The start of civilization is defined as that point in time when humans learned to increase the bounty of nature by their own efforts. This increase was brought about by cultivating plants and by herding animals. Prior to this event a group had to possess control over an area sufficient to sustain them by hunting and gathering from what nature provided. by SovereignJim
(libertarian)
Saturday, December 19, 2009
The vast majority of human existence was prior to the beginning of civilization. 4,000,000 years plus or minus before and only 40,000 at the most since civilization began. That is 99% before and only 1% after.
The start of civilization is defined as that point in time when humans learned to increase the bounty of nature by their own efforts. This increase was brought about by cultivating plants and by herding animals. Prior to this event a group had to possess control over an area sufficient to sustain them by hunting and gathering from what nature provided. Fire provided warmth during cold spells and for heating food. Caves, tents of animal skins and crude huts provided shelter. Animal skins provided clothes.
The unit of survival during this period was the band. A band is a small group. The band needed to be large enough to allow a division of labor. Some to hunt, some to gather and some to attend to the children, the fire and the camp. The band had to be small enough so that each knew if another was carrying his share of the load. Life was good during a year when nature was generous. Hunger would be common if a year was lean.
Here we have two major behavior ethics. First is that each should do a share of the work of survival, what share defined by ability. Next is that all would share the goods of survival, what share defined by need. Today they are the principle ethics underling socialism. "From each according to ability, to each according to need." This ethic worked for a small group because each knew what others did and what others received. Today this ethic is proper only for a family or a primitive band.
Repeated lean years or a barren year required the drastic action of gaining control over a new sustaining area. Two options were available. One was to begin a trek over barren or occupied land until finding an unoccupied area with nature's survival goods. The ethic here was "If you don't like where you're at then get up and peacefully go to a new place to live". The other option was to take control of occupied land by threat or by use of violence. The ethic supporting this option of violence was "Might makes right". Today this ethic is known as fascism.
We can not be critical of the moral ethics of our "Hunter Gather Band" distant ancestors. Those ethics were required for their survival. In fact none of us would exist today if not for the fact that our pre civilization ancestors survived by application of those ethics. I believe that those ethics became directed by tradition and instinct. Today those ethics have led to the evils of communism, fascism and nazism.
Socialism, while not evil, is destructive of the well-being of a Nation. Nature by DNA and nurture by a family have created in most of the young the obsolete ethic of Socialism. A poor educational system has failed to educate for the rejection of that destructive ethic. Family and experience are left to do that job.
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Posted By: Ross Williams
Date: 2009-12-29 10:58:05
Jim: you're redefining the entire field of anthropology in order to backfill your convenient redefinitions of crucial PoliSci terms. It's dizzying.
The ethic supporting this option of violence was "Might makes right". Today this ethic is known as fascism.
Balderdash. It doesn't matter where or when you are, if you are in a "barren" environment and you move to a fertile one and those already in that new environment don't want you there and you compel them to accept your presence [or vacate], then it is neither "might makes right" nor fascism; it is survival.
There is a reason -- and a very good one -- that xenophobia exists: strangers tend to pose a danger to a community.
Today those ethics have led to the evils of communism, fascism and nazism
Baloney. To the degree that these terms describe what you are railing against, they are all indifferentiable forms of garden-variety autocracy: do what I tell you because I tell you. To the degree they are differentiable, they are either autocracy for a superficial economic rationalization [communism]; autocracy based on exploitation of The Other [nazism]; or autocracy for personal aggrandizement [the original fascism].
So, the fact that the term fascism was created in Italy to describe a government of "all power to the state" and that this new fascist state exercised its power by violence makes it wrong to describe its ethic as "might makes right". Also you object to labeling the violence used by a pre-civilization group ( could be called the state in that time ) as based on an ethic of fascism. I agree that the reason for that ethic at that time was survival. Was not the ethic for using force, against the well being of another group, to gain enough bounty of nature for the survival of the invading group not simply "might makes right" as a necessity of survival. You also state that the ethic of "might makes right" is not used by a totalitarian government in order for its survival. In fact you state that it is baloney, which in a sense is true as my words chew much easier than yours. You also claim that I am railing against what I choose to call fascism. Yes I don't care for fascism, even where a group may become convinced that it needs more space for its lebensraum. It seems that we have a semantic difference. I can live with that. Your choice of words does nothing to clarify things for me. I hope you have success with understanding things with your fuzzy collection of verbiage.
Posted By: Ross Williams
Date: 2009-12-30 06:37:31
So, the fact that the term fascism was created in Italy to describe a government of "all power to the state" and that this new fascist state exercised its power by violence makes it wrong to describe its ethic as "might makes right".
I have to conclude that you don't know what you're talking about.
It's clear you've never studied anthropology; it's clear you haven't studied much history; you're familiarity with even the soft, jelly-filled fields of PoliSci and Sociology are tenuous at best.
You start with ape-men flinging a bone at a bird and conclude geosynchronous orbiting space stations. And while this makes a compelling overture to the movie-version of an Arthur C Clarke novel, you're skipping over grand vistas of intermediary human interactions and [effectively] dismissing them with a wave of your hand.
You posit clans of proto-humans competing with other clans of proto-humans in the search for food and conclude 'fascism'; you could just as easily conclude 'Mona Lisa', Shakespeare's sonnets, and The Rights of Man. Just because 'fascism' succeeded 'survival' does not implicate 'survival' in 'fascism'. That is post hoc nonsense.
All violence is not the same. All motivation for violence is not the same. And while, if on the receiving end, it matters little whether you are subject to the violence of a Brownshirt bashing in your face as an exercise in gratuitous power, or whether your face is crushed because the next valley over has flooded and you've got the only food around, equivocating the two is simplistic and leads to a wide array of superficial mindsets that do not serve human wisdom beyond lint-picking one's navel.
Your response includes statements that argue against claims that I did NOT make such as “All violence is not the same. All motivation for violence is not the same.” where I did NOT say or imply, “All violence is the same” or “All motivation for violence is the same.”
Another false claim by you about something I did NOT say “You start with ape-men flinging a bone at a bird and conclude geosynchronous orbiting space stations. And while this makes a compelling overture to the movie-version of an Arthur C Clarke novel”--------This response by you is simply another “show and tell” effort from you that shows you watched the movie.
You fail to provide a single sentence or phrase from my article with your reasons for misunderstanding why it is wrong.
You show that you are among the many that can NOT read and think at the same time.
I surmise that you are a fast typist who can spew out words from a large collection of presumed wisdom without thinking much about what you say.
I will not try to explain to you what you have missed about my article because it appears that your mind is to dense and filled with useless garbage to COMPREHEND.
Posted By: Ross Williams
Date: 2010-04-13 14:13:00
Your response includes statements that argue against claims that I did NOT make such as “All violence is not the same. All motivation for violence is not the same.”
You are railing against violence without distinction. That is, by definition, an implication that you are seeing all violence as the same.
I'm sorry you don't understand that about your writing - perhaps you could take the time to think about what it is you believe so fervently before you clack finger upon keyboard.
You fail to provide a single sentence or phrase from my article with your reasons
Here, genius:
Those ethics were required for their survival. In fact none of us would exist today if not for the fact that our pre civilization ancestors survived by application of those ethics. I believe that those ethics became directed by tradition and instinct. Today those ethics have led to the evils of communism, fascism and nazism
You are claiming that the violence ingrained in apemen flinging bones at birds is the same violence - "directed by tradition and instinct" - that gives us all the political philosophies we feel smug about loathing.
This is the implication that all violence is the same; this is the grounding of the 2001 metaphore - excuse me, "show and tell" - and this is why you should probably think upon your beliefs some.
My comprehension is fine; your articulation - if you do not believe what you said you did - is what's suspect.
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