From: Jonathan Davis (jonathan.davis@lineone.net)
Date: Mon Oct 06 2003 - 16:02:10 MDT
I agree with you on this, Blunderlov. Pinker does not make comparisons as
such, rather he challenges the notion of the Nobel Savage - an enlightenment
notion championed by Rousseau which suggested that primitive man is morally
superior to civilized man.
Here is an extract from Chapter 1, where he outlines the issue:
The concept of the noble savage was inspired by European colonists'
discovery of indigenous peoples in the Americas, Africa, and (later)
Oceania. It captures the belief that humans in their natural state are
selfless, peaceable, and untroubled, and that blights such as greed,
anxiety, and violence are the products of civilization. In 1755 Rousseau
wrote:
So many authors have hastily concluded that man is naturally cruel, and
requires a regular system of police to be reclaimed; whereas nothing can be
more gentle than him in his primitive state, when placed by nature at an
equal distance from the stupidity of brutes and the pernicious good sense of
civilized man. . . .
The more we reflect on this state, the more convinced we shall be that it
was the least subject of any to revolutions, the best for man, and that
nothing could have drawn him out of it but some fatal accident, which, for
the public good, should never have happened. The example of the savages,
most of whom have been found in this condition, seems to confirm that
mankind was formed ever to remain in it, that this condition is the real
youth of the world, and that all ulterior improvements have been so many
steps, in appearance towards the perfection of individuals, but in fact
towards the decrepitness of the species.
First among the authors that Rousseau had in mind was Thomas Hobbes
(1588-1679), who had presented a very different picture:
Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power
to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and
such a war as is of every man against every man. . . .
In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof
is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor
use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building;
no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no
knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters;
no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent
death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Hobbes believed that people could escape this hellish existence only by
surrendering their autonomy to a sovereign person or assembly. He called it
a leviathan, the Hebrew word for a monstrous sea creature subdued by Yahweh
at the dawn of creation.
Much depends on which of these armchair anthropologists is correct. If
people are noble savages, then a domineering leviathan is unnecessary.
Indeed, by forcing people to delineate private property for the state to
recognize-property they might otherwise have shared-the leviathan creates
the very greed and belligerence it is designed to control. A happy society
would be our birthright; all we would need to do is eliminate the
institutional barriers that keep it from us. If, in contrast, people are
naturally nasty, the best we can hope for is an uneasy truce enforced by
police and the army. The two theories have implications for private life as
well. Every child is born a savage (that is, uncivilized), so if savages are
naturally gentle, childrearing is a matter of providing children with
opportunities to develop their potential, and evil people are products of a
society that has corrupted them. If savages are naturally nasty, then
childrearing is an arena of discipline and conflict, and evil people are
showing a dark side that was insufficiently tamed.
The actual writings of philosophers are always more complex than the
theories they come to symbolize in the textbooks. In reality, the views of
Hobbes and Rousseau are not that far apart. Rousseau, like Hobbes, believed
(incorrectly) that savages were solitary, without ties of love or loyalty,
and without any industry or art (and he may have out-Hobbes'd Hobbes in
claiming they did not even have language). Hobbes envisioned-indeed,
literally drew-his leviathan as an embodiment of the collective will, which
was vested in it by a kind of social contract; Rousseau's most famous work
is called The Social Contract, and in it he calls on people to subordinate
their interests to a "general will."
Nonetheless, Hobbes and Rousseau limned contrasting pictures of the state of
nature that have inspired thinkers in the centuries since. No one can fail
to recognize the influence of the doctrine of the Noble Savage in
contemporary consciousness. We see it in the current respect for all things
natural (natural foods, natural medicines, natural childbirth) and the
distrust of the man-made, the unfashionability of authoritarian styles of
childrearing and education, and the understanding of social problems as
repairable defects in our institutions rather than as tragedies inherent to
the human condition.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/ae/books/ch1/1653757
---- Later he presents sound arguments that the idea of the Nobel Savage is deeply flawed and that primitive societies across the world are very violent indeed - much more so that "civilized" societies. If anyone has the book, he starts discussing this on page 55 of the paperback (chapter 3) and ends on page 58. One striking graphs shows deaths from warfare in various societies. At the bottom, virtually undetectable is Europe and America in the 20th Century (looks like 1%). The rest are various pre-state (primitive) tribes. The worst are the Jivaro who lose just under 50% of their population to war (picture taken with mobile below). I have no scanner here, so I will scan and post the relevant sections tomorrow if anyone is interested in reading them. Kind regards Jonathan -----Original Message----- From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of Blunderov Sent: 06 October 2003 20:47 To: virus@lucifer.com Subject: RE: virus: Primitive society violence and murder rates. was Re: :The Disciplinary Process of the Church of Virus Jonathan Davis > Sent: 06 October 2003 1850 > Pinker argues persuasively in the "The Blank State" that the idea of the > noble savage is bunk and that primitive societies were (and are) indeed > extremely violent. I will try and post relevant bits later. [Blunderov] I look forward to it with interest. Just to be clear, I don't think anyone is suggesting that savagery is noble exactly. I think the issue is more one of how possible it is to make meaningful comparisons at this remove. I share the Mermaid's suspicion of invoking percentage comparisons to this end. I cannot help but wonder whether a species of category error hasn't crept in unnoticed. The thought strikes me that the statement 'primitive societies were/are more violent than modern ones' is perhaps more of a modern value judgment than it is a clear comparison of two similar things. Best Regards --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l> --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
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