Social Norms Are More Like a Language Than They Are Like Law

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"What good are norms that we drag along history? And if they're not enforced and they're not legislated, and we can't make them really work," he asks. "I think there are a i want to argue tat ha tha, social norms are actually more like a language than they are like law,. Law is a top down phenomenon."

Traditions and norms can seem at best out-of-touch and at worst offensive to many a modern mind. But Israeli computer scientist and Talmud scholar Moshe Koppel argues that traditions and norms--if they evolve slowly--create trust, develop our capacity for deferred gratification, and even, in the case of how we prepare cassava, protect us from poisoning. Listen as the author of Judaism Straight Up: Why Real Religion Endures talks with EconTalk Russ Roberts about tradition, religion, tribalism, resilience, and emergent order.