would shine from farther away or closer up, humankind would freeze to death in the cold or burn to death in the heat. If the Earth would not spin around the Sun and around its own tilted axis, its inhabitants would freeze to death in the one hemisphere with eternal winter or burn to death in the opposite hemisphere with eternal summer. Indeed, the Sun’s radiation and the Earth’s rotation support life. Conversely, all living species on our planet must carefully navigate between climatic cold and heat. These adaptations are particularly relevant to humans, who feed on plants and animals. As a notable consequence, few of our ancestors have migrated to arctic or desert regions, where livability is highly problematic. Elsewhere, our ancestors have created lots of practices and artefacts, including money, to meet basic needs during cold winters or hot summers. ... |
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