{"id":27171,"date":"2009-09-22T11:38:35","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T11:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2009\/09\/22\/primitive-cultures-are-simple-1\/"},"modified":"2009-09-22T11:38:35","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T11:38:35","slug":"primitive-cultures-are-simple-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/22\/primitive-cultures-are-simple-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex (A falsehood) II"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first part of this discussion<\/a>, I reminded you that we are talking about “falsehoods.” “Falsehood” is a term I and others have co-opted and have used for well over a decade in courses across the land on evolutionary biology and related topics. The idea is to identify a statement that, when uttered in some particular demographic or sociocultural context, invokes a relatively consistent set of meanings in the minds of those present, such that those meanings are at least iffy, probably wrong, and often (but certainly not always) offensive and destructive in some way. Such a construct … this falsehood thingie … can then be de-constructed in a way that becomes an enlightening learning experience.
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\nTo say “Things come in threes,” is not to say that “things” (whatever “things” are) come packaged inside the number three. Rather, it is to say that events, usually untoward events, occur in sequences that are not two, not four, but rather, three events long. So even though the sophist could argue that this statement is about wrapping hockey pucks in the letter three, it is actually about a belief that there is a cosmic linkage between misfortunes so that when two of them happen, there is a period of time over which a third is very very likely to happen, but then when the third happens, there will be no more misfortune for while. That’s a falsehood.<\/a><\/p>\n

The falsehood “Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex” invokes a sense of undeserved privilege in those who feel they are part of a civilization. This sense of privilege has a number of negative side effects. Since the civilized privilege dude is usually white middle or upper class heteronormative suburbanite, everybody else gets to be at least a little primitive, and part of the falsehood is that “primitive” is a certain applicable label that has certain connotations. The people in the city, the people of some other religion, the people of some other country, the people of some other complexion — all the people that are feared — can be put in their place. This sense of privilege allows the modernized westerner to feel not too bad about the fact that many things he does have a negative consequence for people elsewhere in the world. Wars in the Congo support his use of a cell phone, and so on. Most commonly, though, he attains a sense of “betterness” or accomplishment. He is a smart, civilized guy and his very living in this civilized society makes him better, and generally, very impressive.<\/p>\n

This sense of privilege and betterness comes out more clearly when it is suggested that people in “civilizations” are not better than other people, and it comes out with a special sharpness … like when you crush the fresh basil instead of the dried basil, lots of extra insect poison floating around in the air … when it is further suggested that people in “primitive” societies may be in some ways better than those in civilized societies.<\/p>\n

An excellent example of this can be seen in the comments on Part I of this post where one commenter is making the claim that he, as a civilized person, has a capacity for abstract thought that exceed that of people living in “primitive” hunter-gatherer societies. What is especially important about that claim, to me, is not that the commenter is blindingly ignorant. That’s true, and I’m sure its important to him though he doesn’t know it, but more important is that anyone would go ahead and make statements that deeply denigrate entire groups of people on the basis of utter ignorance. It isn’t just that he’s wrong. It’s that he has no basis whatsoever for what he is saying other than received knowledge and gut feeling flavored with the sense of privilege he got from being a middle or upper class European and\/or American type white male. The sense of privilege allows him to simply think something (abstractly, I assume) and then somehow know<\/em> that it is true. That is not a basis for explaining how an entire group of people (many groups, actually) are mentally inferior. Apparently, he was not listening in grade school and high school to some of the more important higher abstract thoughts that are taught, say, in geography class.<\/p>\n

So, now the second part of the concept. Let’s return to the question of how to get a meal on the table. (See my earlier post to learn why from this point on we are going to restrict our terminology to “western” vs. “Hunter-Gatherer” (HG for short))<\/p>\n

As many of you wisely pointed out in the comments, there actually is complexity behind the process of putting the pre-made frozen dinner in the microwave. Need I describe it? The steps to get the microwave to the kitchen counter involve development, maintenance, and operation of research programs, manufacturing facilities, and transportation facilities that exceed in complexity anything that ever happened before in history. Same with the Lean Cuisine dinner. Not to mention the house the focal person (the eater of the dinner) is in, or the lazy-boy lounge chair he will recline in, or the TV he will switch on and the show on that TV he will watch before dozing off to sleep with a bit of pasta from his Cheese Lasagna with Chicken Breast Scaloppini dangling from his chin.<\/p>\n

To survive as a Hunter-Gatherer you need to participate in, understand, be good at, and contribute to a rich and complex culture that is personally challenging on a daily basis. It is hard, but rewarding, and there is time for leisure. But the society you live in may be quite simple. The culture is complex, the society is simple.<\/p>\n

To survive as a Westerner, you can get away with participating in a culture that requires of you, teaches you, or asks of you little more than understanding what the “one minute” button on the microwave is (people don’t even set the time any more …. they just press the “one minute” button the approximate number of times needed to make the mac and cheese hot) and you need to know, or at least want<\/em> to know even if you don’t need to know, where the TV clicker is. You may also need a job but it may be a job that is not much more complex than operating at TV clicker. The culture is potentially astonishingly simple, the society is mind numbingly complex.<\/p>\n

… to be continued continued ….<\/a><\/p>\n


\nPlease have a look at the Archives, where you will find the other posts in the Falsehoods Category. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the first part of this discussion, I reminded you that we are talking about “falsehoods.” “Falsehood” is a term I and others have co-opted and have used for well over a decade in courses across the land on evolutionary biology and related topics. The idea is to identify a statement that, when uttered in … Continue reading Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex (A falsehood) II<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2637],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-74f","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}