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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26047971 -

"Maybe it simply is what it be, man" - monk

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: remake]
    #26048035 -

You guys talk about "animal behavior" and "instincts" as if these things are undesirable in a civilized human being. Or it would seem, that without them, civilization would be better off.

However, I believe that it is the suppression of these very things, that has led to the state of modern civilization in the first place.

It is the very ideal of the ideal citizen that has lead to violent outbursts, because of suppressing our urges and not dealing with them in a more humane way.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26048267 -

DividedQuantum said:
Imho, there is a perfectly sound reason why we are so awful at conducting civilization: we did not evolve to do it.


I agree. We evolved in small groups of 15-30 individuals who functioned as a very tight knit social group. Children weren't exclusively raised by their parents, but their aunts, uncles and cousins and the entire community. Now we live in box structures we call "home" with a few people and call folks we don't know "strangers". I also believe the institution of marriage and the belief that lifelong monogamy is natural has had huge negative repercussions. Marriage is such a treasured institution that we can't admit that, on the whole, lifetime relationship contracts with sexual exclusivity have been a failure. Our species, like our very close relatives the bonobo, is sexually promiscuous. The Church ignores this fact and invented the idea of sin and immorality to try to combat our "fallen" nature.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: RJ Tubs 202] * 1
    #26048289 -

Indeed, very good points. To address both your and Frannie's comments, civilization imposes rigid laws and institutions that do not take into account human behavior as it is naturally. Frannie is right -- it is the suppression of instincts and human nature that has led to a lot of repressed emotions until people just explode. It is my understanding that tribal laws, if you can call them that, functioned by anticipating that humans will behave a certain way, and then finding the best way to deal with the aftermath so that all parties could sustain minimal damage. Modern civilization imposes laws, all of which everyone knows many people will break, and then locks people away in prisons, many thousands and millions for breaking unjust or unnecessary laws, not to mention all the innocent and lower class people who are victimized by the justice machine.

Many of our institutions and ideologies, then, are far too rigid to deal with human nature as it is, rather than as we "would like it to be." You make very perceptive comments about marriage. It is obvious to everyone alive, except maybe young people who are engaged, that nine times in ten marriages just don't work very well, if they are not outright prisons. Hunter-gatherers were broadly monogamous, but many thousands of tribes accepted sexual promiscuity as a given, and had cultures that allowed for it, rather than break up social units for perhaps misplaced moral and romantic mores. As RJ and Frannie point out, civilization has not been realistic on this score, which just leads to a lot of guilt and suffering than was simply not present in most tribal societies.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26048358 -

I've seen wildly different numbers, but some estimates are 60-80% of early human societies were polygamous. (a recent example, the Iroquois lived in large family units based on polyamorous relationships, and men and women lived in general equality.) I am a functionalist and believe everything exists for a reason, and patriarchy and the nuclear family certainly emerged and served an adaptive functional role at some point (likely catalyzed by the emergence of civilization?) and maybe, all things considered, this might be the best we can do in modern society. The underlying supposed evolutionary motivation for heterosexual pairing is that a female exchanges her sexual services for access to resources and protection from the male. I wonder how women feel about that.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: RJ Tubs 202] * 1
    #26048381 -

Perhaps our true nature is simply what we are now.

I tend to think we are all natural at this moment.

Suppression of any urge, perhaps, is folly.

For some, their natural urge might be to truly form a long lasting monogamous relationship.

The problem with those of us, who do not have the urge to do these things, are somewhat ostracized. But even the occurrence and experience of being an 'outcast', is a function of the whole system as it is.

I think all of these 'communities' still exist, but we all undergo, what I would call "initiation" before reaching our individually desired state of being.

Perhaps not all of us reaches it, but it seems, we'd be better of following individual urges in their unique appearances, as they are now.

Hope this makes some sense.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: remake]
    #26048402 -

FranniePilgrim said:
Perhaps our true nature is simply what we are now.

I tend to think we are all natural at this moment.


I wouldn't try to argue with that. Even when it comes to serial murderers, rapists and pedophiles.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: RJ Tubs 202] * 1
    #26048418 -

I would argue that even our general resistance and distaste of murderers, rapists and pedophiles are natural as well.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: RJ Tubs 202] * 1
    #26048433 -

RJ Tubs 202 said:
I've seen wildly different numbers, but some estimates are 60-80% of early human societies were polygamous. (a recent example, the Iroquois lived in large family units based on polyamorous relationships, and men and women lived in general equality.) I am a functionalist and believe everything exists for a reason, and patriarchy and the nuclear family certainly emerged and served an adaptive functional role at some point (likely catalyzed by the emergence of civilization?) and maybe, all things considered, this might be the best we can do in modern society. The underlying supposed evolutionary motivation for heterosexual pairing is that a female exchanges her sexual services for access to resources and protection from the male. I wonder how women feel about that.



Yes, as a student of anthropology I would say those figures are accurate. Like I said, humans are naturally monogamous when it comes to child-rearing, but other than that, there is often little in the way of rules, repressive morals, romanticism, guilt, etc. I remember studying a tribe in the Amazon called the Mehinacu, who were intensely sexually promiscuous. It was simply a healthy way of letting off steam, and of regulating urges which worked for them. In the long-house, where males would get together, they all knew all the characteristics of each female's vagina, and would even poke fun at some of the women for it. Like I said, they were intensely sexual.

I think your assessment of patriarchy and the nuclear family is correct, but I feel the human evolutionary situation is a bit more general. In hunter-gatherer societies, just about every one of them, the men and men only did all the hunting. The women foraged and gathered tubers, berries, nuts, etc. and ran the home, never veering too far from camp and usually staying there or very close-by. Modern feminists, I'm sure, have a hard time with this, but that indeed was the evolutionary situation -- and still is, where hunter-gatherers still exist. So, yeah.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26048458 -

Are feminist suppressing their natural urge to be stay at home moms, or are they naturally existing?

Do you think it's possible that some form of feminism has always existed in human societies?

Like, one girl in the tribe being all rebellious.

Nothing against feminists personally though, because I seem to be a natural 'let it be' type of human animal.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26048511 -

Very interesting discussion. Can you tell I'm a fan of the book, "Sex at Dawn"? :smile:

Off track for a moment, I'm fascinated by the ideas surrounding sperm competition, and that a female who has several mates will generally become pregnant by the male with the strongest most adaptive sperm. It's estimated 10-15% of U.S. couples have fertility problems and often it's the man. Without sperm competition, limited/narrow genetic diversity means a weak sperm with non-optimal genetics can make it to the egg and pierce it, when it would not have had sperm from multiple males taken part in the race. I wonder if the rate of some genetic aberrations or mutations have risen because of lack of sperm competition. Older men and women are more likely than young ones to have a child with autism, so there seems to be evidence negative biological repercussions occur more frequently with lower quality sperm (of an older male, in this example).

I don't mean to hijack your thread. I'm drinking coffee today. I'll hush up now.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: RJ Tubs 202]
    #26048788 -

That's very interesting. :thumbup:


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 2
    #26049141 -

DividedQuantum said:
......It is made possible by increased brain size, yes, but that is not really an explanation. I used the word "quest" purely in an ideological sense. I agree that it's not in any way objectively progressive. The strangest thing about our civilization is its youth -- it's only ten thousand years old, and in that comparatively brief time has swallowed and enslaved the entire world. Homo sapiens has been anatomically modern for 200-300,000 years. Identical biologically, with the only differences being cultural -- culture being the shared mental contents of a particular group. So... why did it take so long? There is no answer. One could say that it had a certain likelihood to happen, so sooner or later it did. But that doesn't explain why it took 97% of our existence to pass before we engaged in it. So there's some piece missing as to how civilizations can form and last for thousands of years, if it virtually never happens. It's a mystery.


“ … So... why did it take so long? There is no answer.”

Well I agree we don’t know

but some things seem obvious — especially after I read some in “Against the Grain” by James C Scott.
civilization is based on sedantisim + agriculture.
Nomads  know when certain trees produce fruits and nuts. They were observant and so did some planting. Especially along rivers and marshes, and returned at harvest time. So some agriculture existed before settlements.
Settlements were resisted, because they were stinky, claustrophobic, and felt confining to truly healthy people used to constant movement, and vibrant intimate contact with nature.

Among hunter gatherers, the bushmen of Africa, go to great lengths to avoid anyone getting a chip on their shoulder, say for example because they are a better hunter.

By contrast as soon as there is settlement, surplus food, & food storage, the division of labor becomes more emphasized. The danger of being attacked grows.
And Along with the division of labor we get the beginnings of hierarchies.
Possessions can’t be acquired in a nomadic lifestyle, but are accumulated in settlements, again leading to the danger of first thievery and with even more accumulation, to the danger of attack, from outside for the whole society.

So various sorts of power structures naturally arise: police, soldiers, armies, judges, punishments, torture, prisons, lawyers, on the one hand, and rulers, priests, government & bureaucracy, on the other hand together with a body of laws.

Then the medium of trade becomes more sophisticated and we get money & banks & record keeping & writing.

“One could say that it had a certain likelihood to happen, so sooner or later it did. But that doesn't explain why it took 97% of our existence to pass before we engaged in it.”

So when nomads used to riding in the wind, stalking prey, and the excitement of everyday feeling fresh — saw their brothers caught up in backbreaking labor, bending over all day planting and harvesting, living in dark stinky poorly ventilated rooms, and wasting animals in sacrifices to invisible “Gods” ( & lets not forget Taxes)— what was there to like?
In fact after civilizations rise, Genghis Khan * & his ilk had great fun attacking civilizations. The fall of Rome comes to mind. Those within civilizations called them "barbarians".

When we consider how cults, work psychologically today, we can better understand how those who did get caught up in civilization, failed to escape. Which raises a whole 'nother issue: conformity, and the 'us vs. them' mentality, which predates civilization, but seems to be a major factor in maintaining the form of it called 'nationalism; and one of its usual accompaniments: religion.

* Genghis Khan (apparently not a great example (after fact checking) as he is 'credited with founding an empire, but as his conquests are characterized as being genocidal **, perhaps he was not so civilized after all -  which raises the question of how we define civilization. Some might even say there has never really been one deserving the name)

** Genetic studies (in parts of present day Russia, I believe) show that he is the 'alpha male' human with the most descendants ever -- in other words the worlds 'greatest' rapist.

Edited by laughingdog (06/12/19 11:31 PM)

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog] * 1
    #26050152 -

That's all quite true, without any errors, and I have been assuming it throughout the thread. It is an excellent exposition of how civilizations can form, but it doesn't say anything about why they form, which is at least half the story. We have a large number of examples in the anthropological record of societies transforming into incipient civilizations, only to fall back very quickly to hunting-gathering and nomadism because either the costs far outweighed the benefits, or because a rival leader swooped in to destabilize everything and destroy it. The fact remains that we know that extremely few civilizations have formed on this planet. Ones that lasted for more than a hundred years are, say, in the dozens, whereas hg and nomad societies have numbered in the tens of thousands. As you point out, we know why this is the case. But then the real question becomes, how are they possible at all? What could make people want to go from working two or three hours a day to sixteen or eighteen hours a day? It makes perfect sense why civilizations are so rare.

So my point is that, despite what we do know, there is a lot more that we don't. I.e., that as much of an explanation as we can make, we still don't really understand what's happening. It is worth noting that, in the entire human experience, there is only one culture that has come to swallow the planet. Ours, born in Mesopotamia in 8000 BC. Every single one of the other civilizations that have sprung up rarely went beyond familiar geographical regions, even with a relatively large amount of conquering going on at times. The Chinese, Maya, Aztec, Inca, the Ainu of Japan, the Calusa of Florida -- these were all hierarchical, farming, sedentary societies that never entered the race to conquer the world. And the Chinese, perhaps the largest and most sophisticated of all, went to war all the time, but only to contest China. They had a head start of about 2,500 years over the European conquistadors, and never saw the need. I find that fascinating.

Tl;dr -- You're absolutely right to point out those factors, and it is undoubtedly constructive. But I'm thinking that there are pieces of the puzzle we don't have, and that such a thing really makes our ignorance greater than our knowledge. But it's interesting to talk about, for sure.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26050609 -

I think we are emulating bees
they have a sweet life, why not us?


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26050669 -

DividedQuantum said:
....but it doesn't say anything about why they form, ....
extremely few civilizations have formed on this planet.
....how are they possible at all? What could make people want to go from working two or three hours a day to sixteen or eighteen hours a day? It makes perfect sense why civilizations are so rare.

....in the entire human experience, there is only one culture that has come to swallow the planet. Ours, born in Mesopotamia in 8000 BC
..... The Chinese, Maya, Aztec, Inca, the Ainu of Japan, the Calusa of Florida -- these were all hierarchical, farming, sedentary societies that never entered the race to conquer the world. And the Chinese, ....head start of about 2,500 years over the European conquistadors, and never saw the need.
I find that fascinating.
..... But it's interesting to talk about, for sure.


As I wonder, these thoughts come to mind:
The Mayan civilization was apparently much bigger than assumed only a few years ago according to recent Ariel Lidar.
And the pyramids & much ancient stone work, remains mysterious, so certainly much is unknown.
I would guess part of the answer to your questions, is that the results may be due partly to random factors.
Such as how war like was the society. The Maya were constantly waring which of course exhausts resources. Like wise some types of intensive agriculture exhaust the natural resources.
Diseases, or vicious powerful neighbors may also at times be random factors, ending a society. And natural disasters (Pompeii comes to mind).
In the case of Ancient China it seems to have been an insular culture that hindered both innovation and a willingness to learn from others.

As to why civilization happens, probably again random factors, leading to particularly plentiful or surplus food at some points and places, lead to sedentism to take advantage of the situation and probably once that happens, without anyone being particularly conscious of what is happening, the resulting social factors, cement the change in place.

If they are attacked and a great leader helps save the day, after that, group bonding, will be very intensified, again a random factor.

All this randomness may partially answer the question as to why ‘civilization’ was not the norm.

Superstitions & Religions can also have both very negative or some positive effects,  and again the great variations we see, suggest that what develops in this regard is also a result of random factors.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26050716 -

laughingdog said:
As to why civilization happens, probably again random factors, leading to particularly plentiful or surplus food at some points and places, lead to sedentism to take advantage of the situation and probably once that happens, without anyone being particularly conscious of what is happening, the resulting social factors, cement the change in place.


My money is on that piece as the main driver.


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Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not.
--Jac O'keeffe

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: Jokeshopbeard]
    #26051188 -

Yes, everything laughingdog has said is truthful, accurate, and based on the latest ethnographic findings. He is right, and I very much appreciate his contribution to this thread. I happen to think a piece or pieces are missing, but I think almost every anthropologist in the world, probably, would agree. And I am enjoying the conversation.

Jsb, you raise a very interesting topic. As a matter of fact, hunter-gatherers were perfectly aware that food surpluses were contrary to and would damage their entire economy. Efforts were made never to accumulate surpluses. Indeed, in most tribes, there was a strong cultural ethos to avoid accumulation of any kind. I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that hunter-gatherers were people, who may very well have understood perfectly what surpluses would lead to. So there are hidden complexities.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26051227 -

DividedQuantum said:
Jsb, you raise a very interesting topic. As a matter of fact, hunter-gatherers were perfectly aware that food surpluses were contrary to and would damage their entire economy. Efforts were made never to accumulate surpluses. Indeed, in most tribes, there was a strong cultural ethos to avoid accumulation of any kind. I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that hunter-gatherers were people, who may very well have understood perfectly what surpluses would lead to. So there are hidden complexities.


What immediately struck me when you said this was "perhaps then, at some point, a kind of 'forced ignorance' was imposed"?

I certainly believe, based on what I see around me in our current society, that many live in what appears to be almost a 'wilful ignorance'. I've no doubt people existed long before our time who were far wiser, so what perhaps led some to abandon the knowledge that 'understood perfectly what surpluses would lead to'?

Visionaries have always existed. When did we start to override their wisdom and end up like this?


--------------------
Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not.
--Jac O'keeffe

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: XUL]
    #26051548 -

A collection of similar beliefs..

And a way to show people what you are..


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Thank you for your Time...

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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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