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Pathogens and Politics: Further Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism
The link between authoritarianism in the society and in the government and prevalence of parasitic infection may be causual or coincidental but the effect is real and correlation factor is very high, 0.6
Parasitic infestation alters one's behavior due to neuro-active compounds released by the parasites into the host's bloodstream. This is well documented. That would explain the causuality, that is one causing the other. Another possibility is that the authoritarian governments often keep most of the popluation in poverty, which then is associated with all sort of infections and infestation risk due to poor hygiene and malnutrition. That would be the coincidental effect, that is one is asociated with the other but not directly causing one another.
There is another interesting essay (and a book link) indirectly related to the topic of authoritarianism, hygiene, lifestyle and parasitic infections. The essay is discussing the origin of human urban civillisation.
Why did we start farming? by Steven Mithen
(book: "Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States", by James C. Scott, Yale, 336 pp, £20.00, September, ISBN 978 0 300 18291 0)
The author is saying that the shift from the neolithic hunting-gathering to settled communities and then cities took place against the logic, reason and against a common sense. It must have been triggered by something powerful enough to overcome a natural human disgust against dreadful work-filled life in overcrowded sewage drenched slums. Shorter lifespan, unhealthy grain-based diet, physical deterioration, more diseases - and autocratic leadership (!). The author is speculating on what some of the compulsive city-forming factors could have been, one of which may have been a religious belief so powerful as to compel people adopt a lifestyle that was contrary to their natural human interests. Which religion, I wonder?
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| Babel Tower by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Wiki |
It kind of neatly meshes with the parasite-autocratic connection. The process could have been reinforcing itself. As some tribes were compelled/forced (!) to build "cities", then parasitic infections not only would perhaps make it more likely to accept autocratic leadership, which then would reinforce the expansion of the cities. In addition, population inhabiting disease-infested "cities" would gradually build some disease immunity, while the surrounding nomads would not have such immunity, leading to their decline due to epidemics (or to fleeing the city-infested areas). That would also reinforce the process. It would be interesting to speculate what was the original religion, however it is also possible that the original force was not just a religious idea but set of commands imposed by some advanced visitors who appeared to the local population to be powerful "gods" demanding from their captives to work for them building some large structures or in mining some minerals. Both scenarios are plausible, Middle-Eastern neolithic cities could have either started as religious cults, or as Anunaki/Elohim-run labor-camps for their slaves, or both!
Heretic
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