> CB: Or maybe "tribalism" is a myth that imperialism made up to
> rationalize
> colonialism and genocide. What evidence is there of "old fashion"
> tribalism
> as some inherent characteristic of pre-class and state groups to be in
> conflict with each other ? There is a lot of evidence that tribes had
> less
> conflict among themselves than capitalist nations.
I don't think "tribalism" is technically a very good term. I'm no anthropologist, but I think the term "tribe" refers to a particular type of social organization. Whatever you call pre-written-history groups, there is plenty of evidence, I think, that they fought each other a heck of a lot. What "civilization" did was give them more efficient fighting technologies and the social organization called "armies," but it didn't inaugurate conflict among humans.
> CB: But maybe tribalism and "savagery" are Western projections of
> Western,
> dog-eat-dog culture onto other peoples.
Partially, yes, but let's not fall into the "noble savage" illusion, either.
> CB: The claim for such a human tendency is problematic. It makes it
> seems
> like people in the "old fashion tribes" were all mixed together and
> then
> segregated themselves based on being "alike" , rather than that people
> lived
> in separate groups from early on. Or to the extent that people
> separated,
> it was "like people" separating from each other , long, long ago.
Well, how far back do you mean "from early on"? Assuming the current theory of a single origin of H. sapiens in southern Africa is true, there were certainly a lot of resemblances among the earliest humans. But then some other primate species, such as chimpanzees, are known to form groups and have at each other, so I suppose the earliest humans also "lived in separate groups." And I doubt that these groups were always blessed with perfect harmony and peace.
> CB: We could take a casual look at human history and say there is an
> opposite tendency: to unite in larger and larger groups. The modern
> nation
> is much larger than the ancient tribe because there has been so much
> uniting
> of different "tribes" over the centuries. It is with advent of
> civilzation
> that conflict really takes off, standing bodies of armed men are
> formed,
> etc.
Conflicts involved larger and larger groups, more and more efficiently organized for combat, and using more efficient means of mayhem, but I doubt that there was ever a time when humans didn't bash each other's brains in at least now and then, unfortunately.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile