How cap-and-trade is like ritual self-flagellation

Climate legislation signals to the world that we repent our selfish ways and we'll now take our lumps for the team. But are we ready for a green hair shirt?

Ultra-orthodox Jews in heavy beards and heavier black coats pray for hours each day at Jerusalem's Western Wall, even under a sweltering summer sun. Each year, Shiite Muslims whip their backs bloody with chains during the religious holiday of Ashura. Religious vegetarians in Phuket, Thailand, similarly drive knives and skewers through their cheeks.

From an outsider's perspective, religious displays of self-inflicted pain can seem pointlessly barbaric. But many anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists believe they have an important function: to facilitate collective action by requiring members to send a costly, hard-to-fake signal of commitment to the group's common creed.

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Will Wilkinson is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and editor of Cato Unbound. He writes on topics ranging from Social Security reform, happiness and public policy, economic inequality, and the political implications of new research in psychology and economics. He is a regular commentator on public radio's Marketplace and his writing has appeared in The Economist, Reason, Forbes, Slate, Policy, Prospect, and many other publications.