double click into the insights of when to renew the state or stay the course
for statehood evolution or maintenance
This is an insightful synthesis that connects several different domains - mythology, history, philosophy, biology, and governance. The key insight seems to be around viewing institutions, cultures, and value systems through an evolutionary lens, where they can go through cycles of emergence, growth, decay and renewal.
Some key points:
Myths and stories encode accumulated wisdom about human nature and the growth and decline of social orders. They highlight recurring patterns and archetypes.
Institutions and cultures can be seen as bundles of memes (ideas, beliefs, values) along with formal rules and incentives that structure societies.
Like biological evolution, these meme complexes and social systems can evolve over time through selection pressures, variation, and propagation of successful traits.
A key question is how to maintain the integrity and renewal of social systems while avoiding stagnation - balancing conservatism with progressivism.
Neo-Darwinism provides insights into evolution as a “selfish” propagation of genes rather than teleological progress. This translates to evolution of memes and institutions too.
Good governance requires recognizing institutional decay and updating/evolving systems to changing circumstances, based on new knowledge and selection pressures.
Flexible institutional evolution requires mechanisms for bottom-up innovation and variation as well as selective adoption of successful traits.
Integrating cross-disciplinary perspectives from mythology to biology to political philosophy provides a richer understanding of social evolution. Using “lateral connective tissue” to find consilience across knowledge domains is illuminating.
Does this help summarize and articulate the key insights you were getting at? Let me know if you have any other thoughts on this synthesis.