What is Scientism in the Outer Worlds? It’s basically Calvinism.
Scientism in the Outer Worlds is, at least partially, based on a branch of Protestantism called Calvinism. It was created by John Calvin (surprise) in the 1550s by adapting Martin Luther’s original Protestant ideas and including two specific concepts we experience in-game:
Predeterminism
Calvinist Work Ethic
Predeterminism (aka The Plan)
Predeterminism is something we learn about through our conversations with Vicar Max and his personal quest. He tells us that the Plan outlines each person’s path in life, from where they are to where they need to be, and that in straying from that path, a person’s life becomes more and more difficult. When a person returns to their path, their life becomes easier and that ease of life proves that they are attending to the Plan.
Vicar Max has been searching for a mysterious and forbidden book that will make the Plan more evident for people (and for himself, lbr) so they don’t have to wonder if they’re on the right path, they can just know. Falling away from one’s chosen path is painful, why not seek a way to avoid that pain if possible?
Predeterminism is also a tenant of Calvinism. Calvinists believe that God has already chosen who He would allow into Heaven, but God, in His wisdom, isn’t going to just tell Calvinists who's getting in or not, that’d be cheating and no one would ever strive to be a better person. He has to keep everyone on their toes.
GIF description: Griffin McElroy holding a finger to his mouth in a “shh” gesture, then winking impishly at someone off-screen.
Calvinists resort to looking for spiritual signs that they are gaining God’s favor, instead. One of the more obvious signs to the Calvinists is being successful in business. Profit is a sign that they're receiving God’s favor, which, in turn, encourages them to do even better in business.
Predeterminism sets the foundation for the Calvinist work ethic. It’s of the utmost spiritual importance that they labor, and that their labor is fruitful, in order to know they are gaining God’s favor.
Calvinist (Scientist) Work Ethic
The Calvinist Work Ethic is sometimes referred to as the Protestant or Puritan Work Ethic. It’s three different ways of saying the same thing:
We labor because God/Law told us to
Therefore, we labor because it is the morally right thing to do
Therefore, we labor because it is a form of worship and obedience to God/Law
Therefore, capital earned by our labor is righteous and good
Most of what we understand of the Calvinist Work Ethic is thanks to a German economist named Max Weber. In 1905, after visiting Protestant relatives in Ohio, he wrote a book that hypothesized that the Protestant work ethic he witnessed there was key to capitalism’s success in America (and the Protestant parts of northern Europe), and that we also had Benjamin Franklin to mostly blame for it.
Max Weber saw what he called a secularized work ethic. The Calvinist ideas of labor, spurred on by their belief in predeterminism, had suffused itself into American culture so fully that it no longer needed to hold onto its religious roots. This further evolves into American Workaholism.
Calvinism so closely tied together the concepts of labor, capital, and Godliness that to not work was considered sinful. Sloth was ungodly. Charity promoted laziness. Because of these ideals, Protestants were loathe to give away their profits (the profits that hinted they were in God’s favor), that instead, they re-invested them in their businesses, which helped capitalism thrive.
Relatively recently, the Calvinist work ethic has begun to include the idea that to be a good worker, we must also be good consumers, too. It’s not enough to earn money, we must also spend money and consume the goods capitalism has provided us.
GIF Description: Griffin McElroy cronching down on an unpeeled banana.
This isn’t much different than what we experience in The Outer Worlds. The Calvinist Work Ethic has spun into overdrive in-game. Workaholism is a fact of life. Ruling Corporations encourage the idea of working and consuming, working and consuming, working and consuming, until a person is no longer profitable and they are deigned disposable. A person’s value is set by how much money a corporation can earn from their labor and how much they can consume - while their innate human value is disregarded.
Ultimately, we can choose to participate in Scientism’s theology or not. Vicar Max makes his choice regarding predeterminism but we don’t get a good idea for how he feels about Scientism’s work ethic. Regardless, we can bring it down or reinforce it. It’s all up to us - the antithesis of predeterminism.
