1
1977
Guest
....in our society, in the Western Hemisphere, all the social ill's, and how the powers that be are tackling them, seems a bit draconian and unfair to me...
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J
johnboy
Guest
Well the only things that went wrong before civilization that civilization has really fixed are medical and hunger related. I imagine hunter gatherers went through 99% of the other problems that modern folk go through, except they were married and died younger.
I'm not really sure what social ills you're talking about: every civilization creates a "poor-class" that seems to be a human problem instead of a societal one. If a hunter-gatherer had no family or tribal support system like modern homeless people he or she would almost certainly die instead of live on welfare/jail/streets.
Hunter gatherers have a higher murder rate than "civilized people" if you do not count state warfare as murder. Otherwise, it seems to me that civilization fixes more problems than it causes. Plus, Canada just passed new laws to protect the Canadian broadleaf forests I believe, so feel free to head on up.
I'm not really sure what social ills you're talking about: every civilization creates a "poor-class" that seems to be a human problem instead of a societal one. If a hunter-gatherer had no family or tribal support system like modern homeless people he or she would almost certainly die instead of live on welfare/jail/streets.
Hunter gatherers have a higher murder rate than "civilized people" if you do not count state warfare as murder. Otherwise, it seems to me that civilization fixes more problems than it causes. Plus, Canada just passed new laws to protect the Canadian broadleaf forests I believe, so feel free to head on up.
A
Anarcho Atlatl
Guest
Not necessarily everything, but I am critical of civilization (which I define as a culture based on intensive agriculture, with large amounts of social stratification, and a state). I actually became an anthropology major after reading "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn which basically advocates a return to hunter-gatherer societies, which Quinn presents as nearly utopian. I can say that now, less than six months away from having a BA in anthropology, I think Quinn sugar-coats things a lot because even foraging societies have problems, but I do think they tend to be better than more "advanced" societies.
You might be interested in anarcho-primitivist philosophy (but to be honest, though there are a lot of good parts to it, I take issue with some of it, like the whole critique of language and symbolic culture). I'd recommend reading some Derrick Jensen, especially because I don't think he's as out there as some of the others like John Zerzan. Also look into ecofeminist philosophy. I like a lot of that too.
Edit: I would just like to respond to a few things Johnboy says. Civilization actually tends to cause a lot of health problems. In fact, until probably the last 100 years or so civilizations were actually far worse health wise than foraging societies. Concentrating such large groups of people in a small area leads to pandemics. I'd also say most foraging societies tended towards less starvation than we currently have because resources tend to be distributed relatively equally, unlike our system where there is a huge disparity with many people having so much they get sick and others having so little they die. There would often be periods of abundance and periods of need, but at least in some groups there was far less starvation than now. Of course famine could hit from time to time, but the same thing happens now, and when it does happen now, far more people die. Your idea of a hunter-gatherer with no support system dying is a bit of a non-issue, as that really wouldn't happen in any kind of notable frequency. Foraging societies had greater levels of social solidarity and as I mentioned above, goods were typically distributed in a far more egalitarian manner. They wouldn't let someone starve unless everyone was starving. I'd also dispute your claim of a higher murder rate. Again, there tends to be more solidarity and less anti-social behavior in foraging societies. And even warfare among bands tends to be far less intensive than among "civilized" people.
You might be interested in anarcho-primitivist philosophy (but to be honest, though there are a lot of good parts to it, I take issue with some of it, like the whole critique of language and symbolic culture). I'd recommend reading some Derrick Jensen, especially because I don't think he's as out there as some of the others like John Zerzan. Also look into ecofeminist philosophy. I like a lot of that too.
Edit: I would just like to respond to a few things Johnboy says. Civilization actually tends to cause a lot of health problems. In fact, until probably the last 100 years or so civilizations were actually far worse health wise than foraging societies. Concentrating such large groups of people in a small area leads to pandemics. I'd also say most foraging societies tended towards less starvation than we currently have because resources tend to be distributed relatively equally, unlike our system where there is a huge disparity with many people having so much they get sick and others having so little they die. There would often be periods of abundance and periods of need, but at least in some groups there was far less starvation than now. Of course famine could hit from time to time, but the same thing happens now, and when it does happen now, far more people die. Your idea of a hunter-gatherer with no support system dying is a bit of a non-issue, as that really wouldn't happen in any kind of notable frequency. Foraging societies had greater levels of social solidarity and as I mentioned above, goods were typically distributed in a far more egalitarian manner. They wouldn't let someone starve unless everyone was starving. I'd also dispute your claim of a higher murder rate. Again, there tends to be more solidarity and less anti-social behavior in foraging societies. And even warfare among bands tends to be far less intensive than among "civilized" people.