[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

 CP, if you replace robbo's 'science' with 'means of production', you'll start to appreciate the dangers of robbo's stance, for anyone who seeks democratic control of the means of production, ie. socialism.The elitists, like robbo, will simply use the same arguments about us controlling production: they'll say that 'it is totally impracticable in order to vote', when we 'don't know what we are voting about'. And 'the LOGISTICS'! Heaven, however will the "dirty, thick one's" manage that! How can they PRESUME to know?Yes, the 'democratic control of production': "It's nuts, frankly!"

  Ha! Replacing "robbo's 'science' with 'means of production', indeed!  This shows the desperate lengths to which LBird will go save face and evade answering the questions I posed, questions  which expose his position for the utter folly it is .  I was specifically NOT talking about  controlling the means of production; I have no problem with the idea of "democratic control of the means of production", broadl;y speaking. I made it absolutely clear that I was talking specifically  about workers voting on the merits of scientific theories to determine their  "truth" – a suggestion that you yourself, might I remind you, specifically proposed.   I also made it absolutely clear that democracy is about practical decisions that affect us,  and decisions relating to managing the means of production would clearly come under this rubric.  The "truth" of scientific theories, however,  would clearly notLBird's  all too transpent attempt to dishonestly smuggle in the suggestion that what I am saying is equivalent to denying workers can democratically control the means of production shows that he is rattled, not thinking clearly at all, has his back to the wall and will grasp at even the flimsiest straw to get out of the ever deepening hole he has dug for himself. Oh and the jibe about "logistics" – well, go on LBird, I dare you –  EXPLAIN the logistics of your harebrained scheme whereby you propose to organise a democratic vote on each and every scientific theory that is churned out – multiple thousands of them every year  –  by the entire worlds population of 7 billion inhabits.  We are all ears, LBird, just waiting to hear this earth shattering explanation of yours that will enlighten us unelightened ones.   You basically want everyone to metamorphise into some kind of all knowing god , with a working knowledge of every scientific theory going and then, on top of that,  to be able to depatch 7 billion voting papers to the citizens of Planet Earth (or Planet GaGa land) as the case may be) multiplied by the number of new scientific theories – thousands of 'em – that come on stream, each and every year.  (I take it you are indeed a fully paid up citizen of planet Gaga despatched as an emissary to explain the merits of your higher so called democratic communist civilisation to us humanoids.  At least you are certainly not from this planet, good ol' Mother Earth)

LBird wrote:

 The clincher, from the elitist perspective. 'So, what exactly is the point of the vote in the first place?' Why give it to workers? Or blacks? Or, god forbid, women!

More diversionary nonsense from LBird.  And you can't even get your basic argument straight, your thinking is so screwed up.  I am not talking about who should be "given" a vote  and you know damn well restricted electorates is not what I am talking about.  I am saying why vote at all on the question of the truth of some scientific theory?  What exactly is the point of it?  Are you intending for example that once a vote is taken, people should not be allowed to question this democratically decided upon "truth"? Or what? You just dont say. You waffle on aimlessly and pointlessly compleley lost in your own little world of mindless mantras.  I cant make up my mind whether your head is stuck in the clouds or up your own backside.Instead of getting into tizzy you could at least have made some minimal effort to try  to explain what that point was but no. All too predictably you did  not. And you wonder why nobody here takes you seriously any longer!

[robbo203]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

I don't really understand how scientific theories can be ideologically endorsed. Its like saying that scientists should embrace pseudoscientists. But I don't know maybe I just need to read his post hehe…

 Wel,l LBird's position is that science can never really be "value free" and that the data that the scientist gathers to support his or her theory or hypothesis necessarily involves selection which in turn involves ideology – our particular set of basic assumptions we make about the world around us.  Ideology is the prism through which we inescapably view the world, in other words. Although LBird seems to think he is the only one here promoting this particular view of science and society in general he is not.  His constantly going on about it is only a cover to hide from scrutiny the much more questionable aspect of what he is saying – which is that because science is ideologically informed, so to speak, that the "workers" by which he means everyone – not "workers" in the class sense – should have a say in determining what is  "scientifically correct" or "scientifically true" I think that this is a ridiculous idea, not because I take an "elitist view" of science – to the contrary I believe that if anyone wants to become, say, an astrophysicist  that there should be absolutely no barriers placed in the way of him or her becoming an astrophysicist. It is ridiculous, rather, because it is totally impractical to expect everyone to know everything in science in order to vote on whether each and every scientific theory is true of not.  How can you possibly vote on something when you you don't know what it you voting about? (This is to say nothing of the logistics of organising many thousands of separate  worldwide votes for the many thouisands of scientific theories that appear each year). I know myself next to nothing about astrophysics, for instance. I would not dare to presume that a certain theory in astrophysics was true or false.  But LBird expects everyone to know everything that there is to know so that everything in science can be voted on by the entire global population to determine the truth of each theory.. Its nuts frankly. That apart , I don't see the need to vote on a scientific theory at all.  The popularity of a theory among the voters doesn't necessarily make it true in some absolutist sense and, more to the point, it is not going to convince those who think it is not true from continuing to believe it is not true. So what exactly is the point of the vote in the first place?

[robbo203]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

too many words…what are we talking about lol

 Ideology, CP , ideology One of the people on this list, LBird, thinks scientific theories should be ideologically endorsed  by the  workers (7 billion of us) by means of a democratic vote to determine whether such theories are true or not.  It is a dotty idea, of course, even if what LBird is  also saying – that there is no such thing as a "value free science"  – is true enough in itself. However, saying science is not value free is no justification whatsoever  for what LBird is proposing  and I for one am waiting to hear his response to post number 8 on this thread.  I will bet money on him once again evading these questions but let us see . I may be proven wrong!

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

 But, you can't give an accurate of my position 'LBird is in favour of democracy in truth production', because you can't imagine that this is possible, whereas I agree that your position is, not only entirely possible, but the one taken by the bourgeoisie and academics.

 We are all waiting with bated breath to hear why you think "democracy in truth production" is either 1) necessary2) practically possible for a global population of 7 billion Stop evading these questions, LBird. Answer them – if you can…

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

 You'll 'pooh-pooh' democracy in social production. You won't have 'truth' elected. You want elite control of science. Oh yeah, and you want 'free association', not 'workers' power'.

 This is oh-so-predictable.  Once again and for the umpteenth time, how are 7 billion workers going to democratically determine the "truth" of multiple thousands of scientific theories by means of a vote as you have explicitly advocated? HOW? HOW? HOW?   What are the ACTUAL REALISTIC PROPOSALS you have in mind by which you imagine this absolutely surreal and fantastic state of affairs can ever be put into effect ?  Stop, for once, perpetually running away from this question and answer it directly And, while you are about it, please explain why it is according to your "mystical holistic" ideology you feel some strange compulsion for all 7 billion of us to vote on the merits of all these thousands upon thousands  of scientific theories?   Assuming your batty idea was even remotely possible – what then?  The "workers" have given their stamp of approval to some obscure esoteric theory of cell division in microbiology, presumably having swotted up on the details in the months leading up to the Big Vote.  68.76% of the workers decide the theory is OK, the rest give it the thumbs down.  Are you then going to forbid any expression of criticism of the theory that the 68.76% have just voted in favour of? If not then what was was the whole point of that whole costly resource-consuming time-consuming exercise?  All of which goes to show you dont understand what democracy is for at all, do you? I'm all in favour of democracy but where it is needed – in practical decisionmaking -not where it is simply not needed.  It is stupid fetishising democracy  for its own sake. Next youll be having 7 billion workers collectively decide where we each live, what clothes we wear, what thoughts we think , what music we listen to  what books we should be allowed to read etc etc etc. If rejecting that makes me an "individualist" in your eyes then so be it.  I would far sooner be that than live in your fascistic Orwellian utopian nightmare misnamed "democratic communism" Your totalitarian  "workerist" ideology is the exact opposite of a self-critical open-minded undogmatic  approach that is supposed to be the hall mark of scientific endeavour where "the truth" is something that is never absolute but only provisional. In practice. moreover,  it is your approach, not mine,  that will lead to scientific elitism because by default the sheer impracticality of what you propose will concentrate power in the hands of the few.  Because in practice there is no way all 7 billion workers are going to be able to do what you suggest and if you think otherwise then prove it and stop pretending that you have already done so! If anyone is simply giving " knee-jerk reactions, based upon their own existing and unacknowledged ideologies., it is you LBird. You fail to realise that behind your claim to be a "democratic communist" is a much more sinister ideological thought process. Time for you to start acknowledging this hidden ideology of yours!

[robbo203]

I think LB's basic problem is that he has fallen into the trap of holistic thinking which people like Emile Durkheim had been accused of falling into by his detractors – namely of reifying "society", of giving it an objective existence over and above, and independently of, the individuals comprising it.  Hence, the latter's talk of  "social facts" as having a thinglike quality about them.  They externally impose themselves on individuals and Durkheim claimed to have demonstrated this in the case of his famous study of the pattern of suicide.  For instance, if you were a Protestant you were statistically more likely to commit suicide than if you were a  Catholic. But , of course, society or indeed "class", cannot exist apart from the individuals who comprise it – anymore  than mind can exist apart from the brain.  Which is not to say the brain determines what goes on in the mind or individuals "determine" society,  which is crude reductionism.  What we can say is that the latter supervenes on the former.  Society/class depends on individuals but cannot be entirely explained in terms of its individual constituents.  This is "emergence theory" which, to me at least, is a plausible middle ground position between the crude reductionism of atomistic individualism  and the methodological pitfalls of a thoroughgoing holism. The practical implications of LB's commitment to the latter are revealed in his often asserted and frankly  absurd suggestion that the the "truth" of scientific theories should be determined by the working class as a whole by means of a democratic vote since, according to him, the only alternative to this is to subscribe to an elitist view of science where the truth is determined by a tiny minority. I have repeatedly challenged him to show why it is even necessary to subject scientific theories to a  democratic vote – the democratic procedure is something that is more applicable to the implementation of practical decisions , not the merits or otherwise of sciejtific theories – and how it is remotely possible for the working class as a whole to familiarise itself with the fine grained details of literally thousands upon thousands  of scientific theories that are churned out every year in order to competently vote upon them.  Of course the idea is absurd.  Not even the most gifted scientist alive would be capable of comprehending in detail more than a small fraction of the totality of scientific theories generated yet LBird expects  all 7 billion of us to go much further than this gifted scientist and knowledgeably vote on the whole lot!  Refusal to fall in line with his surreal recommendations for a future communist society is to risk being accused of endorsing an elitist view of science based on a "bourgeois ideology". This constant mantra of his – that he is a "democratic communist" and his opponents are, inadvertently or otherwise, exhibiting their attachment to a bourgeois ideology –  is his get-out  clause by which he deftly evades all serious discussion of the practicalities of what he is proposing.  I have not been able to pin him down on this point but you might have better luck  Richard 

[robbo203]

Hud955 wrote:

Hi Robin, this will have to be a very short answer (for me), as I am in the last stages of preparing for my holiday.  It is nearly thirty years since I read Evans Pritchard so I don't recall much about the Nuer, but here are some things to consider.  You can tell me if they fit what you know about them.  Egalitarianism seems to be  closely related to and consequent on the way in which societies obtain their means of life.  It is principally found among hunter gatherers, both immediate and delayed return, though it does extend to some pastoralists and herders and even some horticulturalists where finely balanced factors may tip them either way.  It needs to be noted, however, that delayed return hunter gatherers, although they generally retain a largely egalitarian structure including the use of demand sharing, do tend to have some status relations and sometimes chiefs.  Structurally induced warfare on the other hand seems to be related primarily to delayed return systems and so includes states, tribes and delayed return hunter gatherers.  In other words delayed return hunter gatherers do sometimes make war, though less on the whole than tribes and states.  If I recall (correct me if I am wrong)  the Nuer have a delayed return system  so the fact that they make war would not be entirely surprising.  There is another big factor to consider, and that is the relationships of a group to other societies.  Warlike behaviour may not arise from the internal structures of a group; it may arise from the need to respond to external conditions.  Even immediate return hunter gatherers are known to have developed a warlike culture in circumstances where they are subject to attack or have been predated, often by slave traders and colonial and post colonial states.  And that is especially the case where they are hemmed in by the territorial claims of neighbouring peoples and cannot therefore flee.  I think much of this is the situation with the Nuer.Either of these conditions my therefore apply. 

 Just an  afterthought…. With the Nuer being a tribe – or rather a collection of tribes –  and subject to both inter and intra-tribal violent conflict as well as conflict with neighbouring peoples like the Dinka – I think both these conditions you specify above would apply, Richard.  In other words, there would be both external pressure in the form of the encroachment of outsiders, whether it be Dinka  or some other Nuer tribe ,  as well as internal pressure arising from a developed sense of territoriality cum property  that goes with being a mainly pastoralist society in respect of grazing rights and the ownership of cattle. Simple hunter gatherer bands, as you say, being "immediate return" societies – they could immediately appropriate the fruits of nature wherever they went – had no sense of territoriality and therefore no reason to defend (or enlarge) "their" territory.  The very idea of "their territory" would have been meaningless to an essentially nomadic people.  So they wouldn't have seen any problem with outsiders "intruding" on their traditional hunting grounds.  Indeed, they sometimes collaborate with outsiders in organising joint hunting trips. Always at the back of their minds, one supposes, would be the idea that you can always just move on if localised resources got scarce.  This conflict avoidance mechanism would have operated from the get go – or at least up until the point some 10.000 years ago when the first signs of sedentarisation, agriculture and hence a sense of territoriality began to develop.  It was probably an important factor in the determing the pattern of human migration in prehistoric times out of Africa.  Up until then the human population on planet earth was no more than 15 million at most according to one estimate I came across. Meaning there was more than enough space for everyone to roam around in.  Climate change and widespread environmental scarcities would have been the key variable in bringing about a change in the mode of subsistence In other words, for the vast majority of our time on this planet there was no reason for nomadic groups to go to war with each other. If wars have only occurred recently, along with a sense of territoriality ingrained in an agricultural and pastoralist way of life, this is simply not enough time for war to have been "naturally selected for" as a fundamental human attribute amounting to an evolutionary adaptation In other words, E O Wilson's claim that “war is embedded in our very nature" must be dismissed as bunkum.  One-to-one violence may well have occurred in our prehistoric past but, even with this, there are strong grounds for thinking this would have been relatively subdued due to the deterrent effect of immediate retaliation and because of the awareness of the complete interdependence among group members.  This is to say nothing of the possibility of groups simply fissioning or breaking up should social tensions within the group reach unacceptable levels. However, one-to-one violence is not the same thing as war and the evidence suggests overwhelmingly that what violent deaths did occur within hunter gatherer band  society were the result of the former not the latter….. 

[robbo203]

ALB wrote:

I heard that episode too. He did strongly make the point we do that at work and in the family "communism" prevails. The trouble is he doesn't think society as a whole could operate on this basis.

 This question of  the "scalability"  of communistic relationships seems to be often enough mentioned by those skeptical of the possibility of full communism in our sense – including professional anthropologists like Graeber. How did Graeber go about justifying his skepticism in this instance , Adam? I suppose to some extent it is rooted in the anthropological approach to forms of reciprocity.  There is a useful explanation of this here http://anthro.palomar.edu/economy/econ_3.htm I have always envisaged communism or socialism to be a system of "generalised reciprocity" – or as the article puts it  "gift giving without the expectation of an immediate return"  – as opposed to balanced reciprocity of negative reciprocity..  After all, the voluntaristic nature of work in communism means in a sense that it is a kind of "gift" that we give to society without the expectation  of a return (we dont receive any payment for our work) and in full awareness of the fact that we all depend on each other and benefit from the labour contributions of millions of anonymous others in a world in which production is a globalized and socialised phenomenon.  Voluntary work hangs togther with the idea of free access to the collective fruits of our labour. You cant have one withour the other.I suspect anthropologists, like Graeber, studying small scale face-to-face societies and observing  that the pattern of reciprocity within such societies tends to sometimes differ from that which develops between such societies – trade for instance occurs on the margins of such societies and not internally amongst the individuals constituting such societies – infer from this that when  you are interacting with outsiders or strangers from another society , such individuals cannot really be trusted and that consequently, the nature of your interactions with them must necessarily be different. In other words more impersonal and based on explicit rules of engagement – market trade.  Of course even this is slightlly misleading because trade in this sense did not occur on individual one-to-one basis but rather between groups. But even in small scale societies it doesn't necessarily have to be like this.   According to Richerson et al for instance:The !Kung and the desert people of the Australian interior had elaborate institutions to link people together beyond the bounds of normal kinship. The !Kung, according to Polly Wiessner, used a gift exchange system to cultivate friendships with people in distant bands.Women exchanged fancy beadwork and men arrows. The Central Australians had elaborate “section” systems of extended kinship that classified marriage with all but a few women as incestuous. Men might have travel hundreds of kilometers to find an eligible mate. According to Aram Yengoyan and Wiessner the effect of these institutions was to ensure that every family had friends and inlaws scattered everywhere.When subsistence or political problems occurred, people could seek aid from any of a number of kin or friends in a number of different environments (Peter J. Richerson, Monique Borgerhoff  Mulder, and Bryan J. Vila, 1996. Principles of Human Ecology. Pearson      Custom Publishing, Part II, ch 3).    Whereas a gift economy unites people and cements social relationships, a market economy atomises people and places them in position where they confront each other with antagonistic interests as buyers and sellers In any event, this is quite an important subject – this question of the "scalability" of a communist or socialist society – and it would be good to see more attention being focused on it in order to be able to answer the skepticism of people like Graeber….. 

[robbo203]

Hud955 wrote:

Hi Robin, this will have to be a very short answer (for me), as I am in the last stages of preparing for my holiday.  It is nearly thirty years since I read Evans Pritchard so I don't recall much about the Nuer, but here are some things to consider.  You can tell me if they fit what you know about them.  Egalitarianism seems to be  closely related to and consequent on the way in which societies obtain their means of life.  It is principally found among hunter gatherers, both immediate and delayed return, though it does extend to some pastoralists and herders and even some horticulturalists where finely balanced factors may tip them either way.  It needs to be noted, however, that delayed return hunter gatherers, although they generally retain a largely egalitarian structure including the use of demand sharing, do tend to have some status relations and sometimes chiefs.  Structurally induced warfare on the other hand seems to be related primarily to delayed return systems and so includes states, tribes and delayed return hunter gatherers.  In other words delayed return hunter gatherers do sometimes make war, though less on the whole than tribes and states.  If I recall (correct me if I am wrong)  the Nuer have a delayed return system  so the fact that they make war would not be entirely surprising.   

 Hi Richard,Like you, its a long time since I read Evans Pritchard's book on the Nuer but I still possess a copy which has been well thumbed and scribbled through (as is my habit).  EP describes the Nuer as essentially pastoralists but also "fishermen and gardeners".  So, yes, a mix of immediate and delayed return, I guess.  They are also to some extent nomadic, living in temporary villages and their social structure in EPs view, is heavily influenced by their physical environment,  They are divided into tribes which are in turn divided into territorial or tribal segments and they have no "centralised administration" . The only functional figures that stand out but have little power are the leopard skin chief and the prophet. Some points about Nuer violence.  According to EP intertribal fighting among the Nuer is generally fiercer than fighting with the neighbouring Dinka but is however governed by certain conventions – woman and children  were not molested, huts and byres were not destroyed and captives were not taken. Within the  tribe itself,  fighting among sections such as within a village itself tended to be carried using clubs rather than spears to minimise the risk of death and hence  blood feuds erupting  – quite an interesting point I thought. A brief quote from EP to give a flavour of the Nuer The ordered anarchy in which they live accords well with their character for it is impossible to live among the Nuer and conceive of rulers ruling over them. The Nuer is a product of hard and egalitarian upbringing, is deeply democratic and is easily roused to violence.  His turbulent spirit finds any restraint irksome and no man recognises a superior. Wealth makes no difference. A man with many cattle is envied but not treated differentl;y from a man with few cattle. You say also  that "There is another big factor to consider, and that is the relationships of a group to other societies" In the case of the Nuer it is (or was) mainly the Dinka who I think (I'm just giving the book a very quick skim!) are to all intents and purposes more of less identical to the Nuer. Indeed it is possible for individual Nuer tribesmen to have descended from the Dinka though they wont thank you for pointing that out and will probably club you according to EP!That very crudely is a basic summary of the Nuer and I'm wondering how these brief facts fit in with the model of violence you have put forward.  There are some things that accord with that model like the link between delayed return economies and violence chiefly because of the association of violence  with territoriality and border defence.  Other aspects of the Nuer Society I'm not quite sure of .  EPs claim that they are highly egalitarian and deeply democratic are a bit difficult to square with their apparent proneness to violence.Anyway have a great holiday and maybe take EP's book as part of your holiday reading material to ponder upon. I'm sure we will renew the discussion when you return

[robbo203]

Hi Richard, Just a quick point of clarification – on the distinction between complex HG societies and tribal societies… I take your point about hunter gatherer specialists tending to keep these terms separate and apart.  Tribes as you say are "generally clan-based, patrilineal, status societies, of relatively recent origin, and they are almost invariably horticulturalists, drovers or pastoralists"  They also tend to be chiefdoms and although chiefs are also to be found among complex HG societies, they tend not to be formalised status-based positions.  There is a degree of social hierarchy and inequality in complex HG societies but it tends to be muted. Here's the problem though.  I recall reading Evan Pritchards, "The Nuer" quite a few years ago.  The Nuer are clearly a tribe in the above sense but they don't have chiefs. In fact if I remember correctly there is only somebody called the "leopard skin man" who arbitrates between individuals but has no special power  vested in him. The Nuer are highly egalitarian – what you call "extreme individualists" (which I personally think is a misleading term because "individualism" is not the same as "individuality" or "individuation" but never mind). However the Nuer are also clearly warlike and engage in wars with the neighbouring Dinka. This is not just the case back in the days when Evans Pritchard was doing his fieldwork but can be seen also today in the new state of Southern Sudan which I believe is still in the throes of civil war.  It is this combination of a highly egalitarian society and a proneness intergroup conflict that I find somewhat disturbing.  It kind of clashes with the thesis that in a society characterised by – to use your term – extreme " individualism", it is much more difficult  to organise and motivate intergroup conflict.  Of course , against that there is the fact that among the Nuer the principle of territoriality would prevail which would not be the case with a simple hunter gather band society. But all the same it is a bit of theoretical puzzle. By the way I'm curious about this distinction between complex hunter gatherers  and simple hunter gatherers. How and why did the former come about  and, also, when and where?  As I understand it complex HG groups are a peculiarity of particular resource=rich regions  which means that they tend to be more sedentary and large scale.  They don't need to move around to the extent that simple HG groups do becuase of the loicalised abundance of resoruces and this has implications for their social structure. Thoughts?….

[robbo203]

For anyone who is interested in this subject of early human "warfare" (and its alleged implications for "human nature") there is a whole bunch of fascinating articles I came across on Brian Ferguson's "profile page" at the Rutgers University web site.  Just scroll down to his list of publications near the bottom of the pagehttp://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/r-brian-ferguson

[robbo203]

I'm quite rusty on all this but what is the relation between Chomsky's ideas and those of Claude Levi-Strauss, the structural anthropologist?  Levi Strauss as I recall,  argued that there were certain  mental structures that underlie human behaviour which we may not be aware of – in the same way that  we all participate in society without necessarily being aware of its underlying "grammer" or social structure  or when we speak. we dont consciously apply the rules of grammerI know Levi-Strauss was influenced by people like Saussure and  Roman Jakobson in his project of bringing linguistic theory into social anthropology and that these figures also exerted an influence on Chomsky

[robbo203]

Sorry  but I am coming around to thinking that the moderation on the "hunter violence" thread is getting beyond reasonable and verging on the absurd. Its stifling rather than encouraging debate You really need to reconsider , redefine and relax  what you mean by "off topic". As things stand you are applying a far too strict and literal interpretation of the term in my opinion and, I think, in the opinion of other contributors on this forum. It discourages people from contributing and more importantly impedes the whole process of lateral thinking and applying any conclusions reached beyond the immediate subject area you deem to be relevant Thats not good.  Please rethink your approach and abandon this habit of issuing warnings on the  pretext that the contributor may have gone slightly off topic

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Well, I've tried to explain to you about scientific method, but clearly you're going to stick with your outdated 19th century method of 'non-ideological collection of raw material'.Your loss, comrade.You'll come to consciousness, one day. I'd rather help you for that to be sooner rather than later, but you won't listen. Keep reading, and eventually I'm sure that you'll come to understand. At least you're engaging, if not very successfully.'Established facts' establish themselves, do they? Think about it, robbo.

 You never stop with your misrepresentation, do you LBird?  "Non-ideological collection of raw material"???Read what I actually wrote for once, for chrissakes! I said the collection of raw material involves selection and therefore is necessarily ideological.  What part of that do you not understand?But enough of your nonsense.  For those who want to more constructively engage with this thread check out this link which I have just come acrosshttps://unsafeharbour.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/comments-on-pinkers-history-of-violence/A very useful article on the data Pinker (selectively) uses to support his thesis of pre-state violenceSecond warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

You dont have a monopoly in recognising that our view of the world is always idelogically tainted although you seem to imagine you have.

Apparently, I do have a monopoly.If everyone's 'view of the world is always ideologically tainted', why won't you tell us your ideology?I openly state mine.What you're doing, robbo, as I've pointed out before, that almost all academics do, is genuflect to 'ideology' in the preface of a book, or in you case, in a line of your posts, and then proceed to IGNORE in practice this reality, of which they, and you, claim that they are aware of.Why doesn't Kelly, Fry, Hud, YMS and you, do what I do: that is, follow the scientific method and expose my 'position of observation'?

robbo203 wrote:

In order to engage in critical questioning you have to have something – some raw material – that you can critically question in the first place, yes?

See what I mean?You want 'facts' first, and then 'critical questioning'.What's happened to your earlier declaration about 'ideologically tainted'? It's as if you don't know what you are writing.

This is rubbish and you can't see it because you have an utterly simplistic black-or-white view of the world, frankly. Saying that you set have to set out to establish what are the facts in the first place – in this case about hunter gatherer societies –  does NOT signify the abandonment of an  ideological perspective or the adoption of a positivistic approach.  You know damn well, LBird,  that that is not what I am saying but  you like to pretend otherwise to maintain your ridiculous and vain posture as the monopoliser of the insight "that our view of the world is always ideologically tainted" .  The (self) critical examination, or questioning, of the established facts does NOT define the limits of the input of ideology as you seem to imagine,  which also embraces the very establishment of the facts themselves, as the anthropologist sees these. insofar as they involve a necessary process of selection.  You are just trying to teach grandmother how to suck eggs and its getting terribly boring now.  Change the record LBirdYou wilfully ignore the main point of my remark-  that we have nevertheless to set out to establish the facts in the first place in order to critically examine them even though of course  the establishment of these facts is ideologically driven. That is what i was getting at..  You have a lopsided or one sided view of the scientific method  which you pretend to talk so authoritatively about which neglects to talk about the other side of this process – the business of collecting data through observation and whatnot – notwithstanding that this involves "ideology". The anthropologists who provide us with the "facts" pertaining to hunter gatherer societies are of course all ideologically driven but just because they don't keep tediously  banging on about the fact of being ideologically driven, as you do, does not mean they consider themselves to have abandoned ideology and embraced positivism.  You are being presumptuous in thinking otherwise

LBird wrote:

 Think it through, robbo; I'm a Democratic Communist, and I have.

I don't think you are . I think, as I sad a long time ago, you are a "mystic holist" – not a "democratic communist" –  who will deny to minority the right to minorities to express an opinion contrary to what the majority has voted on and determined to be the "truth" of a scientific  theory.  Otherwise what would be the point of a such a vote? That is an antidemocratic position  and, no, I don't think you have thought through your ideology at all…First warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

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