Joined: Mar 04, 2007 Posts: 504 Location: Hong Kong
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 3:21 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
Ludi wrote:
charliebrownout wrote:
I have to say, tribes fighting with sticks and stones would be preferable to missiles, white phosphorus, nukes, tanks, etc.
It would still be a brutal death, but at least it would char the landscape so badly.
Some gave up serious fighting and instead engaged in something more like sports, in which killing wasn't the main goal, to decide territorial limits.
This reminds me of how Hawaiians tribes used to "fight." One tribe would row to an island, ostensibly to take over the joint. They would walk up onto the beach, upon which the home tribe would come down to the beach to meet the invaders head-on and defend their turf. What ensued was incredibly strange.
The two opposing parties would make faces at each other and scream to intimidate the opposing party. If the anyone flinched, then the opposing party would attack. Usually, they would just make faces at each other and scream for hours until the home team would just give up, invite the invaders to a big party, after which the invaders would row back home. That was it, just a free meal.
The Iroquois, Algonquin and Huron often played lacrosse to resolve disputes. It was a different sport back then. There were no lateral boundaries, and the goals could be miles apart. Hundreds or thousands of players would join in the games, which often lasted for days. _________________ "We shall live in interesting times, and we shall die in them too." - Heineken
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 3:37 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
FreakOil wrote:
This reminds me of how Hawaiians tribes used to "fight." One tribe would row to an island, ostensibly to take over the joint. They would walk up onto the beach, upon which the home tribe would come down to the beach to meet the invaders head-on and defend their turf. What ensued was incredibly strange.
The two opposing parties would make faces at each other and scream to intimidate the opposing party. If the anyone flinched, then the opposing party would attack. Usually, they would just make faces at each other and scream for hours until the home team would just give up, invite the invaders to a big party, after which the invaders would row back home. That was it, just a free meal.
The Iroquois, Algonquin and Huron often played lacrosse to resolve disputes. It was a different sport back then. There were no lateral boundaries, and the goals could be miles apart. Hundreds or thousands of players would join in the games, which often lasted for days.
Games? Parties? Instead of war? Sign me up.
I'd much rather my sons play football or lacrosse than be forced footsoldiers in Iraq!
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 291 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 3:49 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
Ludi,
I don't understand your distinction about civilizations. But no matter. It seems we agree that this is what happens when we put a certain number of people together.
Personally I find that I work best in small companies and that large organizations drive me nuts.
My point was that elites are a creation of the society, no matter the size. While I may criticize them harshly I also understand that if not them, then someone else in the same role.
Perhaps Jung would have called them Archtypes? _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12582 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 5:12 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
Newfie wrote:
My point was that elites are a creation of the society, no matter the size.
My point is that such social stratifications (classes) simply don't exist in non-civilized cultures. Class structure is a feature of civilized societies.
hierarchy _________________ No original ideas are contained in this post.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
99% of pre civilization was lived in bands of 50 or so people in relative harmony. This amounts to abouttwo million years. And recent anthropology from the likes of Theresa Kintz and Marshall Sahlins, among others, has essentially obliterated the Hobbesian/ Freudian notion of life under the primitive setup as nasty, brutish and short (viz: it's a bald faced fiction sold to us by history's conquerers).
There are also several aspects of the gatherer-hunter life that civilization would do well to emulate:
*no sexism
* no racism
* no organized violence
* absence of technology
* no plant domestication (agriculture)
* no animal domestication
* no human domestication
The deepest communal bonds know to man were cultivated under this long standing arrangement.
The last 10,000 years under civilization is an awful, violent and deadly aberration.
I'm hoping for some form of a future primitive; if not for me then for those who come after me. I really think it's the planet's only hope. _________________ Civilization: the biosphere's skin disease
Joined: Dec 07, 2005 Posts: 1870 Location: Australia
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 7:48 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
Quote:
I'm hoping for some form of a future primitive; if not for me then for those who come after me. I really think it's the planet's only hope.
In this case I think we would me more likely to see MadMax (on foot) rather than the "Cave Bear clans". Reason being that we have discovered how much easier to rob people than to earn for our selves. It would take a long time to forget habits we learnt. _________________ Lets take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
You cant hide, run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
- Pet Shop Boys
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12582 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 7:53 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
Micki wrote:
In this case I think we would me more likely to see MadMax (on foot) rather than the "Cave Bear clans". Reason being that we have discovered how much easier to rob people than to earn for our selves. It would take a long time to forget habits we learnt.
MadMax on foot is a very difficult and really impossible way of life. To my knowledge there have been no raider cultures who traveled on foot. They used horses (our local Comanche are a famous example).
It is only easier to rob people in a culture which rewards such behavior - otherwise, the raider lifestyle has always been the domain of the extremely tough.
For the average criminal on foot, it will be a quick trip to the grave. _________________ No original ideas are contained in this post.
Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 4319 Location: Graceland
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 8:13 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
Ludi wrote:
My point is that such social stratifications (classes) simply don't exist in non-civilized cultures. Class structure is a feature of civilized societies.
I thought even apes had social stratifications.
What would you call the tribe members who have more cattle, more ladies and more muscles? _________________
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 291 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 8:26 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
Ludi wrote:
Newfie wrote:
My point was that elites are a creation of the society, no matter the size.
My point is that such social stratifications (classes) simply don't exist in non-civilized cultures. Class structure is a feature of civilized societies.
OK, I guess, not sure I agree 100% but that would be splitting hairs and arguing semantics.
I think we agree on the central point that stratifications are a human manifestation. A self-inflicted wound if you will.
Thus I only have so much hatred for the elites for if we shot them all then there would just be another batch cropping up to take their place. _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12582 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 8:33 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
Newfie wrote:
[
I think we agree on the central point that stratifications are a human manifestation.
No, a manifestation of civilized humans. Most human cultures have not been civilizations. _________________ No original ideas are contained in this post.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
Micki wrote:
Quote:
I'm hoping for some form of a future primitive; if not for me then for those who come after me. I really think it's the planet's only hope.
In this case I think we would me more likely to see MadMax (on foot) rather than the "Cave Bear clans". Reason being that we have discovered how much easier to rob people than to earn for our selves. It would take a long time to forget habits we learnt.
We obviously won't get there (to a future primitive ) overnight. I do think a mindset toward sustainability (particularly via permaculture) is a terrific start, however.
I read people like Ludi and my terminally depressed nature becomes alive with hope. Call me idealistic, but I do have hope for the future of our species and the planet we inhabit, whether or not it manifests itself in fifty or fifty thousand years.
In the spirit of Jean Liedloff, I believe the continuum of millions of years of embedded freedom at the deepest level, suppressed as it has been for some ten thousand years, will resurrect and carry us toward this end. _________________ Civilization: the biosphere's skin disease
Joined: Dec 07, 2005 Posts: 1870 Location: Australia
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 9:50 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
I don't think it will go there either.
The suggestion I was trying to make is that if we did, it wouldn't be back to the noble savage state but into a state where past habits and knowledge would be carried with human kind and some of this would be the dark sides that we have developed through the millienia. _________________ Lets take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
You cant hide, run with the dogs tonight
In suburbia
- Pet Shop Boys
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:48 pm Post subject: Re: After You, Sir....
Newfie wrote:
Thus I only have so much hatred for the elites for if we shot them all then there would just be another batch cropping up to take their place.
I agree wholeheartedly. Elites are kind of like the Hydra from Greek mythology.
I do think, though, that humanity needs to seriously rethink our current way of doing business. I think, from history, we can clearly see a couple of points: Elites are not really necessary and heirarchy isn't necessarily a good thing.
I know I'm not the only person in the world who feels there IS a better way out there. I'm not sure if that means permaculture, small communities, playing games instead of waging war, returning to an earlier form, or what it means. Still, I think there IS a better way--free from elites and other forms of subjugation--which will lead people to a more humane (and maybe happier) existence.
Again, I think the answer is on the tip of humanity's tongue. We almost know what it is, but we just can't say it out loud yet.
I may not live to see it, but I believe a better day will come out of all of this.
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