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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26051879 -

DividedQuantum said:
...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.


Very Interesting. What I read about surpluses, used the example of the northwest coast indians, in the now USA. Where the fish (salmon?) coming up river to spawn, and the already plentiful ocean, caused an unavoidable surplus. The result was the potlatch tribes.  https://duckduckgo.com/?q=potlatch+tribes&ia=web
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch

"Only rich people could host a potlatch. Tribal slaves were not allowed to attend a potlatch as a host or a guest. In some instances, ..."

if indeed there were slaves, and rich people, then in spite of burning some possessions; stratification and the worst form of possession had already snuck in.

IS there a good source for general info on: "Efforts were made never to accumulate surpluses. Indeed, in most tribes, there was a strong cultural ethos to avoid accumulation of any kind." ?

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26051913 -

Also interesting is that once sedentary societies formed, even without modern agriculture, they had such a great surplus of not only food, but also time, engineering imagination & engineering know-how, and health...
that they were able to build, (world wide):
astounding, essentially unnecessary, giant massive stone works, very early in societal development:
stonehenge and other megalithic structures
Easter Island
and later I think
pyramids in Egypt and the Yucatan
also
machi pichu
amazing stone temples in India & Cambodia
the great wall in china
and eventually
Cathedrals

and certainly many other examples

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26051975 -

:rockon:

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26051984 -

And philosophically, I wonder how soon after the switch to sedentism this happens.
Seems soon. 
In which case it is remarkable.
Firstly, simply in its own right.
and
Secondly,
because many of these structures had a religious intent or purpose,
but they are materiality in its grossest form,
for example
Stonehenge and other megalithic structures

later, they of course acquire ornamentation, (so some art gets added)

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=angkor+wat+temples&iax=images&ia=images

https://jcinnamonphotography.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/bayon-temple-faces-2.jpg

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Mayan+temple+steps%2C+shadow&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fusercontent2.hubstatic.com%2F13764493_f520.jpg

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Mayan+temple+sculpture&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images

etc.

(In history and art history books this is of course presented as an achievement, and indicative of 'mans' ' progress. Seems to me, it shows that organized religion is the opposite of what it pretends to be.
In Western art history, I think, it is only after the strangle hold of religion is broken that we get both more realism and individuality in both portraiture and expression.
Sorry for getting off topic.)

But indeed, the health and vitality, of folks long ago, must have been greater than ours,
to have built these amazing things. And the the health and vitality of the previous hunter gatherers even greater. And possibly their wisdom, too, as both of you: Jsb & DQ have suggested.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog] * 1
    #26052166 -

All good points. Yes, the tribes who lived on the Northwest Coast definitely had a delayed-return economy. They became almost totally sedentary, they had all sorts of specialty equipment like sophisticated nets and weirs, ingenious methods of storing and preserving food, dowries for women and things like that. For some reason or other, anthropologists still class these tribes as hunter-gatherer, just with a delayed-return instead of immediate-return economy. I am not aware of the reason for this, as the two types are diametrically different. And indeed, the vitality of persons of long ago was necessarily much, much greater than that of the modern human.


Some sources on hunter-gatherer attitudes toward property and accumulation:


Berman, Morris. Wandering God: A Study in Nomadic Spirituality. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000.

Kelly, Robert L. The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.

Winterhalder, Bruce. The Behavioural Ecology of Hunter-Gatherers. In Hunter-Gatherers: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Panter-Brick, Catherine, Robert H. Layton and Peter Rowley-Conwy (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Woodburn, J.C. Hunters and Gatherers Today and Reconstruction of the Past. In Soviet and Western Anthropology, ed. E. Gellner, 95-117. London: Duckworth, 1980.

Woodburn, J.C. Egalitarian Societies. Man 17(3): 431-51, 1982.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26052335 -

:smile: Thanks

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26052790 -

:thumbup:


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26053038 -

Comments by Dr. Peter Gray that I find interesting.

Because the band moves frequently, material goods beyond what a person can easily carry are a burden, so there is very little accumulation of property. Each band is an independent entity. The people within the band make all of the band’s decisions.

Nearly all researchers who write about hunter-gatherer bands emphasize the extraordinarily high value they place on individual autonomy. Hunter-gatherers’ sense of autonomy is different from the individualism of modern Western capitalist cultures. Western individualism tends to pit each person against others in competition for resources and rewards. It includes the right to accumulate property and to use wealth to control the behavior of others. In contrast, as Tim Ingold (1999) has most explicitly emphasized, hunter-gathers’ sense of autonomy connects each person to others, in a way that does not create dependencies. Their autonomy does not include the right to accumulate property, to use power or threats to control others, or to make others indebted to oneself. It does, however, allow people to make their own day-to-day and moment-to-moment decisions about their own activities, as long as they do not violate the band’s implicit and explicit rules. For example, individual hunter-gatherers are free, on any day, to join a hunting or gathering party or to stay at camp and rest, depending on their own preference.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: RJ Tubs 202] * 1
    #26053049 -

That's right. The idea behind the strong valuation of autonomy is that each person knows how to dig a tuber, or thatch a shelter, or make arrows and poison, or butcher game, or what have you, so that each person has the tools to do what he or she needs to do to live, without having to become indebted to or dependent on someone else. Of course, in egalitarian bands with generalized reciprocity, all game meat brought into camp is shared, and both sides of this coin have evolutionary value. Everyone is boss only of himself, but by working together everyone is taken care of. We lived this way for eons.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26053079 -

Civilization is the overarching pyramid scheme.

The essence is borne of an ever growing resource consumption and the laws and means to protect them.

The switch was a perceived human separation and the creation of other.

Agriculture was the symptom not the trigger.




Some type of parasite, maybe me and you.
Harmonious but us post primordial stew.
We learned to live in symbiosis and then how to exploit.
With some new terms to sooth the contrite.

Evolution its seems for we must be moving forward.
less work yet more food, agricultural reward.
Metals and tools designed to make easy.
Collectively only we turn simplicity sleazy.

Mazes of culture with societal puzzles.
Designed to reward you with constant cuddles.
So advanced we must be with our forever solutions.
Yet so reliant are we on technological conclusions.

As if the games that you play could overtake.
The ultimate reality the forever stake.
We are moving, maybe, of this I'm quite sure.
Together manifesting destructive, self perpetuating, lore.

If you were to be stripped and placed in the wilds.
With no help no gadgets or others for miles.
How long would you last and how far have we really come.
Do you think our less evolved self would as easily succumb.


--------------------
Just a fool on the hill.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: pineninja] * 1
    #26053116 -

The concept of "zero sum game" is relevant to this topic. The gains for one person(s) causes losses for another person(s). For those not familiar with the concept, it explains why members of a team or a company are resentful of "The Employee of The Year". Coworkers clap during the award ceremony, but inside they are bitter and resentful due to the feeling they have lost out. This is rooted in a sense of ego and competition.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26053152 -

we have
DividedQuantum said:
That's right. The idea behind the strong valuation of autonomy is that each person knows how to dig a tuber, or thatch a shelter, or make arrows and poison, or butcher game, or what have you, so that each person has the tools to do what he or she needs to do to live, without having to become indebted to or dependent on someone else. Of course, in egalitarian bands with generalized reciprocity, all game meat brought into camp is shared, and both sides of this coin have evolutionary value. Everyone is boss only of himself, but by working together everyone is taken care of. We lived this way for eons.


We have been focusing on the positive side, of pre civilized life. Certainly some societies / tribes were nice, but many were not.(1) So to generalize that we were "in the Garden of Eden" so to speak, and wonder what sin or folly lead to civilization seems a mistake to me.

I suspect, that 'human nature' is similar to that of most other primates (2), a mix of what we might call compassionate and selfish ( to chose one polarity). And that only with a few groups, later on, on the periphery of civilization, do we find a conscious attempt to deal with this, as the most important priority. These groups have always been outside of the mainstream of their cultures. The Taoists, Sufis, Yogis, & Theravadist Buddhist Monks, come to mind. Outside of groups there were, individual shamans and  yogis, and perhaps a few of their students, that also saw the necessity, of "working on onself".
This phenomenon seems to some degree outside of both tribalism & civilization, and involves a deliberate attempt to conform to both a higher standard of moral behavior, and to engage in self discipline. Other than shamans, it seems to occur mostly post civilization, yet somewhat separate from it.

(1) see for example:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tribal+societies+with+most+war&ia=web

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endemic_warfare

also civilizations varied and vary greatly in aggressiveness

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Maya+%26+torture&ia=web

(2)
Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky,    A great resource.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Robert+Sapolsky
if one starts here there is an entire college level lecture series
"1. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology "

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog] * 2
    #26053817 -

I'm confused about the word "tribalism". Is the term supposed to imply something that's bad and to be eradicated?

laughingdog said:
We have been focusing on the positive side, of pre civilized life. Certainly some societies / tribes were nice, but many were not.(1) So to generalize that we were "in the Garden of Eden" so to speak, and wonder what sin or folly lead to civilization seems a mistake to me.


I don't believe pre-civilized life was all milk and honey. If we could measure human misery, over time, I think it has skyrocketed. Pain is always a part of life, but the roots of most human misery has to do with environment. In addition to rampant obesity, violence, and drug use, there are estimates 450 million people suffer from what's been termed mental illness. I believe most of these people don't suffer from a medical problem or biological defect, but being raised in an environment and fashion that is not congruent with our evolutionary history. There are poor starving people in the world, yes. But that is pain, not the kind of misery I'm referring to.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26053827 -

Excellent post. Indeed, there were (and are) many hunter-gatherer societies whose behavior one could absolutely not describe as "nice." What always springs to mind for me when I think of nasty tribes is the Yanomamo of the Amazon. These guys are brutal. The most important activity in their culture, which they practice every day, is systematic violence. Every so often, maybe every few weeks, two different bands will fight when one band decides to attack a rival camp or quasi-village, ostensibly by surprise (although it happens all the time). It is fully expected by both sides that several deaths will occur. This happens over and over, throughout their entire history. Their entire way of life is based on practicing and prosecuting brutal violence against their neighbors, and this does indeed have an evolutionary explanation, but I won't go into that now. To be a male child growing up in Yanomamo society who does not want to fight is a tragic proposition, because one has no choice but to do so. Incidentally, females in this society, who of course cannot fight, are marginalized.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: pineninja] * 1
    #26053834 -

pineninja said:
Agriculture was the symptom not the trigger.




That's a very subtle and perceptive point.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26053858 -

DividedQuantum said:
this does indeed have an evolutionary explanation, but I won't go into that now.


I'm interested. Do you have some copypasta you can share?


--------------------
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] * 2
    #26053925 -

The long and short of it is that Yanomamo warfare is favorable to them because of reproductive competition and therefore health, as men are essentially fighting over women. It is also favorable because adequately won revenge confers status benefits, which would be selected for in their political economy. They and their antecedents existed this way for literally thousands of years, so obviously it is a stable strategy in evolutionary terms. I believe there are even some Yanomamo left living as hunter-gatherers, but to what degree this has remained stable I do not know.

If you're interested in learning more, do a search on Napoleon Chagnon, an anthropologist who made a career of working closely with the Yanomamo. He is one of the more controversial modern anthropologists, incidentally.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: RJ Tubs 202]
    #26053999 -

RJ Tubs 202 said:
I'm confused about the word "tribalism". Is the term supposed to imply something that's bad and to be eradicated?

laughingdog said:
We have been focusing on the positive side, of pre civilized life. Certainly some societies / tribes were nice, but many were not.(1) So to generalize that we were "in the Garden of Eden" so to speak, and wonder what sin or folly lead to civilization seems a mistake to me.


I don't believe pre-civilized life was all milk and honey. If we could measure human misery, over time, I think it has skyrocketed.  Pain is always a part of life, but the roots of most human misery has to do with environment.    In addition to rampant obesity, violence, and drug use, there are estimates 450 million people suffer from what's been termed mental illness. I believe most of these people don't suffer from a medical problem or biological defect, but being raised in an e So yes environment and fashion that is not congruent with our evolutionary history. There are poor starving people in the world, yes. But that is pain, not the kind of misery I'm referring to.


"Pain is always a part of life, but the roots of most human misery has to do with environment." --  I disagree.
It is now known that chimpanzees practice genocide, on neighboring groups of chimpanzees. They form groups of males and deliberately hunt and kill.
So yes environment plays a role, in human behavior, (and resultant misery),  but so does genetics. Sapolsky covers this issue in great detail. And as DQ points out culture as well. It is a complex mix.
One has only to observe, healthy, well treated, middle class children, constantly competing for attention, whining, bullying, and engaging in all kinds of unpleasant behavior, to realize much of our innate behavior is common to most primates and very competitive.
Again both in the animal and human world competition for mates is the rule.
Long before civilization evolution established such patterns.
In many species few of the males get to mate.
Not a happy state of affairs.

("Nature" is not really kind at all.
Roughly 50% of all species are parasitic,
and much carnivorous predation is brutal & cruel, etc. etc.)

It could be said civilization is the attempt to mitigate nature's cruelty.
That it fails in many (or most) ways, and how it does so, maybe another issue.

It is easy to romanticize hunter gatherers, because some of them seem to have figured out the sharing angle, probably partly because of their environment as you say.

So when food was scarce, and constant travel, was necessary to acquire it, ( in our 'birth place' in Africa), the way humans adapted, meant few possessions, no building projects, no weapons caches, and made cooperation more adaptive than competition. But I do not think in means, that they were inherently more spiritual, or that millions of years of evolutionary propensities, were thrown out the window. In fact the HGs had to constantly shame anyone who might even begin to get upity or selfish.

"I'm confused about the word "tribalism". Is the term supposed to imply something that's bad and to be eradicated?"
What I meant by the term was only, pre-civilized folks living in groups of maybe 30 to less than a few hundred.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog] * 2
    #26055457 -

I'm using the term "misery" in the way Thoreau stated most people lead lives of quiet desperation. Life includes violence, parasitism, and cancer, but that's a different subject. Millions feel disconnected and lonely. Studies reveal shocking data, such as 68% percent of peoples asked said they feel like “no one really knows them well.”. The average person in the U.S. has only one close friend, according to a study published in the American Sociological Review. One in four people have no confidantes at all. 75 percent of people say that they're unsatisfied with the friendships that they do have. This is the misery I'm referring to. The empty void within that's reflected in rampant depression, anxiety, obesity, substance abuse, etc.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: RJ Tubs 202] * 2
    #26055504 -

Well I would say the state of affairs suggested by those data is not a natural one. Which makes one think of the word "pathology."


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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