The Worst Mistake

If the American Revolution devastated the globe, as per the book reviewed a few days ago, it wasn't the first time: civilization itself was the first, and worst, mistake.
All this cave painting, migrating, and repainting of newly found caves came to an end roughly twelve thousand years ago, with what has been applauded as the “Neolithic Revolution.” Lacking pack animals and perhaps tired of walking, humans began to settle down in villages and eventually walled cities; they invented agriculture and domesticated many of the wild animals whose ancestors had figured so prominently in cave art. They learned to weave, brew beer, smelt ore, and craft ever-sharper blades.

But whatever comforts sedentism brought came at a terrible price: property, in the form of stored grain and edible herds, segmented societies into classes—a process anthropologists prudently term “social stratification”—and seduced humans into warfare. War led to the institution of slavery, especially for the women of the defeated side (defeated males were usually slaughtered) and stamped the entire female gender with the stigma attached to concubines and domestic servants. Men did better, at least a few of them, with the most outstanding commanders rising to the status of kings and eventually emperors. Wherever sedentism and agriculture took hold, from China to South and Central America, coercion by the powerful replaced cooperation among equals. In Jared Diamond’s blunt assessment, the Neolithic Revolution was “the worst mistake in the history of the human race.”
Her thesis about the cave paintings, by the way, is that they were admirations of beings much more powerful than humans were at that time. Humans posed no threats to bison and lions, so they adored them from afar, effacing themselves but drawing the megafauna with loving attention. It was the attitude of 'meat that knows it is meat,' a kind of humility to which she would like humanity to return.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've read her non-fiction. She lives by her convictions, I give her that much credit, but her take on things is rather idealistic and off-kilter, in my opinion.

LittleRed1

douglas said...

She sounds like she's saying that there was perfect equanimity in hunter/gatherer culture because 'no property, no power imbalance', which is of course false. It's just that inequalities would be around things like strength, beauty, hunting skill, trading skill, etc. instead of accumulated wealth.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

They also left people with a little food and as much comfort as they could manage when it came time to abandon them because they could no longer keep up with the tribe. And over time, a large number died because of constant low-level warfare, a few at a time.

She also believes Jared Diamond, who was long on favored narratives but a bit shaky on facts.

Cassandra said...

The scariest thing is that these people really believe the only reason humans are ever "mean" to each other is "the system". Not human nature, which can often be channeled into more/less positive expressions by society, law, and cultural norms, but some external force that experts -granted sufficient power by the hoi polloi - can masterfully adjust to eliminate all badness from the world.

They offer no supporting evidence that we once lived in some kind of egalitarian paradise - they simply assert it. Even if that requires them to ignore copious evidence to the contrary.

This is authoritarianism, writ large - the very thing they rail about 24/7/365. Your role is to shut up and believe.



Grim said...

A hunter/gatherer experience could be pleasant, especially in a warm climate with abundant food yet few parasites or diseases.

But I’d expect it to involve a lot more violence than they’re imagining.