Primitivism Discussion

[Cavemonster]

As for OP's middle ground proposal: I think your value judgments are a bit too subjective to serve as a basis for a proper, universally acceptable utopia. For example, I highly disagree with this idea that "primitivist stress" is preferable to its modern equivalent. I rather come home from a stressful day at work, only to be pestered by annoying telemarketers, loud TV ads and an inbox full of spam, than to spend almost every waking hour worrying about food and shelter, always busy fulfilling only my most basic needs.

In short, I take "life" over "survival".

There are some myths around primitive cultures. One is that they spent almost every waking hour worrying about food and shelter. In fact, researchers believe that hunter gatherer societies in general had large amounts of free time and spent far less energy on gaining food than their early farming descendants, as well as less time and energy than modern humans spend at their jobs.

Of course there was a general level of uncertainty and risk of food instability, but it wasn't constant by any means.

 

[EGarrett]

Well, there would be advantages to a simple hunter/gatherer life, but I cannot think of any that wouldn't also come with an enormous disadvantage, which is why I consider the OP's cherry-picked utopia to be completely unrealistic. One advantage would be less pollution, for example, but again, this implies less machinery, less produce, less food and shelter, and ultimately a lot less people.

...and if you gouge out your eyes you won't suffer eyestrain. If this is the best argument one can find, there is no actual rational argument...

As I said in my previous post, the rational validity of one's views is not based on one's ability/willingness to actually comply with them. "Hypocrisy" is a critique of the OP, not of his views.

If there is nothing stopping you from living according to your worldview, and you nonetheless don't, then your worldviews are either contradictory, a delusion, or a lie. How can one discuss an idea that is irrational or invalid without pointing out that it is?

 

[Skeptic]

One advantage would be less pollution, for example, but again, this implies less machinery, less produce, less food and shelter, and ultimately a lot less people.

For many of the "overpopulation" gurus, people are pollution, the #1 problem of this planet. They much rather have a clean, nice planet with a lot fewer people.

Of course they only mean that billions of other people they don't know personally should die to achieve this utopia, never themselves or anyone they know.

 

[Cavemonster]

Somehow, I think watching your infant children die as you are helpless to help them seems to me somewhat more stressful than, say, the cable being out again or the guy at work getting that promotion you were promised.

As Stephan J. Gould noted, for this reason alone, he would rather be (if forced to choose) the last of the dead-end loser working drones today, than Henry VIII, Ceaser, or Napoleon in the past.

Over the long term, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

I'd say a key word there is "persistant". Over the course of your life, either you will watch most of the people you've known pass away, or you yourself will die early.

Take any nuclear family. I can say with certainty that one member of that family will have to attend the funerals of each other member, over a lifetime.

 

[Skeptic]

As I said in my previous post, the rational validity of one's views is not based on one's ability/willingness to actually comply with them. "Hypocrisy" is a critique of the OP, not of his views.

True, but some hyporitical stances are far worse than others. If I advocate other people be faithful while I have a lover it's one thing; if I advocate that other people die by the billions from disease and starvation so that my fantasy world view could be achieved, that's quite another thing.

The difference isn't in the hypocrisy, but in the goal. In the first case the goal -- faithfulness to one's spouse -- is at least arguably good. In the second, the goal -- back to a primitive society -- is itself evil, as it necessarily involves the death of billions. Even if one were willing to be one of those billions (and they never are), it would not make the goal any better.

 

[Skeptic]

Take any nuclear family. I can say with certainty that one member of that family will have to attend the funerals of each other member, over a lifetime.

So, you see no difference between times where the typical family has adult couples burying his 80-year-old father and her 90-year-old mother, and times when the typical family had adult couples bury their four-year-old daughter and her two-month-old brother?

 

[Atwill]

If there is nothing stopping you from living according to your worldview, and you nonetheless don't, then your worldviews are either contradictory, a delusion, or a lie. How can one discuss an idea that is irrational or invalid without pointing out that it is?

That's the very thing I've been saying: Pointing at the proponent's hypocrisy is *not* evidence that an idea is irrational or invalid. It is a critique of the person, not of the idea.

That aside, though, the OP actually has mentioned a few reasons for why he doesn't want to live a (semi-)primitivist life. Without going through the entire thread again, one of his reasons was the fear that it might ruin his sex life, if I recall correctly.

...and if you gouge out your eyes you won't suffer eyestrain. If this is the best argument one can find, there is no actual rational argument...

I've never heard a rational argument for fundamentalist primitivism either. As Skeptic pointed out, no matter how you look at it, real primitivism necessarily boils down to letting billions of people die, so that a few can live out their hunter/gatherer fantasy, and that's just not a very rationally defensible premise, in my opinion.

 

[Cavemonster]

This is true. But, apparently, you see no difference between such a family where children bury their 80-year-old parents, and such a family where parents bury their four-year-old daughter and her two-month-old brother.

Not just the parents, but every brother and sister as well.

I do see a difference, and I have a preference for the world in which people get to live a little longer.

However, we're comparing levels of stress and emotional toll. Losing someone you have shared a whole life with as compared with losing a new life. In our culture, losing a child is a higher stress, but a part of that is because it is so unexpected, we are being robbed of the years of knowing them that we count on having.

If we are examining a world without our medicine, we must also view it through the window without our culture.

In a culture of more common infant deaths, and without our current cultural fixation on children, I'd imagine the predictable death of a new child is on par with the predictable death of an elderly sibling.

 

[Skeptic]

In a culture of more common infant deaths, and without our current cultural fixation on children, I'd imagine the predictable death of a new child is on par with the predictable death of an elderly sibling.

And in a society where women have no legal rights, the stress of being beaten by your husband is comparable to the stress today of not finding a parking space.

And in a society where blacks are property, the stress of being banned from a "white-only" club is less than that of being banned from an internet forum.

 

[Cavemonster]

And in a society where women have no legal rights, the stress of being beaten by your husband is comparable to the stress today of not finding a parking space.

And in a society where blacks are property, the stress of being banned from a "white-only" club is less than that of being banned from an internet forum.

Are you disagreeing with me that the impact of stresses is dependant on culture and expectation?

Your comparisons are always of the most grave aspects of earlier periods with the most trivial modern stresses.

I have worse things in my life than not finding a parking space, and if you don't, then you are uncommonly fortunate.

 

[phantomb]

In a culture of more common infant deaths, and without our current cultural fixation on children, I'd imagine the predictable death of a new child is on par with the predictable death of an elderly sibling.

I recall reading that primitive societies that had very common infant deaths tended to deal with the stress by developing a culture in which children are not considered to be people (because the body doesn't get a soul until puberty or whatever).

I don't see how this is an argument for primitivism though because this cultural suppression of a certain type of stress isn't a property of how primitive the societies were, but of how much stress of that type there was to be had. If modern societies had similar levels of infant death I bet they'd develop cultural rationalizations as well.

 

[Skeptic]

Are you disagreeing with me that the impact of stresses is dependant on culture and expectation?

No. I am saying that human beings tend to find some equilibrium no matter how horrible -- or how good -- their condition.

I've heard Auschwitz survivors tell, truthfully to be sure, that they are more pi$$ed off today when someone cuts them off for a parking space than they were when someone stole their crust of bread or wooden shoes in Auschwitz. And on the other hand we all heard of spoiled brats whose life is ruined, ruined, because dad didn't get them that large-screen TV.

But this hardly means life in Auschwitz, life in middle-class America, and life in super-rich Beverly Hills is equally easy or desireable, or that slavery is as good as freedom just because some slaves have become resigned to their conditions.

Similarly, that it is vastly better to have (mostly) old people die and not children -- objectively better -- is true regardless of how much, or how little, people might become inured to child death.

Your comparisons are always of the most grave aspects of earlier periods with the most trivial modern stresses.

For most of us today, the major stresses are whether we will be able to keep our standard of living, take care of our elderly parents, and live healthfully up to, say, 80 or 90.

For the average peasant in the middle ages, the major stresses were whether he will be able to have enough food to not have him or his family starve, not lose yet another child to some infection, or live to 40.

Your move.

Yes, yes -- perhaps in the future we will conquer aging and people will live to, say, 500. They too will bitch and whine, I guarantee you that (their moon shuttle is late again, and jobs on mars in this economy really suck, not to mention paying for junior's 132th year in college. When I was his age, 160, I alteady moved out of the house and was earning my keep.)

But this hardly means any of them would like to switch with us, any more than we would like to switch with the mideaval world's 40 or so lifespan.

 

[Cavemonster]

I recall reading that primitive societies that had very common infant deaths tended to deal with the stress by developing a culture in which children are not considered to be people (because the body doesn't get a soul until puberty or whatever).

I don't see how this is an argument for primitivism though because this cultural suppression of a certain type of stress isn't a property of how primitive the societies were, but of how much stress of that type there was to be had. If modern societies had similar levels of infant death I bet they'd develop cultural rationalizations as well.

You're categorizing their attitude towards children as an adapted rationalization, when our own attitude toward children is as much more rare and recently developed practice.

It's a bit like saying they developed sweat glands as a compensation for not having air conditioning.

We're discussing relative stress levels. Whether or not modern people would develop similar values in response to similar situations does not change the fact that it isn't useful to use modern reaction to infant mortality as a measure of primitive human stress levels.

 

[Cavemonster]

No. I am saying that human beings tend to find some equilibrium no matter how horrible -- or how good -- their condition.

...

But this hardly means life in Auschwitz, life in middle-class America, and life in super-rich Beverly Hills is equally easy or desireable, or that slavery is as good as freedom just because some slaves have become resigned to their conditions.

Similarly, that it is vastly better to have (mostly) old people die and not children -- objectively better -- is true regardless of how much, or how little, people might become inured to child death.

Notice that I'm not discussing whether it's "better". I'm discussing relative stress levels, and addressing the mythology that primitive humans lived in constant stress.

Posters here have commented on primitive lifestyle using assumptions about the stress level and mortality rates that are inconsistent with what the best evidence is as to how these groups lived. I think it's important to correct these false assumptions whether or not primitive life was "better".

 

[phantomb]

You're categorizing their attitude towards children as an adapted rationalization, when our own attitude toward children is as much more rare and recently developed practice.

Surely both attitudes can be considered "adapted rationalizations". The religions or cultural memes that told the primitive culture that child death was worth becoming highly stressed over were not the ones that stuck. Neither were the ones that told our culture that children are merely chattel and child death trivial.

We're discussing relative stress levels. Whether or not modern people would develop similar values in response to similar situations does not change the fact that it isn't useful to use modern reaction to infant mortality as a measure of primitive human stress levels.

Agreed. I merely wanted to point out that people are known to use culture and rationalization as a control for certain types of stress when stress levels might otherwise become extreme.

 

[mike3]

You're categorizing their attitude towards children as an adapted rationalization, when our own attitude toward children is as much more rare and recently developed practice.

It's a bit like saying they developed sweat glands as a compensation for not having air conditioning.

We're discussing relative stress levels. Whether or not modern people would develop similar values in response to similar situations does not change the fact that it isn't useful to use modern reaction to infant mortality as a measure of primitive human stress levels.

I'm curious, would you promote a return to such beliefs if you want to go to more "primitive" systems of society?

 

[Virus]

Primitivism? Stupid idea.

 

[Virus]

The Khmer Rouge were primitivists.

 

[Belz...]

Kind of a strange thing to say, considering that this is precisely what I was doing when I pointed out the fallaciousness of the recurring appeal to hypocrisy. Whether the OP is being a hypocrite or not is completely irrelevant to the (in)validity of his primitivist ideas.

What Skeptic said. But personally, hypocrisy is one of the things that needs to be adressed, here.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The Khmer Rouge were primitivists.

But where they good or bad for peoples stress?