Governing without Religion

Religion and morality - Beliefnet

I haven't read Proud Tower, but from your description it is a polemical view of the reality of dealing with a situation where religion has destroyed the effectiveness of government functions. As they say, it is a dirty job but somebody has to do it.

A more benign view of the same type of solution to the dissolution of a functioning government can be found in Oath of Fealty the Niven-Pournelle description of a corporate archology which has taken over all government functions in the heart of a basically dysfunctional Los Angeles. It is the book which described the difference between their locally functioning society with the surrounding world as "Think of it as evolution in action."

This is basically the genesis of my idea of the ring speciation of humans into believers Homo Religiosis, and rationalists, Homo Intelligentsia, or, to use a less political correct term the intellectual elitists. Looking at the corporate/university enclaves around the country: Silicon Valley; Tri-Cities, NC; Cambridge, MA; Manhattan; Boulder, CO; among many others, there are good local school systems, that feed the universities, and jobs for the graduates of those universities. The rationalists in the rest of the country are either going to have to move, if they have kids that need good K-12 schooling, or tap into the enclaves via the internet if childless, although they will probably move for social reasons.

The reason for the ring speciation hypothesis is that the mating rituals if nothing else will make interbreeding unlikely. In the U/C community mate selection criteria is almost purely on demonstrated intellectual ability. Marriage is late, and children planned usually for near the end of the female's academic tenure. The third year of med school is the breeding season for female med students. A non-breeder by choice complained about the social pressure to get pregnant at that time. (I wonder if that choice will survive in the face of an intellectual equal male determined to improve H. Intelligentsia.) In general I have observed that it is definitely a female choice of breeding partner in the U/C community, although not necessarily but frequently sex partner as well. But the male is going to have to employ powerful intellectual persuasion to get her to lose the contraceptive.

In the religious world male dominance and early marriage is the norm. Think traditional sport star-cheerleader paradigm here. If she isn't pregnant at graduation she failed high school.

It isn't a clean division geographically, but socially the believers are insular, and gravitate to the bad school districts for the lower property values. If the deterioration of the government infrastructure continues outside the U/C enclaves even social contact between the two groups will be limited.

It is interesting to speculate on the political religious right support. Can it be a conspiracy or informal collusion of the U/C elite to restrict the religious poor to the resources of their churches, including the psychological resource of salvation. Are the bankers and the entertainment industries consciously destroying the effectiveness of the popular government so the poor will have no choice but obesity deaths without proper medical care.

The rise of the apocalyptic churches is for me an indication of this trend. Obviously the U/C elite will definitely not be among the saved chosen.

The U/C enclaves have their own private HMO medical systems, good public schools and private internet access to the powerful resources of the community. They have back door entrances for those who can somehow transcend their religion facilitated intellectual disabilities. Open need blind enrollment in the University with its access to the powerful intranet.

The door to breaking the religious social control of learning is of course the internet. The wikis, and the few public access science resources like SciAm on line give those with the interest and ability the key to that back door, but they will have to resist the religious and popular entertainment pressures for couch-potatoism.