We humans are hard-wired
to believe in agency. It's literally in our genes. Philosophers and
psychologists use the term agency to designate a thing or a person
that acts to produce a particular result. The word has its root in
the medieval Latin word agentia, which means “doing.”
We tend to believe that
things don't just happen by themselves—something or someone caused
them. If I am walking through the woods at night, for example, and
hear an unusual sound behind me, I'm very likely to attribute that
sound to something... maybe a bear! Why do we do this? Those deep
ancestors of ours who assigned agency to that sound were more likely
to survive than those who ignored it and walked on. Better to have
believed in a false alarm (it may have been just a twig falling from
a tree), than to become a bear's meal. Those ancestors who jumped and
ran at the sound survived to pass on their genes. Those who walked
on perished, along with their complacent genes.
When we first began
assigning agency to events, we also began to create gods. That bad
storm last week? A god caused it. The lack of animals to hunt in
recent weeks? Something must have caused it... something more
powerful than I. Does that something (or someone) not like me? What
could I do to earn its favor? Over time, our ancient ancestors
engaged in rituals based on the belief that they could influence the
agents (gods) of the winds, rain, and lightning. Unable to understand the truth of these phenomena, they made up a story... with agency.
We want to have causes
for things. We are uncomfortable with either random events or the
unknown. Life should not be accidental or arbitrary. We are impatient
and want answers. Don't give me an insipid, wishy-washy reason for
things; or even no reason at all. Dammit, something caused it!
This is a natural
tendency for us—built into our genes by our forebears' need to
assign agency. It can help me to recognize that my jumpy response to that
sound behind me in the dark is natural, but maybe I could also ponder the
fact that I haven't seen a bear in years around here. But then again, maybe it's
a cougar or the neighbor's pit bull! Better run!
More on agency next
time...
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