Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure - Synopsis

[greyl]

One of our most fundamental cultural beliefs is this, that Civilization must continue at any cost and not be abandoned under any circumstance. This notion seems intrinsic to the human mind --self-evident, like The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Implicit in this belief about civilization is another: Civilization is humanity's ULTIMATE invention and can never be surpassed. Both these beliefs exemplify the cultural fallacy, which is the notion that one's beliefs are not merely expressions of one's culture but are intrinsic to the human mind itself. The effect of this fallacy is that it's almost impossible for the people of our culture to entertain the idea that there could be any invention beyond civilization. Civilization is the end, the very last and unsurpassable human social development.

No one is surprised to learn that bees are organized in a way that works for them or that wolves are organized in a way that works for them. Most people understand in a general way that the social organization of any given species evolved in the same way as other features of the species. Unworkable organizations were eliminated in exactly the same way that unworkable physical traits were eliminated--by the process known as natural selection. But there is an odd and unexamined prejudice against the idea that the very same process shaped the social organization of Homo over the three million years of his evolution. The people of our culture don't want to acknowledge that the tribe is for humans exactly what the pod is for whales or the troop is for baboons: the gift of millions of years of natural selection, not perfect--but damned hard to improve upon.

Civilization, in effect, represents an attempt to improve upon tribalism by replacing it with hierarchalism. Every civilization brought forth in the course of human history has been an intrinsically hierarchical affair--in every age and locale, East and West, as well as every civilization that grew up independently of ours in the New World. Because it's intrinsically hierarchical, civilization benefits members at the top very richly but benefits the masses at the bottom very poorly--and this has been so from the beginning. Tribalism, by contrast, is nonhierarchical and benefits all members with notable equality.

It's out of the question for us to "go back" to the tribalism we grew up with. There's no imaginable way to reestablish the ethnic boundaries that made that life work. But there's nothing sacrosanct about ethnic tribalism. more

How does this relate to faith in humanity Vs faith in god?

[cosmik debris]

1. I strongly disagree with the idea that tribalism is not hierarchical.

For example in the tribes of the great plains of the United States the hierarchy included chiefs for different functions of the tribe (war, hunting, etc.) as well as first and second class citizens (men and women respectively)

Would you care to offer an example of a tribe that survived without a hierarchy?

Your story also omits a step in the progression. Tribalism evolved into feudalism before it evolved into civilization as your author portrayed it. In fact, it seems to me that the two are confused on purpose to strengthen the agenda of the author.

[cosmik debris]

2. Too late to edit but...

I should have said "in Europe and most of Asia tribalism evolved into feudalism..." I am really not to sure about the rest of the world.

I apologize for my provincial outlook.

[Odin2005]

5. IMO Feudalism develops where ever there is a collapse of central authority...

...in a complex agricultural society, like the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity. Feudalism can be thought of as the form of societal organization of last resort for an agricultural civilization under a huge amount of stress. Tribal societies tend to evolve into city states and small kingdoms when they reach the level of civilization, not feudalism (early China seems to be an exception caused by geographical circulstances).

[trotsky]

3. Yes.

Tribes had alpha males and alpha females and plenty of hierarchy and the weak scrambling to get scraps from the kill. Not quite as idyllic and democratic as the writer wants us to believe, I'm afraid.

[Odin2005]

4. Primitive societies are idealized too often by people with agendas.

[okasha]

6. Primitive societies are idealized too often by people who have never

slept in the open, cooked their food over an open fire or bathed in a river.

Besides people with agendas, that is.

[greyl]

12. Oh my, you make it sound horrible! Too bad none of that has to do with social organization.

Imagine; sleeping in the open, cooking food over an open fire, and bathing in a river! How can anyone stand it!:eyes:

Ya do know that people in our culture pay dearly and wait anxiously for vacation time so they can do those things, don't you?

[okasha]

15. You miss the point, of course.

Most people who idealize "primitive societies" are much too soft to live in one. I'm not talking about camping out for a week--I'm talking about actually living without treated water, air conditioning or central heating, refrigeration, mechanized transport, supermarkets, anitbiotics, access to fad books, the Internet. . .. It's a nicely romantic yearning when there's no prospect at all they'll actually give up their comforts and take to the wild.

And of course it has to do with social organization. Economics, technology and means of communication are major change agents in all societies and their organization.

[greyl]

19. No, that would be you again, of course.

It's clear you either didn't read the OP thoroughly, or haven't comprehended it yet.
Nobody is suggesting that we take to the wild or give up comforts - the opposite, in fact. The point is that the manner in which our society achieves your brand of comfort isn't sustainable. I'd love to see the evidence that leads you to believe our culture, as is, will be humming along just fine in 50 years.

That point made, ethnocentrism leads to the apparent ignoring of the fact that hundreds of millions of people find our culture decidedly uncomfortable. Any idea how much despair and suicide occurs in tribal societies because they just can't take cooking over a fire for another second?

Do you have a similar revulsion to Gore's Inconvenient Truth because his solutions seem impractical to you? Gore recommends a major change of vision accompanied by incremental improvements. Quinn recommends the same, in the interest of retaining Earth as a place habitable for humans. If you think there's no place in a progressive agenda for looking honestly at our culture's myths, I can add one more to the list of people who are contributing to the problem.

[okasha]

25. I'd love to see

where I said anything like this:

I'd love to see the evidence that leads you to believe our culture, as is, will be humming along just fine in 50 years.

Or like this:

If you think there's no place in a progressive agenda for looking honestly at our culture's myths, I can add one more to the list of people who are contributing to the problem.

I suggest you take to heart your own comment about reading posts as written.

Now. Al Gore and his film both are persuasive and honest. Daniel Quinn, unfortunately, is not only a blowhard but a hypcritical, racist blowhard. He's the guy who's called for the cessation of food aid to starving Third World peoples--those very tribal peoples whose social organization he claims to admire and emulate--in order to relieve population pressure on the environment. So the black and brown people starve, leaving Quinn's mostly white "new tribalists" to tie on loincloths and play Tarzan. Tell me why a progressive would subscribe to a philosophy as viciously racist as any ever advanced by a nightrider got up in a sheet and pillowcase.

And before you come back with "You don't think population pressure's a problem"--it obviously is. I just don't think the solution is allowing the world's tribal peoples to starve to death.

[greyl]

26. That charge of racism is based on ignorance of a few things.

- The ABC's of ecology aren't racist, just like the laws of aerodynamics aren't racist.
One of the more basic premises of ecology is that an increase in food supply leads to an increase in population. This is undisputed. Convincing people of our culture that humans aren't of some higher order than all other creatures on Earth is a perpetual problem facing the inconvenient truths of science. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was an important first assault on the idea that our culture can do whatever it wants with the Earth because the Earth was made for humans to conquer and rule, but the idea is still devastatingly present as the godhead of our culture. Some people who can admit that our cultural experiment is flailing and wreaking havoc on the entire community of life suggest we should conquer the Earth even more. Do they speak from a scientific basis? No, they're voicing a cultural meme that our civilization is the god blessed/god damned gift to the world.

- Quinn calls for effective means of aiding the starving millions worldwide, but primarily in the Third World.
According to the facts, the method you, Sally Struthers, and the Agriculture Industry eagerly support ensures that there will still be millions of starving people. "In 2015 there could still be about 580 million people suffering from chronic undernourishment," says FAO". The First World is fueling the naturally occurring famine crises in the Third World. It's great for business.
Quinn, along with the majority of the relevant scientific communities, would remind us that disease, poor sanitation, and lack of water also cause millions of deaths and accelerate as populations grow beyond healthful sustainable levels.
He also points out that we are hypocritical to prefer giving handouts to distant people who we could surely save from starvation by letting them live "in our backyards".

_____________________________

With recent correlation data from Hopfenberg and Pimentel (2001) and the current mathematical formulation of the problem by Hopfenberg (2003), it may now be possible for us to see human population dynamics as a natural phenomenon. Hopfenberg (2003) and Hopfenberg and Pimentel (2001) provided an empirical presentation of a nonrecursive biological problem that is independent of ethical, social, legal, religious, and cultural considerations. This means that world human population growth is a rapidly cycling positive-feedback loop, a relationship between food and population in which food availability drives population growth, and population growth fuels the impression that food production needs to be increased. The data indicate that as we increase food production every year, the number of people increases, too.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYP/is_6_112/ai_117423249

Human Population Numbers as a Function of Food Supply
by Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel

Abstract

Human population growth has typically been seen as the primary causative factor of other ecologically destructive phenomena. Current human disease epidemics are explored as a function of population size. That human population growth is itself a phenomenon with clearly identifiable ecological/biological causes has been overlooked. Here, human population growth is discussed as being subject to the same dynamic processes as the population growth of other species. Contrary to the widely held belief that food production must be increased to feed the growing population, experimental and correlational data indicate that human population growth varies as a function of food availability. By increasing food production for humans, at the expense of other species, the biologically determined effect has been, and continues to be, an increase in the human population. Understanding the relationship between food increases and population increases is proposed as a necessary first step in addressing this global problem. Resistance to this perspective is briefly discussed in terms of cultural bias in science.

..........

7. Cultural bias in science

Cultural bias in science is not new. When Charles Darwin (1859) put forward the notion that humans came into being by an evolutionary process his theory faced strong opposition, especially from the clergy. Evolutionary theory has gained acceptance but is not acknowledged by many segments of society. Perhaps the same cultural bias that interfered with the acceptance of Galileo's observations and assertions supporting Copernican theory (Finocchiaro, 1989), continues to interfere with the acceptance of Darwin's proposals (note the Kansas board of Education's decision to abolish the requirement for teaching evolution - New York Times, August 12, 1999). The view that humans are above the natural physical and biological laws continues today.

A similar bias is also present regarding understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between food production and human population growth. Some, like Julian Simon (1991) hold that humans are exempt from the natural laws of physics and biology and that human behavior occurs as a result of metaphysical forces. P.Waggoner (personal communication, April 1, 1998) stated that "we. . . question whether something (population growth) so dependent on human wishes can be predicted physically." Because of this belief, the use of the scientific method to study human behavior, especially as it relates to population dynamics, is in its infancy, and still looked upon with skepticism (Skinner, 1990).

..........

I've occasionally called attention to the idea that our culture doesn't represent some ultimate form of humanity relative to others and that the thousands of indigenous cultures that still haven't been destroyed by "our" progress deserve to be saved - and not in the missionary sense. That idea is a constant through Quinn's work, thus your charge of racism is pathetic. Especially pathetic since you've berated me after I expressed dismay at Native American culture being lost to Christianity and assimilation. I guess you were just trying to change the subject from the point that you'd missed: "Beyond civilization" does not mean going backward to anything.

[greyl]

11. Yeah, but that's not happening here.

The author has also argued against the myth of the Noble Savage, fwiw.

The Question (ID Number 544)...

In a review of "Ishmael" by my Sociology class, my professor remarked that you view Hunting and Gathering societies as the ideal society. Would you say that this statement is a true representation of your belief? If so, why do you feel this way?

...and the response:

Hunting and gathering is an occupation, a way of making a living, not a social organization. The social organization of hunter-gatherers (and of many agricultural peoples as well) was the tribe. Is the tribe the "ideal" social organization for humans? "Ideal" is the wrong word. The tribe is no more the ideal social organization for humans than the flock is the ideal social organization for geese or the hive is the ideal social organization for bees. Rather, it's the social organization that survived the test of natural selection; it's what worked for humans for millions of years, just as the flock and the hive have worked for geese and for bees for millions of years. You can say that, over the millions of years of human evolution, many other social organizations may have been tried, but none survived. In this sense, tribalism can be said to be evolutionarily stable for humans; a better social organization never emerged through the process of natural selection. Thus a better term for it than "ideal" would be "very unlikely to be improvable." But it has nothing to do with hunting and gathering. As I say, many Leaver peoples (all tribal) were agriculturalists, and most who survive today are agriculturalists. The various social organizations that the people of our culture have tried have been very short-lived, primarily because they have been hierarchical rather than tribal, producing a society in which a few at the top have a wonderful life, a larger number in the middle have a pretty good life, and the masses at the bottom have a poor life--inherently unsatisfactory. In tribal societies everyone has the same life--good when times are good and bad when times are bad. In bad times in our society the people at the top continue to have a wonderful life while life gets even worse for the masses at the bottom. (For more about all this, see Beyond Civilization.)
http://www.ishmael.org/Interaction/QandA/Detail.CFM?Record=544

[greyl]

10. Idyllic? Where do you get that?

The existence of alpha males and females does not indicate that the entire social structure is hierarchical. What do you mean by plenty of hierarchy?

[trotsky]

13. The passage you quote.

The author seems to make the point that "tribalism = zero hierarchy = ideal." You can't tell me that even in the smallest tribes you didn't have your alpha male, a beta male or two, some kind of pecking order. It's the nature of a group.

[greyl]

17. Zero hierarchy isn't said. It's a clear, though relative, distinction.

Fish aren't hairy, but they can have hair. In contrast to dogs, fish aren't hairy.

We can see "hierarchy" in just about anything. I can attribute hierarchy to what's in my refrigerator, a bobsled team, or the stations on a radio dial, but that speaks not a word to the central thrust and function of those things. When looking at the basic social organization of groups, pecking orders have little to do with how the tribe gets its wherewithal to live. Our culture would be ill-defined by describing it as simply a pecking order along the lines of a band of orangutans, because the extreme hierarchy of our civilization is built in. to it as opposed to the naturally revealed achievement of position of alpha males and females within a tribal organization.

The invisibility of tribal success

People are fascinated to learn why a pride of lions works, why a troop of baboons works, or why a flock of geese works, but they often resist learning why a tribe of humans works. Tribal humans were successful on this planet for three million years before our agricultural revolution, and they’re no less successful today wherever they manage to survive untouched, but many people of our culture don’t want to hear about it. In fact, they’ll vigorously deny it. If you explain to them why a herd of elephants works or why a hive of bees works, they have no problem. But if you try to explain why a tribe of humans works, they accuse you of “idealizing” them. From the point of view of ethology or evolutionary biology however, the success of humans in tribes is no more an idealization than the success of bison in herds or whales in pods.
Our cultural excuse for failure is that humans are just “naturally” flawed—greedy, selfish, short-sighted, violent, and so on, which means anything you do with them will fail. In order to validate that excuse, people want tribalism to be a failure. For this reason, to people who want to uphold our cultural mythology, any suggestion that tribalism was successful is perceived as a threat.
Making tribal success visible is the work of my other books and will not be repeated here.
Daniel Quinn - Beyond Civilization pg 12

Of course, that last line is kind of funny and is further evidence of how non-primed OPs can fail. ;) When strengthening the case, I'll avoid using Quinn's previous books as a source.

What do you see as the primary distinction between tribalism and civilization?

[trotsky]

18. I think the author is trying to dismiss anyone who dares disagree with him.

His critics, we are told, all "want to uphold our cultural mythology" and so criticisms of his treatment of tribal culture are just whisked away with so much handwaving.

I see tribalism as a FORM of civilization. I don't think it's an apples-to-oranges thing. First off, was there a universal "tribalism" that all human tribes practiced?

[greyl]

30. When atheists are accused of following a religion that says there is no God,

do we budge?

"I see tribalism as a FORM of civilization."

I think I know what you mean. How do you feel about "tribalism and civilization are forms of human culture"?
Rather than saying walking is a form of traveling in an SUV, doesn't it make a lot more sense to say that walking and traveling in an SUV are different forms of getting from here to there?

Not all myths originate from religion, eh? ;)

[Zhade]

23. "Fish aren't hairy, but they can have hair" - zuh?

What do you mean, exactly?

[greyl]

28. zuh, indeed.

Seriously, it was a crippled analogy, though there is the mirapinna and the frogfish that has hairlike things. Maybe I should have said "we don't consider snakes to be leggy, but some have legs"? Naw, that's lame, too. ;)
I was trying to make the point that just because something includes a particular feature to a small degree, doesn't mean that it can be equated with something else in which that same particular feature is an overwhelming, central, or defining mark of identity.
In contrast to our civilization, the most "primitive" tribes on Earth today are non-hierarchical, iow.

[greyl]

8. Let's narrow our definition of hierarchical society. A tribe with a leader is still tribal.

If you want an example of a tribe - surviving or not - absent of leaders & recognition of any individual value , I can't help ya, but the presence of tribal members who receive more respect than others does not equate to an intrinsically hierarchical society.
Since the relative absence of a hiercharchical structure is in the very definition of tribalism, how do you define it otherwise?

Can you explain what you mean by second class citizens in regards to plains Indians?

In the past 50 years, anthropologists have greatly revised our understanding of the tribe. Franz Boas removed the idea of unilineal cultural evolution from the realm of serious anthropological research as too simplistic, allowing tribes to be studied in their own right, rather than stepping stones to civilization or "living fossils." Anthropologists such as Richard Lee and Marshall Sahlins began publishing studies that showed tribal life as an easy, safe life, the opposite of the traditional theoretical supposition. In the title to his book, Sahlins referred to these tribal cultures as "the Original Affluent Society," not for their material wealth, but for their combination of leisure and lack of want.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism

[cosmik debris]

14. If you define tribal as non-hierarchical

Your semantic argument eliminates any rebuttal. I give up.

Regarding the second class citizenship issue, I only studied the Arapaho, but I was taught in my Anthropology class that they were exemplary of plains tribes. In the Arapaho Nation (prior to "civilization") women were not allowed to hold leadership positions, were not allowed to have input into tribal decisions, were not included in religious ritual, were relegated to more menial tasks, and were punished much more severely for sexual promiscuity than men. In short, women were property that was slightly more valuable than horses--sometimes. Women were bought and sold, women were held as slaves.

And let's not overlook the middle class. The Arapaho also had a class of men above the women, but below the leadership class of chiefs and shaman. It was a structured society; a place for everyone and everyone in their place. If you choose to define that as non-hierarchical, be my guest.

[greyl]

16. I don't, exactly.

As the OP says: in contrast to "civilization", tribalism isn't hierarchical. This isn't to say that all members of all tribes on the globe always have the same social status or function within the tribe. It says that if the tribe suffers, all members suffer, and no class is immunized from the challenges of the tribe as a group.

Also, nobody has said that a tribe lacks structure. What is being said is that tribal structures have been proven to be sustainable, as opposed to the current civilizational experiment we're partaking in.

Regarding the Arapaho, since tribalism was effectively destroyed before modern anthropology came to be, and since horses were introduced by the Spanish, how can you extrapolate general rules of tribalism from what was taught in your Anthropology class about the Arapaho?

How do you differentiate a tribe from a civilization?

[cosmik debris]

20. I feel like I am chasing a moving target

On rereading the OP and subsequent post I realize that I have no idea what the intended definitions are for: hierarchical, civilization, sustainable, and tribalism. If you could nail those down for me it would be helpful.

I never intended the Arapaho example to be a general rule, but rather an exception to the rule stated by your author. But anyway, here are some facts:

Horses were reintroduced to the great plains in the late sixteenth century,

The Arapaho lifestyle was squelched in the late nineteenth century, but it still survives in the memories of the present day Arapaho.

Anthropology dates back to the mid-eighteenth century. When you use the words "modern anthropology" I have to assume that you are using the modifier to escape being penned down to a date that contradicts your theory.

And regarding your last question on the difference between tribal and civilization, I don't distinguish because I have no need to make that distinction. Your author seems to have a pet theory that depends on that distinction, so I will yield to whatever distinction you or he may wish to make. (provided it is real and not imagined)

[greyl]

21. Not moving, just lacking agreed upon definition as you say.

In the interest of saving myself some time, and making it more clear what Quinn means, I'll quote from later pages in the book.

From tribalism to hierarchalism

Every civilization that enters history ex nihilo (that is, from no previous civilization) enters with the same basic hierarchal social organization firmly in place, whether it emerges in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, or the New World. How this remarkable result came about (doubtless through some process of natural selection) would make an interesting study— but not my study. Why it happened I leave to others. That it happened is undisputed.
The rough outlines of this social organization are familiar to everyone through the Egyptian model. You have a highly centralized state organization that consolidates in itself all economic, military, political, and religious power. The ruling caste, headed by a living deity in the shape of a pharaoh, Inca, or other divine monarch, is supported by a priestly bureaucracy that regulates and supervises the labor force conscripted for (among other things) the construction of palaces and ceremonial complexes, temples, and pyramids.
The tribe is of course long gone—has by this time been gone for centuries, if not millennia. pg 71


But aren't tribes hierarchal?

This is a question asked by people who hate the idea that the tribal life actually works for people. The answer is, no, this not what's found. Tribes have leaders, to be sure, and sometimes very strong leaders, but leadership carries little or nothing in the way of special benefits that are denied to other members of the tribe. Has there never arisen a tribe that has “gone hierarchal,” where the leader has made himself into despot? I’m absolutely certain this has happened, perhaps thousands of times. What’s important to note is that no such tribe has survived. The reason isn’t hard to find — people don't like living under despots. Again, that’s natural selection at work: tribes ruled by despots fail to hold onto their members and become extinct.
In the circus everyone wants there to be a boss, taking car of business, making sure the circus stays in the black, making unpleasant decisions about who’s going to be hired and fired settling disputes, working out contracts, and dealing with local authorities. Without a boss, the circus would disappear in hurry, but the boss is just another person with a job—the job o being boss. The boss isn’t envied or even particularly admired The stars of the show get the glory (as well as the highest salaries and the fanciest clothes), but they’re nothing remotely like a ruling class. pg 73

What does civilization mean?

I can name a couple of concepts I personally find slippery (mise en scene, for example, and postmodernism), but civilization isn’t one of them. The Oxford English Dictionary handles it in a mere dozen words: “Civilized condition or state; a developed or advanced state of human society.” The American Heritage Dictionary articulates it a bit more fully: ‘An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions.”
The thing that forces the institutions of any civilization to become politically and socially “complex” is of course their hierarchical arrangement. A confederation of farming villages isn’t politically and socially complex, and it’s not a civilization. When, a thousand years later, the royal family lives in a palace guarded by professional soldiers and buffered from the masses by clans of nobles and a priestly caste that manages the state religion, then you have the requisite political and social “complexity”—and you have civilization.
No tribal society no matter how “advanced” in other respects, has ever been called a civilization in this sense. pg 81

By "modern anthropology", I was using the same definition as you are.

[cosmik debris]

24. I'm still confused

The author seem to fail to make the distinction between social systems, political systems, and economic systems each of which operates independent of the other. And he fails to relate them to "civilization" independently. For example he uses the Egyptian model, which seems clearly feudal as an example of civilization. But not all feudal systems were civilized and not all civilizations are feudal. He seems to imply that tribalism was economically egalitarian, therefore social or political inequality does not matter. (I would disagree on both counts.)

It looks to me like he is glossing over the differences between social, economic, and political systems to promote his ideas. Perhaps I am misinterpreting his intentions, but I don't see a clear message here.

[greyl]

29. Yeah, I think you're struggling to make sense with inadequate info I've provided.

You're trying to connect the dots of an image in which 99% of the dots are invisible. Not your fault.
Your impression that he's asserting social or political inequality (wherever they are found) don't matter, or that social, economic, and political systems aren't in fact distinguishable systems is way off target.
I kind of feel like I'm trying to incrementally explain Pulp Fiction to someone who hasn't seen the movie by playing short clips of it in answer to increasingly bewildered questions. Will you find yourself in a library or read-in bookstore anytime soon? If you turn to page 119 of Beyond Civilization and read the following several pages about homelessness, you'll find a few key dots that help define the message on your terms. You could also leisurely poke around the Q & A section of his website.

If this reply is inadequate, please say so.

[cosmik debris]

31. OK, I'll try that. thnx n/t

[TRYPHO]

7. And I'm not totally convinced that...

those in the middle are happy or that those at the bottom are not, or infact that those at the top are do-nothings, living to excess and offering no benefit to those below.

In all cases I could argue wrong wrong wrong.

Lots of the kids of the rich turn to drugs through boredom as they weren't brought up in a close family unit (like the bottom group are forced to do) and have no ambitions or goals in life (not by necessity atleast - which gives them no direction emotionally, psychologically or physically).

Overall, everyone has problems dependent on their strata, and most completely miss the good points of their level.

Many middle/lower class people that win the lottery are completely lost by their new wealth and can't cope with it.

Rich people can't cope (generally) if they lose all their money.

Moving strata is not beneficial overall, and being miserable where you are is no better.

Lifes should be a struggle or its no life.

Define struggle?

TRYPHO

[greyl]

9. You aren't required to be immediately convinced. ;)

I think I know the angle you're taking, but did you notice you described problems inherent in hierarchical societies that aren't found in tribal ones?

http://www.eco-action.org/dt/affluent.html

[TRYPHO]

22. Ok, I've worked out why this thread bugs me..

Its because the point is totally futile. We WONT become a tribal system, we wont lose our heirarchy, and although the system may not work for some, it WORKS.

(barring world war 3 and you taking things over after the radioactive dust has settled of course).

TRYPHO

[greyl]

27. Care to show your work? You've miscalculated.

You might as well be bugged by American car manufucturers who studied imports to figure out what made them work better, because Chevies would never become Toyotas. - Oh wait, is that a bad example? (Geo)
Better, you could be bugged by genomic research of mice because humans will never become mice. - However, you'd have to ignore the point of the research and the enormous benefits to humans(and other animals) because mice share 99% of their genes with us.
Or, you could be bugged by Gore's Inconvenient Truth because changing to fluorescent light bulbs in your own home won't stop all of the damage to the planet being done by unsustainable energy industries. There, you'd be missing the point that your changing to fluorescents wouldn't only benefit the world a tiny bit, it would benefit you a lot.
I guess you could be bugged by those, or you could just convince yourself you're content having giving up hope for making any progress with the way our particular civilization attacks it's life support system and other creatures within it.

Best, you could figure out why you imagined the point is "to become a tribal system" when the fable in the OP states:
"It's out of the question for us to "go back" to the tribalism we grew up with" and "if we can't go back, let's go forward - on to something different."

"...although the system may not work for some, it WORKS."

I wish I had a week to spend explaining the many problems with that assertion.

May not work for some? We're talking about a lot of fucking some here, aren't we? Imagine everyone was given a billion dollars today. What percentage would go on earning their living as they did yesterday? Whatever percentage you estimate, consider that the remainder (90%?) may deserve an opportunity to pursue happiness and freedom as they define it, while minimizing their contribution to systems that are in the business of self-preservation without regard to the preservation of life. Imagine the Mentawai were given a billion dollars. Would they alter how they occupied their day? Do you think any of them would be insane enough to buy a plane ticket to Italy to become part of the McDonald's team there? Do you suppose they'd want to become literate in all of the languages that our culture's competing salvationist religious dogma has been written in so that they may finally learn the great divine wisdom that makes the Middle East and Texas such peaceful places?

In any society on the planet, you'll find members who say their system works and that they are happy with it. Some people find the strict disciplinary order of life in prison to be relief from the responsibilities of self-sufficiency. Examples of people satisfied with a system they've capitulated to don't make the dissatisfied any happier.

Elsewhere, you've indicated that the solution to nearly every possible conundrum someone can face is written down in a "Holy" text. I think it's fair to say that you consider those words to be an authoritative guide on how to live, being as your God presented the genesis of those ever changing Texts directly to Moses. I'm of the differing opinion that information about how to live is best done by studying the diverse community of life.

[Meshuga]

32. The authoritative guide

"I'm of the differing opinion that information about how to live is best done by studying the diverse community of life."

Who says that by following the mitzvot system TRYPHO does not study the diverse community of life? Many of the transformations of this authoritative guide on how he lives his life happened because of the influence of these other communities. A lot of it is borrowed even. That guide evolves like everything else. Many of the rules are static for the sake of tradition, identity, or because it is still considered valid from when it was created. The system might not be perfect and it has its revisions but it's a system that is part of his culture and following it makes him what he is: a member of the Jewish people. The essence of the halachah is written in the "holy" text but the details, comentaries, and the ever changing halachah is not limited to that "holy" text. There is the oral tradition and other texts codifying the law. ;-)

[greyl]

34. The nature of the guide isn't scientific, and the resulting revealed "laws"

aren't things that humans are subject to, for the most part. There may occasionally be rhyme and reason within the mythological system of Judaism, but I doubt that the tortured rules of the Sabbath, for example, came about because it was seen that life always worked better when following them. Even adherents of Judaism don't really believe they are subject to their laws(absence of real-world consequences), only that they are supposed to follow them or rationalize why they go against them.

Humans are subject to the laws of gravity, but they are not subject to the mitzvot system.
It's a salvationist contrivance.

[Meshuga]

36. Who says that all humans are subject to the mitzvot system?

"Humans are subject to the laws of gravity, but they are not subject to the mitzvot system"

No shit! Who says that all humans are subject to the mitzvot system? The mitzvot system are for the Jewish people to follow (following them is part of being a member of the Jewish people) not all of humanity! The same way that American law is written for Americans. Brazilians in Brazil are not subject to US laws, but like the rest of us humans here in the US (and the world for that matter), Brazilians are subject to the laws of gravity.

Like I said thoughout this board, this "guide" is a product of the environment where Jews lived and has evolved through thousands of years of living under the different rules such as ancient Greece, Roman Empire, Sassanians, Islam, Christianity, etc. Judaism was able to survive through the years since it made the law twofold and open ended.

You arrogantly said that getting information about how to live is best done by studying the diverse community of life but so far, at least lately here in this board, I've only seen you looking through the eyes of Daniel Quinn, not your own. You accuse others of making "hasty conclusions" but so far your generalizations drive you to do just that.

Generalized language and using generalization for conclusions are useful for those who cannot comprehend the differences or are too lazy to go after the information themselves and it gets you nowhere if you sincerely desire to learn from the diverse community of life.

[greyl]

37. I didn't say "ALL humans". Who is saying ANY humans

are subject to the laws of mitzvot? Not me.

[Meshuga]

38. Still, it doesn't take you off the hook

and BTW:

A group of Jews might not see the "guide" as binding but they still subject themselves to the law for the sake of being part of the Jewish people.

Also, the laws are there, the only difference is in the way these laws are interpreted and what books they find to be more authoritative. The "tortured rules of the Sabbath" keeps getting more restrictive in the orthodox community but they come from the same laws as a conservative except that the conservative interprets the law differently. For instance, the law states that you cannot start a fire in your dwelling on the Sabbath. The orthodox will not drive a car because of the spark that is created to start the car saying that a spark is considered fire while the conservative says that spark is not fire therefore you can drive on the sabbath.

The orthodox go in the other direction, the more restrictive it gets the more pious they feel so if community A says that their people don't eat dairy and meat, community B will say "but we are more pious than you since we actually have separate dishes for dairy and meat", then community C will say, "yeah, but we are more pious since we bury the plates after use..." and community D will say, "yeah, but we burn the plates after we are done!" and the cycle goes on... To an non-orthodox Jew restrictions for the sake of looking pious are stupid and they are not part of halachah.

Reform Judaism is a whole different beast since Classic Reform Judaism, in the beginning of the movement, totally rejected tradition and tried to turn Judaism into a religion emphasizing the ethical mitzvot (sort of dropping the mitzvot and tradition regarding the sense of peoplehood and what they thought to be meaningless rites). With time the movement started going back to tradition and bringing back the other mitzvot as an important part of being part of the Jewish People. Today the Reform movement is getting closer to the conservative movement and vice-versa. But a Reform Jew is still told to follow the mitzvah that makes sense to him/her in order to develop stronger identity and to be ethical.

The orthodox Jew will follow the mitzvot since it's God's word given at Sinai. The conservative Jew understands Sinai as a metaphor and he/she will look at the community as a guide to following the mitzvot, tradition is important. The Reform Jew will look at the autonomous Jewish self when deciding whether to follow a particular mitzvah or finding an answer to a question, not turning to the community for guidance, and not turn to God, this person will make decisions taking in consideration that he/she is a Jew.

To answer the questions that arise about living a Jewish way of life the orthodox will look at the shulchan aruch which was codified by Yosef Karo back in the 16th century. God hasn't much to say lately so they can't really turn to God to find answers to their questions so the shulchan aruch will do the trick. The conservative will turn to the community and look in the Talmud for their answers. The Reform Jew will look inside him/herself and look in the ethical teaching of the prophets in the Tanach (old testament) as guidance and emphasize social justice in Judaism. Not to say that conservative and orthodox movements don't emphasize social justice but in Reform Judaism it is more of a focus.

[greyl]

39. I need to define what I mean by "subject to the law".

When I say "subject to the law", I'm talking about laws from which there is no escape - laws of nature - laws which can be discerned by scientific method.

When you say "subject to the law", you're only talking about man made dogmatic laws.

[Meshuga]

40. You are confusing me

You said on post 34:

"The nature of the guide isn't scientific, and the resulting revealed "laws" aren't things that humans are subject to, for the most part."


Are you saying that a system of ethical laws and laws dealing with tradition and peoplehood are invalid if you don't use scientific methods? Is that your claim?

I have said over and over that these are laws for Jewish people to follow. Not for the rest of humanity to follow. Are we going in circles here or what? How can you still not comprehend this? It's amazing!

Who is making any claim that the mitzvot are universal laws of nature that can be discerned by scientific method? :shrug:

Please elaborate. Thanks!

[TRYPHO]

33. This is starting to drift in to a number of issues...

1. I think Mr W has answered the point on behalf of my religion. I happen to believe it is without flaw in teaching Jews how to live a happy and meaningful life, and thats working within a civilisation of others construction. When we did it in our own civilisation, namely in Israel, or even more pedantically on Kibbutzim, I could argue the religion was less effective! So long live civilisation as far as diasporic Judaism is concerned.
2. In your OP, the inserted article points out, and you re-emphasise in your last post, that you are not talking about going back to tribalism, but forward to something else. I accept that my last posting missed that, and my point about the waste of time arguing about the attempt was off the mark (though by default correct). However, even following the link offered to the Ishmael Companion http://www.ishmael.org/Origins/Beyond_Civilization/index.shtml hasn't really offered me much in the way of an insight into their intention for a viable new order, so although you may have a point worth making, I haven't seen anything yet worth contemplating on.
3. Finally, your allusions to the saving the planet by changing the light bulbs scenario reminds me of the excellent post to the general list by our colleague here Elrond with this post:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Elrond%20Hubbard - called Dear God
Says everything worth saying on the subject really. Moving. (sorry cant find the actual thread of the General Discussion board). And so, I am not against saving the planet greyl, as I am sure you would imagine, and I am happy to do my bit where I can, BUT I am not prepared to chuck this society in and chance my civilisation on a new unknown system, at this point in time atleast, just because evolution suggest there will be a better alternative to follow. Perhaps the trigger will be if we get human evolution first, or if some Aliens arrive and show us how to do it, or if we become unsustainable and are forced to adapt - maybe Florida's supervolcano under Yellowstone Park blows up and three years in darkness changes my perspective?!

I am not against change when it's necessary or proven, but I wont change this civilisation in just yet, thanks all the same.

TRYPHO

[greyl]

35. Wrong. It always concerned a myriad of issues. nt