[LBird]

stuartw2112 wrote:

So LB's remarks are relevant to the discussion.

I'm happy enough that you've acknowledged this, stuart.As to the rest of your 'advice' to me, I'll leave it to the other readers to discern the ideological roots of such 'advice'.I clearly don't share them with you!

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

We all know people are naturally capable of both grotesque violence as well as incredible kindness.  The much more interesting question is what causes them to behave in one way or another.

[my bold]This is a contradictory statement, robbo.If something is 'natural', then that is the cause of the 'behavour'.But if 'behaviour' can be different ('one way or another'), then it's not 'natural'.Unless one clarifies what one means by 'naturally' and 'behave', and discusses 'causation', then this thread will remain confused.At the root of these issues, about nature, behaviour and causes, is an ideological viewpoint.Robbo, it's clear to me that stuart, for example, does not share my ideological viewpoint, and I'm still unsure of yours and YMS's, because you wrote the ideologically confused statement above, and refuse to discuss the ideological underpinnings of all the works of the anthropologists that you've quoted.As you've started to point out, though, the issues of 'what is a hunter-gatherer society?' (eg. 'bands' or 'tribes') and 'violence' (something done by a biological individual (eg. 'a person pulling a trigger') or something done by a society (eg. 'a soldier pulling a trigger'), are all relevent.There are no simple 'facts' which are 'out there', waiting to be 'discovered'.Different anthropologists will choose different facts to suit their own ideological purposes and own ideological frameworks, and it would be more helpful for those comrades wanting to understand 'hunter-gatherers' to be clear from the start about the political context of any 'text' or 'research'.Stuart might think that this is all 'pointless', but that in itself is an ideological attitude, not simply stuart's 'personal opinion'. stuart has been influenced by a society that stresses 'facts' as being more reliable than 'mere opinion'. 'Money and matter' are hard, unlike 'value and relationships'.The beginning of wisdom, though, is starting to realise that all 'facts' reflect the 'opinion' of the researcher. Carr's What is History? would be relevent reading here, for those comrades who do realise that simplying looking for the 'facts of anthropology' is the really pointless activity. Stuart will remain the prisoner of the framework of the last anthropologist that they read.

[LBird]

stuart2112 wrote:

…a mostly pointless debate …

stuart2112 wrote:

…the merest introspection would reveal that human beings are naturally capable of and indeed delight in the most grotesque violence and stupidity…

[my bolds]I wonder who contributes to this site.The longer I read, the more I feel alienated from what's being written.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

I'm going to regret this: but isn't ideology intrinsic (inherent) in the utterence?  i.e. don't we address ideology by dealing with the expressed ideas, rather than seeking an additional text in the formal account of the utterances conditions?

I'd simply ask, YMS, why you and robbo keep using the loaded term 'individuals'.Why use an ideological term so closely connected to the bourgeoisie?Why draw parallels between 'individuals' who live in very different societies, which is also a method used as an ideological justification for 'what exists, now' by showing the alleged 'similarities' with 'what existed, then'?If neither you nor robbo share neither ideology nor method with the bourgeoisie (as you both say that you don't), why employ the ideology of 'individuals' and the comparative method of 'sameness'.Especially as the 'individuality' being expressed is one of 'biological traits' ('that we all share, after all, we're all humans, we individuals', implying bosses and workers, being 'human' should look to their similarities), rather than emphasise the contrast and vast differences between societies and their production methods.What's the fascination with 'individuals', for alleged socialists?Do you think that it's just pure coincidence that you've grown up in a bourgeois society, and you constantly talk about 'individuals'? And their 'freedom' and 'free association', etc.I don't think that it's pure coincidence, comrades.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

Another misrepresentation. I have constantly pointed out that its a two way thing, not a one way thing.  If you only see me talking about individuals that is because you have probably subconsciously blocked out the other side of the equation which I have also stressed – because it suits you to do so.

Right, 'two-way'. I get it. I've 'subconsciously blocked out'.

robbo203 wrote:

…he or she has no sense of self awareness, has  no feelings of anger , rage , happiness , jealousy , sadness or love.

Err… 'one-way'. No socio-economic context, or power relationships, just 'individual feelings'. The eternal, universal 'biology' of humans.

robbo203 wrote:

I repeat my position is neither an individualistic one nor a  holistic one but an intermediate one. Kindly stop misrepresenting me!

There's nothing 'intermediate' in your statements, robbo.I'm not 'misrepresenting' you, merely reading what you write, and drawing ideological conclusions based upon your words, about your ideology.You're the one who sees similarities between 'individual' hunter-gatherers and 'individual' proletarians, based upon biology. If anyone is 'subconsciously blocking out', it's you.You don't locate 'hunter-gatherers' within their society, and contrast them with 'proletarians' within their society, which is necessary because the two sets of 'individuals' [sic] live in very different societies.When I point out that this 'comparing' of asocial and ahistoric 'individuals' is an ideological approach to anthropology, and point out that both you and many 'anthropologists' share this ideology, and contrast it to, for example, Marx's notions of 'modes of production', you don't like it.I'm not misrepresenting you, robbo. Or indeed YMS.For example, I'd compare/contrast 'hunter-gatherers' with 'workers', and openly state that my basis of this act was my Communism.I want to know, for example, Pinker's ideology. Or the political ideology of the other anthropologists mentioned earlier.My method doesn't allow the simple quoting of 'authorities' and their 'facts', and their being taken at 'face value'.Any critical approach to anthropology must involve a critical view of anthropologists. Especially their ideological starting point. And ours.

[LBird]

Y'know, robbo, it'd be great to have an informed discussion on this site about any subject.

robbo203 wrote:

I can't speak for anyone else  but my own ideology as I have several times pointed is one of libertarian communism in which individuals and society are seen as interdependent terms and meaningless without the other.

If I take this statement at face value, I'm left wondering why all your contributions, to every subject we've encountered, are about 'individuals', and none of them are about the 'society' within which those individuals find themselves.If they are so 'interdependent' and 'meaningless without each other' (and I agree with you about that), why the constant, exclusive, emphasis on 'individuals'? As for example, your talk of 'self-consciousness', outside of any historical and social context, which does in fact make it 'meaningless'.I can only draw the conclusion that, for you, 'Libertarian Communism' is really 'Individual communism', and you then extract the 'communism' from it, too.This is, as I've said before, what I encountered on LibCom, when I asked similiar questions.This is the source of your dislike of my declarations of 'Democratic Communism', which insists that individuals can only have power through democratic social and political structures. This is nothing to do with 'liberty' or 'freedom', which are individualistic concerns, produced by being socialised in a bourgeois society.I want to see "workers' power" emerge, as a basis for Democratic Communism.These differences in our ideologies are reflected in our views of anthropology, and our understanding of 'hunter-gatherer' societies.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

The hunter gatherer like the modern proletarian has what we call an interior subjective reality: self consciousness. Its something that acquire through a process of socialisation.

Yeah, after a busy day 'hunting and gathering' our wages in the factories and offices, we often stop off at 'The Watering Hole', where we quench our thirst alongside our socio-economic bretheren, the Kalahari Bushmen, where we all marvel at the identity of our 'self-consciousness'.Do us a favour robbo: recognise this ahistorical woffle about 'interior subjective reality' as the nonsense that it is.It's bourgeois ideology, and you're propagating 'ruling class ideas' about anthropology.

[LBird]

Thanks for ignoring any discussion about the political ideologies of any of the authors mentioned.Thanks also for specifically choosing quotes from those unsituated authors about 'individuals', and failing to mention anything to do with the production relationships of their societies.Socialists? Marxists? Don't make me laugh. IPGB, more like.Since none of you seem to like being critically questioned ("ooh, that nasty LBird's mentioning 'ideology', again! Why can't LBird stick to the 'facts' about 'individuals', that those nice non-ideological anthropologists have so kindly provided"), I'll stop 'interfering', and let you get on with it.Why no-one else (leaving aside the, errmm, 'contributors' to this thread, so far) can see what's going on here, politically, is a mystery to me.It's all yours.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Happy, erm, hunting.

And a happy, erm, avoiding difficult ideological questioning, to you, too, YMS!

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

…I recognise that this is also a question of power …

As usual for 'individualists', because you've done some reading, you genuflect to the question of 'power', and note it.But… for you, it plays no part in explaining power relationships within societies in particular historical contexts.You simply revert to asocial and ahistoric 'individuals', who suffer universal 'slights' and make universal 'responses'.You believe that you are an individual, and your activities and beliefs are entirely 'free', and that society should be composed of these 'free individuals'.This is bourgeois thinking, robbo.Unless you situate your 'individuals' in their society (ie. stop talking about 'individuals'), then you won't understand either hunter-gatherer society or our own.I'm a 'worker', by the way, not an 'individual', and power relationships are a part and parcel of my social existence, just as they are yours, and were for 'hunter-gatherers'.And as they are for anthropologists, and all scientists…

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

Or does your mystic holism rule this out as being at all  possible?

You hide your ideology, yet pretend to know mine.I've openly said that I'm a Democratic Communist, but you can't accept that, and 'slight' me as a 'mystic holist', whatever that is.I think that your ideological individualism compels you to regard any 'social' limits upon 'individual free will' as 'holist'. The 'mysticism' is frankly just abuse, which you turn to whenever you can't (and won't) answer a question relevent to this discussion, about your ideology.Or perhaps your regard 'democracy' as the 'mysticism'?'Individuals' won't stand for 'democratic' social controls on their 'own' behaviour, will they, robbo? So, it becomes a 'myth'.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

Hunter gatherers, on the other hand, had the freedom to roam where they wished and to break away from the group whenever they wished.  They lived in egalitarian societies  in which no individual could  expect to slight another and get away with it.

All this stuff about 'freedom to roam' and 'break away from the group' as individuals 'whenever they wished' seems very like bourgeois mythology, from my ideological perspective, robbo.And 'egalitarian societies' aren't necessarily 'free'. A member can be 'equal', but still be hidebound by social rules, mores, customs… from my ideological perspective, they still live within social structures, not least to feed, nurture and protect themselves, which are not 'individual' activities, but social ones.'Slights' and 'responses' are social, too. Members are also in subgroups, like families and kin, and 'slights and responses' would be 'group-based', rather than 'individual-based'.What counts as 'getting away with it'? If a tribal/kin elder tells a younger member to 'drop it' (because of reasons know to the elder, not the 'individual' slighted), then the 'individual' drops it, and the slighter could be seen (by us) to have 'gotten away with it'.

robbo203 wrote:

So to answer your question –  of course, they could be slighted and by all account the slighting of one individuals by another seems to have been an a significant factor in what violence there was in that form of society if the anthropological evidence is to be believed.

Once again, this is just ideological belief, dressed up as 'fact' (your 'of course' denotes this).'Significant'? 'Evidence'? 'Belief'?From what perspective, robbo?Why won't you reveal your 'position of observation'? Or do you 'believe' that there is 'objective position' in the universe? Who tells you this? That 'individual position' is acceptable, and that 'individual actions' are 'significant factors'? What is 'violence'?

[LBird]

Let's be frank.Anthropologists who are in favour of 'private property' in their society want to see this as based in 'human nature'. Thus, any forms of 'human nature' (such as 'violence' or 'conflict') which appear to be 'transhistoric', are 'discovered' as pointing to support for an ahistoric account of 'private property'.On the reverse side, anthropologists opposed to 'human nature' arguments will use definitions of 'violence' or 'conflict' which are themselves social and historic, and so these terms can't simply be transferred from 'the past' to 'now'.I'm simply saying that for any comrades who are reading, but are not aware of the ideological basis to all science, should try to discover the ideological foundations of Pinker, YMS, robbo, me, and any other authors later quoted, or any comrades who later contribute to the thread.

robbo203 wrote:

…they saw themselves as individuals who could be slighted and wronged and so able to respond accordingly…

Comrades will note robbo's ideological stress upon 'individuals' being 'slighted or wronged' and responding 'accordingly'.I think this requires an examination of what counts as 'slights and wrongs', and why, and who determines, and what counts as 'accordingly', and why, and who detemines.For example, what evidence of a 'slight' exists in the 'material record'? Or is robbo making assumptions about 'individuals' in our society, and assuming that 'individuals' in other societies recognise and react to 'slights' in a similar way (based upon, say, 'human nature'?).If 'slighting and reactions' are ahistoric, why didn't slaves respond to slights from their masters, but overwhelmingly just accepted them? As too for unresponsive serfs and their lords?Can a 'hunter-gatherer' be slighted, as an individual? If they can, must they respond accordingly?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

The conclusion (all I had time to look at) was that if you define war as "socially sanctioned violence against another polity" (I think that was teh formula) then war has always been with us, including among hunter gatherers, however, if you don't take on that definition, and become stricter in your definition of war, then it hasn't been.

[my bold]So, one's definition (which will emerge from one's paradigm/ideology/perspective/metaphysics/research programme) will determine one's conclusion.Surprise, surprise.That is simply the scientific method.It applies as much to physics as to anthropology.What counts as a 'fact' is determined by one's theory. 'Facts' do not present themselves to us unbidden. The same applies to 'matter' or 'material conditions'.This subject (a very interesting one for all socialists, I would've thought) requires, for a proper, enlightening discussion, that we expose both the 'theories' of any authors that are referred to, and also our own 'theories'.For example, whether one's definition of 'individual' is biological (and so transcends history and society, and thus one can discuss 'individuals' and their own actions without reference to the place of that 'individual'), or whether one's definition of 'individual' is ideological (and so is embedded in history and society, and thus one can't discuss 'individuals' and their actions without reference to their time).I'll be explicit: my definition of 'individual' is ideological (I'm a Democratic Communist), so I will regard any talk by authors or posters about 'individuals' as contaminated by bourgeois ideology. I would only refer to 'social-individuals', and situation any action by a hunter-gatherer in a political context.I won't be drawing any ahistoric or asocial lessons about the actions of hunter-gatherers, as having any bearing upon the issues of our society.The searching for anwers to our socio-economic-political problems in the distant past is a fool's errand.This, though, is precisely what many authors do, because all anthropologists are ideologically-driven, and we must take care not to be fooled by their 'scientific' findings.They are scientific, of course, but that is not code for 'true'. Their science is not ours. Their 'theory and practice', upon the source material, will produce different results to our 'theory and practice' upon the very same source material.Source material does not simply talk to us, any more than rocks do.

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Back on topic.There are three main reasons I can think of why censorship is a problem. It fails to tackle problematic areas by hiding them from view, rather than deal with them openly. It is patronising and elitist to assume a role of deciding what people can or can't think and/or decide for themselves on various issues. It is often used to airbrush history, thus altering events and restricting the ability to examine and learn from past events.

This is the key to understanding science, as we now know it to be, since Einstein.One's framework/ideology/perspective/metaphysics/paradigm/research programme censors as much as it reveals, in the three ways you list, SP:It 'hides problematic areas from view';It 'decides what people can or can't think for themselves';It 'airbrushes history, and restricts our abilities to learn'.Hence, the necessity to expose one's own 'censorship program', to try to illuminate it for oneself as much as for others.Whilst we pretend to stick with 19th century science (objective and material), we pretend not to censor. The 'Truth' is alleged to be final, eternal, and beyond criticism. But we now know that 'truth' is a social and historical product. The production of 'truth' requires censorship.To think is to censor. The lesson of the 20th century philosophy of science.And it's now the 21st century, comrades…

[Author]

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