Young Master Smeet
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hud955 ,that's interesting, particularly:
Quote:Ethnographers are now coming to appreciate, for instance, that a great number of apparently warlike encounters between hunter gatherers (not between tribal societies or chiefdoms) are best understood as sophisticated conflict management techniques. Those working with Australian aborigines have noted that spear throwers are trained to be very skilled at missing. They have also noted that many apparently violent encounters between bands are highly ritualised and aimed at avoiding conflict and death rather than expressing it. If death does inadvertently occur, as it can, how then should we view this?That was the sort of encounter I was particularly envisaging. More specifically, say, two immediate return hunting bands are chasing the same mammoth? I think you're right that they aren't going to stand and fight to the last man, and would more likely threaten and try and chase each other off.Likewise what you say about raiding is interesting. I think the key is the definition of war not lying in violence, but in power, specifically the question of imposing ones will upon another.
Lbird,like it or not, the one person on one person infliction of harm occurs, and we need to call this something. We then need to distinguish it fromcollective infliction of harm. We can observe the different behaviour of inflicting harm as an end in itslf, and inflicting harm as a means to an end, and we can then observe inflicting harm as a means to an end involving a third party, this is a logical sequence of different classifications of observable behaviours. I'm not saying one leads to another, that one on one harm in itself leads to collective harm, yes, the causation could be the other way round that collective harming could lead to within group harming. But before we begind theorising we need to distinguish between different behaviours.
Lbird,Well, we can quickly define violence as the infliction of physical harm on one person by another (I am thus excluding verbal violence a priori). We can then add a further layer: the application of harm in order to impose ones will upon another; the application of harm in order to slay.Punching in self defence has the intent of deterring the attacker, so that is imposing your will upon them, for example. I'd suggest the next layer up is imposing harm (including slaying) on one person so as to impose your will upon another person (or persons).This second layer is the context in which we can begin to define warfare. To get to war, we would need a third, to have some notion of collective/group action to inflict harm (or death) in order to influence another person (or persons).
Robbo203 wrote:defined here as systematic large scale and lethal intergroup violence – amongst Paleolithic hunter gatherers – and that the first signs of war only appeared less than 10,000 years ago with the rise of agriculture , sedentism and the state.The problem here is by definition human societies that are not systematically organised are defined out of warfare.Lets take a scenario. Two tribes of humans live near each other, maybe on opposite sides of a big valley. From time to time hunting parties of males (about ten in each) meet.1) they see each other, and both withdraw, avoiding each other;2) or, after some shouting and thrown spears, one party withdraws. Sometimes such encounters lead to injuries, or death
) or, both parties stand and fight, until one party is either slain or driven in pursuit from the field ;4) or, one party ambushes and massacres the other;5) or, one party plans to cross the valley, and attack the encampment of the other.Now, obviously, 5 is what we would undersand as definitely war, it has the intentionality and awareness of the enemy as the Other who must be attacked. But, 2-4 demonstrate to some degrees what many would see as warfare, even if the engagements come about by happenstance.Now, we know from ancient warfare that the prominant mode was one on one combat, and so chances are in these encounters as bands what would be seen would be the biggest and mopst agressive males would engage while their mates stood by (this is a theory, that's as good as any other) rather than fighting as a co-ordinated unit.The problem is, such encounters would constitute war, and would lave no record in the archaeology.Vin,there might be no logic, we could just be bored: but you're right, it would have to be decided democratically to have a war.Second warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.
PGB,
Quote:Your "material bases" are not causes of the war involving ISIS et al, they are not what the war is about, they are not what drives the militants to fight and kill. From what I can see it is religious faith.Their subjective intentions are irrelevent, the conditions (and especially the material surplus/oil) are what give rise to the fighting. Those conditions include the existence of human coalitions, which will be built by whatever means necessary. Furtehr, the commanders at the top are required to make rational choices regarding acquiring wealth that apply, irresopective of whetehr they are sincere in their religious beliefs. BTW, as we've seen from the presence of copies of Qu'ran for Dummies with jihadists, there is little theological understanding among them, what is more important is the self image of taking part in a cause, and a feeling of belonging to one coalition/group or another. Robbo203,We might have a war just because we fancy it, for no reason. taht's freedom, see?First warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.
Well, it's not about what we want, it's about what we need. Ultimately, without pencils and papers religious obscurantists can't produce their tracts, still less without food. In terms of military competition, the warlord who forsakes material gains will be outcompeted by the one who has bought the bigger and better guns.
There's no reason it can't start with the religious impulses, but if these murder gangs don't get some money, they disintegrate, in the final analysis the econonomics wins (that was kind of the point I was making in the last paragraph). None of this contradicts basic matyerialism, since to have the idea takes time and human behaviour; but all ideas come back to the real world and human action within it.
I've not listened in, but it is clear that thisis getting Labour types out in force to pulverise the Greens, so it's instructive to see how social media is being used by the big guns.
In terms of ISIS (and Boko Haram) and some of the similar armies that have blighted the world, we can point to distinct material bases.1) Acces to a raw material/resource which can be sold for ready cash (oil, diamonds, minerals, etc.)2) Access to a local population to kidnap/recruit killers from.3) A unifying idea which can be used for coalition building (language, culture, religion)4) Sex (and rape, sadly) are often used to bond these armies.5) Geopolitical interference (in the case of ISIS Gulf leaders and a few wealthy Saudis are clearly lending support).The horrific point of these roving militias is they don't need labour, they only need fighters: they appropriate surplus directly (so they cannot really be called capitalist).The role of ideology is that it provides a line of communication, and helps bind together a force made possible by the appropriation of surplus/material product.I was only half joking about sports colours, as the Nika riots demonstrate:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots(but, even there, there were lines of patronage and political power at stake as well).Religion can play and important, and desive role in events, but must *ultimately* come back to the material conditions (for example one of these roving murder gangs could be taken over by a leader with a different set of ideas, who would exploit the same economic resources).
Robbo203,Wars within capitalism are fought within the constraints of capital and commodity relations, but once we are freed from economic constraints, and enter the realm of freedom, then we may choose to fight wars for other than economic reasons, who knows? That has no bearing on the decision to become free, though.
A quick dig around for Mark W Allen this linkSome pages are redacted (google books action) but the basic point on a skim does seem to be as made here, mobile bands were least violent, and going up the scale of complexity and population density does seem to suggest more violence. haven't time for more than a skim, but hope that helps.
Alan,you mean you don't hav the Latin for the Judging exams?http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Fringe#Peter_Cook
The interesting question is whether they'll be able to drive forward with free electricity, healthcare, susbidised food and an end to evictions. These are 'cheap' measures, tha leave the basic system intact, but do seem to rely on non-commodity relations.
Robbo203
Quote:And if people are naturally warlike – that is to say, if wars will occur again and again regardless of the kind of society we live in – then socialism must be considered dead in the water. I do not imagine for one moment, YMS, you seriously think we could or would divide the world up in socialism and engage in wars with each other. How do you imagine a socialist society could survive for one second if this was true.Socialism provides according to need, if we need war, we'll organise one, its perfectly conceivable that ritualised lethal warfare could be compatible with common democratic ownership of the means of production. Unlikely, but who knows?
