Escaping from Bullshit

In my first commentary I posted some videos which can be used to accompany some of the archeological sites discussed in their text. And in their book there are many insightful discussions of various topics. The most important, I think, which the authors emphasize, is that Neolithic humans were just as intelligent and resourceful as we are. And I would add that they — as do present hunter-gatherers — had the kind of working knowledge of resources, fabrications skills, and foraging skills which we city-dwellers can only read and dream about in reference materials.

The other thing which caught my attention was their focus on a concept attributed to Gregory Bateson: “schismogenesis.” This is the tendency of groups to differentiate themselves from other groups. This explains the persistence of groups to identify themselves in their cuisine, clothes, music, traditions, history, and such. And this may be done with a sacrifice in efficiency or what we may call progress.

And I could go on finding all sorts of things to praise in the book. But I, first, want to unburden myself of the criticisms which are festering in my mind.

The first criticism has to do with the origin of the State. This is discussed in Chapter 10: Why the State Has No Origin. Although the authors recognize the definition of a State as “the institution that claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of coercive force within a given territory . . .” p.359 and they recognize that our planet is divided into States; yet, they are waffling about origins. And they are waffling because they did not come to terms with Franz Oppenheimer’s book, The State (1914) — a book which is absent in their bibliography, as is also the book of ethnographical material on which it is based, The History of Mankind (1898) by Friedrich Ratzel. Oppenheimer has a six-stage scenario for the development of our States; whereas our authors speak at best only about tribal chiefs and kings — though they do acknowledge that Aztec and Inca Empires were States.

See also my blogs:

Origins of the State — by Conquest

Origins of the State, Land and Population

Karl Popper on the Origin of the State

The authors should be talking about forms of coercion, instead they talk about forms of (their word) “dominance.” I would not use this misleading word. I would instead talk about forms of deference because of some talent or trait which some individuals possess; such as leadership in hunting or warfare, esoteric knowledge of the supernatural, or some charismatic trait or wisdom which is honored by consultation and some set of privileges.

The second criticism has to do with slavery which they discuss in Chapter 5: Many Seasons Ago. Again they are waffling about this because they did not come to terms with Herman Nieboer’s Slavery as an Industrial System (1910). They mention him and the book in footnote 54, p. 558, but make no use of his extensive study of slavery among “primitive” people around the world.

The third criticism has to do with Rousseau. They focus on Rousseau’s essay: “A discourse on the origin of inequality,” as if that was Rousseau’s main concern. It was not. The essay was written for a competition for a prize inaugerated by the Academy of Dijon on a topic of inequality — chosen by the society. Rousseau’s own question was formulated by him in the Social Contract as:

“Man is born free; and everywhere he is chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer.”

Three comments.

(1) He is expressing a concern with freedom; not equality. Whereas the authors start and end their book with the elliptical issue of equality. It is elliptical because equality has to be followed by a specification of some respect.

(2) In view of “political correctness” which if violated in France was a punishable crime, Rousseau meekly pleaded ignorance about the source of unfreedom. Whereas Hume in England had flatly answered that the State came about by conquest. Are we to believe Rousseau that he did not know this? But even though he tried to tip-toe around censorship, he still had to flee from Geneva and France for having published his restrained work. (Remember Galileo? He too tried to tiptoe around the Inquisition by publishing a supposedly imagined dialogue, but they got him and forced him to recant, gagged him, and put him under — what we would today call — house arrest.)

(3) Rousseau’s answer about legitimacy does not seem to concern the authors because it is of the nature of a theory and proposal.

See also my blogs:

The Social Contract Refurbished

Land and Liberty

One last thing about Rousseau. The authors approach Rousseau indirectly by focusing on the work of the Frenchman Lahontas in whose work there is a dialogue with the Wendat (Huron) chief, Kandiaronk, who criticized European society. It is presumed by the authors that Rousseau knew this work, which he may not have. But there is no need to be so specific. There were all sorts of reports and travelogues about the New World, and Rousseau does mention the work of Francois Coreal (1648-1708) [Voyages de Francois Coreal aux Indes Occidentales contenant ce qu’il y a vû de plus remarquable pendant son séjour depuis 1666 jusqu’en 1697…..avec une relation de la Guiane de Walter Raleigh & le voyage de Narborough a la mer du Sud par le Detroit de Magellan, &c. Paris: Andres Cailieau, 1722. (2 vols.)] .

But aside from these criticisms, there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from The Dawn of Everything.

A few days ago I purchased the new book by David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Everything, 2021. Graeber was an anthropologist while Wengrow is an archeologist. And, for me, the book is a revelation of what foragers (hunter/gatherers) have done as revealed by the archeological findings. It is also a book which denies the prevalent narrative that agricultural activity and even the formation of “cities” required a State. In other words, the book argues that much can be accomplished democratically (anarchistically) without a State.

Below is an interview with David Wengrow on Democracy Now! in which he introduces the book:

I am still in the process of reading the book. I have read most of it so far by jumping all over the place. It is over 600 pages long. But I have read enough so far so that I can discern things which I have learned and appreciate, and the things about which I have criticisms, which I will talk about in the future.

As an amateur in most things, to appreciate this book I had to brush-up on how periods of time are named. The Greek word for “stone” is “lithos,” and since the earliest surviving tools of man were made of stone, that period is knows as the Stone Age, which archeologists divides into Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), and Neolithic (New Stone Age). Based on the kind of material used for tools, the next Age is the Copper Age (Chalcolithic) c. 5000 BC, then the Bronze c. 4000 – 3000 BC, then the Iron Age c. 1200 BC, and the Modern Age, which begins with written records c. 3000 BC. All these periods vary relative to different places.

In this blog I have arranged for you some videos about some of the archeological findings attributed to foragers discussed in the book (in no particular order).

Along the Mississippi Valley there are all sorts of earthen mounds. Among these the outstanding one is at Poverty Point in Louisiana. Below is one video, among many, about Poverty Point.

In Japan, archeologists are studying what they call the “jomon” period from around 1400 to 300 BC. Here is a video of the remarkable find at Sannai Maruyama.

In Ukraine there are “mega-sites” belonging to the “Cucuteni-Tripolye” culture.

The city of Teotihuacan in Mexico is a mystery because it has no evidence of royalty in either buildings or in depictions.

Çatalhöyük: a 9000 year old town in Turkey – Ian Hodder (Stanford University)

Astonishing Revelations at ‘Oldest Temple on Earth’ — Gobekli Tepe

The Mammoth Bone Huts of Mezhirich

In Finnland there are “Giants’ Churches” — Jatinkirkko

Shigir Idol found by a lake in the Ural Mountains

The Calusa of Florida

Introduction to the Indus Valley Civilization

What is it to refurbish some item? Using my computer as an example of refurbishment, I did the following with my computer. The computer’s power supply failed; I replaced it with a 500w Termaltake. I had 2GB of memory; I upgrade to 8GB. My operating system was on a Hard Disk; I switched to an 240 GB Solid State Drive (SSD). In other words, to refurbish is to replace failed parts and to enhance or upgrade other parts.

Instead of starting with some imagined state of nature, I want to start with evolutionary theory and anthropology. From evolutionary theory humans have evolved from some common ancestor with chimps. And since chimps are social so were our ancestors. Moreover, human languages are social products and reflect — to use Wittgenstein’S phrase — a form of life.

Reflecting on anthropological findings, it is reasonable to generalize that humans are tribal animals. As such, they have always lived in a rule-guided manner, which are called customs and mores. And from an external perspective tribal life can be characterized by conformity. If we wish, we can characterize this conformity as tacit or implicit consent. Karl Popper called this state of affairs “tribalism” in a disparaging manner because this form of life, he thought, did not allow for pluralism and criticism. This may very well be true about particular matters, such as religion. But I am sure that there must have been some disagreements about where to go foraging or modes of hunting and with which tools or weapons, and which person was worthy of consultation, or even about which plants to avoid as poisonous or unhealthy.

John Locke, as everyone else, agrees that the primary concern of a normal human being is self-preservation. And self-preservation is better secured within a group. And what preserves life is air, water, food, temperature, and shelter. And as Rousseau put it, whoever wills an end; wills the means. And the means to satisfy the above needs is access to subsistence territory. So, if we wish to use such language, there is a tacit agreement that everyone in the tribe is allowed (is permitted, has a right) to access this subsistence territory. John Locke also stresses the rule that everyone is permitted to take from nature whatever one needs as long as there is as much left for everyone else. But, appealing to anthropological finding, not only is this permitted (a right), but there also prevail customs of gift giving and sharing (or, as Kropotkin put it: “mutual aid.”)

As to interpersonal conduct or morals, intratribal conduct can be summarized by the Christian rule: do unto others as you would them do unto you. Tribes live not merely by a negative rule: No person x is allowed to harm another person y (except for self-defense or the defense of others), but also by a positive rule to be of help to others.

What I have said above captures the meaning of what Rousseau means by a General Will. If the people of a tribe were asked to vote whether all the above is acceptable, they would agree. And such a vote would be the Will of All. The General Will is the set of necessary conditions for the preservation of human life in a social context. But this necessity is a factual matter; not a matter of choice and voting.

In summary, in a previous blog, I described primitive tribes by three characteristics: Anarchism, Socialism, and Communism.

The historical purpose of an appeal to a Social Contract is to justify or legitimize a State. Here the matter was muddled by an ambiguous use of the word “government.” In the sense of appealing to authorities for guidance and decision making, tribes resort to different procedures and persons. So, in this sense they are governed.

But States have a different form of government which is historically, for the most part, centralized in a single individual — though Rome and Sparta vested power in two individuals. So, historically, the Social Contract was a juridical fiction for justifying monarchy.

So, we can view a social contract theory in the following manner. If a State of any sort is to be justified then it would have to arise from the common consent of all the members.

But, in fact, all States are illegitimate because none of them arose by a Social Contract, as David Hume pointed out. States arose by conquest, by force; not by free consent. This is the sociological theory of the State as argued for by Franz Oppenheimer in his book, The State.

In a previous blog, Bertrand Russell’s bullshit interpretation of Jean Jacques Rousseau, I expressed puzzlement how it is possible to claim that Hitler is the outcome of Rousseau.

Here I want to introduce a different puzzle.

Consider the following passages, and footnotes in D. G. Ritchie, “Chapter 7. Contributions to the History of the Social Contract Theory,” in Darwin and Hegel with Other Philosophical Studies (1893), (pp. 196-226); p. 206:

As we have seen, Locke quotes King James I. about the “paction” between king and people; but the original compact on which he basis civil government is, just as with Hobbes and with Rousseau, a compact between individual and individual, not between king (or whatever else may be the government) and people.

“Whosoever [he says] out of a state of nature unite into a community must be understood to give up all the power necessary to the ends for which they unite into society, to the majority of the community, unless they expressly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals that enter into or make up a commonwealth.”²[2 Treatise of Civil Government, II., § 99. In a footnote in the English translation of Bluntschli’s Theory of the State (Oxford, 1885), p. 276 — a footnote for which I am responsible — I followed the usual fashion of contrasting Locke and Rousseau. Further study of Locke has convinced me that there is no essential difference between them in this matter. The error has been avoided in the second edition (1892); see p. 294.”

Later, pp. 215-216, Ritchie writes:

Milton’s own theory is expounded earlier in his treatise :

“ No man who knows aught can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance of God Himself, and were, by privilege above all creatures, born to command and not to obey; and that they lived so, till from the root of Adam’s transgression falling among themselves to do. wrong and violence, and foreseeing that such courses must needs tend to the destruction of them all, they agreed by common league to bind each other from mutual injury and jointly to defend themselves against any that gave disturbance or opposition to such agreement. . . . The power of kings and magistrates is only derivative, transferred and committed to them in trust from the people to the common good of them all, to whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them without a violation of their natural birthright.”¹ [1 For the term “birthright” in this connection, cf. Clarke Papers, pp. lc, lxi., 322-325.]

This is precisely Locke’s theory; expressed in Milton’s impassioned language, it reveals its identity with the theory of Rousseau. Milton, like Locke, gives the theory a setting of Biblical history. Remove this setting, and we have the theory as it appears in Rousseau.

Ok, you may ask “What’s your point?”

My point is that according to Ritchie, the positions of Locke and Rousseau (as concerns the main points) are the same. But Russell wrote: “Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau; Roosevelt and Churchill of Locke.”

So, evidently Russell must be in disagreement with Ritchie that the positions of Locke and Rousseau (as concerns the main points) are the same. Who is right?

If Ritchie is right, then Russell’s position becomes that Hitler, Roosevelt, and Churchill are the outcome of Locke/Rousseau.

My own position is that it is not clear to me what it means to say that x is the outcome of y; i.e., understood as x’s views are the outcome of y’s views.