Hunter gatherer violence

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

then tell me why you consider the question of hunter gather violence is  a matter of little importance

Don't bother with Stawmen. Been there, done that and bought the tee shirt.

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

Wars are not caused by the belief that we are innately violent. Wars are caused by conflicts of economic interests within the 1%. They are fought over resources, markets etc. If you were able to convince every worker that we are not naturally aggressive (which is demonstrably untrue) ) that would not result in a peaceful world.Removing the economic reasons for violence is the answer. Inate violence is less important when we have nothing to fight about. You are wasting your time asking workers not to go to war by convincing them that they are acting out of character. They will stop fight in wars when they understand the causes of wars. Then they will turn their aggression on the 1%

 I think you are missing the point here, VinI agree that wars are not caused by the mere belief that we are "innately  violent" but, rather, occur for the reasons you cite.  However, I am not talking about why wars happen but the justifications offered by the warmongerers  for engaging in wars. Warmongerers don't tend to offer justifications along the lines that wars are fuelled by economic conflicts and we have to confront what they say just as much as what they don't say about war. What they say about war is enormously influential and is one of the reasons why workers go to war against their own interests – because they actually believe the crap pumped out by the warmongerersPart of that whole elaborate structure of justification offered by the warmongerers is the belief  the war is innate in human beings and thus unavoidable.  If you believe  that war is unavoidable – because it is  "natural" to human beings – then that clearly undermines any resistance to war.  Why resist something from which there is no escape? Our alleged inborn predilection to wage war? Another aspect of this ruling class ideology is the belief that we all separate out into different groups – – nations that have competing interests and that the nation or group that we belong to can be stronger by uniting against outsiders.  Again, this is rationalised or "naturalised" by appealing to what supposedly went on in our Paleolithic past in which the outlines of our "human nature" were said to be essentially forged – the 95% of our existence on this planet when we lived as hunter gatherers.  Which is why the question  of hunter gatherer violence simply cannot be ignored or brushed under the carpet as some kind of esoteric academic topic of interest. You know as well as I do that the human nature argument is perhaps the most insidiously  prevalent objection raised by workers against the possibility of establishing socialism.  If it is believed that war is inherent part of human nature ,  how can you seriously imagine for one moment that workers who hold this belief  will ever consider the prospect of a global cooperative  society – socialism – as being possible?.  If war is part of part of our human nature then wars are likely to occur in socialism.  And if that were the case then i would argue that that in itself negates socialism.  It  is also incidentally is at odds with your own explanation  as to why wars happen – namely because of the commercial rivalries inherent in market capitalism. You therefore have as much a vested interest as I have,  as a revolutionary socialist , to debunk the myth that war is part of our human nature.  And since human nature is necessarily something that is supposed to have emerged from our overwhelmingly hunter gatherer past that necessarily means looking at the question of violence in hunter gather society. There is absolutely no way round this for revolutionary Socialists.  If human nature is warlike because hunter gatherers were warlike  then that rules out socialism. QED

[Young Master Smeet]

robbo203 wrote:

There is absolutely no way round this for revolutionary Socialists.  If human nature is warlike because hunter gatherers were warlike  then that rules out socialism. QED

I don't think this does follow.  If in certain (knowable) circumstances prehistoric humans engaged in warfare, we can know to build around and avoid those warfare conditions.  The case for socialism certainly doesn't rest on humans being naturally angels, or need a 'New Man', and it rests on the impulse for freedom and the non-necessity of class.  If it turns out, when we are free, that humans are by nature Evil, so be it.We might even decide to divide the world up, like, like the Byzantine chariot fans, Blues and Greens, and have wars between ourselves for n o good reason, because that is our natyure.  I doubt that would happen, but whether it would or not has no bearing on the case for socialism.

[Anonymous]

Spot on YMS.The case for socialism is based on class struggle not 'human nature' (whatever that is) It does not require 'nice' people (whoever they may be). On the contrary, it requires humans to become aggressive where necessary in order to take control of the earth.It will not be handed to us: The meek will not inherit the earth by turning the other cheek. The majority will take it peacefully if possible and violently if necessary.Humans are social, violent, aggressive,  peaceful and cooperative. Capitalism brings the worst out, socialists believe that socialism will bring the best.It is Historical Materialism:  – Capitalism  is the cause of our conflict, violence and aggression.   Recognising and changing the capitalist relations of production- will mean that the human species will for the first time emerge from the animal kingdom and create a truly human society. We will not become saints but we will have removed the major cause of aggression and violence.

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

There is absolutely no way round this for revolutionary Socialists.  If human nature is warlike because hunter gatherers were warlike  then that rules out socialism. QED

I don't think this does follow.  If in certain (knowable) circumstances prehistoric humans engaged in warfare, we can know to build around and avoid those warfare conditions.  The case for socialism certainly doesn't rest on humans being naturally angels, or need a 'New Man', and it rests on the impulse for freedom and the non-necessity of class.  If it turns out, when we are free, that humans are by nature Evil, so be it.We might even decide to divide the world up, like, like the Byzantine chariot fans, Blues and Greens, and have wars between ourselves for n o good reason, because that is our nature.  I doubt that would happen, but whether it would or not has no bearing on the case for socialism.

 Er no …this is not quite what I was saying, YMS. Both you and Vin have, I think,  possibly misunderstood the point I was driving at.  I was certainly not suggesting that the case for socialism rests on "humans being naturally angels" Not at all.  Just because I am attacking the idea that humans are naturally warlike does not mean I promoting the idea that human beings are naturally pacific.  What i am actually attacking is the belief that they are naturally anything – apart from perhaps the fact  that we are "naturally" social animals – and highly adaptable animals. Being adaptable we are capable of being either warlike or pacific but that does not mean we are "naturally" either of these things…..Vin statesThe case for socialism is based on class struggle not 'human nature' (whatever that is) It does not require 'nice' people (whoever they may be) Yes but the case for socialism has also to address the case against socialism or leave those unconvinced by the case for socialism, unconvinced. The human nature argument is  part of the case against socialism.  Just as we socialists argue against those who say "human nature" means that people are naturally lazy or naturally greedy so we have to argue against the view that view that people  are "naturally warlike".And if people are naturally warlike – that is to say, if wars will occur again and again regardless of the kind of society we live in  – then socialism must be considered dead in the water.  I do not imagine for one moment, YMS, you seriously think  we could or would divide the world up in socialism  and engage in wars with each other. How do you imagine a socialist society could survive for one second if this was true.  Of course it not because we had all been transformed into natural angels that socialism would rule this out but because there would be absolutely  no  reason for engaging in wars in the first place. Ironically I am the one who is putting forward a historical materialist position here -despite being accused of somehow departing from such a position. I repeat – if people are "naturally warlike" that means wars are likely to happen in socialism.  And if wars are likely to happen in socialism that spells the implosion of socialism itself – its collapse under the weight of a self contradiction.  Wars imply a fundamental conflict of interests which is not supposed to happen in socialism Ergo, we have to address the question of whether people are naturally warlike.  And that necessarily means addressing the question of whether hunter gatherers were warlike.  Because the argument  that people are naturally warlike takes it cue from what human society was supposed to be like when we lived as hunter gatherers – the 95% of our existence on this planet when our "human nature" was supposedly forged – at least according to those who put the human nature argument against socialism Don't believe me ? Well then read E O Wilson's essay and tell me again that this is not what he is sayinghttp://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/07-is-war-inevitable-by-e-o-wilson

[Hud955]

Apologies to everyone who has been engaged on this thread if I am repeating anything that has already been dealt with.  I'm new onto it and I haven't yet read everything that has been discussed.  YMS"I've lost the reference, a book recently came across my desk looking at early warfare.  The conclusion (all I had time to look at) was that if you defien war as "socially sanctioned violence against another polity" (I think that was teh formula) then war has always been with us, including among hunter gatherers, however, if you don't take on that definition, and become stricter in your definition of war, then it hasn't been."The principal purveyor of this view is Richard Wrangham who has sought to show by a statistical analysis of hunter gatherer data (considerably more detailed and less cherry picked than Pinker's) that warfare is common in pre-state societies.  Douglas P Fry, his principal opponent, objected on the grounds that Wrangham was including raiding, feuding and individual one-on-one violence in his definition of warfare, and set about demonstrating this from the data provided. Wrangham retorted that Fry was simply defining warfare out of existence.  Fry, took up his challenge by dispensing with cultural definitions altogether and analysing the data on homicides mathematically: one-on-one homicide, one-on-more than one homicide, two-on-two etc.  He also analysed the data in terms of different forms of hunter gatherer organisation (delayed-return, immediate-return, complex).  His conclusions have driven a coach and horses through Wrangham's argument, showing that group violence could not be significantly demonstrated, especially among immediate return hunter gatherers.  At the same time his analysis revealed few individual homicides for most groups, but peaking in a few others which were long known to be outliers in this regard.   I am summarising rather crudely here because his tables are elaborate and extensive.It's a shame that you cannot find the reference to the original claims YMS because there have been a number of arguments of this kind put forward recently.  What you do say, though,  implies that whoever it was does not know much about hunter gatherer organisation, and in particular the organisation of immediate return hunger gatherers.  These people have no forms of status or authority within their bands, and therefore nothing that even approaches the nature of a 'polity'.  It is even arguable that, lacking fixed social relationships, they do not even constitute a 'society' as we would ordinarily understand it.  It would therefore seem meaninless to apply definitions to groups which include notions such as 'polity' or 'social sanction'.   Being extreme individualists, hunger gatherers are not collectively in a position to sanction anything, or otherwise.  A lack of interference in the actions of others does not equate to a sanction.  On the issue of human nature, it seems to me that the most we can say is that human beings are capable of homicide, warfare etc, but not that they have a natural disposition to it.  That can be made on the argument that we have microbiological proof now that environment affects behaviour, but also on the obvious ground  that warfare and indeed homicide is known to exist in some cultures but not others.  For me the value of the information provided by ethnographers since hunter gatherers were first recognised as a separate form of social organisation sixty years ago, is that it blows out of the water all notions of 'innate' tendencies to make war within the human species.   Beyond the issue of violence, the extreme egalitarian nature of hunter gatherer bands is a powerful argument against the universality of property and exchange relations in human societies, while these taken together with the condition of 'abundance' in which they are almost universally found, also undermine all of the fundamental preconceptions of neoclassical economics.  Band hunter gatherers really do live in a condition of primitive communism, and their ancient  matrilineal structures vindicate Engels view on this matter after a century of his being dismissed by all and sundry. 

[Young Master Smeet]

HUD955, I found the title of the book I was thinking of (post #19):

Quote:

Violence and warfare among hunter-gatherers / Mark W. Allen, Terry L. Jones, editors. Walnut Creek, California : Left Coast Press, [2014] Allen, Mark W., editor. 9781611329391 hardback

[Young Master Smeet]

Robbo203

Quote:

And if people are naturally warlike – that is to say, if wars will occur again and again regardless of the kind of society we live in  – then socialism must be considered dead in the water.  I do not imagine for one moment, YMS, you seriously think  we could or would divide the world up in socialism  and engage in wars with each other. How do you imagine a socialist society could survive for one second if this was true.

Socialism provides according to need, if we need war, we'll organise one, its perfectly conceivable that ritualised lethal warfare could be compatible with common democratic ownership of the means of production.  Unlikely, but who knows?

[Young Master Smeet]

A quick dig around for Mark W Allen this linkSome pages are redacted (google books action) but the basic point on a skim does seem to be as made here, mobile bands were least violent, and going up the scale of complexity and population density does seem to suggest more violence.  haven't time for more than a skim, but hope that helps.

[stuartw2112]

Robin: "There is absolutely no way round this for revolutionary Socialists.  If human nature is warlike because hunter gatherers were warlike  then that rules out socialism. QED"I really have no idea why you would want to make yourself a hostage to fortune in this way. The plain fact is that it is very hard to figure out what is supposed to count as part of our "nature" and what is not. That's why the arguments can drag on forever, as on this forum – they are unresolved issues in science. What seems equally plain to me is that it is plausible that Robin is wrong – that war, violence, greed, stupidity, you name it, is a part of our natural inheritance as human beings. As a socialist, I am totally relaxed about whatever turns out to be the case. The classic example is a classic for a reason so I'll repeat it. If anything is part of our natural inheritance as humans, surely it is our sexual drive. We want to have sex, and the urge is a strong one, and the urge and the behaviours that go along with it must be evolved ones that have a genetic basis. It's surely totally uncontroversial to say so. And yet I have never ever come across anyone who points out this fact and then goes on to argue that unchecked population growth and rape are therefore inevitable, and hence it's not worth doing anything about it. No one argues that because it's obviously daft. We're naturally sexual creatures, yes, but we also (naturally?) come up with ways to organise our behaviours in socially acceptable ways, using a variety of things including ritual, taboo, social organisation and technology (contraception).The same applies to war. Maybe we are naturally warlike. Seems plausible. Does that mean we can't organise ways of mitigating the risks of it happening? Even in capitalism, the answer is obviously no – after all, we do it all the time.

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Robin: "There is absolutely no way round this for revolutionary Socialists.  If human nature is warlike because hunter gatherers were warlike  then that rules out socialism. QED"I really have no idea why you would want to make yourself a hostage to fortune in this way. The plain fact is that it is very hard to figure out what is supposed to count as part of our "nature" and what is not. That's why the arguments can drag on forever, as on this forum – they are unresolved issues in science. What seems equally plain to me is that it is plausible that Robin is wrong – that war, violence, greed, stupidity, you name it, is a part of our natural inheritance as human beings. 

 The problem is, Stuart, is that it is not me who is making some definitive  assertion about what  human nature consists in. The burden of  proof lies, as it should, with those – like E O Wilson – who assert quite candidly that human nature is warlike.  Such proof as they provide to back up this claim is very weak indeed.Of course people are capable of engaging  in war, violence, greed, stupidity,  etc  but that does not make these things " part of our natural inheritance as human beings".  This is where I think you go wrong. You observe human beings acting in a warlike manner and deduce that they must therefore be warlike "by nature".  Human nature, or human inheritance,  implies more than mere potentiality.  It implies an irresistible disposition to behave in the way stated and I deny that human beings have an irresistible disposition to wage war.  Wars are not the result of innate dispositions but material circumstances and, in capitalism, that means the commercial rivalries  built into the system itself

stuartw2112 wrote:

As a socialist, I am totally relaxed about whatever turns out to be the case. The classic example is a classic for a reason so I'll repeat it. If anything is part of our natural inheritance as humans, surely it is our sexual drive. We want to have sex, and the urge is a strong one, and the urge and the behaviours that go along with it must be evolved ones that have a genetic basis. It's surely totally uncontroversial to say so. And yet I have never ever come across anyone who points out this fact and then goes on to argue that unchecked population growth and rape are therefore inevitable, and hence it's not worth doing anything about it. No one argues that because it's obviously daft. We're naturally sexual creatures, yes, but we also (naturally?) come up with ways to organise our behaviours in socially acceptable ways, using a variety of things including ritual, taboo, social organisation and technology (contraception).The same applies to war. Maybe we are naturally warlike. Seems plausible. Does that mean we can't organise ways of mitigating the risks of it happening? Even in capitalism, the answer is obviously no – after all, we do it all the time.

 No, the same does NOT  apply to war.  That is the whole point, Stuart! The evidence very firmly suggests that human beings did NOT engage in war  before say 10.000 years ago.  Read what Ferguson pr Fry have to say on the matter  and the links I earlier provided.  If wars did not happen earlier than 10, 000 years ago then by no stretch of the imagination can we be described as "naturally warlike".Of course wars happen but they happen for reasons other than our human nature.  Of course, also, the fact that wars happen  does not mean  that we cannot, as you say,  organise ways of mitigating the risks of it happening. Point is you could just as easily argue (although this is not what I am arguing) that these pacific  tendencies are likewise just as much a part  of  human nature and so therefore reduce the whole argument about "human nature" to a meaningless absurdity. As I said, if there is anything we can safely say about human nature, it  is that we are highly adaptable animals capable of behaving in a wide variety of ways – both pacific and warlike. What triggers one form of behaviour rather than another has to do with our social environment and the material circumstances we find ourselves in.It has precious little to do with "human nature" as such which people like E O Wilson keep banging on about

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Robbo203

Quote:

And if people are naturally warlike – that is to say, if wars will occur again and again regardless of the kind of society we live in  – then socialism must be considered dead in the water.  I do not imagine for one moment, YMS, you seriously think  we could or would divide the world up in socialism  and engage in wars with each other. How do you imagine a socialist society could survive for one second if this was true.

Socialism provides according to need, if we need war, we'll organise one, its perfectly conceivable that ritualised lethal warfare could be compatible with common democratic ownership of the means of production.  Unlikely, but who knows?

 I can't believe I'm reading this, YMS.  Its like saying that, since socialism provides for need, if there is need to exploit other people, socialism will  happily accommodate that need; notwithstanding that by definition socialism is a classless society and therefore  a non exploitative society. How on earth is warfare conceivable in the context of, or compatible with, common ownership and democratic control of the means of production? I'm talking about war here – systematic organised large scale violence –  not the occasional brawl that goes badly wrong and somebody gets glassed or knifed  and dies on the operating table. I thought we socialists argued that war in the modern world is all  about the commercial rivalries in capitalism and, as self respecting hardline materialists,  we look askance at suggestions that  wars are fought over such ethereal things as religious or political beliefs.  These later are supposed to serve merely as a kind of ideological smokescreen  to hide the real economic motives for war. Now you are telling me that wars might be fought for things other than commercial rivalries or vested economic interests.  Why?  Well, because there couldn't be such things in a socialist society so by inference there must be other reasons why wars might be fought in a socialist society.  And if those "other reasons" apply to a socialist society I cannot see how they might not also apply in capitalist society. Meaning that in capitalism wars could be fought for reasons other than commercial rivalries  which is not exactly the SPGB's position as I understand it. Is that Vin I see on the horizon, galloping on his charger in this direction with lance poised ready to strike a lethal blow against the heretics like YMS who seem to have abandoned historical materialism

[Dave B]

There is a scientific way/method of looking at this kind of thing which is what Darwin did, and this particular issue was then later taken up by the scientists Anton Pannekoek and Kropotkin. The starting proposition or theory is if some kind of animal behaviour has material evolutionary advantages then it is possible that in part, or in total, that necessary animal behaviour will manifest itself as an impulse driven by an appropriate instinct. Egotistical drives or instincts are ubiquitous and are not in question. The controversy is over evolutionary advantages of co-operative behaviour which exist in social animals with its appropriate social instincts. Unless you believe in the acquired culture of Arabian Babblers and Capuchin monkeys. Then the egotistical drives can potentially negate co-operative ones and vice versa with the two co-existing together. Within the social instinct model there is a further issue of the ‘us’ and ‘them’. A social group as an ‘us’ will co-operate together as an egotistical unit maybe against and in competition with a ‘them’. As Kropotkin laid out this does not have to, and often does not involve, a competition and struggle between members of the same species. Often the competition and struggle of co-operative animals is against other species and its environment in general. It is a matter of a general survivalist co-operative strategy more fit than a purely egotistical one. We know as fact that for most of human history we existed as widely scattered social groups clinging onto existence in a struggle with and against the environment etc. However that does not preclude the possibility of the egotistical concept of ‘us’ instinct of one group clashing with another of ‘them’. We can take the appalling example of nationalism etc and I don’t think it is necessary here to focus and its obvious negative side. The ‘positive’ side is the all too obvious effects it is capable of producing when it comes to self-sacrifice for the all too often irrational notions of the interests of the group ‘us’ which can reach sickening albeit heroic proportions. Any of that kind of instinctive emotional reaction will depend on a perception in the mind, potentially irrational,  of who and the why is the ‘us’ and who and why are ‘them’, and whether or not the ‘them’ are a threat to the egotistical interests of the ‘us’ etc. Dehumanising or sub-humanising the ‘them’ is one obvious manipulative mechanism which can synergistically add to other notions that they are a threat etc. It is to our disadvantage I think that the ruling class understand this mechanism better than we do. I used to go and support my local football team on the terraces and experienced what I considered real feelings as a part of that ‘us’. I will never be convinced that that was just part of some aggregate of social relations written onto a blank slate. If we can get back to a sense of ‘us’, in communism, ‘struggling’ in solidarity against the environmental and the universal limitations ranged against us, as a species, then maybe we will have less of a problem. If you believe in the global warming stuff maybe we have more to enthuse us in that direction than we ever have had.

[Young Master Smeet]

Robbo203,Wars within capitalism are fought within the constraints of capital and commodity relations, but once we are freed from economic constraints, and enter the realm of freedom, then we may choose to fight wars for other than economic reasons, who knows?  That has no bearing on the decision to become free, though.

[stuartw2112]

Robin agrees we don't really know anything about human nature, but insists that if there is one thing we definitely do know it's what he asserts as dogma. I'd go with the first proposition and reject the second.As for what humans would fight over if they didn't have to compete over natural resources and trade routes – is this a joke question? Religion and ideology, to ignore the more evil options, would seem to be prime candidates, if history is any guide.

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