For over ten millennia of the farming era, most folks saw themselves as tightly tied to small groups that lived in a largely alien and hostile world, under the thumb of empires and elites selected by tradition and power, elites not embarrassed by their privilege, interested in the general welfare, nor open to persuasion by argument.
"Before twelve thousand years ago, humans basically were egalitarian. They lived in what might be called societies of equals, with minimal political centralization and no social classes. Everyone participated in group decisions, and outside the family there were no dominators."
Not in the slightest. If you just want to be dismissive have at it. I suggest either reading his books (they are fantastic), or at least asking your AI to provide a summary and critique (which might be interesting, I think I will do so)
I don't need an Ai to think critically. Do you really think someone knows something about what humans were doing on earth 12,000 years ago? Let's see now, when is the beginning of written history, which is also not much to go on? Ah, yes, that would be 5,000 to perhaps 5,500 years ago. It's fine to speculate, but to make assertions as if they are fact is another thing.,
Robin, this piece pushed me to think about Indian politics in a different way.
Your “forager vs farmer” framing helped crystallize something I’ve been struggling to articulate: India’s urban educated upper middle class increasingly thinks and talks like a post-material forager elite: abstract, consensus-oriented, universalist, and technocratic while operating inside a mass democracy still driven by numbers, patronage networks, and identity coalitions.
The result is a class that is economically productive and culturally influential, yet politically weak enough to often feel treated primarily as a resource extraction base.
It makes a lot of sense to me. The international students from India who I get to work with in the psychology department seem very at home with these abstract, consensus-oriented, universalistic, and technocratic mindset. But I frequently get the sense from these students that they feel more different than similar to non-elites in their own country
Also, not sure I'd say forager elites were general welfare inclined. Foragers had a small "general" welfare enforced by face-to-face anti-dominance coalitions.
A lot to be said for elites not embarrassed by their privilege, who ARE interested in the general welfare, and are not open to persuasion by argument (but rather, interpretation of, i.e. a religious text which emphasises morality).
"We [today] … have a strong world culture of regulators, driven by a stronger world culture of elites. Elites all over the world talk, and then form a consensus, and then authorities everywhere are pressured into following that consensus. … This looks a lot like the ancient forager system of conflict resolution within bands."
It would look like forming consensus if the elites arrived at the consensus opinion. Today, the elites deliberately avoid the current consensus opinions on any issue they take up in earnest. The consensus among the elites is that the consensus among the population is wrong by default.
Or, more charitably, we might say the elites don't bother to exert their power except when they believe the consensus is wrong.
Either way, this seems to me like the re-introduction of hierarchy into the forager system created by liberal democracy. And it seems obvious, from the opinions of the Western elite, that the forager values of liberal democracy are precisely what the current elite, who descend intellectually from Nazism, Marxism, Romanticism, the Jacobins, Rousseau, and ultimately Plato, hate most, and have been fighting against since the early 19th century.
Awareness of this failure mode may cause at least some people to have second thoughts about their forager instincts leading to bad outcomes. People have forager instincts but also want good outcomes.
Educating young people, esp. to-be-members of the elite culture, about this failure mode (specifically, not just things like economics in general) might go some way (possibly not far enough) to improve the situation.
"Before twelve thousand years ago, humans basically were egalitarian. They lived in what might be called societies of equals, with minimal political centralization and no social classes. Everyone participated in group decisions, and outside the family there were no dominators."
We know this how?
That is a quote from Boehm's book.
The question still stands.
He studied (and did anthropological literature surveys of) modern day isolated foragers and extrapolated that they are probably representative.
I do believe that his conclusions applied primarily to nomadic foragers, not necessarily stationary ones.
In other words, he made assumptions and passed it off as knowledge.
Not in the slightest. If you just want to be dismissive have at it. I suggest either reading his books (they are fantastic), or at least asking your AI to provide a summary and critique (which might be interesting, I think I will do so)
Just ran it by my AI and I agree with what it says…I also agree with the caveats and progress in theory since he wrote his books.
I don't need an Ai to think critically. Do you really think someone knows something about what humans were doing on earth 12,000 years ago? Let's see now, when is the beginning of written history, which is also not much to go on? Ah, yes, that would be 5,000 to perhaps 5,500 years ago. It's fine to speculate, but to make assertions as if they are fact is another thing.,
Robin, this piece pushed me to think about Indian politics in a different way.
Your “forager vs farmer” framing helped crystallize something I’ve been struggling to articulate: India’s urban educated upper middle class increasingly thinks and talks like a post-material forager elite: abstract, consensus-oriented, universalist, and technocratic while operating inside a mass democracy still driven by numbers, patronage networks, and identity coalitions.
The result is a class that is economically productive and culturally influential, yet politically weak enough to often feel treated primarily as a resource extraction base.
I wrote a short response applying your framework to the Indian context here: [https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=8754954&post_id=199038672&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=2qmaa&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0NjAxMTcwLCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxOTkwMzg2NzIsImlhdCI6MTc3OTYwMzQ0NywiZXhwIjoxNzgyMTk1NDQ3LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItODc1NDk1NCIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.5ouirD_pmxlN8B-AyHIpVjJBKUyA_4vTSPdgr6L0G2U
It makes a lot of sense to me. The international students from India who I get to work with in the psychology department seem very at home with these abstract, consensus-oriented, universalistic, and technocratic mindset. But I frequently get the sense from these students that they feel more different than similar to non-elites in their own country
> New possibilities are explored. (More)
There's no link there.
Fixed; thanks
Salus populi suprema lex est?
The mandate of heaven?
Rajadharma?
And of course, chivalry...
Also, not sure I'd say forager elites were general welfare inclined. Foragers had a small "general" welfare enforced by face-to-face anti-dominance coalitions.
A lot to be said for elites not embarrassed by their privilege, who ARE interested in the general welfare, and are not open to persuasion by argument (but rather, interpretation of, i.e. a religious text which emphasises morality).
Forager elites attended to the welfare of their local bands, but not the globe.
"We [today] … have a strong world culture of regulators, driven by a stronger world culture of elites. Elites all over the world talk, and then form a consensus, and then authorities everywhere are pressured into following that consensus. … This looks a lot like the ancient forager system of conflict resolution within bands."
It would look like forming consensus if the elites arrived at the consensus opinion. Today, the elites deliberately avoid the current consensus opinions on any issue they take up in earnest. The consensus among the elites is that the consensus among the population is wrong by default.
Or, more charitably, we might say the elites don't bother to exert their power except when they believe the consensus is wrong.
Either way, this seems to me like the re-introduction of hierarchy into the forager system created by liberal democracy. And it seems obvious, from the opinions of the Western elite, that the forager values of liberal democracy are precisely what the current elite, who descend intellectually from Nazism, Marxism, Romanticism, the Jacobins, Rousseau, and ultimately Plato, hate most, and have been fighting against since the early 19th century.
Why didn’t you ask Grok?
I keep trying it, but it just isn't as good.
Awareness of this failure mode may cause at least some people to have second thoughts about their forager instincts leading to bad outcomes. People have forager instincts but also want good outcomes.
Educating young people, esp. to-be-members of the elite culture, about this failure mode (specifically, not just things like economics in general) might go some way (possibly not far enough) to improve the situation.