Re: The Origins of Human Society

Chris,

Much I read in history books and ABOUT certain foci on specific developments
through history suggest to me that
categories, such as "The Middle Ages" or "The Mercantilist Age," are -- on
the one hand, very convenient pigeon holes to aid in teaching and to serve
as "earmarks" for certain periods of time, among objective historians.

HOWEVER, historians themselves realize that these pigeon holes or earmarks
not only are imprecise but, also,
often become enormously misleading to non-historians trying to get a grasp
of history.

Concomitantly, the term *REVOLUTION* is so variously interpreted and applied
as to mean many different things to many different people and, as even to
mean different things a single individual using it twice in the same breath.
Of course, in some cultures the term has a very deep significance and is
spoken almost with voice lowered, and in something akin to reverence. And
cultures have a perfect right, in my opinion, to such special emotional
attachments, if they wish to make them. However, I simply wish to submit
that one who uses the term "revolution" may well be understood differently
by those of other cultures, or in different academic levels, than as he/she
wishes it to be inferred.

How often we hear academic discussions about such a question as "WHAT
REVOLUTION IS," or, more on subject here, "WHAT BIO-EVOLUTION IS." And
this old layman asks those who would have him understand
what they mean to be as explicit as possible, in order to make it possible.

One generic definition we can ALWAYS attribute to ANY term used by a writer
(including a poster to this news group) is that it means exactly whatever
the person using it intends it to mean. As to what that may be, sometimes
only the writer/poster impresses this layman to be privy. (:>)

As I have said about bio-evo, I am unable to follow many references to terms
which a writer (including, but not
limited to... a poster in a news group) uses, when he does not illumine me,
and others, of what it means to HIMSELF OR HERSELF. (As you can see, I am
not insisting that a word have only one set of subsumptive
relations for every person and every time and every place. But let the
writer beware, if he expect others to get it
right, unaided by the writer.

In fact, SOME writers impress this poor layman as wishing to seem quite
adroit in AVOIDING clarity, rather than SEEKING it. This is not meant to be
personal, or to apply to present company. It is just to say that sometimes
some writers impress this poor seeker after understanding as affecting
profundity, by tossing around terms which mean different things to different
people, in hopes... perhaps... of seeming so bright as to overwhelm others
into
thinking they are rendered confused by being unable to follow the
argumentation. Again, present company excepted, and a general point in
hopes of being made to any reader who might wish not to leave the impression
of being culpable in that way, when that is not in the least his/her actual
intent.

To reach elsewhere for an example, we often hear or read a term used such as
"existentialism," when a broad reading on the significance of that will have
disclosed a MANY a twist and turn as to what one thinker would mean by it,
and perceive its significance to be. Some of THOSE have been all too
meticulous in seeking to leave no
stone unturned in disclosing what they have meant, as being quite separate
and distinct from what another thinker may have meant. And, in all fairness
to those, it would seem unfair to toss them into the same bag with others
who may, or may not, have been so careful in their disambiguations.

Even some who speak of "The French Revolution" of 1789-99, put their own
slant upon certain aspects of it which are, dare I say it, "impressionistic"
rather than historically broad enough to cover its multi-faceted essences.
As for myself, I cannot hear of it without lamenting the beheading of one of
the greatest geniuses who ever lived, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier -- which,
had the cake-eaters who had no cake, been a bit more discriminating, they
might have reflected that they were creating by that excision an
excruciatingly acute example of how those with even the best of intentions,
might toss out the baby of genius with the bath water of a justice served.

Some equate "revolution" politically to "democratization." Some equate it
to the unseating of one cult of personality, by the fomenters of a coup, for
no other sake but that of replacing the one with another. Sometimes the
term "revolution" is used in the same way as "paradigm shift" which is
another multi-faceted buzz word -- not through any fault of its own, but
because it has been dropped by so many, so casually at so many a cocktail
party, job interview, or image building affected brochure written by a
handsomely paid public relations specialist.

But... most importantly, to the tired brain of this old layman, in his
struggle to follow and learn from another's sincerely intended meaning...
let us not forget that none of us wishes for the tail of our conceptual
models ever to wag -- and hence obfuscate -- the dog of effective reasoning.

Hopefully these humble words will be received as being on subject in this
news group, as, and insofar as, they
conduce to coming back around to the subject of biological evolution. It is
assumed by this poster that the mention of "revolution" is meant to
contribute something aimed at our mutual appreciation and comprehension of
that.

(:>)

"Spanish Paranoia" <laparanoia@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eogg3r$br4$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Every educated person since Darwin has labelled himself an
'evolutionist'. But a real evolutionist must apply the idea of
evolution to his own forms of thinking. Elementary logic, founded in
the period when the idea of evolution did not yet exist, is evidently
insufficient for the analysis of evolutionary processes. Hegel's
logic is the logic of evolution. Only one must not forget that the
concept of 'evolution' itself has been completely corrupted and
emasculated by university professors and liberal writers to mean
peaceful 'progress'. Whoever has come to understand that evolution
proceeds through the struggle of antagonistic forces; that a slow
accumulation of changes at a certain moment explodes the old shell and
brings about a catastrophe, revolution; whoever has learned finally to
apply the general laws of evolution to thinking itself, he is a
dialectician, as distinguished from vulgar evolutionists"
Leon Trotsky, In Defence of Marxism

Until the 1980s, ideas about human origins were for the most part
gradualist. It was believed that a recognisably human lifestyle began
emerging some two to three million years ago, in a drawn-out
evolutionary process linked with the establishment of bipedalism and
tool-making. According to this way of thinking, speech co-evolved with
the making of simple stone tools, becoming increasingly complex as
technology evolved. Art, ritual, the organisation of kinship and other
aspects of culture became more complex in the same gradualistic,
piecemeal way.

Such gradualism, although still defended, has recently become a
minority position. It is nowadays widely acknowledged that those
archaeologists who excavated early hominid sites in Olduvai Gorge,
Tanzania, and saw the beginnings of "home bases", "language" and "a
sexual division of labour" among these bipedal toolmakers were
projecting assumptions and stereotypes derived from modern culture onto
the distant past.

Over the past two decades, there has been a revolution in archaeology
and palaeontology, leading to the view that the earliest tool-makers,
while more intelligent than apes, were involved in essentially
primate-style social and reproductive relationships. Admittedly, humans
were co-operatively hunting large game animals by at least 500,000
years ago. But archaeologists have found no evidence for art, ritual or
other "symbolic" behaviour at such early dates. Most archaeologists are
now agreed that even large-brained humans such as the Neanderthals were
not leading a recognisably human or "hunter-gatherer" lifestyle. The
dominant view is that anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa
around 130,000 years ago and then, some 60,000 years later, rather
suddenly spread across the world in an explosive process known as the
"human revolution". It was during the earliest stages of this
revolutionary process that symbolic art, ritual and language emerged.

by Chris Knight

http://dreamflesh.com/essays/societyorigins/




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