On Sat, Nov 24, 2001 at 06:17:20PM -0800, Brad DeLong wrote:
> >What do we make of such casual brutality? It sounds obscene that
> >someone might be killed for such a minor social problem, but of
> >course in these small desert bands this was no minor problem, it
> >threatened collective existence. Those that took the decision were
> >the elders, though discussion had been widespread - does this equate
> >to the dominance of the elders who merely for the sake of an easy
> >existence would kill this young man? Or was it simply one of the few
> >options open to them - as I think was the case.
>
> I would say that hunter-gatherer bands in which the elders were not
> "brutal" were unlikely to survive--so that it wasn't for the sake of
> an easy existence, but for the sake of any existence at all. Or
> perhaps the right way to say it is that the structure imposed on
> society enforces brutality...
>
> It's hard. On the one hand you don't want to minimize the fact that
> Abaroo does not seem to be realizing her species-being. On the other
> hand, there is a qualitative difference that you don't want to
> minimize between Benalong fulfilling a social role that is part of a
> successful long-term tribal survival strategy and, say, the behavior
> of the Guatemalan army...
>
> Brad DeLong
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu