Strategic group realignment gets camouflaged as religious piety in feuds

Evidence

What you are said to be doing is showing that your fear of the supernatural is greater than your loyalty to the clan. In practice, what you are probably doing is assessing that, in this case, it is better to let your side down, because victory at the oath might provoke too strong a coalition against it. Better pay blood money than involve ourselves in a conflict which may end badly. But, very significantly, such caution can be expressed as piety, so that in a sense morality militates against unconditioned cohesion. … The equilibriumrestoring mechanism works, but the calculation can be camouflaged as piety and reverence. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1957

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines how equilibrium-restoring calculation wears the costume of supernatural reverence — self-interested caution narrated as moral piety.
• DEEPTHINKING: A moral framework (piety = fear of God outweighs clan loyalty) that actively militates against unqualified cohesion and works as camouflage for strategic realignment — norm and instrumental reason are fused, not opposed.
• XREF: connects to: A think tank allegedly used covert tactics to take over mainline Protestant churches — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 279