thanks for the reply.
for better or worse, we have more in common with the romans, greeks, phoenicians, persians, ancient china, etc. all at war at one time or another, than with these 'primitive' societies you mention.
so what if we have more in common with people from earlier "civilizations"? does it mean we are cursed to live with inequity, subjugation, and war for ever and will NEVER be able to steer our way of life toward a more manageable, less cruel path?
so what if we've had a lot of bullshit like ego and individuality and nationalism stuffed into our heads, and have NEITHER true personal freedom NOR a real sense of connection to community? if i can quit smoking... ok maybe not such a good example... if people can ever change, we can collectively choose a better way of life. if humans are anything, we are adaptable to any conditions -- after all, we did get used to THIS fucked up way of life which began only 10k years ago!
in between chopping off heads and burning villages, these aggressive, militarised societies advanced the arts, medicine, architecture, philosophy/ethics, science, trade ... the naval and military has also spawned a huge body of knowledge
1. maybe (a very big maybe) farming became necessary due to climate change 10k years ago and the reduction of natural resources, and larger populations followed. all of this MAY have been unavoidable, but i'm not sure if the evolution of power, or the specific course it took, necessarily happened the way it did. in other words, and of course this is a huge area of contention, i think the same advancements could have occurred under different social systems.
2. in summing up the gains, people always fail to consider the losses. and there are ALWAYS losses. it is a fundamental law of the universe -- you win some, you lose some, with every choice you make. and the things that we have lost by taking up sedentary life, agriculture, centralized power, are while much more difficult to innumerate, certainly epic in scale, detrimental to our well being, and has had massive consequences which i believe can explain much of what is happening today.
one small example: all the major diseases such as cancer caused by agriculture's reduction of the diversity of our diet.
the difficulties we face when evaluating these losses since the advent of "civilization" are numerous, here are a few off the top:
a.nearly zero record of the experience of our ancestors prior to written language exists, and thus we can only learn from modern day people who retain more or less the original lifestyle, and infer from available archeological data, and logical deduction.
b. the top-down social systems we have adopted ever since, from Shamanism to Monarchy to Capitalism, all have an inherent interest in preserving its own brand of order and perpetuating itself, and thus erasing and misrepresenting other ways of life as inferior.
c. confirmation / rear view mirror / and other kinds of biases. things happened this way, so we think there was no other way it could have happened.
in the chilean case, part of our makeup is also a native society, the mapuche/araucanians, who fought chile pretty fiercely while maintaining their eco-friendly way of life.
why not dare to dream: a society which takes the best of both indigenous and modern lifestyles and methods.
the nation state you live in, as imperfect as it is, is a highly advanced, largely peaceful society that has perfected itself into what it is today after a seemingly endless cycle of war in the european context.
i take immense issue with
1. "largely peaceful": the current peace and prosperity in Germany, in the US, UK, is directly dependent on the suffering of millions, and causes abhorrent living conditions in subjugated lands. driving an SUV is exactly the same as being carried by 100 slave humans -- except the slaves are somewhere else in the world, paying for our luxury with their reduced circumstances.
2. "AFTER an endless cycle of war": again: i quit smoking. three minutes ago.
ten thousand years ago there were at most a million people spread out over the earth, of course there was less conflict. and your solution is to go back to this. tell me, how on earth do you propose to take 7,000,000,000 people and reduce them to groups of less that 100, while ignoring the existence of nation states, cultural differences and so on? this insistence on going back to a pre-agricultural state is completely insane
i have never, EVER, not once, not even 1/10th of once, suggested anything along the lines of "going back to" the way it was. i have NEVER said a whole-sale return to primordial ways of life is at all possible, or even preferable.
what I HAVE always said, again and again, is that we need to learn from modes of social organization which has served us much better, and for MUCH longer than the fucked up way we live now.
this straw man of me wanting everyone to throw away the wheel and live in caves has come up so many times that by now it is really starting to feel disingenuous.
how do you propose to do away with violence altogether, separate a nation by force into little enclaves as oliver suggested humorously? what is your solution to violence that does not involve some fantasy partition?
this is another popular rhetorical fallacy: "keep quiet if you don't have a better alternative"
no: it is not necessary for the critic of a system to have an alternative solution ready, in order to make that criticism.
(a film critic does not need to be able to make a better film)
there are many better ways to organize every aspect of human life, some of which we can see by looking at our ancestors, but i have no idea how, when, or if we can make the transitions to adopt them.
you blatantly ignore the incredible cruelty and warring nature of non-white empires the world over, again to suit your narrative.
none of this has anything to do with "race", and i do not ignore any of the violence which predate European colonialism, be it the exploits of Genghis Khan or inhumane practices of the Mayans.
there are tools at our disposal and knowledge at hand that are there thanks to the industrialised/capitalist/centralised societies you detest, your laptop for one thing, and that can be used to enlighten and achieve a better way of life, not an imaginary super advanced pre-agrarian life with laptops and psychedelics, but a good life with the people and cultures we have.
and we should use them!
look. i am not saying that ALL or even MOST of humanity lived in prefect harmony with each other and the world, ALL or even MOST of the time prior to the end of the last ice age. but it is enough if SOME of our ancestors did, for sustained periods of more than merely decades or centuries.
there is a lot we can learn from that, if we only drop our modern conceit and the biases our "civilization" has cultivated in us. that's all.
