Greetings Rog,
Okay, I may have tried a little too hard to make my point. I am not trying to
romanticize the lives of individuals in hunters and gatherers societies. As you
can readily conclude by my recent participation in this group, I do enjoy modern
technology too much to give it up for a lifestyle of chasing around large mammals
and avoiding murder by the hands of my cohorts. Believe me, I am much more
comfortable with the idea of lying around on the couch watching an NBA basketball
game on TV, changing channels with the remote and eating a frozen pizza while
drinking a cold beverage (both mass-produced, of course) than getting together
with my pals and strategizing about putting long spears into very large Wooly
Mammoths with extra long tusks. My point was that I felt you have gone too far
the other way in glorifying the modern age and affixing the label of quality upon
it. You bring up some statistics that reveal some gains that we have made in the
20th century, but you misrepresent H&G societies (you actually make reference to
“stone-age”—we are not talking about cro-magnums and Neanderthals here). Your
characterizations of H&G are not completely accurate and you lump all societies
outside of modern society within that group.
ROG:
Your expert on the issue -- Jared Diamond -- refers to this myth as "The
Golden Age That Never Was." Can you honestly tell me that you are unaware of
the ecological/biodiversity disasters of the Anasazi Indians, of Easter
Island, of Petra, of New Zealand and of Madagascar (to name a few)? Are you
forgetting the widespread massacre of the majority of large land mammals in
the Americas with the original introduction of the Indians? Have you
forgotten that violent murder is the most common cause of male death in
hunter/gatherer societies?
ANDY:
First, I would never characterize Diamond as an expert on any issue. I did enjoy
his book (Guns, Germs, and Steel) and there was some information in there, but
nothing new or extraordinary. He wrote a popular book that was fun to read and I
referred to him as such, not an expert. The Anasazi’s were an agricultural
society as was Easter Island. I don’t recall anything on Petra or Madasgascar at
the moment, but New Zealand also had a high percentage of agriculturalists. From
my perspective, what happened in these societies was population growth and
limiting resources (to hunt and gather) necessitating a change in lifestyle for
these groups. Sedentary lives and agriculture were adopted as a matter of
survival. The “widespread massacre of the majority of land mammals” is
documented by Diamond and others, and I agree that human migrations into these
areas probably did lead to the extinction of many of these species (this is not a
consensus opinion among the experts, however). In that sense, you are correct
(and I improperly spoke—er, I was wrong), H&G groups did put pressures on their
immediate surroundings and demonstrated a noticeable impact on their local
resources – particularly large mammals. My point is that life was still
relatively easy for H&G groups. As Marshall Sahlins documents in “The Original
Affluent Societies” and Richard Lee in “!Kobe Dung” (among many others), studies
of modern H&G groups have shown that, in terms of leisure, these societies were
truly more affluent than any known society until the 20th century. Perhaps, with
even greater amounts of leisure than our own society. In order to provide for
subsistence for the entire group, Lee observed that individuals in !kung society
(Bushman) worked between 2-4 hours per day and between the ages of 20 and 40
gathering food. Average ages of individuals in prehistory taken from the fossil
record are inaccurate and studies of modern groups again show age distributions
of modern H&G groups to be much greater than modern agricultural societies in the
developing world and comparable to our own. For a captivating reader that offers
a summary of studies by experts of these groups I recommend “Limited Wants,
Unlimited means,” edited by John Gowdy.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/155963555X/qid=1012167043/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_10_4/104-7071075-7896767
As for violent murder (I think use of the term murder here would suffice, I don’t
know any other way to characterize it—there is no such thing as nonviolent
murder, I think we agree), murder rates were high, but with no central authority
in these groups this was an effective means to discourage alpha-male behavior and
led to a harmonious environment among members in these politically egalitarian
groups. It was the means which led to the development of society in the first
place. A common argument among evolutionists is how altruistic behavior could
ever emerge. In an altruistic society an individual motivated by self-interest
could always invade the group and propagate his/her genes, thus destroying the
group. Not with an intolerance of such behavior, however, which could lead to
murder or permanent ostracizing from the group. This provides a hypothesis for
how altruistic behavior could be evolutionary successful. And it is without the
role of a central authority that went on to rule over agricultural societies and
imposes its might upon individual freedoms.
ROG:
As for your question on why I would presume hunter/gatherers do not support
the dominance of intellectual values, it is because H/G societies cannot
produce science, mathematics, philosophy, logic, etc. These are recent
accomplishments even for developed nations.
ANDY:
Here is where I am confused about this whole MOQ deal. Please, Help! Somebody
explain this to me. Is it really an agreed upon fact that intellectual values
necessitate the existence of science, mathematics, philosophy, and logic? Why
does this smack of elitism to me? When I read translated quotes of individuals
in pre-industrial societies I can’t help but think that there is intellectual
quality there. Native Americans such as Chief Seattle, Tecumseh, Sitting Bull,
Joseph… Perhaps, I don’t get the idea behind philosophy in the first place. I
agree that math and science did not exist in H&G societies, but does that mean
that individuals in these societies could not philosophize or use a form of logic
that was based in rationality. These same studies of modern groups characterize
the time spent during leisure activities as being filled with storytelling,
talking, playing games etc… Who is to say that they never pondered their
existence in the universe and their reason for being? I can’t imagine how they
could have avoided the subject. Again, maybe I just don’t get this whole
philosophy thing. Perhaps, what the individuals in prehistory were wondering
about was not truly philosophy by our definition. I still will hold to the view
that we can’t make the judgment that these societies were of inferior quality
based on the quality of life experience for a representative individual. With my
upbringing (which I can’t change), I would never trade places with an individual
in a H&G society, but likewise I would never expect Crazy Horse to change places
with me either. To say we have advanced in quality over H&G is not supported by
the evidence and is ethnocentric.
ROG:
Again, I agree that species extinction is bad. The question I have for you
is what are you suggesting? What is your solution? (I have given mine
already, but in brief it is that cultures must control overpopulation and
continue the technical/intellectual/social advances necessary to support a
reasonable number of people in harmony with the planet and other species.)
ANDY:
I could never pretend to offer a solution. To tell you the truth, I don’t think
a solution even exists and I doubt that there will ever be some individual that
discovers a solution within the realm that Pirsig alludes to (as an all out
struggle between the social and intellectual levels). It will not be represented
by a struggle between the forces of good and evil that so many seem to ascribe to
or romanticize as some Hollywood mythological battleground, I can tell you that.
I have some sympathy for Pirsig’s views of a struggle between the social and
intellectual levels, but I don’t think he quite got it right. I am unsure how to
improve upon it, but perhaps it isn’t my place to anyhow. His ideas on static
quality and DQ seem to offer something useful, but there is no predicting where
DQ will lead – that is the nature of DQ after all. In this modern industrial age
DQ has led to all the improvements that you mentioned (over a preceding
agricultural era), but it has also left a wake of destruction and “low quality”
behind. I was hoping that I could find, somewhere, an improvement upon Pirsig’s
ideas. I haven’t found anything yet, but I will happily listen to anyone’s
suggestions upon where to proceed. Finally, saying “cultures must control
overpopulation and continue the technical/intellectual/social advances necessary
to support a reasonable number of people in harmony with the planet and other
species” is obvious, but it is not putting forth a solution. I simply ask you
“How?”
Regards,
Andy
P.S. Sam, I missed that quote in my first reading over a decade ago, but it
jumped out at me when I reread ZAMM this summer. I forgave Pirsig for this
ignorant assessment (he gives no support for this, that I could find) however,
for it is a view that is commonly held by many and easily swallowed. Again, I
refer to the reader edited by John Gowdy.
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