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> it's no more necessary than civilization itself, the foundations for which were laid to build armies to wage war and reap the benefits. Civilization emerged

> it's no more necessary than civilization itself, the foundations for which were laid to build armies to wage war and reap the benefits. Civilization emerged around settled agriculture, not to wage war. Arguably this was a movement away from violence, as compared to nomadic tribes constantly competing over hunting and foraging territories. > Moralizing the past is senseless, whether you argue it was good or bad. It matters not that the colonial era is less old than others. All we can do with our newly calibrated compasses is decide what good means going forward. How exactly do we “calibrate our compasses” without reference to our past? It’s entirely valid to judge what in our past immoral in hopes that we can steer our present away from their reoccurrence. It’s hardly senseless, but indicative of our capacity to reflect, change, and not senselessly repeat these horrors.

zvorygin 6y ago
> Civilization emerged around settled agriculture, not to wage war. Arguably this was a movement away from violence, as compared to nomadic tribes constantly competing over hunting and foraging territories. Is this even true? I remember when I was reading "Seeing like a State" (or possibly this is from "Against the Grain"), the book would talk about how the first settled civilizations were all violent and oppressive, because nobody wanted to engage in agriculture. Why would you, when anyone could walk into nature where there was an abundance of food and life was much easier. The original movement towards settled civilization was a violent one, where people were forced to work the land, and would try to escape. Nomadic tribes didn't violently compete with each other as much as settled societies. At least, that was the impression I was under.
- manfredo 6y ago
  This not a mainstream view today. Archaeological and anthropological research has overwhelmingly indicated that pre agricultural societies were incredibly violent, moreso than agricultural ones. Pre agricultural societies averaged between 15 and 40% of people dying violent deaths (as in, died at the hands of other humans) as compared to 3-5% in agricultural societies. It drops even further for industrial societies. To put this in perspective, about 1.7 to 1.9% of people died violently in the 20th century. The view that pre agricultural societies were peaceful was not based in evidence, but based in wishful thinking: if civilization corrupted people then we could fix it by undoing this corruption. This was a popular belief around the 1960s and 1970s when there was little to no hard evidence on the behavior of early human societies.
slothtrop 6y ago
> Civilization emerged around settled agriculture, not to wage war. The point of central agriculture was to produce more bodies, to wage war, if you're to believe the argument in the Origins of Political History, and I do. This necessitated bureaucracy, hence Civilization. > Arguably this was a movement away from violence, as compared to nomadic tribes constantly competing over hunting and foraging territories. Well we have a cleaner record of the violence after that point in History, the scale for which got more brutal and concentrated over time. When your population is small, territories over the globe are vast and plentiful; I fail to see an angle where centralization was necessitated for peace, as opposed to conquest. > How exactly do we “calibrate our compasses” without reference to our past? To be clear: it's not a question of reference, as the past shaped and developed the morals you and I have today. Though judging it broadly in a detached sense, through our morals, renders most of our past evil, which is banal. It's not a person. Looking to the past can help identify and inform what we deem to be wrong today, which is different than saying the past is evil. What we take for granted here is consequentialism, which is retrospective. Leading up to WW1, war was widely romanticized and considered virtuous and even the upper classmen partook (see: the War That Ended Peace), likened to skirmishes that ended fairly quickly, and of course it was a different animal by then, war was hellish once more. Colonialism in concept was not considered wrong, though perhaps consequences as a result (e.g. atrocities) would not have been considered good if you quizzed the average person. When we judge colonialism, we largely judge the consequence such that atrocities are unjustifiable no matter the other benefits. Sure. But I say to you: that's all of History, that's all of what led us here today, that led us to be "enlightened" (to be "good" as we understand it to mean today) and type on computers. We'll shift our course to avoid the bad stuff, and I'm sure in the future looking back we'll find evils.

zvorygin 6y ago

> Civilization emerged around settled agriculture, not to wage war. Arguably this was a movement away from violence, as compared to nomadic tribes constantly competing over hunting and foraging territories. Is this even true? I remember when I was reading "Seeing like a State" (or possibly this is from "Against the Grain"), the book would talk about how the first settled civilizations were all violent and oppressive, because nobody wanted to engage in agriculture. Why would you, when anyone could walk into nature where there was an abundance of food and life was much easier. The original movement towards settled civilization was a violent one, where people were forced to work the land, and would try to escape. Nomadic tribes didn't violently compete with each other as much as settled societies. At least, that was the impression I was under.

manfredo 6y ago
This not a mainstream view today. Archaeological and anthropological research has overwhelmingly indicated that pre agricultural societies were incredibly violent, moreso than agricultural ones. Pre agricultural societies averaged between 15 and 40% of people dying violent deaths (as in, died at the hands of other humans) as compared to 3-5% in agricultural societies. It drops even further for industrial societies. To put this in perspective, about 1.7 to 1.9% of people died violently in the 20th century. The view that pre agricultural societies were peaceful was not based in evidence, but based in wishful thinking: if civilization corrupted people then we could fix it by undoing this corruption. This was a popular belief around the 1960s and 1970s when there was little to no hard evidence on the behavior of early human societies.

slothtrop 6y ago

> Civilization emerged around settled agriculture, not to wage war. The point of central agriculture was to produce more bodies, to wage war, if you're to believe the argument in the Origins of Political History, and I do. This necessitated bureaucracy, hence Civilization. > Arguably this was a movement away from violence, as compared to nomadic tribes constantly competing over hunting and foraging territories. Well we have a cleaner record of the violence after that point in History, the scale for which got more brutal and concentrated over time. When your population is small, territories over the globe are vast and plentiful; I fail to see an angle where centralization was necessitated for peace, as opposed to conquest. > How exactly do we “calibrate our compasses” without reference to our past? To be clear: it's not a question of reference, as the past shaped and developed the morals you and I have today. Though judging it broadly in a detached sense, through our morals, renders most of our past evil, which is banal. It's not a person. Looking to the past can help identify and inform what we deem to be wrong today, which is different than saying the past is evil. What we take for granted here is consequentialism, which is retrospective. Leading up to WW1, war was widely romanticized and considered virtuous and even the upper classmen partook (see: the War That Ended Peace), likened to skirmishes that ended fairly quickly, and of course it was a different animal by then, war was hellish once more. Colonialism in concept was not considered wrong, though perhaps consequences as a result (e.g. atrocities) would not have been considered good if you quizzed the average person. When we judge colonialism, we largely judge the consequence such that atrocities are unjustifiable no matter the other benefits. Sure. But I say to you: that's all of History, that's all of what led us here today, that led us to be "enlightened" (to be "good" as we understand it to mean today) and type on computers. We'll shift our course to avoid the bad stuff, and I'm sure in the future looking back we'll find evils.