Us vs. Them
by Mike GodeskyIn my short time on this little globe I’ve had the good fortune to meet a wide variety of people. Male and female. Rich and poor. Gay and straight. White, black, and Asian. Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, pantheist, and Wiccan. Geeks, jocks, punks, stoners, and pot-smoking hippies. Everyone from the most scholarly intellectuals to the most closed-minded bigots. From the most Communist of liberals to the most fascist of conservatives. And while I have not been what one would call “friends” with all of these people, I have been able to have mostly pleasant interactions with each of them. No matter how much we may have fought or disagreed, they have all, in some way, been my teachers. And probably the most important lesson they had to teach me was to pity the poor fool who thinks he has nothing to learn from any of them.
I bring this up because I spend a great deal of time perusing the internet, looking not so much for specific posts by particular individuals as I do for general trends. In reading through various posts on a number of websites from those who identify themselves with the so-called “New Tribal Revolution,” I have noted one particular trend that I find disturbing. One that may, in fact, exist only in my fevered imagination. But I will share it with you nonetheless. Not as an attack on the movement itself, but as someone who wants to see it succeed and is concerned about the direction in which it is going.
There seems to be in many of these posts a distinct “us vs. them” mentality. And this is a mentality that leads to a certain amount of hubris when dealing with individuals who do not whole-heartedly accept their New Tribal philosophy. On certain message boards, I have seen people who work regular jobs, who support particular aspects of civilized society, who merely question the reasoning of other members’ arguments referred to as sheep. As cattle. As slaves. They’ve been accused of being willfully ignorant. Of being solely responsible for the death of the planet. Of being selfish and gluttonous.
And in making such exaggerated claims, these more extreme parts of the community are able to safely shield themselves from any sense of involvement with or responsibility for the goings-on of the rest of civilized society. We’re the ones with all the answers. It’s not our problem. It’s their problem.
I suppose as much is to be expected in any such group. I have mentioned before on this site that any group requires its members to think of themselves as basically similar in some essential way in order to continue being a group. Thus, any group that is based largely around beliefs, as the groups in question tend to be, will have the problem of members who take the defense of those beliefs to unwarranted extremes. It is why the Christians have evangelicals. It is why liberals have Communists. And it is why the New Tribal Revolution has this particular issue.
However, this may be a problem that is even more damaging for our little community. In part, because it discourages potential newcomers from listening to what we have to say. In part, because no one likes people who are smug and think they know it all. But mostly because what we’re talking about very much is our problem. All of ours.
One might complain about those evil civilized folks who are destroying the planet. But who are those people really? Isn’t “civilization” a category to which the majority, if not the entirety, of us belong? There are not terribly many “tribal” cultures left. And those that do still exist probably are not spending a lot of time on the internet.
And then there is the issue of a potential global collapse. Collapse is not merely a matter of separating the weeds from the wheat. Unlike a religious apocalyptic scenario such as the Rapture, those who profess a New Tribal philosophy will not be spared solely because they’ve been good. A global collapse would effect everyone. And while those who recognize and prepare for the worst by honing their survival skills give themselves a better chance of success than others, this is no guarantee that they will not also suffer and, quite possibly, die in such an event. There is no golden ticket to salvation.
Finally, solutions to problems are best found when a wide range of voices are heard. As the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. Those inside the community already know that they are in relative agreement with one another. But it’s been my experience in studying various philosophies that the only truth there is to be found is that every philosopher is, in one respect or another, wrong. Keeping an open mind in the face of differing points of view, even those that may be radically divergent from one’s own, is the only way to put the theories we have to the test. Or, to quote the short-lived television show Sports Night, “If you’re dumb, surround yourself with smart people. And if you’re smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.”
Such suggestions may be in vain, however, as the moderates to whom such warnings do not apply are likely to calmly contemplate these thoughts while the more extreme elements of the community will no doubt scoff at me for being a slavemaster and a planet-killer. But I would hope that we could at least consider the possibilities. That by ourselves, we may not have all the answers. That wisdom is often found in the most unlikely places. And that in matters such as these, there is no them. There is only us.
Great post Mike.
I think that the trend of militant tribalism does indeed exist. Which, to me, is a problem, insomuch as the whole idea is No One Right Way to Live. I have remarked on Ishcon that freedom works both ways, but this usually doesn’t go farther than my initial post.
I say, they want to be communist over there, awesome. I’ll stay over here and be a gun crazy satanist with my gun crazy satanic friends. but to some that it is not “good” enough that we have solar powered eco-friendly houses and no cars, no, we gotta be communists too.
but you are totally right, every sect (or whatever you want to call a grouping of people) has those members who are so ideologically rigid that they cannot even stand to hear another viewpoint.
Kepp up the good work, Mike
Comment by Rory — 12 April 2006 @ 4:51 PM
“solutions to problems are best found when a wide range of voices are heard”
How true. I have gotten more criticism for getting along with just about anyone. There are always surprises, no matter who it is. Something can be learned from the most ignorant and something can be easily missed from the most brilliant. Although it can take patience, it is always worth at least listening. At the same time, persistence is key when nobody is listening to yourself. We hear and speak in our own ways (as if with our own personal language) and it sometimes takes repetition and different perspectives to attain or disseminate knowledge.
Comment by -Sean. — 12 April 2006 @ 5:16 PM
aren’t you pulling an us vs. them yourself by writing about us vs. them?
Comment by Anonymous — 12 April 2006 @ 9:45 PM
“…
…
And that in matters such as these, there is no them. There is only us.”
Hear! Hear!
A good post i hink also.
A similar but not the same saying that i have made is:
“There is ultimately really no such thing as leaders, only followers!” - I need not explain why this makes sense.
Jase
Comment by Jase — 12 April 2006 @ 10:43 PM
Dude. You just blew my mind.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 12 April 2006 @ 11:32 PM
I believe that ideologies, and thus ideological fights, are an aspect of Civilization; a sign of alienation from the reality in front of you, and have no place in a tribal context. Tribalism is not an ideology to be preached; you either live it or talk about it.
When we finally are there, we need no abstractions, we sit around the fire and sort things out. If two of us have a fight, noone is deported, it’s just a fight and nothing more. Life is much bigger. And if the fight is large, it’s not a question of “who is right”, it’s a question of “the tribe has a problem, it concerns us all”. After all, survival is the main thing.
Sorry if I offend anyone, I’m not there either. Just speculating.
Comment by solitaire — 13 April 2006 @ 6:45 AM
And if the question being fought over is how to survive in the best way, there is no need to fight, because for everyone it is more important to survive in the best way than to be right.
Comment by solitaire — 13 April 2006 @ 8:59 AM
Mike–
Thank you for writing this.
Steve
Comment by Steve Thomas — 13 April 2006 @ 11:06 AM
Everyone from the most scholarly intellectuals to the most closed-minded bigots.
I don’t think these two are mutually exclusive.
Comment by M — 13 April 2006 @ 12:39 PM
I’ve read a few threads through, not the whole brouhaha, but enough to get the impression that the ultimate sin committed here was the betrayal of loyalty. Loyalty is unconditional obedience and therefore it’s understandable that it would hold the highest value in a patriarchal system. I’d hypothesize that the us vs them dichotomy originated with and is a defining characteristic of patriarchy.
With that as a preamble I’d like to ask for opinions on how tribal loyalty compares to ethnic identity, and whether it is inevitable that both of these would prove dysfunctional with respect to the whole.
Comment by ov — 13 April 2006 @ 1:03 PM
Hey –
I think the question of trust and loyalty is going to become an important theme as Anthropik as well as concerned friends/family/other tribal groups move forward.
In our behemoth civilization, NOTHING is harder to come by than trust. Every systemic property of hierarchal society creates mechanisms that serve to prohibit trust between individuals — from Prisoner’s Dilemma to Capitalism to Familial Structures. How many times have we heard that someone that trusts first and questions later is anything from ‘naive’ to ‘foolish’ to ‘utterly incompetant.’ Very rarely does anyone ever get anything positive out of trusting another individual. Certainly it can happen, but I’m sure every single one of us has been burned at some time — assuming that we have even taken the first step and not only tried but succeeding in trusting someone.
By comparison, egalitarian, small group structures systemically reward trust between members.
The big question becomes, how do we embrace trust, coming as we do from this culture?
I believe that real trust is a multi-stepped process. First, you choose to trust someone. That is (relatively) easy, a simple effort of will to ignore the whisperings against doing so.
However, that is only the bare beginning. Once you have decided to trust, before you can honestly say that you DO, you must be faced with a crisis. the person whom you have placed your trust in must do something (say somethings, fail to do or say something) that makes you question the faith you have placed in them. At this point, you must AGAIN choose to trust them. And then it is thier turn. At that point, they may validate your trust or they may betray your trust. (A betrayal of trust need not always be intentional, or malicious — it could be a simple case of honest disagreement and opposing priorities)
Once BOTH participants in a given relationships have had thier trust both TESTED and VALIDATED, then you can honestly say that trust has been achieved. From that point forward (barring mental disorder or damage) trust becomes EASIER than not-trust.
________________
Now, your post, OV, asked about ‘tribal loyalty’ vs ‘ethnic identity’. I, personally, do not think that either of these have much to do with trust. Because trust is always between two people, whereas both tribal loyalty and ethnic identity are between a person and an idea.
Now, in a samll egalitarian ‘tribe’, loyalty to the group as a whole really IS a question of trust — between each individual and each other individual. Note, in the proper environment (IE one that supports trusting relationships) it is ENTIRELY possible to not like someone, but yet to totally trust them. You might not ‘trust them not to tease me’ but you CAN trust them not to bring you harm…
Ethnic Identity, on the other hand, is probably most closely related to Nationalism. And Nationalism is merely a hierarchal replacement for trust. Because you cannot trust every individual in your nation, you instead are asked to trust the IDEA of the group. It is a way to keep large populations moving in the same direction irregardless of thier own best interest (and of course, then FAILS anytime prosperity fails significantly).
______
The last thing (or really the first
) you mentioned was loyalty… and yes, in a nationalistic/ethnic/hierarchal system loyalty is desingated as ‘unquestioned obediance (to authority). But again, when there is no authority, loyalty becomes another way to describe ‘validating trust’…
______
I have avoided commenting on where and how these things occured within the tribe both in this comment and previously.
There is a very simple reason for this. As an outsider, I have no way of knowing whether trust was broken, validation failed or some other completely different scenario. And I believe that even the participants may not REALLY know at this point. Perhaps they do, but as each person will have a different recollection of the events that have occured, it seems non-sensical to me to try and judge the action of people that I know and trust (on the first level — we haven’t been tested yet) when I KNOW that I cannot KNOW what is ‘right’.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 13 April 2006 @ 2:05 PM
Loved your post Janene, well said (written)!
This trust issue is what sometimes causes ’survivalist’ types to spew out bullshit like,
“the only thing I trust is my 870 Remington”
I admit there are some impressive individuals out there, but few that would last long (years), especially with any degree of happiness left. Some view collapse preparation in a manner that truly would be horrific, not only for short-term but forever.
Not too many people can be happy (peace of mind etc.) alone, even if they have food & water.
Comment by Bubba — 13 April 2006 @ 2:22 PM
Steve - Glad you liked it.
ov and Janene - Thought provoking stuff. Good posts. So good that it almost pains me to sully them with filthy administrative matters, but it seems like it would be more appropriate to take this discussion over to the thread on group formation.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 13 April 2006 @ 2:50 PM
Parts of this probably do belong in the group formation topic and I’ll try to find a way to incorporate that. However, I think other parts definitely have to do with the us vs them issue.
Janene says that trust is always between two people. If this is the case then I would think that trust is not a concept suited to this topic since us vs them requires association with a group identity. (I suspect that underlying this issue is the fallacy of the rugged individualist that was perpetuated by a public relations coup at the end of WWII, as touched on by Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and Stephanie Coontz’s The Way We Never Were.) The issue here is not the formation of a group, but the relationship between the group and those that are not in the group, known as “the other.”
When trust is limited in affect to two individuals the consequences of violating that trust are limited. However, with a violation of trust within a group the consequences are banishment from the group and the loss of priviledges and benifits that comes with the membership in that group. At the level of the individual the winning position often goes to the person with the best back stabbing abilities, as outlined in John Nash’s game theory which warranted him a Nobel prize in economics.
I mentioned that loyalty was unconditional obedience, and you added (to authority), which makes me reconsider the validity of my statement. Perhaps allegience would be a better comparison, but then allegience is also defined in relation to a superior. What’s the difference between loyalty, and a pact, except that a pact can occur between peers, a mutual loyalty.
I don’t think this is merely semantic quibbling, but an indication of how power relationships are subsumed within our language.
Comment by ov — 13 April 2006 @ 4:30 PM
I don’t think loyalty necessarily implies hierarchy, though. Nor is it always unconditional. I am loyal to my friends. Not because they’re superior to me, but because we both benefit from our loyalties to each other. It doesn’t mean that I will blindly obey whatever they tell me. It just means I’ll do what I can, when I can. And my loyalty to my friends is given only on the condition that they treat me right in return. If they violate that condition, my loyalty to them can be revoked.
I would say that loyalty is, in fact, a very healthy thing for a group to have.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 13 April 2006 @ 4:59 PM
Reciprocity has less power connotations, but then it seems to lack the emotional component that loyalty does.
Loyalty may be good for the group, but does it necessarily follow that what is good for the group is good for the whole?
Comment by ov — 13 April 2006 @ 5:11 PM
I guess I just don’t understand what you mean by “the whole” then. I thought the group is the whole.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 13 April 2006 @ 7:04 PM
By the “whole” I meant all of society, the total collection of humans living on the planet. What I’m leading up to here is, how do you prevent elites from profiteering by inciting warfare between the tribes? Isn’t this the essense of the us them dichotomy?
Comment by ov — 13 April 2006 @ 7:18 PM
The “total collection of humans living on the planet” includes many different societies, though.
Civilized warfare is a very different game from tribal warfare. Civilized warfare you can make a profit off of because the goal there is conquest. In tribal warfare, the parties involved aren’t trying to destroy each other. They’re fighting for more practical goals, which is why it’s on such a smaller scale. How would you have anything like a modern war profiteer in that situation?
To be fair, it’s not always inappropriate to categorize people as insiders and outsiders. That’s something that all groups have, and it’s necessary for the group’s survival.
The point I wanted to make in the above entry is not that group loyalty is a bad thing, but merely that certain people may be dividing “us” and “them” in ways that don’t really make sense.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 13 April 2006 @ 7:38 PM
I question whether humanity is a single society, or divided up into a number of societies. I know that there are many different cultures on the planet. From my travels in third world countries I’ve found that there is more of a seperation on a class basis than there is across nation states. And I think Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations is little more than an apologetic for social darwinism. I wonder if all of the seperation and division is a natural condition, or artifically imposed for the purpose of social control.
Whenever you have one group that is fighting for conquest you have another group that is fighting to avoid either death or assimilation. (Or, they could keep running away, and perhaps that fits with the philosophy here.) Those that take a stand are forced into whatever it takes to pay for troops, either domestic or mercenaries, and that means borrowing money. If you have trade you will have currency, and with currency the means to profiteer. I see this as the reality of power.
A lot of my thinking on this was influenced by a book I read a few years back (what a general tautology eh
The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution: by Andrew Schmookler. Have you read it? Once again I have to question whether it is inherent in the human condition, or an adaption to an imposed social structure.
Sorry if I derailed the discussion by going all macro on you here. I think there is quite a few levels of difference on the Maslow scale between an internet chat room and the reality of survival in a post collapse tribe. I think the fan is going to get dirty within a couple of years and then we will get a chance to find out.
Comment by ov — 13 April 2006 @ 9:01 PM
Good ideas, could have typed that idea myself, just..not..so..well-worded.
Need to tell you people that I read the book “Earth in the Balance” way back when Gore first had the book published, and the concepts were so difficult for me to understand, dismissed it as fantasy. However, a few years ago, did stumble upon these peak oil calculations on the net, and then, when Congressman Roscoe Bartlett began to speak of these ideas on the floor of Congress, did I begin to take this whole potential collapse scenario seriously.
Now to my point, in this process of learning, had I come upon any of these message boards calling for heads to roll, it well could be I, would, again, had dismissed these ideas. And would have ended this learning curve.
Now, can’t hardly imagine logging on and reading this way-over-educated message board and participating (that’s not saying I’m adding anything!).
Also, always trying to project to a hunter/gatherer situation, do believe that loyalty will come much easier, as to be otherwise, would lead to being banned from the group and it’s protection.
Comment by Rick Larson — 13 April 2006 @ 9:01 PM
I agree that its ridiculous how religious some primitivists have become. You’re right that its not as simple as seperating the weeds from the wheat in some rapture-esque episode. Unfortunately, this argument sounds like the introduction to a proclamation that through pluck and community we can survive global warming, peak oil, and the collapse of everything else. I know that’s not what you’re saying, but staunch doomers (like myself), that think that we’re all horribly screwed, might unfortuantely dismiss this as naive optimism.
Comment by Matt — 13 April 2006 @ 10:07 PM
I’m not sure you can divide societies according to nation states. I mean, are the United States and Canada really two distinct societies? Even the differences between the United States and an eastern nation like Japan seem, to me, to be largely superficial.
On the other hand, if you compare the United States to, say, the !Kung, these are clearly two very different societies.
Yeah, by my point is that tribal warfare isn’t about conquering or destroying the enemy. Without that will for conquest, you don’t get the large-scale wars that we have today. And without that, there’s not a whole lot of profit to be made off of warfare.
Well, I wouldn’t want to come across as a naive optimist. The idea here isn’t that we’ll all be able to overcome any obstacle. That sounds nice, but realistically, we all know it isn’t true. The point is simply that we’re all in the same boat on this one. If you’re in a ship that’s going down, you do whatever it takes to survive. And if the navigator comes up with an idea, you don’t ignore him just because he’s the one who got you into that mess.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 14 April 2006 @ 10:04 AM
A clear case of you can take the boy out of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy.
You can remove the taker from civilization, but you can’t remove civilization out from the taker.
Comment by Randen — 14 April 2006 @ 5:22 PM
Randen - I’m not really sure what you’re getting at. Perhaps you would care to clarify what you mean.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 14 April 2006 @ 5:28 PM
The “us” versus “them” meme is an evolution dictated aspect of being a herd mentality creature that is confronted by a predator (real or imagined).
We “humans” are social, herd-mentality creatures. We have an innate tendency to discern between the “us” and “them” and to stick with the “us” while avoiding the “them”.
Consider a herd of zebra interacting with a pride of lions. Each zebra’s chance of survival is increased by staying with the herd and running past the lions as a melded-in part of the dizzying mix of stripes and hooves. It is vital for each zebra to discern the differnce between the “us” (the stay-together zebras) and the “them” (the lions). If you’re a zebra, you don’t want to make the fatal mistake of joining the wrong group. Evolution has programmed you to be constantly on guard as to who is “us” and who is “them”.
Comment by step back — 14 April 2006 @ 8:21 PM
I don’t believe that Mike’s point was that us vs. them is necessarily bad. Rather, to use step back’s analogy, he’s saying that it’s stupid for the zebras to start kicking the heck out of each other because some of them are black with white stripes while others are white with black stripes.
Comment by ChandraShakti — 15 April 2006 @ 12:49 AM
Especially when they’re being attacked by lions.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 15 April 2006 @ 8:55 AM
Actually, I was trying to simply say that evolution has programmed us to constantly pick sides no matter how crazy and irrational teaming up may be.
Right now, as this planet melts, we humans are bickering with each other, forming herds, teams, nation states and mindlessly engaging in the usual “us” versus “them” behaviors.
Yes, white versus dark skin is one example (as if the lions prefer one kind of meat over the other and you will save yourself by being the right color, ha). We also have herd like groupings into “conseravtives” versus “liberals”, and “Christians” versus “Muslims”, and Homeland Secuity Guys versus little girls on MySpace –oops :-). The list goes on forever.
But what if Aliens came from outer space and started injecting carbon dioxide into our atmosphere in order to make this planet more habitable for their likes? What if “they” started draining the last of our petroleum reserves? What is they started razing the last of our forests and cleansing the oceans of the last of our fish? We would join hands and go into a frenzied war against “them”. Alas, it’s not “them” that are doing all this. It is “us”.
Evolution commands us to never buck against the herd’s chosen direction. Go along to get along –little zebra. Yipee kie yae. Looks like it’s going to be our raw hides this time around. We got a cowboy at the helm. Cheers.
Comment by step back — 15 April 2006 @ 8:24 PM
rights lock horns and what is left chatters
saul saw voltaire's bastards as they railed
the bulwark dismiss as extreme what matters
by somnolence of herd the system has failed
ponder options offered and those that ain't
and how important is the color of the paint
on a cattle prod upon which you are impaled
Comment by ov — 15 April 2006 @ 10:18 PM
The descriptions of humans being “herd-like” animals is where you lost me.
Homo sapiens (to pedantically not use man in any word) are not exactly herd-like.
Check the evidence from before stratified societies existed - in the fertile crescent the dominance of non-statified societies was more than 10,000 years ago, elsewhere non-statified societies existed until much later - in Britain till at least 5500 years ago and in the british minorities until relatively recently - in some still substantial populations of the planet Homo sapiens’ still maintain non-stratified meritocratic-like societies. This is the substantial body of evidence that i’m aware of - some of which i believe is on this site but i have not by any means read all of this site.
The evidence is there and it as part of the truth is rather more hopeful than the projecting of today’s decayed & hence stratified, social structures onto different non-stratified cultures now & in the past ignoring the evidence of how people live elsewhere in space and/or time.
Past and present ‘Western’ politicians & propagandists have often misled the rest of the ‘public’ and often projected today’s social ‘diseases’ onto the whole history of Homo sapiens as it fits their own mindset or worldview and their myths of progress, rather than the evidence of some important aspects having actually really regressed.
Treat yourselves to some good news - cheer oneself up by reading some about this evidence of healthy societies in the past or elsewhere thus how today we can revive rather than having to invent this style of healthier non-stratified social system. This is beyond even the tribe which i understand anthropology defines as having a chief type leaders rather than ‘meritocratic-like’ elders. The Jared Diamond writings on this are near enough on this point to what i understand the evidence is. I can provide many (more) references if you wish or if you doubt this part of the Homo sapiens true story.
Cheers to you,
Jase
Comment by Jase — 15 April 2006 @ 10:37 PM
Jase,
I understand your need to deny the idea that a special breed of apes known as homo sapiens might engage in herd-mentality behavior as opposed to “rational” behavior.
If only what you argue were true, it would be wonderful news. It would mean that the world-as-we-know/KNEW-it would stand a chance of continuing because that large mass of individually minded people (assuming your hypothesis were true) could be individually flipped into realizing what is going on and individually motivated into taking corrective action as against a host of problems facing humanity: 1. Over population in the face of finite resources; 2. Tragedy of the commons in our persistent polluting of the air and extinction fishing of the oceans; 3. War for profit and securitization of oil resources; need we go on?
Regretfully, the greater mass of experimental data demonstrates that most people are sheeple. They follow the crowd. They go long to get along. Read this site for examples of follow-the-crowd behavior. Also this site about the definitions of herd mentality behavior.
Comment by step back — 16 April 2006 @ 11:12 AM
Individuality, and the psychological variances occur in many SMALL ways.
Unfortunately, Conformity occurs in many LARGE ways, cultures etc.
Cultural comformity is so pervasive that all of us, fall prey to it, maybe some of us are “waking” up and disengaging for rationale/spiritual reasons, but nonetheless its difficult.
The conditioning is so strong, and currently for most of us the biological incentive (easy food gathering–i.e. grocery store) that we lament the potential demise of the civilization because we will miss the internet, gadgets, convieniences of life mostly.
Also, civilization still presents a degree of control from some of the negative elements of human individuality, but in 3rd world countries this has gone to the wayside, and thus people’s desire for the control system has waned greatly!
People are sheep, and even once you realize your a sheep, its tough to change.
A few years living in the woods will help immensely, you eventually may miss your hamburgers & fries more than y our I-pods.
Comment by Bubba — 17 April 2006 @ 2:24 PM
I agree that “people are sheep” (sheep to some extent) but disagree that one can change that situation much even by being aware of it. Herd behavior is so ingrained into our mammalian DNA that change is not truly possible.
There are many instances in which being part of a herd is beneficial rather than hurtful. Consider for example why education-over-the-Internet is at best, semi-successful while learning in a classroom full of real people (or library full of studiers) is so much more successful. You may want to call it “misery loves company”, but truth be told it’s “sheep love company”. The incentive created by “everyone else is doing it” is an enormously powerful one. This is well understood by generals who train an army of raw recruits by making them march in lock step and wear identical uniforms. The hair crewcut, the uniform, the marching; they all reinforce in the brain of each recruit that he is part of an obediant herd. It works, therefore it is.
Comment by step back — 17 April 2006 @ 5:33 PM
Hey –
I gotta take exception to the classification of homo sapiens as a ‘herd mammal’. Certainly I agree that our culture has pushed us in that direction, and in fact, there has been some scientific speculation that homo sapines have become domesticated, that many of our modern characteristics are neotonous and some of our behavior patterns have become more similar to herd species…
But all that aside, there is a distinct difference between ’social’ species and ‘herd’ species and the former is more closely in line with our total behavior.
Yes, we tend toward ‘trendy’ behavior, following the crowd, avoiding anything that will make us ‘different’ from our peer groups. But think about that for a second, because it is a HUGE generalization. The simple fact that there are so many exceptions calls into question the idea that it is a defining characteristic of the species.
Yes, we learn better from persons than from machines or books. and yes, we learn better in a social environment. Because we are social animals.
Consider bees. Quite obviously, the great majority of bees ‘go along to get along’ so to speak. but no one would make the mistake of comparing them with ungulates. so why would you simplify human (or even Great Ape) behavior in such a way?
I suspect there are MANY of us here that have NEVER gone along to get along… and that is even in the face of massive social coercion. So what would be the case in a truly free society?
Janene
Comment by Janene — 17 April 2006 @ 5:45 PM
Well, I may not be understanding this situation properly, but it seems to me that we’re mostly just quibbling over the use of the term “herd.” I think step back is simply using the phrase “herd-like” to describe any kind of group mentality among animals, whereas Jase is using “herd” in a much more technical sense. In the end, step back’s point–that among animals, especially those that are dependent on groups as humans are, there is a powerful evolutionary predisposition to distinguish between insiders and outsiders–is a sound one.
However, I would say that step back does seem to be granting that predisposition a little too much weight, while giving too little weight to environmental conditions.
It could also be that in a classroom you have an actual person that you can interact with as opposed to words on a screen.
I can tell you right now that that is almost certainly not true. Everyone goes along with certain things just for the sake of maintaining the harmony of the group. It may not be anything as abstract as politics or philosophy, and it’s not necessarily a sign of weakness. It’s simply a part of being a member of society.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 17 April 2006 @ 8:44 PM
Wow, did not expect so much bite back on this issue of humans being like many other animals that congregate together in the form of a “herd” or a “pack” or a “gaggle”.
There are evolutionary advantages to being part of a gang, a tribe, a group, whatever you want to call it. Very few humans do well being “alone”. They “need” other people, much as rational thought might tell you that a person can survive quite well on their own as a hermit in some reclusive area. One evolutionary reason for why being part of a group is advantageous is given here (warning blog whoring).
More importantly, the formation of a long term mother-child bond is fundamental to survival of the species. That is the most primitve form of a tribe. But then due to the many years that it takes for a human child to “grow up”, the basic mother-child group needs a support network around them –i.e., the “Village” that Hillary Clinton talks about in regard to what it takes to raise a child. Now these words like “village”, “town”, “community”, “tribe” don’t sound like “herd”, but they really are that to one extent or another. People in the same “community” tend to adopt a common group think about how the world is. They talk the same talk, they walk the same walk. Some are deeply religous and believe their one diety is supreme and must be acepted by all in the comunity on pain of death for refusing to go along and get along. Witness what happened recently in Afghanistan for that one fellow who was found out as having converted from Islam to Christianity. There is really no “rational” independent thinker’s reason for wanting to kill him. There is however a valid herd mentality basis for wanting to keep everyone in the “community” on the same wavelength –even if it means killing a couple of people just to set an example.
OK. So have it your way. We are not “herd” animals. We are independent transactors like the lone mountain lion, the bear or the moose. But then why get upset when one member thinks slightly differently from another?
Comment by step back — 17 April 2006 @ 9:52 PM
Quit messing with the ‘herd’, Er, I mean–stomping on our individuality man…geez, independent transcators that sounds much better than sheep, and I would rather be a mountain lion, much more nasty animal than a bloody sheep!
We don’t get upset at different thoughts, that’s promoted,but if you get too far from the herd, then we get upset, cus’ maybe the wolves will come…
Hmm, time to stare at the sun again & channel some energy, today has been officially animal metaphor day for me at work & looking at the blogs today.
Comment by Bubba — 17 April 2006 @ 10:05 PM
A couple of things here. First, a large part of this sort of fundamentalist fervor comes not from the religion itself, but from those in control realizing that they can use people’s beliefs to get them to do what they want. This has been around in Christianity since at least the time of Constantine. Monotheistic religions seem to lend themselves more to it than others, as the concept of one God can be connected very easily to the concept of one ruler and one right way to live. There are other religions, though, where this sort of fundamentalism is practically nonexistant.
Which brings me to my next point, and this is something I actually touched on in the entry above. Members of a group don’t care that other members be like them in every way. They only care about those similarities that are essential to the group. This is why I think groups based on ideas and beliefs tend to have more closed-mindedness. Because by opening your mind to new ideas and new beliefs, you’re compromising what makes the group a group. But groups like herds, packs, tribes–they aren’t based on beliefs. They’re based on a goal. That goal is to make a living. Members of goal-based groups generally don’t care as much about other members’ beliefs (unless they’re totally outlandish). If I work at a widget production company, I could work with somebody that I disagree with on just about everything. If he’s good at making widgets and we work well together, it’s probably not going to be that big of an issue.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 17 April 2006 @ 10:41 PM
What I am saying, from the evidence base - with much of evidence cited directly below. Stepback your sense is right that we are not merely individualistic - this is so true - individualism is also another alternative result of decayed society or social system. I have learned the best about less decayed social systems from Indigenous Ozzy friends - so called Australian Aborigines. However all humans at least had parellel such systems more so the further back into the less socially decayed past of each of our respective ancestors societies (That below was prepared before Mike’s and stepbacks responses)
Dear Stepback
I’m not hypothesising. There is no if. I am not denying or asserting that these were/are rationally made social structures, as while your dichotomy is not real your implication that societies are not rationally ‘designed’ is a very good point and very real - the idea that humans can ever be entirely rational or rational in societies is irrational!
You can rest assured that that which is “…wonderful news…” for you, is (in fact) a large body of scientific evidence. It is not something i have made up and not even something I have authored. On this I’m merely providing the message that you missed. As I said Professor Jared Diamond, in non-jargon, provides several substantial reviews of the repeatedly verified evidence on this point amongst much more that he writes, from a US-American perspective on this.
For example
His large & famous books (& associated TV program) “Guns, Germs and Steel” which won the Pulitzer prize, “Collapse”, “The Rise and Fall of the thrid Chimpanzee”, “The worst mistake in the history of the human race”
StepBack - Now if you don’t give any credibility to western science or its examples such as Jared Diamond’s writing, that is another matter altogether, we can discuss a little bit on those terms, by me refering to the bible.
If I was to make what are actually at the level of hypothesees rather than repeatedly verified evidence, they would be for example:
- Homo sapiens may be conditioned in the womb to stratified societies before they are even born - there are drugs in foods that would get to the as yet unborn and
- there is some evidence that social & communication conditions of the parents may in some cases condition the social disposition of the developing yet unborn child. For example the parents being in the midst of brutality or a war.
I use the word “may” above because these are hypothesees or even just thesees.
On Anthropik please read all the many details and evidence cited in Pushing & Pulling into the Neolithic including my post which is the last one there.
Please read:
- Hillman G, Hedges R, Moore A, Colledge, S., and Pettitt, P. (2001)
“New evidence of Lateglacial cereal cultivation at Abu Hureyra on the Euphrates.” Holocene 11 (4): 383-393
and the website Village on the Euphrates.
Also please read Greg Wadley’s (from Melbourne Uni., then in the Zoology Dep’t) current update of his Ethology research (1992-5) web page and even his old, culture-blind & dated paper linked to therein (and here) “The Origins of Agriculture - A biological perspective and a new hypothesis”.
For a most brief introduction to drugs in staple foods’ scientific evidence, here is a small article that appeared in “Acres USA” (so called Sustainable Agriculture newspaper) - January 2004:
“The Opioid Effect”
For Oz (Australia) as specific examples over a whole continent please read:
-firstly for correction of the conventional view information regarding Agriculture J Peter White (2003) “Agriculture: Was Australia a bystander?” and one of many examples of corrections regarding Village living (this example is very recent and yet still repeats the ‘conventional ignorance’ of the Oz public despite so many previous examples being publicised over the years since 1788) is “Vic bushfires uncover ancient Aboriginal stone houses”
- then secondly with this correction in mind regarding Agriculture & Village living, please read page 3 from RMW Dixon (2002) “Australian Languages” Camridge University Press. also at Google Books: Australian Languages
here quoting
”
1
The language situation in Australia
In this volume I attempt to characterise what the indigenous languages of Australia are like, how individual languages have developed their particular structural profiles, and the ways in which the languages are related. A portrait is provided of the Australian linguistic area, which is certainly the longest-established linguistic area in the world.
This first chapter briefly describes relevant aspects of traditional Aboriginal society, the language situation at the time of White invasion and then the prehistory of the continent. A final section deals with the diffusion of cultural traits.
…
1.1 A partial picture
The European invasion of Australia began in 1788 at Sydney Cove but did not extend to every area – to the deserts in the centre, or to parts of Arnhem Land in the north – until the middle of the twentieth century. The information we have on individual languages comes from different periods. By the time the first information was recorded on NBf2, Gurrgoni, from the north coast, for instance, the language of Sydney (O1, Dharuk) had long ceased to be spoken.
Contact with White civilisation has led to the speedy extinction of Australian languages; in almost every instance, there are no longer any children learning the language within one hundred years of first contact (and often much sooner than that). As a result we have no time depth on any language. There are some reasonable grammars of languages of New South Wales from the 1840s and 1850s but these languages are no longer extant. In no case can we examine how the structure of a language has changed over a period of several generations.
Our knowledge of languages from certain parts of the continent is sketchy in the extreme. For instance, there appear to have been three distinct languages spoken around the mouth of the Burdekin River in North Queensland (my group I); we have just one short word list in each. It is very likely that a number of languages have passed into oblivion without a single word being recorded.
We know of about 240 or 250 languages that are or were spoken by the indigenous people of mainland Australia. More than half of these are no longer spoken or remembered (save for perhaps a sprinkling of words used within the English spoken by their tribal descendants). No more than twenty are currently being learnt by children. The remainder have just middle-aged or old speakers; each decade a few more of these languages cease to be spoken or remembered.
We have good or fairly good materials (a reasonable grammar, together with a dictionary or word list) for about ninety-five languages; these are almost all the result of work by professionally trained linguists, beginning in the 1960s. For about fifteen more languages, descriptions are in preparation. For about 110 languages there are grammatical and lexical materials of lower quality. These include: materials from amateurs of an earlier age (who did not have the idea of phoneme, etc.); work by modern-day linguists that is not of the first quality (and cannot be considered reliable); and materials by good linguists working with the last speaker of a language, who only remembered bits of it. For about twenty-five languages – all now extinct – only word lists are available (including, perhaps, a couple of pronouns).
The linguistic picture that emerges is uneven across the continent. For instance, there is no full description of any language from a twelve hundred kilometre stretch of the east coast, from Townsville to south of Brisbane. For only one of the twelve or so languages originally spoken in Victoria is there a reliable, modern description (this is Ta1, Wemba-Wemba). The language of the south-west corner of the continent (including Perth) is known mainly from an amateur grammar of around 1840 and a short account from the 1970s; the information they give is sometimes unclear and inconsistent (in fact, it is not clear that exactly the same language is being described).
It should be borne in mind, in the chapters that follow, that we are working with a partial picture. A grammatical marker that is attested in one or two languages may well have occurred in several others, but these other languages were just not described, or not described in sufficient detail.
1.2 Social organisation and lifestyle
Before the European invasion there were probably around one million Aborigines in Australia, organised into about seven hundred political groups, which are commonly and conveniently referred to (by the Aboriginal people themselves) as tribes. Each had its own territory, system of social organisation, traditional oral literature and laws, song styles, and its own ‘language’ – just like the nations of Europe, but on a smaller scale. Aborigines identify themselves as belonging to a particular tribal group; they typically explain that the members of a tribe are ‘all blooded’, meaning that the normal expectation is to marry within one’s own tribe (also see below).
Tribal boundaries typically (but not invariably) run along a mountain ridge or through a strip of barren country. A territory is often centred on some important water feature(s) and will frequently include a number of different ecological zones, with people moving around according to the season, following the pattern of food availability. Each Aboriginal family group has an association with a particular place, which they have a responsibility to take care of and maintain. Rumsey (1993) suggests that in Australia a language is linked to a tract of land; and a person is linked to a place, and hence to the language of that place. Thus, Jawoyn people are Jawoyn not because they speak Jawoyn, but because they are linked to places with which the Jawoyn language is associated. And THUS they speak Jawoyn.
The Australian Aborigines never developed agriculture [correction is necessary here]. Like almost all hunter-gatherer communities across the world, there is no chief and no set of stratified social classes. Everyone in a tribe [tribe is not even technically correct for this social system - the ‘rhizome approach’ non-technical term is better for example, as in the description in the next words:] has specific social obligations towards everyone else, according to a finely articulated classificatory kinship system.
Aboriginal religion is, in large part, pragmatic. It is believed that ancestral spirits created the country, and the places and foodstuffs in it; knowledge about them is handed down from generation to generation. Religious practice involves understanding the sacred traditions of one’s group, their relationship to the land and to totemic animals and the like, and organising one’s life in the way that tradition demands. There are no gods, before whom one has to be humble, and no praying. Small wonder that Aborigines are said to have been one of the most difficult of the peoples of the world to convert to Christianity.
Related to their religious attitudes, Aborigines have a strong sense of history. They tell stories from the far distant past (see (7) in §1.4 below) and their kinship system distinguishes ancestors from each past generation. These are often organised in a cyclic pattern. For example, the same terms may be used for grandparents and grandchildren, with great-grandparents then being called by the same terms as one’s children, and great-grandchildren by the same terms as one’s parents and their siblings
There is (or was) a classificatory kinship system, with every person in a community related to every other through a series of mathematical-like rules of equivalence. Each Australian community has strict conventions for how one should behave with each class of relatives. Certain classes constitute avoidance relationships – typically, classificatory mother-in-law and classificatory son-in-law. They should not look at each other, nor speak directly to each other. Indeed, in many communities there was a special speech style (sometimes called ‘mother-in-law language’ by bilingual Aborigines) which had to be used in the presence of an avoidance relative. This generally has the same phonology as the everyday language style, and usually the same grammar, but a different form for each of the most common lexemes (in a couple of instances, a different form for EVERY lexeme). See §3.4.
Young men were initiated at puberty. This involved circumcision and subincision over wide bands of territory down the centre of the continent (see map 1.3); and the cutting of cicatrices in some other areas. At this time they also underwent a lengthy period of instruction in traditional wisdom. A few groups had a special ‘initiation language’, which was taught to boys at that time and could only be used among initiated men. Among the Lardil of Mornington Island this employed a totally different phonetic system from the everyday language style (see §3.4).
Each tribe also had a number of song styles with distinctive musical format, accompaniment, scansion, subject-matter, and social role. Songs use some words from the spoken language style but there are often special words that only occur in songs, and also archaic words and other archaic features (see §3.4).
Every Australian tribe appears to have had more-or-less stable relationships with its neighbours. There would be regular trade of manufactured items; and periodic meetings between neighbouring groups to settle disputes by controlled bouts of fighting, to arrange marriages, and to exchange new songs and news. There could be varying degrees of hostility (with resulting fear) and some killings between neighbouring groups, but there are few reports of uncontrolled war and massacre (such as commonly occur in every other continent) in Aboriginal Australia.
A spouse would generally be taken from another group of the same tribe but sometimes from a neighbouring tribe – in the latter case, an exchange marriage in the opposite direction would often also be organised (man for woman, woman for man). Partly as a result of this, and partly because of a sociocultural habit of learning languages, most Aborigines were at least bilingual and many were multilingual – they could speak at least one language besides their own and would often understand several more.
1.3 The languages
The term ‘language’ is used in a number of different ways. One is as a marker of political identity – in this sense, each of the seven hundred or more tribal groups in
…
”
I wish you all well,
Jase (from Oz)
Comment by Jase — 18 April 2006 @ 1:33 AM
An important further update & clarification paper, especially on the Hillman et. al. (2001) paper cited above and on numerous further interesting history subjects, is the pleasantly biographically organised writing:
David R. Harris
“The farther reaches of human time”: Retrospect on Carl Sauer as prehistorian
1 October 2002
The Geographical Review
526-544
Volume 92, Issue 4
ISSN: 0016-7428
10574 words
As the publishers abstract at:
http://www.amergeog.org/gr/oct02/harris.html
Comment by Jase — 20 April 2006 @ 12:26 AM
step back I think the mistake was in lumping packs, bands, groups, troops, in with herds. Many predatory animals live in groups but there is a huge difference between them and herd animals. We are social animals, more closely related to the groups that chimps and baboons and wolves live in, not gazells or zebras. Herd animals don’t think for themselves but think as one. Predatory groups contain individual thinkers that work together, and sure they each “go along with the group” but more for security reasons than not thinking for themselves.
Comment by JPC — 22 April 2006 @ 5:38 PM