[Carlhole]

[url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HG04Aa02.html]
The fraud of primitive authenticity
By Spengler [/url]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Asia Times', ' ')Two billion war deaths would have occurred in the 20th century if modern societies suffered the same casualty rate as primitive peoples, according to anthropologist Lawrence H Keeley, who calculates that two-thirds of them were at war continuously, typically losing half of a percent of its population to war each year. [1]

This and other noteworthy prehistoric factoids can be found in Nicholas Wade's Before the Dawn, a survey of genetic, linguistic and archeological research on early man. [2] Primitive peoples, it appears, were nasty, brutish, and short, not at all the cuddly children of nature depicted by popular culture and post-colonial
academic studies. The author writes on science for the New York
Times and too often wades in where angels fear to tread. [3] A complete evaluation is beyond my capacity, but there is no gainsaying his representation of prehistoric violence.

That raises the question: Why, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, does popular culture portray primitives as peace-loving folk living in harmony with nature, as opposed to rapacious and brutal civilization? Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, which attributes civilization to mere geographical accident, made a best-seller out of a mendacious apology for the failure of primitive society. Wade reports research that refutes Diamond on a dozen counts, but his book never will reach the vast audience that takes comfort in Diamond's pulp science...

[Kylon]

Well, at least we know what to look forward too!

[smallpoxgirl]

Why on earth would anyone figure that 2 billion humans killed with primative weapons as being inharmonious with nature?

Seems to me planet earth is suffering from a human infestation.

[Battle_Scarred_Galactico]

I've certainly never viewed "primitive" humans as peacefull, I have no idea why anyone would.

[TommyJefferson]

> "Why is it that the modern public revels in a demonstrably false portrait of primitive life?"

The article does a good job of answering that question.

"Hollywood grinds out stories of wise and worthy native Americans, African tribesmen, Brazilian rainforest people and Australian Aborigines, not because Hollywood studio executives hired the wrong sort of anthropologist, but because the public pays for them"

"popular culture holds that primitive peoples enjoy a quality - call it authenticity - that moderns lack"

"Colonial guilt"

[ashurbanipal]

Intereting. I feel I must say something about the remark directed at Jared Diamond, though. For anyone who's read his book, the idea that he paints primitive society as peaceful is obviously off the mark. He discusses how the mechanisms of civilization prevent people who are folded therein from having to kill each other. But it's pretty obvious that he doesn't think societies at any level are generally peace-loving (though he does also talk about a few exceptions).

In general, I think Diamond does a pretty good job explaining why history worked out the way it did.

[Novus]

I think Lawrence H Keeley should hold off on the judgement calls until after modern civilization experiences petrocollapse. If oil truely is food then population will die off as fast as the oil depletes. Best case senario is we see a 4% annual die-off. Worst is case is we lose 99% of the human race to nuclear war. I will take that 1% annual tribal war deaths over the mass die-offs and nuclear war any time.

[Cynus]

Novus raises an interesting point. I'm not an anthropologist, but suppose much of the violence of "primitive" peoples was over competition for scarce resources. An argument could be made that with the oil boom, we've had plenty of resources to go around, thus less violence. So lets wait until the oil boom is over and see how modern mad handles competition for scarce resources before we declare modern man so superor to the primitive.