SOLITARY, POOR, NASTY, BRUTISH AND SHORT

One does not have to go to Mexico or East Africa to find pure tribal behavior. You only have to cruise the bars on 3rd Ave between 14th and 34th Streets. Therein you will find all of the aspects of primordial human behavior. Denizens form groups for protection (You're nothing to fear from that lot), companionship (Norm!), economic support, (Is it my round again already?) and courtship rituals, (Watch this. I'm making my move.)

The answer to the original question "Am I my brother's keeper?" for these groups, tribes, clans is yes, but it is because they have decided the other question, "Who is my brother?"

(apologies for leaving the ladies out out of this, it's just the goddamn English language.)

It's like what blatham was pointing out above. Members of a group have to be straight with each other, part of that is looking out for each other, for the strength of the weakest in a group defines the strength of all. Group members do not have to be straight with anyone else, in fact, it may be to the group's advantage to be honest with each other while lying to everyone else. That's something for the members of the American diplomatic corps to ponder before they ask the Iranians or the North Koreans about nuclear weapons technology, but I've left the pub haven't I? No, I haven't.

The question beyond "Who is my brother?" is "If I see you as my brother, what makes me think you think the same thing?"

Am I making sense?

Someone once said to me while we were discussing poverty programs that he couldn't understand the ingratitude of some people,
"You know,"he says," you don't bite the hand that feeds you."
"I might." I replied, "and I might bite down hard just to remind you that I'm not you."

We ought to be our brother's keeper, we ought to share the great bounty our tribe has with those from elsewhere, but we ought to know that they may never chose to be our brother and that shouldn't stop us for a minute.

Joe

portalstar said

Perhaps there is a semantic problem getting in our way here. Though we normally now use the term 'government' as portal uses it above (eg, government is one thing, the church is another), I think that usage confuses more than clarifies. We might be better served if we understand government to be whatever institutions or power structures exist within any group or community. For much of our history, the church was effectively the 'government'. Or, another example, the Hell's Angels certainly have their own internal 'government'. If it functions as government, it is government.

Likewise, the term 'institution' can be confusing in that it has two meanings. For example, the Supreme Court is the justices and the buildings where they operate and all the paraphenalia of their undertaking, but it is also, and more importantly, the cultural agreements (either written down or not) surrounding that body's functioning. Again, I think, we ought to concentrate on function when we think about 'institution'. If the SC was sitting in chambers and an asteroid wiped out the lot of them and their building, the 'institution' would carry on. If, on the other hand, no asteroid hit but we somehow all lost our memories as to what that group and building were for, and if we lost all writings on the matter, the institution would no longer exist even while it's physical manifestations remained. If all of that is insufficiently clear, we might also think of what it is we refer to when we speak of the 'institution of marriage'.

JN, that was an excellent contribution in my never humble opinion, and yes, i believe you made a good deal of sense.

Mr. Mountie, don't be slingin' aroun' contentious issues such as "the institution of marriage" in this humble little thread--i'm hoping for politics in the abstract, and not the concrete.

I was struck in JLN's discursus on the evolution of social organization in that he did not include the rise of temple societies. In every case but one of which i know, when society has progressed past what he calls the "chiefdom" stage, without the proximate influence of other societies already so evolved, it seems to have invariably been to a temple society. The one exception is the ancient society of the Yellow River valley, in which the mandarin bureaucracy stood in the place of the priestly caste of a temple society. I believe (and may well be wrong, having done insufficient reading) that we lack enough information on the origins of the Shang to know if the mandarins are descendant from a temple society priestly caste. Given the ambivalence and pragmatism of Chinese peasant beliefs in regard to religion and gods, however, i suspect that that was not the case.

Thank you for introducing some clarity of definition, Mr. Mountie.

To answer that original question which JN reminded me of, I do believe, or hold the value that, we are our brothers' keepers. I'd also argue that our institutions (or social contracts) reflect precisely such a notion. There will be some mix of selfish concern and empathy for others which brings us into contract with each other, the proportions of which vary person to person, culture to culture, and instance to instance. I suspect that those of us who are heavily self centered but low on the empathy component find our way into the Republican party, but it is just a suspicion.

Sorry set. You know me well enough now to predict that I'll look at a receipe and begin to draw out abstractions on the dynamics of human groups.

Oh, no apologies, Mr. Mountie, i have greatly enjoyed you contribution, and was sincere in thanking you for introducting definition.

Speaking of which, how's your body building program progressing?

Not well, I'm sorry to tell you. The years of competitive arm wrestling produced an asymmetry which, at the time, served well in intimidating my opponents (my right side like Popeye, my left like Olive Oil) but it's a hindrance now in attempting to achieve that California beach aesthetic. But thanks for inquiring.

TRUTH
Thanks, Set. In presenting my sketch of the social evolutionary model of early anthropology (which I do not endorse, by the way; it assumes too much in its pseudo evolutionism. Only biological systems evolve; social systems just change. They can become more complex OR simplex; biological forms cannot do the latter), I was assuming that you introduced Hobbes in order to discuss the origins of the State, viz., the sovereign which emerged out of the social contract. It seems--if I've finally got it-- that you are more concerned with what happens to societies when they fail. Hobbes' political philosophical model (I called it a "fantasy", not to be depreciative, but only to indicate it's purely speculative character) is probably cited as often by POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS as it is by POLITICAL SCIENTISTS.

I'd agree with that, Boss--i also think that it is quoted as though it were more than simply speculation. I ought to have been more clear from the beginning--Hobbes' description of "life in a state of nature" has recently struck me as an all too accurate statement of what life becomes for the unfortunates in failed states. I am reminded of Frederick II's comment about the poor sods who suffer in war, knowing nothing of "our lofty quarrels," in which he referred to the wars of monarachs in the 18th century.

Actually, cav, I would say that high school is the result of the forcing of previously independant individuals into a social and/or communal situation and the problems that develop from that. High school is a social training ground to forceably adapt the next generation to social rules that go against the natural grain. An initiation, if you will. In high school, it's not every kid for themselves. It's kids breaking off into groups, stereotyping and being stereotyped, classed, raced, sexed, and otherwise classified and separated and thinking in terms of groups and not as individuals any longer.

truth
I agree, Rufio. I should think that social scientists would give much more attention to the social dynamics of high schools. I guess the problem is that they would be too obvious, that their very presence would affect the behavior they want to observe. But it is true that the high school situation presents a wonderful laboratory for the study of social dynamics--particularly the emergence and maintenance of social hierarchies (pecking orders).

I have a small quibble with what Rufio writes here, though. It seems to imply that this is an intended consequence of the secondary school system. I would say, rather, that the characteristic is one of adolescence, and that, in fact, secondary school administrators would be a lot happier if the students were simply quiet drones.

I consider the issue important, because until quite recently in the history of homo sapien sapien, most individuals were unlikely to live much past their early twenties. I believe that adolescent behavior and "values" would have characterized the greater group (whether clan or tribe) behavior and values. I have a raft of examples of this from history, but they are debatable, and off-topic here anyway. Not that i'm a pertinence nazi--i'm hardly in any position to complain about thread digression.

The problem is that the social structure is so entrenched and so sharply defined. I mean, you can go almost anywhere else and sit down and interveiw people and ask them about the situation and they can give you a pretty good idea, usually. But you can't expect some high school kid to say, well, we do this, and they do that in relation to us, and we're on a higher/lower caste level than they are, and these are the unspoken rules involved in our clique, and this is why we don't associate with those guys. It's probably just a maturity issue, but in general, they like to sum everything up by saying "well, we're cool, and they're loooosers".

I think it would be really cool to do like Never Been Kissed though, and pretend to be a high school student and everything. It would probably be a little tougher, since everyone in high schools outside of hollywood aren't 23 already, but someone might be able to pull it off. You would really have to pull it off though, because they aren't going to talk to someone who doens't belong.

Setanta, if you study anthro for long enough (like, a year a half) you start to realize that NO social consequence is intentional. That sort of becomes a given after a while. However, most of it is due to social causes and not biological ones. Western cultures are very stratified compared to others, in terms of the number of different categorizations and the tension surrounding them. I really don't think every teenager goes through something as vicuous and trying as high scholl just because they are teenagers. If every child were homeschooled, this country would be very different. Instead, they are herded together by laws into a single building for 8 hours a day and invariably end up interacting with each other, cheating off each other, eating lunch together, ditching together, helping each other with homework, etc. I am just guessing here, but I think it is safe to say that it has been longer since you have gone to high school than I. If you can remember, it is who you choose to eat lunch with on the first day of 9th grade that really determines where you stand for the next 4 years. Most 9th graders just in from middle school would elect to go home for lunch, or to go find people they know to eat with, or to go out and get fast food. But again, in most high schools, 9th graders at least are not allowed to do that. They are forced to go into a crowded cafeteria and find someone to eat with who will determine their future interactions for a good while to come. It's not out of choice that they enter this environment. And this isn't even to mention tracking, which happens at a lot of big high schools.

What's also interesting is that only in high school, where you come from outside of the school doesn't play much of a role. Everyone has to go to high school - rich people, poor people, black people, white people, everyone. When you're in the school, you can't rely on your parents' money, or race, or anything to get you along. Everything hinges on your behavior that first day. Granted, it's less likely for a poor person to be a prep, but the outside world really isn't that influential. It's a self-contained breeding ground for culture. Pun intended, heh heh, I think there's some etymology in there somewhere.

Anyway, back to the topic.