In comparison with earlier than writing, religions that had sacred texts had been higher ready to withstand modifications to their non secular dogmas and dogma-enforce social guidelines. The extra express had been sacred texts, and their widely-accepted interpretation texts, and the extra concrete but strong had been their ideas to social modifications, the longer such resistance might final.
Shakespeare’s final play was the Tempest in 1611. Midway between then and now was 1818, when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein and Jane Austen wrote Persuasion. That first interval noticed a lot larger modifications within the English language than did the second, as we developed and unfold formal theories of English grammar and dictionaries that outlined vocabulary. Individuals who tried to alter language lately have confronted a lot stronger policing, by others telling them they had been doing it mistaken, and pointing to those official definitions.
Along with the rise of mass manufacturing, methods developed over the previous couple of centuries for accounting, structure, and civil and mechanical engineering, additionally locked in some ways to calculate plans for companies, buildings, and machines, and lots of commonplace sizes and options of elements. Moreover, commonplace programming languages, software program libraries, and working methods have locked in lots of software program practices.
Now we have plausibly been affected by cultural drift for a number of centuries. Might we use methods someway to forestall such drift? In precept sure, however our present tradition doesn’t appear inclined to take action.
Over the previous couple of centuries our cultures have purposely rejected many prior sacred texts as no lengthy binding. They’ve immediately rejected non secular texts and liberally reinterpreted constitutions and legal guidelines. And the principle factor that modernist cultural communities have agreed on is to reject conventional cultural parts, and have fun exploration of the widest attainable vary of options. Cultural activists, who purposely change our norms and values, are actually our most celebrated heroes.
So, sure, we would in precept develop express new methods of norms and values, and encode them not solely in language but additionally in regulation. Surveillance and AI would even let us outline and measure extra issues extra clearly and verifiably. Akin to what feelings individuals expressed, or how a lot somebody individuals had been damage by issues others did. All of which might produce a system that locked in our norms and values much more strongly than did any historic non secular texts, and maintain them from drifting.
In fact such methods would possibly properly rot, as our present authorized and regulatory methods appear to be doing, and likewise lots of our technical methods. However English doesn’t appear to be rotting, nor do most of our math methods, so it does appear attainable to maintain methods easy and strong sufficient to maintain rot to a minimal.
However first we’d want an enormous cultural change to need to lock them in. In the intervening time, that’s the principle limiting issue.
