Aug 8, 2022
Metapersons in your community
Which ones should you care about?
Re-Assembling Reality #21a by David A. Palmer and Mike Brownnutt.
In Re-Assembling Reality #20, we saw that there is a potentially infinite number of metapersons, and many different ways of relating to them. Most of the humans in the world have regular or occasional relationships with metapersons (which we also call metahumans). But they only have relationships with a small number of them. And they only know of a small number of ways of relating to those metapersons. Maybe they burn incense to a few Chinese gods and ancestors. Or they prostrate themselves in adoration of Allah. Or they sit in the lotus position and bring Buddhist deities to life in their mind, through visualization exercises.
In Re-Assembling Reality #26, we will talk about how human groups, or communities, are not made only of humans, but also of the relationships between them. Actually, a community is constituted of relationships not only with humans, but also with animals, plants, things, and metapersons. A village includes not only the people who live in it, but also the pigs, cows, chickens, dogs and cats who live with the humans; the trees, houses and sacred spots that embody the community’s memories; and the community’s metapersons, who are often enshrined in temples or places of worship.
If you were born into a traditional village, without any choice in the matter, you grew up into all of those relationships. Villagers know who is a member of the community and who is not. That includes the human, non-human, and metahuman members of the community. They know there are other humans and other metapersons outside their community, but they don’t relate to them in the same way as members of their own community.
Cities —and even many villages nowadays — are more complicated. Many overlapping communities live in the same place. You are a member of many communities — some of them by birth, and others by choice. But, like in a traditional village, each community defines who its members are and how you relate to them — whether it’s your family, your basketball team, your favourite fandom, or your volunteer organization. Some of these communities include metapersons, and others don’t.
Some communities are specifically dedicated to relationships with specific metapersons. Under Modernism, society is supposed to be organized in such a way that the only community that involves metapersons are “religious” communities, while no other communities involve metapersons. But that’s not how the world works. Outside of modern Western societies, traditionally, all communities have included metapersons and, outside Western or Westernised communities, this is still very much the case. And even in Western societies, you’ll find metapersons in many places outside of “religious” communities.
A family might include metapersons — the ancestors, the gods in the family shrine, or the Lord to whom grace is said before each meal. A government institution might invoke metapersons, such as when legislators must swear an oath with their hands over the Bible or Qur’an; or when public buildings prominently display portraits of the country’s founder.
Each community gives roles to its members, and there are rules and practices for how each person plays their roles. Communication between persons is usually ritualized, involving specific rules of interaction including body language, gestures, appropriate times and places, and material things such as gifts, food, drinks or the decoration of the setting for the interaction. This is the case regardless of whether the persons in the relationship are humans or metahumans. In some cultures, interaction rituals are highly formalised while in others, they are more simple or informal — but these rituals always exist.
Note, then, that both our relationships with humans and with metahumans are shaped by interaction rituals. All communities, for example, have ways of showing honour. What varies is their rules of to whom honour is shown, and who shows honour. That varies between cultrures and over time. Do you tip your hat to a lady? Avert your gaze from the elderly? Offer guests the food first? Offer up your seat to a pregnant person? Do you burn incense to the dead? Bow when crossing the nave in front of the crucifix? Sacrifice sheep to God?
There are ritualised ways of talking to politicians (and different rituals for different contexts: in parliament, in town hall meetings, over the breakfast table). Ritualised ways of talking to gods, to demons, to children, to the elderly, to your spouse. One culture insists the wife walks three steps behind the husband and never looks him in the eye; another culture has no such strictures. One culture says you pray to God at set times and facing Mecca, another has no such strictures. One culture used to tip their hats to ladies and no longer does so. Another culture used to stand to read God’s word and no longer does so.
Nowadays, perhaps you don’t take off your hat and bow down each time you pass by a senior person in the corridor, but there are still polite ways of giving eye contact and saying hello. Similarly, some religious communities prefer highly elaborate and solemn rituals in their relations with metapersons, while others reduce ritualistic acts to a minimum. And yet, just as no friendship can be sustained simply by “believing” someone is your friend without showing it through acts, starting with something as basic as ritualised greetings, no religious community exists simply because its members “believe” in a metaperson.
Moral communities of persons
Inherent to personhood is the notion of moral rights and responsibilities. A relationship between persons — be they human or metapersons — is a moral relationship. A society is a moral community of persons. This moral community will consider and need to answer (either explicitly or implicitly) the following questions in its relationships with metapersons:
Some questions for any community, then, are:
— What metapersons are there in the world?
— About which metapersons do we care?
— In what manner do we relate to them, and how do they relate to each other?
All societies must answer these questions. Religion provides a key resource in arriving at those answers.
Let’s consider how the Old Testament or Tanakh might inform these questions:
“What kind of metapersons are there?” We ask this question rather than “what kinds of metapersons exist” as the latter hangs too much significance on some notion of being ontologically “real”. In the Old Testament, God was quite happy to pick a fight with Baal. Is Baal a “real” god, or a product of cultural imaginings? It doesn’t seem to matter — whether he is socially imagined (the product of peoples’ minds), or has an ontologically mind-independent existence, or exists as some quasi-being formed by the interaction of something mind-independent with something in people’s minds. [1] In any event, many Israelites had relationships with Baal, the prophets told them not to, and God was willing to fight Baal. For this reason, one answer that the Israelites could have given to the question “What metapersons are there?” was “Baal.”
About which metapersons do we care? The answer to this question can vary between religions, and can change over time within a single religion. Pre-exilic Israelites cared deeply about Baal. Partly because all the neighboring tribes cared about him. Partly because sometimes someone got the idea to sacrifice their son to him. Partly because prophets and priests told them not to. But the possibility of having a relationship with Baal doesn’t occur to modern-day Jews.
On the flip side, the bible never mentions volcano gods. A Christian living in Java today might care about volcano gods just as much as an Israelite in Canaan cared about Baal. They might care about volcano gods because there are sacrificial festivals to volcano gods in the local customs, and people talk about the volcano god when the volcano erupts. Some Christians might take part in these festivals, and others might not; and there might be discussions among Christians about whether it’s appropriate to join such festivals, and what it means if they do.
How do metapersons relate to each other?
According to biblcal traditions, Baal — if he exists — is a created being, created by God, just like angels and demons, humans and fish. His relationship to God is that of subordinate. Possibly as a member of the divine council, possibly as an adversary, possibly as an irrelevance.
In what manner do we relate to metapersons?
Among the world of human persons I have different ways of relating to my parents, my kids, the king. Within the non-human world, I have yet other different ways of relating to my cow, my ox, my field. It is hardly surprising that I have yet other different ways to relate to angels, demons, saints, and God Almighty.
At various points in biblical history, and through to the Abrahamic religions today, people have been actively antagonistic to Baal, accepted he has a role under God, ignored him, or claimed he does not exist.
Moving to move general considerations, beyond the specific case of Baal, part of the answer to how I relate to them is determined by what they are and their place in the world. God Almighty is the ultimate uber-being, and his place “in” the world is as superior to all of it. I thus relate to him with awe and respect and worship. Angels are created beings and messengers of God. I thus relate to them with respect and awe. My cow is a created being whose task is to glorify God. I thus work with my cow to that end…
Are these moral communities real, or are they fictions? Read Re-Assembling Reality #22 to find out.
[1] See the Thomas Theorem in sociology: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”. Thomas and Thomas, The Child in America, Knopf, Oxford, 1928, p. 572.
This essay and the Re-Assembling Reality Medium series are brought to you by the University of Hong Kong’s Common Core Curriculum Course CCHU9061 Science and Religion: Questioning Truth, Knowledge and Life, with the support of the Faith and Science Collaborative Research Forum and the Asian Religious Connections research cluster of the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
