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Anarcho-Primitivism: The Denial of Humanity
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But something that I find odd is her belief that a hunter gatherer society would be more tolerant. Now, someone pointed out that the problem with modern living is the possibility of social alienation, however, the downside to having a group of people with which you're tight nit is that this is because these are the only people you know. Yeah maybe there are some travelers you meet occasionally who you're ok with, but we have all these ancient superstitions about the Gypsy archetype (replace with wizards, vampires, whatevs) for a reason--because you literally don't know anything about people outside of your group because you haven't had sustained contact with them.
For instance, in China merchants were at the bottom of the social ladder because, since they moved around, they had no familial connections to you. Personally, I would prefer a world with the possibility of social alienation than a world with a high probability of dehumanization.
And that's not even getting into her ideas about how a h/g society would be less sexist or violent.
edit--this is mostly from arguments with her and me recording the things I haven't said to her because I don't like being a dick in arguments.
Making sound and well-considered points is different from 'being a dick', you should attempt to rationally challenge her worldview. Although that would be awfully modern and depraved of you.
It's more like I've tried to argue with her and after a while I just sigh and change the topic because I prefer not having most of my conversations with her turn into an argument.
It's also not really historically inaccurate. Our h/g ancestors probably didn't fight with other groups as much since population densities were lower. But, when survival was at stake, they were just as ruthless as any modern person.
Rigorous Scholarship
Yeah I knew about that. Self-reference can be done cleverly, all that said to me is "I'm too stupid and unimaginative to even bother making this a fleshed out concept".
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Primitive societies don't have the luxury to include things like mercy when they fight each other. Heck pick up a bible, smacking babies on the cobblestone and taking the women as sex slaves used to be common place and that's in relatively recent times. If you go back further into tribal conflicts I can't imagine people being more civilized.
Yea sure I might end up being a corporate drone, but I won't have to worry about starving to death or lose a half dozen children before age 2 in my lifetime.
Fartacus' acknowledgment of our lifestyle being at the cost of those beneath us is absolutely correct, but it would be a fuckton easier to convince people to lower their own standard of living somewhat (eg: clothes cost more, etc) by not using slave labor abroad than it would be to get them to willingly die in large numbers because we're not spiritually fulfilled or something. Heck there's even a non-trivial argument to be made that the sweatshop labor abroad isn't entirely evil, because it will lead to something better for the places where it is occurring in the long run - but that's a whole can of worms in and of itself.
Erg. People taking ridiculously complex issues and distilling them down into simplistic worldviews is really starting to move up my short list of top annoyances.
As well as a reason that H/G societies ruled the earth for more than 20 times longer than that. If the single goal of human society is mere stability and sustainability than the proof is in the pudding on hunting and gathering. There's little question that the system works and can work in the extreme long term.
That said, I don't think that any form of reversion to hunter gatherer society is what's in order. That idea is silly, and I don't know of anyone seriously suggesting it. Hopefully we all believe that human society is capable of far more than mere survival. But I do think it's worth understanding that, from a larger perspective, agricultural society is something of an anomaly and a very young anomaly at that. Furthermore, we have extremely recent human behaviors tacked on to agriculture, like industrialization and the sudden ballooning of our population which have potentially high impact and no established history of sustainability. It's a much higher risk way of doing things.
There also seems to be a rapidly increasing awareness about maybe not raping the farmland and whatnot. I tend not to be too pessimistic about such things, after all in the 1970s we'd be out of fresh water in 10 years, and here we are 40 years later.
Close-knit family groups can create a lot of alienation too, especially if you are somehow "different" - for example if you are homosexual, disabled or simply don't want to spend your entire life doing what your father does.
Cities are a great place to "be alone together" with like minded people.
On the other hand - evolutionary speaking, cities are very new and very different from the living conditions where the structure of our brains were shaped. But humans are very adaptable which is probably the main reason that millions of people can live together in a handful of square kilometers without freaking out and start killing each other (well not too often anyway).
Another thing that I don't think has been discussed in this thread yet are specialization and economics of scale - two of the main benefits of civilization, making producing food and goods in a civilized society hugely more efficient than in a H/G one. I don't know the numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if we were talking about one or several orders of magnitude more efficient. Economy of scale is definitely something we need in order to be able to feed everyone on the planet.
On the other hand, it brings about the dangers of consumerism and the model for our world economy today - continuous growth, which definitely will come to an end some day (preferably sooner than later). The problem is finding a balance, and there is a risk that before (if ever) we manage to reach a post-scarcity state (most likely through development of technology), a lot of people will suffer and starve. It's unfortunate, but I don't really see that there are any alternatives that won't cause even more suffering.
Oh, hey, look Fart. The thread about this stuff has already been created for us. :P
I dispute that strongly. If I were a savage, I'd be hungry, cold, and likely dead right now. Instead, I'm drinking a hot cup of coffee, after an uninterrupted night's sleep in a comfortable bed, in my warm house, listening to music, conversing with like-minded individuals from around the globe (that's you guys).
It's a great morning for me, thanks to civilization.
I disagree with this sentiment to some extent. I mean yeah it is cool to know, but how fucking boring would the universe be if you just knew everything about it? The great thing to me is that there is always more to know, more to wonder about.
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I imagine it would get boring after awhile, sure it may not be immediately boring, but what about 500 years from now? or 10,000?
I never said anything about just understanding basic laws. I said if you knew EVERYTHING about it, it would be fucking boring.
World obliterating flood. Then, start over?
Sim Reality
Absolutes like 'knowing everything' are generally inapplicable to standard modes of thought. If you knew everything you'd know how to keep yourself entertained. Or maybe you wouldn't. Who knows? Nobody actually knows everything and no one ever has, so it's not like we have a frame of reference.
But it's all irrelevant because the quote isn't about knowing everything, it's about knowing anything. If you look at really early human cultures everything that a person encounters in day to day life either is a god or spirit or similar or is directly controlled by the whims of one. Nothing is actually known except the stories, so you just have to have faith that the sun will come up tomorrow and that your arrows will kill elk or whatever. It's all very nice and romantic to consider the world as a tapestry of magic and wonder, but in practice it would be fucking awful not to have a method by which to actually learn things.
I agree that having a method to learn things is awesome. My entire point is that sometimes I simply enjoy wondering, a life without any wonder whatsoever seems dull to me, that is my only point.
One of these days I'd like to start a thread about that. Omniscience, blessing or curse?
I love knowing, but don't like learning. So omniscience would be awesome. On the other hand, there are individuals like yourself who love learning. In that case omniscience would be a curse, since it eliminates the ability to keep learning.
[/thread derail]
No, I totally get that. I agree much more that I like modern society with our ability to explore things we wonder about. My point is that I'd never want to run out of things to explore, I'd never want to run out of things to wonder about, to then turn around and find out about.
Well you're in luck because of the universe we live in.
I've just read a few articles by a Kirkpatrick Sale that inspired me to revisit this thread, specifically in response to the idea of technological progress.
For Sale and other Luddites (a term that he self-identifies with), the idea of progress (specifically technological progress) is a myth. Any new technological innovation brings more problems than it fixes, and the fixes for those problems create more problems themselves.
For example:
Agriculture
+ Provides reliable source of food
- Consumes water
- Exhausts soil
- Agricultural societies tend to have less diverse diets and are nutritionally lacking
- Encourages population growth, which eventually outstrips agriculture's ability to provide food
Chemical Fertilizers
+ Increases food production, providing for enlarged populations
- Creates run-off that damages ecosystems
- Derived from oil, which is finite
Chemical Pesticides
+ Eliminates crop-destroying pests
- Surviving pests develop immunities to pesticides, requiring new pesticides to be created
- Could possibly have negative effects on humans
- Derived from oil, which is finite
Biotechnology
+ Could eliminate need for fertilizers and pesticides
+ Could reduce water and soil depletion
- Could cause unforeseen human health problems
The Luddite position can be summed up with the analogy of a machine that becomes increasingly complicated and is in constant need of repairs. People come to be wholly dependent on this machine. Eventually the machine becomes too complicated and beyond hope of repair. It breaks down, and the people who depended upon the machine suffer.
For Sale and other Luddites and anarcho-primitivists, humanity should reject the Myth of Progress before the entire system inspired by it inevitably collapses. If we don't burn it to the ground, it will burst into flames itself and possibly take everyone with it.
Before anyone makes any accusations, I do not necessarily agree with this viewpoint. I'm worried that the environmental catastrophes forecasted by these groups could occur, but I think that these problems can be solved with technology.
I've just read a few articles by a Kirkpatrick Sale that inspired me to revisit this thread, specifically in response to the idea of technological progress.
For Sale and other Luddites (a term that he self-identifies with), the idea of progress (specifically technological progress) is a myth. Any new technological innovation brings more problems than it fixes, and the fixes for those problems create more problems themselves.
For example:
Agriculture
+ Provides reliable source of food
- Consumes water
- Exhausts soil
- Agricultural societies tend to have less diverse diets and are nutritionally lacking
- Encourages population growth, which eventually outstrips agriculture's ability to provide food[/IChemical Fertilizers
+ Increases food production, providing for enlarged populations
- Creates run-off that damages ecosystems
- Derived from oil, which is finite
Chemical Pesticides
+ Eliminates crop-destroying pests
- Surviving pests develop immunities to pesticides, requiring new pesticides to be created
- Could possibly have negative effects on humans
- Derived from oil, which is finite
Biotechnology
+ Could eliminate need for fertilizers and pesticides
+ Could reduce water and soil depletion
- Could cause unforeseen human health problems
The Luddite position can be summed up with the analogy of a machine that becomes increasingly complicated and is in constant need of repairs. People come to be wholly dependent on this machine. Eventually the machine becomes too complicated and beyond hope of repair. It breaks down, and the people who depended upon the machine suffer.
For Sale and other Luddites and anarcho-primitivists, humanity should reject the Myth of Progress before the entire system inspired by it inevitably collapses. If we don't burn it to the ground, it will burst into flames itself and possibly take everyone with it.
Before anyone makes any accusations, I do not necessarily agree with this viewpoint. I'm worried that the environmental catastrophes forecasted by these groups could occur, but I think that these problems can be solved with technology.[/QUOTE]
I agree the pros and cons you list are existing problems, but Sale and his kind see a rather finite view of technology, it would seem. Their positions tend to ask questions like, Why mass-produce crops if it just leads to chemicals in the ecosystem? Well, the latter isn't necessarily dependent on the former; that's just the way it is now. And those are issues that we're working on.
Their worldview can basically be applied at any point in cultural evolution and reach similar conclusions, and pulling back further just makes them wrong every time. For example, they could have asked questions like these at given times in history:
- Why insulate houses? It just leads to increased proliferation of asbestos.
- Why teach people to read? It just increases the amount of paper used in books.
- Why build houses? The law of averages will save the human population in the event of dangerous weather.
- Why develop medicine? We're just creating a race of humans without immunities to swords.
The existence of a condition at X point in time does neither mandate its continued implementation nor does it preclude other, better measures from being implemented in the future. The same science that developed harmful chemical pesticidesdecades ago may (and likely will) develop crops that are resistant to pests at some point in the future.
Addressing the issues that are unique to an advanced society by offering a reversion to cro-magnon lifestyles isn't just throwing out the baby with the bathwater; it's throwing out the whole damn bathroom, too.
Primitive societies were made-up of a very small groups of people who had to worry about getting enough food, surviving harsh weather, avoiding major injuries, and protecting themselves against both animals and rival groups of humans. The worst case scenario in primitive societies would be for a single small group of people to die.
A modern, globalized world means global problems. Instead of having small, local tribes competing for resources, you have an entire planet of countries competing for dwindling resources. Due to global warming and pollution, everyone in the world will have to deal with harsh weather. Rivalries don't result in a single, small tribe being wiped-out; they result in wars that can slaughter millions, possibly even ending in mutually assured destruction by nuclear weaponry.
In the modern world, failure doesn't result in the death and suffering of a small tribe. It can affect millions, possibly even billions.
Fun fact: a nuclear reactor did form without any sort of human involvement at least once in the Earth's history.
Natural Nuclear Fission Reactor
I dunno, I definitely am.
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Luddites and anarcho-primitivists contend that any new technological advances will invariably cause new problems. This same line of thought applies to other topics. For example, trying to fix social problems within civilization is equally fruitless, as it will just lead to new problems. Civilization is basically a mistake, and the way our ancestors lived in the distant past is how we should live.
History has shown us that man isn't content to live like that forever. If civilization was a mistake, it was an inevitable one. Because when one group gets organized, the rest end up following suit or being conquered and following suit if they survive.
I don't see the value in saying "Gee it sure would be nice if human nature wasn't human nature".
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Exactly.
The logical endgame of Luddite ideology is a million little cloisters of humans around the globe, bare naked, eating whatever food is immediately at hand (and eating it raw), and dying at age 23 of exposure/starvation/death-by-tiger.
I mean, that's where the argument of origination can only go to. Is that something anyone other than a pedantic asshole would really want? A complex and evolving society is going to have ever more complex and evolving problems. That's the deal you accept by becoming a member of society; you can only figure stuff out by trying to, and sometimes bad shit happens. The trick, which we've shown capable of conquering many times, is continuing to better ourselves and solve those problems.
Think of it this way: one of the primary objectives of mankind since time began is attaining the ability to act as nature already does, meaning everything from growing crops all the way to creation at the genetic level. That journey has done some significant damage to the planet along the way, but care about that, and we're getting better at it. One day, and maybe not that far off, we'll figure it all out.
And then we'll move on the next challenge. It's what we do. Exerting our will in the face of perceived impossibility is basically the raison d'tre for all mankind.
Anarcho-primitivists claim that the bolded isn't the case. According to them, hunter-gatherers enjoyed a healthy life provided something didn't happen to them during their childhood. Hunter-gatherers also had an encyclopedic knowledge of their environment: for example, they knew what types of food were available in what places during any given time of the year. Heart disease and diabetes were unheard of, and cancer was rare.
The greater prevalence of such diseases in modern wealthy societies is referred to by Anarcho-primitivists as "affluenza", and is one of their arguments against modern civilization.