Sick Societies

[HollyHead]

In the thread entitled ‘The Religion Word’ (post #17) Robbo said:

 

Quote:

Your post is somewhat offtopic, as Ed says, but interesting nevertheless.

What is the central claim of Robert Edgerton’s book “Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony” that you refer to?

Ive not read this book but if Edgerton is arguing along the same lines as that well known anti-socialist, Mr Stephen Pinker, that hunter-gatherer societies were particularly prone to violence, then it might interest you know that Pinkers thesis has been comprehensively debunked for the load of bollocks it is. I have a ton of references that I could point you towards in that regard…

 

I’ve not read it either but it’s a topic I’m interested in (it’s on order from Amazon)

 

Here is an extract published in an online review (the emphasis is mine):

 

Quote:

… the bulk of available evidence suggests that people in all societies tend to be relatively rational when it comes to the beliefs and practices that directly involve their subsistence, yet as we have repeatedly seen, nonrational beliefs sometimes reduce the efficiency of economic practices….

 

[But,] the more remote these beliefs and practices are from subsistence activities, the more likely they are to involve nonrational characteristics….

 

And even when people attempt to make rational decisions, they often fail. For one thing, no population, especially no folk population, can ever possess all the relevant knowledge it needs to make fully formal decisions about its environment, its neighbors, or even itself. What is more, there is a large body of research involving human decision-making both under experimental conditions and in naturally occurring situations showing that individuals frequently make quite poor decisions, especially when it comes to solving novel problems or ones requiring the calculation of the probability of outcomes, and these are precisely the kinds of problems that pose the greatest challenges for human adaptation….

 

Moreover, all available evidence indicates that humans, especially those who live in folk societies, base their decisions on heuristics that permit and even encourage them to develop fixed opinions, despite the fact that these opinions are based on inadequate or false information….

http://www.thenewhumanities.net/books/Book%20Reviews24.html

 

I take him to mean that we are up shit creek and are too stupid to do anything about it. And it’s beyond us anyway.

[Anonymous]

 Edgerton doesn’t argue that at all, as it happens. (Incidentally, the whole book is available online. You could have saved money but unless you can cancel your order with Amazon it’s too late!)  One of the important things that Edgerton does in his book is to point out that anthropologists have all too often not only omitted evidence but have also fabricated it in order to grind their particular axe.  We need, I think, to be clear that anthropology is in no way a science.  It was amusing to see the ‘off-topic’ charge again.  Thanks for that, HH.  Still trying to work out how what my mind tells my fingers to do after I’ve read for thirty minutes can possibly be ‘off-topic’…  The point I’d want to make is that we are a partly-evolved pattern-seeking species that is – at best – only partly rational.

[steve colborn]

Why dont you go back to the thread that originally encompassed this debate Jonathan? This is 2 threads you’ve migrated this discussion to!

[SocialistPunk]

Jonathan Chambers wrote:

  The point I’d want to make is that we are a partly-evolved pattern-seeking species that is – at best – only partly rational.

It’s way past my bedtime, but I wanted to ask what is meant by “partly-evolved” species?
I was under the impression that evolution is a constant process with no ultimate goal, so to speak.
To avoid any misunderstanding, I am not being antagonistic, merely curious.

[HollyHead]

Jonathan Chambers wrote:

 Edgerton doesn’t argue that at all, as it happens. (Incidentally, the whole book is available online. You could have saved money but unless you can cancel your order with Amazon it’s too late!)

 So I’ve misread the extract?

Quote:

  One of the important things that Edgerton does in his book is to point out that anthropologists have all too often not only omitted evidence but have also fabricated it in order to grind their particular axe.  We need, I think, to be clear that anthropology is in no way a science.

Nevertheless it does provide us with useful evidence that things are not everywhere, and have not always been, like this.

Quote:

 The point I’d want to make is that we are a partly-evolved pattern-seeking species that is – at best – only partly rational.

 We are also a problem-solving species and I suspect that our (partial) irrationality is the price we pay for having emotions.

[Anonymous]

I’m not suggesting you’ve misread the extract, HH.  Merely that it’s only an extract…And you’re right about the usefulness of anthropology.  But I think that we need to be under no illusions about its limitations.

[SocialistPunk]

I found an interesting review of Sick Societies on a right wing blog, The Brussels Journal. This blog supports the ideas of anti multiculturalism, or put another way, anti Muslim sentiments. Very popular with the confused and scaredmasses these days.
Here are a couple of extracts.
 Dramatically deformed societies such as those discussed in the foregoing summary of Edgerton’s book represent only a small minority of known human communities, as Edgerton openly allows. Nevertheless, Edgerton writes, “all societies maintain some beliefs and practices that are maladaptive for at least some of their members, and it is likely that some of these social arrangements and cultural understandings will be maladaptive for everyone in the society.” Edgerton reminds his readers that his “insistence that maladaptive beliefs and practices are commonplace must not be construed to mean that humans never make effective adaptations to their environments.”
So Edgerton admits the extreme cultures he writes about are in the minority.
Here comes the juicy stuff.
One can hardly read Sick Societies, nearly twenty years after its publication, without speculating how Edgerton’s arguments and observations might apply to the existing condition of the West, governed as it is by dogmatic elites who would implement the antitheses of the market and repeal longstanding norms – I refer to redistribution of wealth, penalization of productivity, and the infliction, via immigration, of pre-modern and non-Western cultural forms on Western societies, under a doctrine that goes by the misleadingly abstract name of “Multiculturalism.” For one thing, the maladaptation theory implies a consistent human nature that bad arrangements can violate. This notion of a consistent human nature is rejected by the reigning cultural relativism, but affirmed by the continuity of the Western tradition from Greek philosophy through the Gospels to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and the American Constitution. 
Now I know that just because some misguided people agree with certain fields of research, doesn’t mean that the research is wrong. But it is interesting that Sick Societies seems to lend support to right wing notions of human nature and social Darwinism.
Anthropology is indeed useful!

[Anonymous]

Well, I’m in the pleasant position of not needing to defend Edgerton or the uses to which his work has been put.  (Just as I don’t need to defend Marx against claims that his ideas led to state-capitalist tyranny!)  But what Edgerton’s work does, I think, is to show that the notion of primitive harmony is based on shaky foundations.  Nor is he alone in pointing out that what we think we know about our prehistory might not be true.  The work of Professor Keeley, for example, shows clearly that  some primitive societies were predicated on the most brutal violence.In fact, it’s probably true that there is simply no paradigm that we can discern with regard to the prevalence of violence or otherwise in primitive societies since what data we have or may yet obtain is just too nebulous to be subjected to any kind of rigorous scientific inquiry.  And, as Edgerton clearly demonstrates, objectivity in anthropological study is all-too-rare.  This is probably necessarily the case.  Just as it is difficult to interpret eighteenth century texts, for example, without recourse to twenty-first century knowledge, so too, it seems to me, is it difficult – if not impossible – to interpret what is, in the last analysis, very patchy and partial evidence of our prehistory without bringing our own modern value-based judgements to bear on that evidence.All of which leads us precisely nowhere except to a position where we are obliged to say that we just don’t know…Yet there remains an important point: the existence of prehistoric societies that were predicated upon brutality does no violence(!) to our case, and there is no harm in dropping the argument about primitive harmony.  I’ll have more to write on this later, but for now I have to go to work.

[steve colborn]

Jonathan Chambers wrote:

” The work of Professor Keeley, for example, shows clearly that some primitive societies were predicated on the most brutal violence.”

But then almost immediately contradicts himself by stating;

Quote:

“In fact, it’s probably true that there is simply no paradigm that we can discern with regard to the prevalence of violence or otherwise in primitive societies since what data we have or may yet obtain is just too nebulous to be subjected to any kind of rigorous scientific inquiry.”

Talk about having your cake and eating it! One cannot, “cleary show” anything, based on “nebulous data”.

[SocialistPunk]

This discussion is again an offshoot from the human nature debate.
Nowhere did I state anything about so called primitive harmony, some sort of ancient hippy culture.
Whoever suggested that the idea of primitive communism was a perfect society that we have somehow forgotten?
As far as I was aware the socialist position is that human behaviour is flexible. I do not think that anyone on this forum has advocated we are a pacifist species. I think the position is that we are not hardwired in favour of any particular pattern of behaviour.
What I find quite telling about the advocates of “human nature” is their initial arguments are always based upon specific types of human behaviour, selfishness, violence etc. Yet when confronted with the other aspects of human behaviour that contradict their position, they switch to intellectual arguments. It is all well and good to intellectualize, using philosophical language to “prove” our positions, we could do that back and forth until the sun eventually dies. However it does little to alter the reality of complex human behaviour, aggression as well as compassion, and a host of other human behaviours.
I may be missing something but I still can’t see proof of any  hardwired, human instinct, being provided on this topic?

[Anonymous]

 This Steve Colborn fella, eh? Always ready to attack.  A veritable party pitbull, or what?  First of all he accuses me of migrating a topic to two threads already without – apparently – noticing that I didn’t even start this thread but merely responded to it.  Then he exhorts me to return to the original thread that he made a mess of in the first place!  And now he’s attempting the same thing again here.  Oh, well…let’s see if we can show him where he’s gone wrong this time… Colborn lays the charge that I have contradicted myself in my previous posting and suggests that I want to ‘have my cake and eat it’.  I have done nothing of the sort.  What I did in my previous posting, in fact, was to argue that the work of some anthropologists clearly shows that some primitive societies were predicated on brutality.  Perhaps I should have italicised and emboldened the word ‘some’ so that Colborn would notice that I wasn’t making an absolutist-type statement.  Perhaps not.  Personally, since I was commenting on someone else’s work, I didn’t think it necessary.  But you never know with some people, especially those who are spoiling for a fight! So, to recap, I argue that Edgerton and Keeley, et al, have done research that clearly shows that some primitive human societies display behavioural traits that are predicated upon brutality. Nowhere do I – or Edgerton and Keeley, for that matter – argue that all primitive human societies were like that.  After that I went on to suggest that there was necessarily a great deal that we could never know about primitive human societies and that there probably was no paradigm anyway.  And that a lot of anthropological evidence was nebulous.  If Colborn took the trouble to read Edgerton’s book he would – maybe – realise that there is, in fact, a good deal of evidence that isn’t all that nebulous that does clearly show how brutal some primitive societies were.  Oh! Hang on! I did say “that there is simply no paradigm that we can discern with regard to the prevalence of violence or otherwise in primitive societies since what data we have or may yet obtain is just too nebulous to be subjected to any kind of rigorous scientific inquiry.”  Yep, I can see where Steve’s interpretation is coming from and why he might think I was contradicting myself.  But wait!  What I actually said was “it’s probably true that there is simply no paradigm that we can discern with regard to the prevalence of violence or otherwise in primitive societies since what data we have or may yet obtain is just too nebulous to be subjected to any kind of rigorous scientific inquiry.” Now, where is the contradiction?  Some primitive human societies were predicated upon brutality and violence and some were not. Some socialists do rely heavily on the notion of primitive harmony.  Marx – as I’ve mentioned elsewhere – was one of them.  And, in the three-and-a-half decades that I’ve been a socialist I’ve encountered many SPGB’ers who adhere to the notion and attempt to use it when trying to convince non-socialists of our case, and I’ll deal with this in my next posting which will be my reply to Socialist Punk’s posting. [Chambers lights blue touchpaper. Exeunt stage left…]

[Anonymous]

This ‘fella’ Steve Colborn is not the only one who accuses you. This ‘fella’ OldGreyWhistle has also had to put up with it. You ‘ruined’ at least two threads. You left ‘Socialist Punk’s thread to spout the same stuff somewhere else. You never did answer this one:

Jonathan Chambers wrote:

So what we’re talking about is handful of evolutionary instincts that we have in common with each other.  To wit: Fucking, Fighting, Friendship and Feeding.  It’s that simple.  The rest is human behaviour ….. 

Socialist Punk wrote:

Ahh! Instinct, such a wonderful word.Inborn complex patterns of behaviour that must exist in every member of the species and that cannot be overcome by will.Or simply put, non-learnt, unalterable behaviour. Examples being spiders web building and sea turtles heading for the sea after hatching.When combined with other letters such as H U M A N, it sounds even better.But wait, what about our experiences, we all know about the female maternal instinct? Sex drive, that’s gotta be instinctual? The big one, our instinct for survival? Aggression or fighting, we know all too well about that we, see it everyday, gotta be instinct calling the shots? Our need for food, the hunger instinct?Yep! No denying humans are riddled with nonlearnt, unalterable behaviour.Ever heard of women that don’t want children, or that abuse even kill their offspring? Absurd! And who’s ever heard of non procreation sex,  homosexuality, celibacy? Ridiculous! And I certainly have never heard of suicide, self immolation? Preposterous! As for the idea we are not naturally agressive, I have never heard of pacifists, political or religious refusing to fight despite risk the threat of violence or death. Or that soldiers are indoctrinated and de-humanized in preparation for fighting and there certainly are no veterans returning from conflict with serious mental problems? Just doesn’t happen! Have you ever heard such nonsense as self starvation as a form of protest? Couldn’t be done!Isn’t it obvious to all that we are an instinctual species?But in all seriousness, please, please, please provide us with some hard evidence on this matter. We are rational, politically aware people on this forum capable of digesting and understanding a wide range of topics. If we are wrong and can be supplied with the proof then I am sure we will be wiling to accept the truth (I know I would).Just for the record I am not a hippy, or a pacifist, but I can sometimes be an ass.

[SocialistPunk]

Thanks OGW,
It saves me from having to bring attention to that awkward unanswered question.
I wonder if Jonathan will answer it now? Or perhaps stay silent for a while and find a way to snipe from another thread?

[SocialistPunk]

Well, it has been three days since Jonathan stated he would reply to my questions. Looks like he is up to the same tactics.
I was wondering if any one knows if he is or has been a member of the party?
I ask because his behaviour is odd for a socialist of 30 years. As socialists, knowledge and open discussion are vital to our case. We don’t have to agree on everything as we all have different opinions on subjective issues, the religious debate is a classic example.
However the “human nature” issue is not subjective and is open to evidence based observation and an increasing amount of experiment based research.
Do socialists engage in deliberate agitation and disruption? Or open debate? We have nothing to hide. The left and right wing of capitalist politics use slippery tactics.

Jonathan Chambers wrote:

[Chambers lights blue touchpaper. Exeunt stage left…]

[Author]

Posts