Huge brains helped primates fight via coalition politics, and language let human foragers enforce egalitarian norms against such fights. If neutrally applied, such norms should have cut the gains to huge brains, yet we had the biggest brains. This
Whoops, I actually misremembered my post as containing data about non-fired weapons in the Civil War (which Collins does cite in his book). That still wouldn't be WW2 though.
If you mean S.L.A. Marshall's "stats", there are good reasons to doubt them. Marshall's data collection methods were slipshod at best, and he documented his conclusions poorly. For more detailed source, see
Your first two methods are discussed in chapters IV and V ("Discrepant Roles" & "Communication Out of Character") of Erving Goffman's "The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life". It's a classic for a reason, I highly recommend it, particularly if you liked "Improv" (which I admit I haven't read).
Humans must be trained to fight?? Their may be gains to training in terms of fighting effectiveness, but is there evidence to suggest that, say, pillaging is any less natural than foraging?
"These skills seem to me too well developed in humans today to have only begun with farming ten thousand years ago. Compare them to our clumsy farming, war, and writing skills that have to be explicitly taught." Is war found among neighboring groups of chimpanzees? Are body language, indirect language, and rumors important aspects of war among tribes of hunter/gatherers? Among the pre-Columbian Amerind tribes were wars sometimes caused by tribes splitting apart into warring factions?
As usual, I think the theory put forth in the blog post is much too detailed to possibly be supported by the scant evidence available, though perhaps I am missing evidence that you haven't bothered to post on a daily blog. However, I am fascinated by the plausible deniability aspect of socializing. I notice this all the time, and not just in romantic interactions. There is a whole game behind "feeling the other person out" which I don't understand. I would love to hear more experimentally-supported theory describing the purpose of vagueness / plausible deniability.
Whoops, I actually misremembered my post as containing data about non-fired weapons in the Civil War (which Collins does cite in his book). That still wouldn't be WW2 though.
(Sorry the program won't let me respond directly to TGGP's comment).
The selection quoted by TGGP does not appear to reference any non-S.L.A. Marshall source for "the stats on soldiers who fired their weapons in WWII".
If any such exists I would be interested in hearing about it.
Other scholars have gotten similar percentages. I quote from Randall Collins' "Violence: A Microsociological Theory" here.
If you mean S.L.A. Marshall's "stats", there are good reasons to doubt them. Marshall's data collection methods were slipshod at best, and he documented his conclusions poorly. For more detailed source, see
http://www.warchronicle.com...
Phil Rushton says there's a tradeoff for huge brains...
TGGP, yes Groffman's book is a great classic.
Mike, see the stats on soldiers who fired their weapons in WWII.
Your first two methods are discussed in chapters IV and V ("Discrepant Roles" & "Communication Out of Character") of Erving Goffman's "The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life". It's a classic for a reason, I highly recommend it, particularly if you liked "Improv" (which I admit I haven't read).
Humans must be trained to fight?? Their may be gains to training in terms of fighting effectiveness, but is there evidence to suggest that, say, pillaging is any less natural than foraging?
elmo, that link won't work for me; have a title?
Future, chimps find war natural, but humans must be trained to fight.
"These skills seem to me too well developed in humans today to have only begun with farming ten thousand years ago. Compare them to our clumsy farming, war, and writing skills that have to be explicitly taught." Is war found among neighboring groups of chimpanzees? Are body language, indirect language, and rumors important aspects of war among tribes of hunter/gatherers? Among the pre-Columbian Amerind tribes were wars sometimes caused by tribes splitting apart into warring factions?
As usual, I think the theory put forth in the blog post is much too detailed to possibly be supported by the scant evidence available, though perhaps I am missing evidence that you haven't bothered to post on a daily blog. However, I am fascinated by the plausible deniability aspect of socializing. I notice this all the time, and not just in romantic interactions. There is a whole game behind "feeling the other person out" which I don't understand. I would love to hear more experimentally-supported theory describing the purpose of vagueness / plausible deniability.
I don't buy it... other animals seem to have these abilities as well, but they don't have our level of social cooperation.
I think that this paper has a better explanation.