some problems: The areas of the world that are currently experiencing famine et al. are places that were formally colonised by the so-called "enlightened." The disruptions of those cultures ways and means of living and producing in order to feed the material wants of "the enlightened." is at the root of most of those areas problems. There is no thing as "overcrowding" when 1/5 of the worlds population consume upwards of 70% of the worlds output. Where acres and acres of land are deemed "private property" or made into parks and golf courses. The issue is how people live on planet Earth. Prior to Europeans leaving Europe and killling thier way across the planet many cultures had relationships with their environment that was far more symbiotic than what we see now. Of course we may say that we are more "advanced" and "enlightened" because we have computers and can travel great distances in ever shortening times. But many people may not see that as "enlightened." they may see having a family as advanced. They may percieve that not polluting the Earthj is a more "enlightening" thing to do. this is the crux of the problem, even as we discuss terrorism. That one world view is neccessarily more "enlightened" than another due to some materialistic measuring stick.
some problems: The areas of the world that are currently experiencing famine et al. are places that were formally colonised by the so-called "enlightened." The disruptions of those cultures
[snip]
we discuss terrorism. That one world view is neccessarily more "enlightened" than another due to some materialistic measuring stick.
This is an excellent point and one of my favourite subjects.
Hunting and gathering cultures preserve a low population density as a point of principle. There are all sorts of taboos about sex after birth common to all of them from the deserts of Southern Africa to the Arctic Circle. Some even practic(ed) infanticide. This is because life as a hunter and gatherer is difficult, by our terms, and resources must be preserved for the good of the communities that share the land. Animals and plants are celebrated in song and myth and you thank them when you dig them up or shoot them or and when you eat them. The aim is not to piss the planet off. You look after it and the stuff in it.
Agriculturalist societies, on the other hand, are different. If you farm, suddenly the land can support more people. Wealth is measured in land all of a sudden; you have sons and those sons need land of their own. Generally the first thing they do when they find hunters and gatherers is to kill them, and that's what's been happening in the 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution. The European expansion was an inevitable product of the agricultural revolution, but it wasn't the first by a long chalk. It was just the most efficient and the largest.
Anyway: the ancestors of farmers rape the land and breed like rabbits because they can and they must. They have violent religious wars because they whittle their gods down to monotheistic, punishing bastards ('hell' and 'religion' are ideas less than 10,000 years old as we understand them); they have ideas like 'class' and notions like 'absolutes' and 'opposites', which hunters and gatherers don't understand.
Farming fsked up up. I'm a farmer, and so are you if you're on a computer. Our agriculturalist cultures might be 'stronger' but we're making a mess of the planet and killing each other willy nilly. We're out of control and we LOVE IT!
I like bread, booze, jazz and G4s. My ancestors killed the hunting and gathering indigenes of Europe, the Middle East and Asia and yours did too (unless you're an Aboriginal Australian, an Inuit, a Basque, or a Southern African San person) so you're on top right now. All this 'cultural darwinism' from this angle is like an argument over the colour of wallpaper.
While I'm at it, I find the notion of 'Cultural Darwinism' pretty objectionable, partly because 'survival of the fittest' is a rather nasty reduction of the guy's intellectual bequest and partly because it presupposes that one culture can be 'better' than another and that one of the ways to measure a culture's 'superiority' is in its ability to conquer or outlast another. What shite. We shouldn't be indulging ourselves like this.
While I'm at it, I find the notion of 'Cultural Darwinism' pretty objectionable, partly because 'survival of the fittest' is a rather nasty reduction of the guy's intellectual bequest and partly because it presupposes that one culture can be 'better' than another and that one of the ways to measure a culture's 'superiority' is in its ability to conquer or outlast another. What shite. We shouldn't be indulging ourselves like this.
That is mostly why I have avoided this debate...
Cultural Darwinism brings up Social Darwinism which brings up 19th Century and early 20th Century views of working class and ultimately Nazism...
This is an excellent point and one of my favourite subjects.
...
Agriculturalist societies, on the other hand, are different.
I don't get it. What is the crucial difference between agriculture and hunting that produces the different attitude towards the earth and conquering others? The land isn't an infinite resource any more than animal to be hunted. So why would hunter-gatherers have more respect for the land than farmers, and why would they want less children? I dunno, it just sounds like a romanticization of primitive cultures.
And weren't all people hunter-gatherers before becoming farmers? Doesn't it just depend on the feritility of the land, a la Jared Diamond? I'd be interested in further explanation of your thesis here.
I don't get it. What is the crucial difference between agriculture and hunting that produces the different attitude towards the earth and conquering others? The land isn't an infinite resource any more than animal to be hunted. So why would hunter-gatherers have more respect for the land than farmers, and why would they want less children? I dunno, it just sounds like a romanticization of primitive cultures.
And weren't all people hunter-gatherers before becoming farmers? Doesn't it just depend on the feritility of the land, a la Jared Diamond? I'd be interested in further explanation of your thesis here.
'Property' and 'wealth' are agriculturalist concepts: it's not for nothing that 'stock' and 'chattels' are terms derived from farming. Hunter-gatherer societies are all co-operative by necessity and have different understandings of 'property'. They don't 'own' land, they share it because it's economically unviable for them to prevent others from using it for reasons of reciprocity in crisis times like droughts and because you simply don't need 'ownership'.
H-g cultures have low population densities because the lifestyle does not allow them to survive in greater numbers.
According to archeology we were herders before we started planting; you follow the rains with your animals. When you put things in the ground you stay and labour over it and you'll defend it if someone tries to take it (a simplification.) All of a sudden you've invented the idea of 'ownership of land' because you've never needed it before. Hey ho, you can own the whole valley now. And the mountain on the other side of the river, why not?
Hunter-gatherers have more respect for land than farmers because they have to understand it better in order to survive: it's not an easy lifestyle. H-g cultures celebrate landscape in myth and 'faith'. All architecture is temporary and the landscape is left all-but untouched. These cultures have no need to 'control' the landscape, or to 'change' it, and no idea of 'bad' or 'ugly' land. They look after it, because they have to. Landscape dictates the nature of the culture it supports for hunters and gatherers.
Not so for farmers, who must alter it and own it. They pass it on, and because they're not restricted to low population densities they always need more of it ( they're very good at wealth and ownership.)
The agricultural revolution brought about a very profound change in the way we understand landscape and the animals in it, and eventually each other too. Class, wealth, punishment, labour and standardisation of belief are all agriculturalist concepts. H-g cultures are all quite anarchic at heart.
Read me. Scroll down to the bit by Hugh Brody: he's an anthropologist of the Inuit. I just found this bit, but he's very eloquent on this stuff.
I don't get it. What is the crucial difference between agriculture and hunting that produces the different attitude towards the earth and conquering others?
In terms of humanity's penchant for destruction, probably nothing, (very interesting socio-religious differences however). Hunter-gatherers had no problem destroying entire herds for an equivalent of a few kills of meat for instance, and one of the leading theories for the extinction of various megafauna in the Americas and Australia is overhunting. The big difference is just that agriculture allowed a culture to develop better technology to do so. So in a sense, hunter-gatherers couldn't do as much damage.
Technology is the primary factor for humanity's or a culture's survival. If the conditions within a culture cannot maintain a technological advantage, then I don't think it will be the fittest. Bear in mind that the development of technology seems to follow Gordon Moore's 2nd "law": every next-generation of tech costs twice as much to fund. So if there isn't a good economic foundation, technological development stagnates, and political structures do have a role to play.
In terms of humanity's penchant for destruction, probably nothing, (very interesting socio-religious differences however). Hunter-gatherers had no problem destroying entire heards for an equivalent of a few kills of meat for instance, and one of the leading theories for the extinction of various megafauna in the Americas and Australia was overhunting. The big difference is just that agriculture allowed a culture to develop better technology to do so. So in a sense, hunter-gatherers couldn't do as much damage.
I'm not sure that this is completely right.
In Southern Africa, at least, the Southern San considered the Boers' slaughter of the ostriches and the eland herds barbaric because it was taboo to kill an animal unless you were going to eat it (or presumably if it was trying to kill you.) They also had all sorts of respect rituals for hunting and killing an animal and even to do with how you arrange the bones once you've finished eating it. There was a sort of complicity in the hunt and you had to have some respect.
With herding and then agriculture, animals became first wealth and then simply a tractable source of protein. I don't think that people are necessarily destructive by nature, I think it's cultural, although I admit my reference points are pretty limited to Southern Africa.
'Property' and 'wealth' are agriculturalist concepts: it's not for nothing that 'stock' and 'chattels' are terms derived from farming. Hunter-gatherer societies are all co-operative by necessity and have different understandings of 'property'.
OK, I get the idea of land ownership - farmers stake their claim on one plot of land, while hunters are nomadic. And I get how that would lead to materialism. I also can get why that might lead to greater competition rather than cooperation. Mebbe.
But I'm still not sure I get why there would be a difference in respect for land. Why wouldn't farmers worship and respect the land just as much as hunters? The other way around makes more sense to me - hunters are killing something, whereas farmers are making something grow. And I'm also not sure I get why farmers would want to reproduce more.
A lot of what you're saying is that h-gs have a tougher life, and x, y, z follows. But wouldn't that depend on the environment and available resources? In some parts of the world, it would be much more productive to be a hunter than a farmer. To me this still goes back to Diamond's ideas about how cultures developed in a particular physical environment that was conducive to the production of technology, as THT says.
I wanted to comment on this too:
Quote:
While I'm at it, I find the notion of 'Cultural Darwinism' pretty objectionable, partly because 'survival of the fittest' is a rather nasty reduction of the guy's intellectual bequest and partly because it presupposes that one culture can be 'better' than another and that one of the ways to measure a culture's 'superiority' is in its ability to conquer or outlast another.
Yeah, survival does not equal superiority.
Example: There are a lot of great things about American culture, but somehow it's always the crappiest junk that has the greatest meme penetration. Why is Baywatch known to probably 100 times more people throughout the world than Charlie Parker? By any criteria, Charlie Parker is way up there on the superiority scale, probably one of the greatest musicians who ever lived, and Baywatch is way down on the list, probably one of the worst TV shows ever made. And yet Baywatch has much higher meme survival fitness.
Anyway, I think a natural selection approach to culture is a fascinating way to look at things.
According to Dawkins' Selfish Gene approach, people are simply carriers for genes. Genes are the basic unit of life. Similarly, we could look at cultures as simply carriers for memes. Democracy might have been started in ancient Greece, but the idea spread despite the decline of that particular culture. Democracy is a very selfish meme. So is Baywatch, apparently.
It's interesting to me to think about why certain memes have greater survival fitness than others. But I don't think it has anything to do with superiority.
Most countries today with increasing populations do so largely because they do not give women the rights they enjoy in here and in most democracies, or they define feminine success exclusively in terms of child rearing.
Please understand that this example is a hypothetical. Consider it just as an intellectual exercise and please understand I am not advocating repression of women or killing of innocent civilians.
When we were discussing the war on Iraq and deaths of innocent ciivlians killed, it was mentioned that Iraq has a population of 22 million people. It has a birth rate of 4.87 children per couple.
Europe has a birth rate right now of 1.5 for the continent. In articles like this one Eurpoe birth rate declines it is estimated that Europe's population will decline by 88 million in the next century or almost 25%.
Normally I abhore projecting trends but you must have people today to have people tomorrow.
We had people upset with the number of civilian deaths in Iraq when they were a few thousand. However if Western values take hold in Iraq and the birthrate drops from 4.87 to 1.5 like in Europe there would be a decline in population from 22 million to about 16.5 million by 2100. When you consider that the population there is increasing about 3.5% a year, this could be a huge change.
If we had a war with Iraq that killed 25% of the population or even say 3 million people it would be seen as horrific. Yet we can impose and promote cultural values that could have the same effect and no one would say a word.
While I'm at it, I find the notion of 'Cultural Darwinism' pretty objectionable, partly because 'survival of the fittest' is a rather nasty reduction of the guy's intellectual bequest and partly because it presupposes that one culture can be 'better' than another and that one of the ways to measure a culture's 'superiority' is in its ability to conquer or outlast another. What shite. We shouldn't be indulging ourselves like this.
Yes, how dare we think and consider the consequences of actions. That is terrible!
I don't see how you could connect Social Darwinism and what I title Cultural Darwinism. I am not arguing that certain people are inferior, weak or should be left to die. I am asking though what happens if a culture's ideas can lead to the extinction of that culture via lack of reproduction. Whether you wish to acknowledge the difference, it is there.
As for whether one culture can be better than another. I don't buy into the view that all cultures are equal and I bet when pressed neither would you. You can claim whatever tolerance you wish. However I doubt you would practice it yourself. Are you saying cultures that practice forced abortion, child and slave labor, no rights for women, especially education are the equal or at minimum no better than cultures that allow choice, send children to school, stop slavery and empower women?
I have learned about these transitionary part of the human history through religion (from a academic POW, not as a believer) and it very fascinating. The way you give meaning to things, persons, animals aso. and the religious given role of male and female change totally from hunters to farmers religions. And especially interesting is that all hunters religions share some trails across groups that had no chance of knowing eachother. And the same changes in the religion from hunters to farmers religions take place everywhere it happens (roughly speaking).
Its hard not to see the marxist idea of basis and superstructure (the material conditions deside the legal, social, religious structures) in it.
.......and partly because it presupposes that one culture can be 'better' than another and that one of the ways to measure a culture's 'superiority' is in its ability to conquer or outlast another. What shite. We shouldn't be indulging ourselves like this.
Of course some cultures are better than others, I mentioned Tanzania 150 years ago as an example. How about the opportunity to be a women in a harem where you were force fed milk until you we so fat you couldn't stand? How about a little human sacrifice, with you on the receiving end? The king would eventually use your empty skull as a mug.
I can actually see you as a placesetting for one.
On a more serious note, you would be the first to insist that a Christian culture is inferior to the broadmindedness we are seeing coming out of Europe. Although Christian culture, with all its warts, is soley responsible for the freedoms that you have today.
I like bread, booze, jazz and G4s. My ancestors killed the hunting and gathering indigenes of Europe, the Middle East and Asia and yours did too (unless you're an Aboriginal Australian, an Inuit, a Basque, or a Southern African San person) so you're on top right now. All this 'cultural darwinism' from this angle is like an argument over the colour of wallpaper.
Basques, hunters-gatherers?
I gather the quality of this year's crop has improved for the Hhashishiyoon.
The Basques learned agriculture along with their Celtic neighbours, and certainly held their own.
Later, the Basque provinces became industrialised earlier than most regions of Spain (which remained plagued by its dreaded retraso), and were known until fairly recently to be healthier and more well-fed than the bare-arsed Andalusian braseros or hidalgos.
Even in the early seventies the constrast was striking, it might have subsided since.
Other than that, hunters-gatherers have been killing each other long before farmers came along, and the latter were not inherently more cruel or violent (actually the hunters-gatherers were often more violent than but I see you already rationalised that under the ?they had too because of natural imperatives? heading) , although they have developed more efficient tools for the job.
So you have nothing to feel guilty about (I sure don't feel any guilt whatsoever for some of my not-so-far removed nomadic ancestors pillaging and slaying the helpless sedentary farmers).
Agriculture, like any other phase in technical developement (industrialisation, globalisation) are ethically neutral, what people do with it is up to them.
Agriculture and domsestication enabled people to regenrate their resources, rather than just taking them and then moving elsewhere to repeat the process when there was no more of it (as was often the case).
The new techniques were more efficient, and that's why they were adopted, alas they also enabled more efficent (even when less cruel, as in some cases) violence.
Currently, when it comes to our energy sources we are rather, well, ?gathering? it, depleting it like there's no tomorrow (and perhaps there is none). So you should be glad that at least in that respect we are nobly and savagely imitating those oh so noble savage ancestors of ours, most of whom actually adopted the new techniques when they appeared (like the Basques), so not to be overwhelmed by those from whom they learnt it, and to avoid the fate that befell those few who didn't (and then there were the lucky few who were too isolated for eiter learn or be conquered).
Your lamenting the lost innocence of the hunting and gathering Adam Qadmon is of course, anything but new. It mirrors the whole traditional ?paradise lost? spiel so common in all religions born of the most glorious Levant, blaming knowledge as root of all past and present miseries, and warning against novelty (see the opposition to new things from the romantics and luddites in the 19th century, and from their more fashionable spiritual heirs today). The same pattern is repeated every time a new development is introduced. Like the Egyptian priests bitching against those merchants spreading the use of that ghastly written word, so vulgar in comparion with the recited knowledge of the most learned and wise ancient elders.
Human ingenuity and aspiration for improvement proved Malthus wrong once, there are more people adequately eating today than ever before (in both relative and absolute terms), and accession to middle-class revenues has been shown to curb explosive demography independently of cultural context. But now we have new problems, so the ghost of the severe pastor might still a get last word of sort.
So there's a possibility that with our ingenuity we could learn to have more efficient way to use energy so a majority of the planet's population can enjoy whatever will correspond to bread, booze, jazz, and G4s in that epoch which I wouldn't get to know (although you might, perhaps); or we might just care too much for old apocalyptic prophecies and might actually fulfill them (we sure have the required hardware) just to get to say ??told ya so!?
Other than that, the idea that higher natality rate makes societies ?fitter for survival? than those hedonistically decadent societies, is so superficial and just plain wrong an idea that it doesn't deserve any of my time or bandwidth.
Other than that, the idea that higher natality rate makes societies ?fitter for survival? than those hedonistically decadent societies, is so superficial and just plain wrong and idea that it doesn't deserve any of my time or bandwidth.
Could you elaborate on Rome in the light of this statement? Wouldn't you say that the mentality of some cultures towards reproduction simply doesn't scale?
Could you elaborate on Rome in the light of this statement? Wouldn't you say that the mentality of some cultures towards reproduction simply doesn't scale?
Rome had been wasting too much of tis time and effort on foolish and vain entreprises such as interencine fighting, and then on some stupid doctrinaires' squabbling, after that mountebank Constantine came along.
All classical empires of the day (which also had their own internal troubles at the time) were under the pressure of barbarian hordes. The Roman Empire of Occident was too feeble to oppose it, the Chinese, Persian, and the Roman Empire of Orient (which, as many descendents of aforemonetioned barbarian hordes tend to forget, lasted till 1453) did quite well in comparison.
Other than that I don't understand your question, but I suggest you re-read my previous message and its closing sentence, which should be clear enough.
Other than that, my culture is doing fine thank you (while I don't know enough of all other cultures to say mine's definitely better than all of them, it certainly is the best for me thank you again), and it was here before most cultures of yours appeared, and will probably still be in the far future when most of the present ones are consigned in whatever they'll have for history books.
Your lamenting the lost innocence of the hunting and gathering Adam Qadmon is of course, anything but new. It mirrors the whole traditional ?paradise lost? spiel so common in all religions born of the most glorious Levant, blaming knowledge as root of all past and present miseries, and warning against novelty (see the opposition to new things from the romantics and luddites in the 19th century, and from their more fashionable spiritual heirs today).
This was my intuition, but as usual Immanuel can state it much more knowledgeably and eloquently. In addition, I get the feeling that anthropologists often romanticize the cultures they study. We love the idea of learning about our weaknesses from those pure primitive cultures. I think some anthropologists have wanted to tell that story, and sometimes bend the facts in order to do so.
Other than that, my culture is doing fine thank you (while I don't know enough of all other cultures to say mine's definitely better than all of them, it certainly is the best for me thank you again), and it was here before most cultures of yours appeared, and will probably still be in the far future when most of the present ones are consigned in whatever they'll have for history books.
and what "culture" would that be?
I assume you mean religion, no? Religion is but one aspect of a culture. Judaism may well survive another thousand years, but your culture, whatever that may be, probably will be permuted a million times before then.
Comments
Originally posted by Sondjata
some problems: The areas of the world that are currently experiencing famine et al. are places that were formally colonised by the so-called "enlightened." The disruptions of those cultures
[snip]
we discuss terrorism. That one world view is neccessarily more "enlightened" than another due to some materialistic measuring stick.
This is an excellent point and one of my favourite subjects.
Hunting and gathering cultures preserve a low population density as a point of principle. There are all sorts of taboos about sex after birth common to all of them from the deserts of Southern Africa to the Arctic Circle. Some even practic(ed) infanticide. This is because life as a hunter and gatherer is difficult, by our terms, and resources must be preserved for the good of the communities that share the land. Animals and plants are celebrated in song and myth and you thank them when you dig them up or shoot them or and when you eat them. The aim is not to piss the planet off. You look after it and the stuff in it.
Agriculturalist societies, on the other hand, are different. If you farm, suddenly the land can support more people. Wealth is measured in land all of a sudden; you have sons and those sons need land of their own. Generally the first thing they do when they find hunters and gatherers is to kill them, and that's what's been happening in the 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution. The European expansion was an inevitable product of the agricultural revolution, but it wasn't the first by a long chalk. It was just the most efficient and the largest.
Anyway: the ancestors of farmers rape the land and breed like rabbits because they can and they must. They have violent religious wars because they whittle their gods down to monotheistic, punishing bastards ('hell' and 'religion' are ideas less than 10,000 years old as we understand them); they have ideas like 'class' and notions like 'absolutes' and 'opposites', which hunters and gatherers don't understand.
Farming fsked up up. I'm a farmer, and so are you if you're on a computer. Our agriculturalist cultures might be 'stronger' but we're making a mess of the planet and killing each other willy nilly. We're out of control and we LOVE IT!
I like bread, booze, jazz and G4s. My ancestors killed the hunting and gathering indigenes of Europe, the Middle East and Asia and yours did too (unless you're an Aboriginal Australian, an Inuit, a Basque, or a Southern African San person) so you're on top right now. All this 'cultural darwinism' from this angle is like an argument over the colour of wallpaper.
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
While I'm at it, I find the notion of 'Cultural Darwinism' pretty objectionable, partly because 'survival of the fittest' is a rather nasty reduction of the guy's intellectual bequest and partly because it presupposes that one culture can be 'better' than another and that one of the ways to measure a culture's 'superiority' is in its ability to conquer or outlast another. What shite. We shouldn't be indulging ourselves like this.
That is mostly why I have avoided this debate...
Cultural Darwinism brings up Social Darwinism which brings up 19th Century and early 20th Century views of working class and ultimately Nazism...
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
This is an excellent point and one of my favourite subjects.
...
Agriculturalist societies, on the other hand, are different.
I don't get it. What is the crucial difference between agriculture and hunting that produces the different attitude towards the earth and conquering others? The land isn't an infinite resource any more than animal to be hunted. So why would hunter-gatherers have more respect for the land than farmers, and why would they want less children? I dunno, it just sounds like a romanticization of primitive cultures.
And weren't all people hunter-gatherers before becoming farmers? Doesn't it just depend on the feritility of the land, a la Jared Diamond? I'd be interested in further explanation of your thesis here.
Originally posted by BRussell
I don't get it. What is the crucial difference between agriculture and hunting that produces the different attitude towards the earth and conquering others? The land isn't an infinite resource any more than animal to be hunted. So why would hunter-gatherers have more respect for the land than farmers, and why would they want less children? I dunno, it just sounds like a romanticization of primitive cultures.
And weren't all people hunter-gatherers before becoming farmers? Doesn't it just depend on the feritility of the land, a la Jared Diamond? I'd be interested in further explanation of your thesis here.
'Property' and 'wealth' are agriculturalist concepts: it's not for nothing that 'stock' and 'chattels' are terms derived from farming. Hunter-gatherer societies are all co-operative by necessity and have different understandings of 'property'. They don't 'own' land, they share it because it's economically unviable for them to prevent others from using it for reasons of reciprocity in crisis times like droughts and because you simply don't need 'ownership'.
H-g cultures have low population densities because the lifestyle does not allow them to survive in greater numbers.
According to archeology we were herders before we started planting; you follow the rains with your animals. When you put things in the ground you stay and labour over it and you'll defend it if someone tries to take it (a simplification.) All of a sudden you've invented the idea of 'ownership of land' because you've never needed it before. Hey ho, you can own the whole valley now. And the mountain on the other side of the river, why not?
Hunter-gatherers have more respect for land than farmers because they have to understand it better in order to survive: it's not an easy lifestyle. H-g cultures celebrate landscape in myth and 'faith'. All architecture is temporary and the landscape is left all-but untouched. These cultures have no need to 'control' the landscape, or to 'change' it, and no idea of 'bad' or 'ugly' land. They look after it, because they have to. Landscape dictates the nature of the culture it supports for hunters and gatherers.
Not so for farmers, who must alter it and own it. They pass it on, and because they're not restricted to low population densities they always need more of it ( they're very good at wealth and ownership.)
The agricultural revolution brought about a very profound change in the way we understand landscape and the animals in it, and eventually each other too. Class, wealth, punishment, labour and standardisation of belief are all agriculturalist concepts. H-g cultures are all quite anarchic at heart.
Read me. Scroll down to the bit by Hugh Brody: he's an anthropologist of the Inuit. I just found this bit, but he's very eloquent on this stuff.
Phew. I've got work to do.
I love you, BRussell, and your sprout.
Originally posted by BRussell
I don't get it. What is the crucial difference between agriculture and hunting that produces the different attitude towards the earth and conquering others?
In terms of humanity's penchant for destruction, probably nothing, (very interesting socio-religious differences however). Hunter-gatherers had no problem destroying entire herds for an equivalent of a few kills of meat for instance, and one of the leading theories for the extinction of various megafauna in the Americas and Australia is overhunting. The big difference is just that agriculture allowed a culture to develop better technology to do so. So in a sense, hunter-gatherers couldn't do as much damage.
Technology is the primary factor for humanity's or a culture's survival. If the conditions within a culture cannot maintain a technological advantage, then I don't think it will be the fittest. Bear in mind that the development of technology seems to follow Gordon Moore's 2nd "law": every next-generation of tech costs twice as much to fund. So if there isn't a good economic foundation, technological development stagnates, and political structures do have a role to play.
[edit: spelling and grammar...]
Originally posted by THT
In terms of humanity's penchant for destruction, probably nothing, (very interesting socio-religious differences however). Hunter-gatherers had no problem destroying entire heards for an equivalent of a few kills of meat for instance, and one of the leading theories for the extinction of various megafauna in the Americas and Australia was overhunting. The big difference is just that agriculture allowed a culture to develop better technology to do so. So in a sense, hunter-gatherers couldn't do as much damage.
I'm not sure that this is completely right.
In Southern Africa, at least, the Southern San considered the Boers' slaughter of the ostriches and the eland herds barbaric because it was taboo to kill an animal unless you were going to eat it (or presumably if it was trying to kill you.) They also had all sorts of respect rituals for hunting and killing an animal and even to do with how you arrange the bones once you've finished eating it. There was a sort of complicity in the hunt and you had to have some respect.
With herding and then agriculture, animals became first wealth and then simply a tractable source of protein. I don't think that people are necessarily destructive by nature, I think it's cultural, although I admit my reference points are pretty limited to Southern Africa.
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
'Property' and 'wealth' are agriculturalist concepts: it's not for nothing that 'stock' and 'chattels' are terms derived from farming. Hunter-gatherer societies are all co-operative by necessity and have different understandings of 'property'.
OK, I get the idea of land ownership - farmers stake their claim on one plot of land, while hunters are nomadic. And I get how that would lead to materialism. I also can get why that might lead to greater competition rather than cooperation. Mebbe.
But I'm still not sure I get why there would be a difference in respect for land. Why wouldn't farmers worship and respect the land just as much as hunters? The other way around makes more sense to me - hunters are killing something, whereas farmers are making something grow. And I'm also not sure I get why farmers would want to reproduce more.
A lot of what you're saying is that h-gs have a tougher life, and x, y, z follows. But wouldn't that depend on the environment and available resources? In some parts of the world, it would be much more productive to be a hunter than a farmer. To me this still goes back to Diamond's ideas about how cultures developed in a particular physical environment that was conducive to the production of technology, as THT says.
I wanted to comment on this too:
While I'm at it, I find the notion of 'Cultural Darwinism' pretty objectionable, partly because 'survival of the fittest' is a rather nasty reduction of the guy's intellectual bequest and partly because it presupposes that one culture can be 'better' than another and that one of the ways to measure a culture's 'superiority' is in its ability to conquer or outlast another.
Yeah, survival does not equal superiority.
Example: There are a lot of great things about American culture, but somehow it's always the crappiest junk that has the greatest meme penetration. Why is Baywatch known to probably 100 times more people throughout the world than Charlie Parker? By any criteria, Charlie Parker is way up there on the superiority scale, probably one of the greatest musicians who ever lived, and Baywatch is way down on the list, probably one of the worst TV shows ever made. And yet Baywatch has much higher meme survival fitness.
Anyway, I think a natural selection approach to culture is a fascinating way to look at things.
According to Dawkins' Selfish Gene approach, people are simply carriers for genes. Genes are the basic unit of life. Similarly, we could look at cultures as simply carriers for memes. Democracy might have been started in ancient Greece, but the idea spread despite the decline of that particular culture. Democracy is a very selfish meme. So is Baywatch, apparently.
It's interesting to me to think about why certain memes have greater survival fitness than others. But I don't think it has anything to do with superiority.
I love you, BRussell, and your sprout.
But you claimed you weren't... oh never mind.
Originally posted by bunge
You lost me here.
Most countries today with increasing populations do so largely because they do not give women the rights they enjoy in here and in most democracies, or they define feminine success exclusively in terms of child rearing.
Please understand that this example is a hypothetical. Consider it just as an intellectual exercise and please understand I am not advocating repression of women or killing of innocent civilians.
When we were discussing the war on Iraq and deaths of innocent ciivlians killed, it was mentioned that Iraq has a population of 22 million people. It has a birth rate of 4.87 children per couple.
Europe has a birth rate right now of 1.5 for the continent. In articles like this one Eurpoe birth rate declines it is estimated that Europe's population will decline by 88 million in the next century or almost 25%.
Normally I abhore projecting trends but you must have people today to have people tomorrow.
We had people upset with the number of civilian deaths in Iraq when they were a few thousand. However if Western values take hold in Iraq and the birthrate drops from 4.87 to 1.5 like in Europe there would be a decline in population from 22 million to about 16.5 million by 2100. When you consider that the population there is increasing about 3.5% a year, this could be a huge change.
If we had a war with Iraq that killed 25% of the population or even say 3 million people it would be seen as horrific. Yet we can impose and promote cultural values that could have the same effect and no one would say a word.
Again, just some interesting thinking...
Nick
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
While I'm at it, I find the notion of 'Cultural Darwinism' pretty objectionable, partly because 'survival of the fittest' is a rather nasty reduction of the guy's intellectual bequest and partly because it presupposes that one culture can be 'better' than another and that one of the ways to measure a culture's 'superiority' is in its ability to conquer or outlast another. What shite. We shouldn't be indulging ourselves like this.
Yes, how dare we think and consider the consequences of actions. That is terrible!
I don't see how you could connect Social Darwinism and what I title Cultural Darwinism. I am not arguing that certain people are inferior, weak or should be left to die. I am asking though what happens if a culture's ideas can lead to the extinction of that culture via lack of reproduction. Whether you wish to acknowledge the difference, it is there.
As for whether one culture can be better than another. I don't buy into the view that all cultures are equal and I bet when pressed neither would you. You can claim whatever tolerance you wish. However I doubt you would practice it yourself. Are you saying cultures that practice forced abortion, child and slave labor, no rights for women, especially education are the equal or at minimum no better than cultures that allow choice, send children to school, stop slavery and empower women?
Nick
Its hard not to see the marxist idea of basis and superstructure (the material conditions deside the legal, social, religious structures) in it.
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
.......and partly because it presupposes that one culture can be 'better' than another and that one of the ways to measure a culture's 'superiority' is in its ability to conquer or outlast another. What shite. We shouldn't be indulging ourselves like this.
Of course some cultures are better than others, I mentioned Tanzania 150 years ago as an example. How about the opportunity to be a women in a harem where you were force fed milk until you we so fat you couldn't stand? How about a little human sacrifice, with you on the receiving end? The king would eventually use your empty skull as a mug.
I can actually see you as a placesetting for one.
On a more serious note, you would be the first to insist that a Christian culture is inferior to the broadmindedness we are seeing coming out of Europe. Although Christian culture, with all its warts, is soley responsible for the freedoms that you have today.
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
I like bread, booze, jazz and G4s. My ancestors killed the hunting and gathering indigenes of Europe, the Middle East and Asia and yours did too (unless you're an Aboriginal Australian, an Inuit, a Basque, or a Southern African San person) so you're on top right now. All this 'cultural darwinism' from this angle is like an argument over the colour of wallpaper.
Basques, hunters-gatherers?
I gather the quality of this year's crop has improved for the Hhashishiyoon.
The Basques learned agriculture along with their Celtic neighbours, and certainly held their own.
Later, the Basque provinces became industrialised earlier than most regions of Spain (which remained plagued by its dreaded retraso), and were known until fairly recently to be healthier and more well-fed than the bare-arsed Andalusian braseros or hidalgos.
Even in the early seventies the constrast was striking, it might have subsided since.
Other than that, hunters-gatherers have been killing each other long before farmers came along, and the latter were not inherently more cruel or violent (actually the hunters-gatherers were often more violent than but I see you already rationalised that under the ?they had too because of natural imperatives? heading) , although they have developed more efficient tools for the job.
So you have nothing to feel guilty about (I sure don't feel any guilt whatsoever for some of my not-so-far removed nomadic ancestors pillaging and slaying the helpless sedentary farmers).
Agriculture, like any other phase in technical developement (industrialisation, globalisation) are ethically neutral, what people do with it is up to them.
Agriculture and domsestication enabled people to regenrate their resources, rather than just taking them and then moving elsewhere to repeat the process when there was no more of it (as was often the case).
The new techniques were more efficient, and that's why they were adopted, alas they also enabled more efficent (even when less cruel, as in some cases) violence.
Currently, when it comes to our energy sources we are rather, well, ?gathering? it, depleting it like there's no tomorrow (and perhaps there is none). So you should be glad that at least in that respect we are nobly and savagely imitating those oh so noble savage ancestors of ours, most of whom actually adopted the new techniques when they appeared (like the Basques), so not to be overwhelmed by those from whom they learnt it, and to avoid the fate that befell those few who didn't (and then there were the lucky few who were too isolated for eiter learn or be conquered).
Your lamenting the lost innocence of the hunting and gathering Adam Qadmon is of course, anything but new. It mirrors the whole traditional ?paradise lost? spiel so common in all religions born of the most glorious Levant, blaming knowledge as root of all past and present miseries, and warning against novelty (see the opposition to new things from the romantics and luddites in the 19th century, and from their more fashionable spiritual heirs today). The same pattern is repeated every time a new development is introduced. Like the Egyptian priests bitching against those merchants spreading the use of that ghastly written word, so vulgar in comparion with the recited knowledge of the most learned and wise ancient elders.
Human ingenuity and aspiration for improvement proved Malthus wrong once, there are more people adequately eating today than ever before (in both relative and absolute terms), and accession to middle-class revenues has been shown to curb explosive demography independently of cultural context. But now we have new problems, so the ghost of the severe pastor might still a get last word of sort.
So there's a possibility that with our ingenuity we could learn to have more efficient way to use energy so a majority of the planet's population can enjoy whatever will correspond to bread, booze, jazz, and G4s in that epoch which I wouldn't get to know (although you might, perhaps); or we might just care too much for old apocalyptic prophecies and might actually fulfill them (we sure have the required hardware) just to get to say ??told ya so!?
Other than that, the idea that higher natality rate makes societies ?fitter for survival? than those hedonistically decadent societies, is so superficial and just plain wrong an idea that it doesn't deserve any of my time or bandwidth.
Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein
Other than that, the idea that higher natality rate makes societies ?fitter for survival? than those hedonistically decadent societies, is so superficial and just plain wrong and idea that it doesn't deserve any of my time or bandwidth.
Could you elaborate on Rome in the light of this statement? Wouldn't you say that the mentality of some cultures towards reproduction simply doesn't scale?
Originally posted by ena
Could you elaborate on Rome in the light of this statement? Wouldn't you say that the mentality of some cultures towards reproduction simply doesn't scale?
Rome had been wasting too much of tis time and effort on foolish and vain entreprises such as interencine fighting, and then on some stupid doctrinaires' squabbling, after that mountebank Constantine came along.
All classical empires of the day (which also had their own internal troubles at the time) were under the pressure of barbarian hordes. The Roman Empire of Occident was too feeble to oppose it, the Chinese, Persian, and the Roman Empire of Orient (which, as many descendents of aforemonetioned barbarian hordes tend to forget, lasted till 1453) did quite well in comparison.
Other than that I don't understand your question, but I suggest you re-read my previous message and its closing sentence, which should be clear enough.
Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein
Your lamenting the lost innocence of the hunting and gathering Adam Qadmon is of course, anything but new. It mirrors the whole traditional ?paradise lost? spiel so common in all religions born of the most glorious Levant, blaming knowledge as root of all past and present miseries, and warning against novelty (see the opposition to new things from the romantics and luddites in the 19th century, and from their more fashionable spiritual heirs today).
This was my intuition, but as usual Immanuel can state it much more knowledgeably and eloquently. In addition, I get the feeling that anthropologists often romanticize the cultures they study. We love the idea of learning about our weaknesses from those pure primitive cultures. I think some anthropologists have wanted to tell that story, and sometimes bend the facts in order to do so.
Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein
Other than that, my culture is doing fine thank you (while I don't know enough of all other cultures to say mine's definitely better than all of them, it certainly is the best for me thank you again), and it was here before most cultures of yours appeared, and will probably still be in the far future when most of the present ones are consigned in whatever they'll have for history books.
and what "culture" would that be?
I assume you mean religion, no? Religion is but one aspect of a culture. Judaism may well survive another thousand years, but your culture, whatever that may be, probably will be permuted a million times before then.