At 11:25 AM -0800 10/12/02, Gar Lipow wrote:
>Bill B. said:
>
>>Yes, but it isn't specialisation or more complex organisation that
>>necessitates coercive social structures. At least not directly.
>>What really leads to coercive social organisation are a combination
>>of the fact that, unlike in a hunter gatherer society it is
>>*possible* to coerce people economically and that it is also
>>socially-useful to do so.
>
>Umm you are conflating again <grin>. Hunter gatherers may be
>relatively free of hierarchal institutions. They were not at all
>free of coercive social organization. Hunter gatherers have very
>definite rules. (Hmm perhaps "rule" carries semantic content that
>really should not apply to hunter-gather society. Customs? Except
>that hunter-gather societies are not static -definitely capable of
>changing ideas of what is proper behavior. Very well. rules.) And
>there is very strong enforcement of these rules.
I didn't express myself very clearly, thanks for adding those points of clarification. Rules, customs, I'm not sure it makes much difference what word you use. What I was trying to get across was that their economy wasn't structured as a coercive hierarchy.
It doesn't mean that there wasn't power being exercised. Physical force, emotional force. But that's an entirely different kettle of fish to a structure of economic power being used to coerce people en-masse.
>First not all Hunter-gatherers are non-violent. It is not unknow for
>Hunter-gatherers to beat the hell out of someone who violates the
>rules. It is not even unknown for Hunter-gathereres to keep women in
>suboridnate roles, and use gang-rape as a method of enforcement.
I gather a lot of pre-class societies were quite violent by our standards. Life was cheap, in the sense that taking someone's life wouldn't be considered to be taking something from that person that was terribly valuable. Although it might be considered to be a serious offense against the group as a whole. Small tribes couldn't very well afford to lose people.
>But many hunter gatherers are not violent. And even those who are
>don't use only violence as a means of enforcement. One widely
>practiced penalty is exile. If you can't get along with the
>community you can be kicked out. In some enviroments this
>essentially a death penalty, in others mere a reduction to a short
>and miserable life (short and miserable to living within an HG
>community.)
>
>One form of coercion that is pretty universal among Hunter-gatherers
>is the use of teasing. This sounds pretty mild at first. Teasing?
>How benign and friendly. But I'm not talking merely friendly
>teassing. Think of the despised kid back in high school. Depending
>on your school he have faced no more actual violence, beatings and
>such, then most kids go through. But he was teased cosntantly - day
>after day, his ega left in tattered shreds. A great man kids who go
>through that level of teasing end up committing suicide. (Maybe this
>is only a U.S. phenomena. Maybe kids are as nasty to one another in
>Austrialia).
No, its universal I think. Kids are really cruel, but if we can draw out that analogy a bit, consider the difference between kids bullying each other and institutionalised bullying by teachers. Its a different order of magnitude I think you would agree? If hunter-gatherer society is analogous to the playground, our society is analogous to the situation where teachers use their social and institutional power over students to exploit and abuse them.
> And of course teaseing is a highly calibaritable method of social
>enforcement. It does not have to go on for a lifetime. Or it can be
>something like a hunter insists on eating the best cut of the animal
>he caught instead of sharing it, as is custom. So from then on he
>has to hear remarks about for years, or maybe the rest of his life -
>not constantly , but every once in while. At this level it may even
>be friendly, if he only did it once. But if that is on the list of
>stuff he is occasionally teased about, he will be damn careful not
>to do it again.
Maybe I'm "conflating" again (if only I could afford a decent dictionary) I don't think I'd agree that expressing disapproval amounts to coercion. Obviously it is effective as a way of influencing people, so it has some power. But it isn't compelling force. It is power over people in the same sense that the baby exerts power over its mother, The only power is to make people want to comply, rather than threatening economic or violent reprisals unless they comply.
Expressing disapproval also isn't coercive social organisation, since it isn't organised.
>By the way, since we are talking about hunter-gatherers, I presume
>you know the very old joke about hunter-gatherer family structures.
>The typical hunter-gatherer family structure in the 21st century
>consists of a man, a woman, some kids, and an anthropologist.
I hadn't heard that. ;-)
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas