Looking back at the past and making sense of practices from primitive societies is no simple task. It’s easy to see the weird, the odd, and the seemingly barbaric as relics of a time of lesser-rationality and to dismiss them as unnecessary or backwards. Yet cross-cultural interventions by societies seemingly more advanced than others often result in chaos, bloodshed, and a price paid for the hubris of the so-called civilized. What is there for modern people to learn from dead European explorers, human sacrifice, trial by ordeal, and cross-cultural experiments in fairness?
For this inaugural episode, we speak with Professors Peter Leeson and Joe Henrich, two experts at making sense of the seemingly senseless.
Peter Leeson is an economist at George Mason University and the author of several books on economic explanations of weird, odd, or unusual practices like piracy and human sacrifice. His most recent book, WTF?!: An Economic Tour of the Weird, takes a look at rational agent explanations for trial by ordeal, “preowned wife sales,” and other weird cultural practices.
Joe Henrich brings a slightly different perspective to the table. He is an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University who looks at how different cultural practices lend themselves to human evolution and social cooperation. His most recent book, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, breaks down how cultural practices work as a “collective brain” to help ensure the success of a society or subculture.
