Forum Post: Why are people idealizing prehistoric tribal life?
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 11, 2012, 2:56 a.m. EST by francismjenkins
(3713)
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As a more traditional liberal, I've been trying to understand Anarcho-syndicalism better. I've always appreciated Noam Chomsky, but I've also always thought that he had an idealistic, or more to the point, unrealistic view of human nature. I'm rarely accused of pessimism or being overly cynical, but I'm increasingly finding myself sounding very critical of this uber-idealistic view of human nature.
I took some initiative, read an essay by Kropotkin, and honestly, while I founding the quality of his writing to be superb (I mean really superb), I didn't find the substance all that impressive. His ideas are basically in line with conventional anarchist libertarian thought, minus the quasi-deification of property rights commonly associated with libertarian ideology (I'd say socialist libertarian is a pretty good synopsis of his views).
Okay, not terrible, I mean, a society comprised of voluntary associations (sounds good, at least rhetorically), democratic capitalism (an idea I've always liked, I think borrowing a bit from Robert Owen style socialism), but it seems like it presumes, maybe requires (to some extent at least), a human nature that may not exist.
Kropotkin does begin to interact with this criticism, but his argument reduces to an appeal to emotion (I can't really pinpoint any substantive response to this critique). Chomsky also evades this line of reasoning, and basically does the same thing (responds to this real and very valid concern with an appeal to emotion). I'm afraid to say, in my opinion at least, not very intellectually satisfying.
I was always a big fan of Christopher Hitchens, who also commonly borrowed this line of thinking. Yet, when Hitch eluded to this innate goodness inherent in human nature, I wondered what the hell he was talking about (I mean, it sounded very "religious" to me, and coming from an avowed atheist, I found this surprising).
Even if we discount biochemical evidence, like the association between paranoia and agency detection (or in common parlance, inaccurate pattern detection) and brain chemistry (more specifically, dopamine), or our adrenaline response to acute stress (fight or flight), or Dawkins' groundbreaking work, discussed in his book "The Selfish Gene" (showing how behavior is related to--I guess you could say--the reproductive impulse of our genes), or many other things that suggest our behavior is very much related to our biology, human history is filled with horror stories, which I think illustrate very clearly that there is an ugly side to our nature, and a propensity for group think that can manifest in very good ways, or very bad and horrific ways.
Don't get me wrong, we obviously have many good aspects to our nature (and "maybe" ... hopefully, the good outweighs the bad), but it seems to me that there needs to be something in place to protect human rights and liberty, which is not subject to the will of the community, a set of principles and laws that protect people against the whims of popular sentiment, a system of checks and balances that includes as many competing interests as possible, etc.
Man, I'm disappointed.
If we were really ideallising primitive tribal life, wouldn't we be at a disco?
No. We'd just be stayin' alive.
I think you're reading something into my post that I did not intend to say (or at least that's what "disappointment" would imply)? I'm not saying everyone does this, or even most OWS protesters, but I'm hearing this repeatedly (so I felt like it was worthwhile to discuss).
physical evolution can't keep up with social evolution
steps in technology are retard by the humans ability to keep up with it
Right, and in the context of humans (particularly modern humans), we have to acknowledge that physical evolution trails social evolution and technological development. Environmental factors have always had a strong influence on evolution, but the more humans impact the environment, the more these changes are traceable to our own behavior.
I believe, first and foremost, that Chomsky is a polemicist. He presents a good deal of things in black and white terms, and by doing so, gets folks to question long-standing assumptions. If one looks at his treatise on manufacturing consent, for example, it is clear that he has revealed a very real mechanism in favor of the power elite in the very structure of modern media and the advertising that supports it. Yet I doubt even he would consider it entirely monolithic. Although he keeps holding up Anarcho-syndicalism as an ideal. I think (or at least hope) he is smart enough to understand that, as an ideal, it is unreachable, much like Marx viewed communism as an unattainable ideal. Chomsky himself, when recently talking about OWS, spoke about how he favors reform over revolution.
I suspect he takes the exploration of ideas far more seriously than he takes himself. I have little to base this feeling on: I mostly just like the guy. So I guess I'm guilty of an appeal to emotion, too!
That makes sense (and it is a noble ideal, even if unattainable).
Hi, did you reply to the post with this link?
http://algoxy.com/ows/soldiersinquiry.html
I thought I saw a notification, then it went away.
Anyway I may understand the reason for the quandry. In the old world society used the unconscious mind. It created dynamics in culture and society we have a very difficult time understanding because we know nothing about societies that use the unconscious mind.
ON EDIT: Note, the mention of the "Rose Window" and Solstice church" 1 year after the the video at the lower link was aired on public access, provide some confirmation. http://www.youtube.com/v/2va0I7ach5s?hl=en&fs=1
The hidden history of Indigenous people of California. Turn down the audio at the beginning. The Ann Arbor producer that uploaded added a loud intro. This info cannot be found any where else. Removed from our societies. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2186665538066585011&ei=YCQXSbqMMYTyqAPGmc36AQ&q=forbidden+knowledge
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another book along the line of Dawkins "the Selfish Gene" is the "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley...it places the sexual impulse as number one in the development of human beings.....not as refined and clear as Dawkins...but an interesting read nonetheless
Very Freudian of Mr. Ridley, and I agree to some extent (I at least acknowledge that sexual impulse is one of our primary impulses). You know, the other side of sexual jealously is the impulse for sexual conquest, and these things are real and demonstrable aspects of our nature. It helped us reproduce enough to avoid extinction, just as our propensity for some degree of paranoia helped us early on (in our struggle for survival against predators); unfortunately these aspects of our nature also have a bad side (particularly in the context of modern human life). I'm mainly just saying we need to account for these things when we hypothesize about human nature.
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agreed....the idea of Utopianism completely disregards the nature of human beings and the layers of evolutionary development in place in our physical being....
you can't "think" your way out of primitive response without embracing that the primitive response is there under the higher faculties.....
Those who feel we have evolved of mind and no longer are controlled by primitive urges are, to say the least, naive....
Perfectly stated!
When I read about the horror stories of our past, I'm left thinking that most of them were products of inaccurate information and paranoia of the other. Also, whether it is dopamine or spirituality that makes us feel good when we do good deeds, is irrelevant in my mind. Doing right by my neighbor has always brought me more joy than hustling a mark so much so that I grew out of doing the latter. Your idea of proportional representation might be a good way of bring about more cooperation and allowing us to be more informed about the other, which would probably tone down the social angst our society currently lives with.
Excellent point. When I hear anarchist say we should form a society that encourages good behavior and social well being, this is obviously not an idea I oppose (indeed, just the opposite). I'm just saying we shouldn't base our proposals on inaccurate information regarding human nature. You mention paranoia, and when this happens in the context of large groups, it's often exacerbated by group think. So we can say that humans do have the propensity for paranoia, tribal group think, etc. How these aspects of our nature manifest, however, is to a large degree based on perceptions (and group identification), which is strongly influenced by information dissemination. In other words, yes we should form a society that does better in terms of promoting good behavior, but we shouldn't do it under the misconception that humans are inherently good (or bad for that matter). We should understand how tribal paranoia happens, the brain chemistry involved, the role our preexisting thinking plays in these dynamics, how information dissemination can influence our behavior, etc.
The thing is, we understand (at least fairly well) the role dopamine (just to name one neurotransmitter) plays in behavior, whereas there's really nothing to mysticism (empirically speaking). We can ask questions like is all that is really empirically reducible or logically/mathematically deducible, but if it's not, then it really can't be the subject of study. It's just subjective conjecture. It's one thing when we make this sort of conjecture the subject of our literature, philosophy, etc., but its yet another when we allow these ideas to form the basis of something like our legal framework. That opens the door for ruthless people to exploit and manipulate human thinking for personal gain and power.
we can change this thing it will never be utopia because humans are not that evolved and the worlds resources are not plentiful in a fashion where we can all live in excess like the 1% but then again why should a man have a forty room mansion for his family of four and two jets fueled up and ready to go on his front yard. if society did not reinforce that this was good and acceptable he would not and yes a person actually lives like this and he is not a banker. his name is john travolta.
chris hitchens was one man who that he was a lot smarter than other people because he held fast to his static views on the world and he had a very narrow world view yeah sure there is no spiritual component to the universe that is simply not true. that is the view that needs to find the trash heap. that is what you are not understanding. we are not saying lets go back to to pre-civilization we are saying lets take a holistic approach lets apply the highest levels of technology to allow us to be more fully integrated with nature. lets start a new system from the ground up taking a fulling integrated approach build holistic cities, transportation, infrastructure, and institutions. establish a non-static syncretic holistic belief system using a unitarian universalist type approach because humans were not designed to live in a box and never have human contact we were not built for this that is why mental and physical health is so off i mean humans literally have gone years with no human touch no mental intimacy and that is not a reference to sex and that is not good. lets take science and spirituality we can have both and these days they reinforce each other more and more in exciting and astounding ways if you know how and what to look for. theoretical physics, neuroscience, biology, psychology/sociology are all correlating with ancient esoteric mystical beliefs. the old physicalist materialist model is on its last legs. yes we must protect minority rights and there must be checks and balances... as far as our genes there is all kinds of new science indicating that environment triggers genes check out the new national geographic on twins some really exciting stuff that is helping to put a fork in determinism.
Hitch was right about one thing ... there is absolutely no evidence supporting the idea of a "spiritual" anything (not even a tiny drop).
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That's why it called having faith.
There is such evidence. He chooses to interpret is his way.
But that's an entirely different discussion.
what other rational response can there be when a political party rises up, and drapes their deregulatory madness behind a vail of family values . . . .
You mean the NSA? So we can expect Koch suckers of all stripes to suffer plane crashes and car accidents at . . . . um . . . . statistically significant numbers?
I can't wait . . . .
I mean, I strongly agree with these grievances (I wouldn't be interested in OWS if I didn't), but I'm not sure how any of this is relevant to the point?
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