[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I') think the bigger problem than "civilization" is the idea of infinite growth. Some people think that the two go hand in hand, that you can't have civilization without buying into the infinite growth paradigm. It's understandable, since that's how it's been in the past. That's not how it has to be forever, should humanity collectively learn a very hard lesson in limits to growth.

[Fishman]

jdumars
Your avatar is a domesticated cat, a product of "civilization". You whine on about civilization, do you have a way to feed said cat without all the benefits of "civilization"? Or is this your next meal? Can I eat it?

[Aaron]

The most rudimentary study of history shows that no civilization (we know of) is sustainable.

As a matter of fact, no species has endured the test of time.

Much less mere groups.

I'm just wondering if I have enough info to determine, (as you seem to have done), that "civilization" is required to produce interesting or beautiful stuff.

Of course proving a negative is impossible as you mentioned, & it's not exactly fair for me to posit that argument. On the other hand, how else to express my suspicion that art can, and does exist absent the benefits of the modern world?

[firestarter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I') think the bigger problem than "civilization" is the idea of infinite growth. Some people think that the two go hand in hand, that you can't have civilization without buying into the infinite growth paradigm. It's understandable, since that's how it's been in the past. That's not how it has to be forever, should humanity collectively learn a very hard lesson in limits to growth.

[jdumars]

Aaron, now you're getting at the heart of the matter! Thanks for conceding on the way your previous argument was framed.

Art, music, culture, creativity are not inextricably linked to civilization at all. In uncivilized cultures, these things are typically deeply integrated into all aspects of life -- it is typically not the role of a specialist. Uncivilized art is constructed from materials available on the landbase, so is thus completely unique to the place it comes from. Think totem poles in the Northwest, or shell necklaces in island populations. Also, such artistic/music/creative items are obtained sustainably. This is reinforced because many ceremonial items came from rare species, which if completely depleted would destroy the cultural tradition.

This gets to your and Threadbear's question about what the middle ground is.

In a nutshell, it is the flourishing of local cultures each responsible to their landbases for their survival. If you eat a fish, you ensure by whatever means possible that the fish population grows and thrives. If you want art, you make it from what is available ensuring there is enough for future generations.

The unfortunate problem is that civilization doesn't co-exist well with non-civilized arrangements. For example, if you and your family/community have a habitation in a forest where you very carefully restore Salmon runs, the mixed native forest, leave minerals in the land, etc. And there is a civilized population anywhere nearby... your resources will eventually be taken from you by force. This is because the needs of the civilized population would grow indefinitely until there was simply nothing left. They would try and offer you money, tools or other unsustainable things which would have no value to you, and when that didn't work, they'd say you were "wasting the valuable natural resources!" Where their rivers were depleted of fish, yours would be teeming with them. Where their forests were felled, yours would be thriving and enormous. The civilized population would decry that their needs, their many thousand hungry mouths, outweigh you and your quaint little tribe.

This is of course fictional, but it has been played out time and time again in history as we have used various reasons to take remote resources from peoples that had carefully tended to them for thousands of years.

------------

Fishman, the cat as my avatar is Oscar the Death cat. Are you trying to make some sort of point? If so, please do.

If I can loosely infer your point, it's that "if I am so anti-civilization, why am I not wearing a loin cloth and living in the woods using stone tools"

The answer has a lot to do with the last paragraph above. Because civilization is global, there are very few places left in the world where you can live in an uncivilized manner without the constant threat of violence. If I go live in the woods, I am still at the mercy of the laws that govern those woods. I cannot entertain into a sustainable relationship with a place, because such places simply don't exist anymore.

I am doing everything I can to extract myself from civilization, including:

- learning all wild edibles in my area
- learning traditional hunting, tracking and tool-making
- eating a 95% local seasonal diet
- preserving all of my own food
- learning everything I can by actually doing it

You can't un-ring a bell. But, you can try and work toward a more sustainable future for yourself and future generations. This doesn't mean green capitalism, or "sustainable technology" -- it means realizing that the only thing that ultimately works is the right thing for the right place. Every answer is a local answer. And to get it, you have to know the land you are on.

[Aaron]

Nice post.

That's what I meant about not abandoning everything... just lose the parts which don't work so well.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jane', 'T')rust me, to all you gun toting Peak Oilers, you are the minority and if its your food the majority wants they will eventually get it. If anything you shooting at them will make people more violent in their bid to steal your provisions.

[firestarter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jane', 'T')rust me, to all you gun toting Peak Oilers, you are the minority and if its your food the majority wants they will eventually get it. If anything you shooting at them will make people more violent in their bid to steal your provisions.

[jdumars]

Seldom, I think know what you are getting at.

What I am saying/advocating is not some neo-hippie, everyone hug each other, bucolic forest love fest.

I am no idiot, and certainly don't expect post-civilization life to be free of things like murder, rape, aggression, and all the other fun stuff people do to each other. Every group of people -- be them native American, Amazon rain forest dwellers, or Buddhist monks, has a certain percentage of assholes. Each local group has their own way of dealing with such individuals ranging from ostracism to execution.

There will also undoubtedly be fights over borders, food and women/men. These will be settled, again, differently by each group of individuals.

Without civilization, things like strength, cunning, speed, and ability to craft weapons becomes the defense mechanism you speak of. Some groups are very good at crafting weapons and using them, while others are not. A great example of this is the Macah tribe on the Northwest coast of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. They are a fierce bunch of folks. They literally decimated several other tribes. They were also formidable whale hunters. But, just 40 miles south, the Quillayute tribe is as peaceful as can be. They occasionally had to defend their land from Macah incursions, but somehow over thousands of years settled the arguments and maintained autonomy.

The weapons used in those battles were typically clubs or spears and were quite effective.

The future is destined to look a lot like the past, especially once the energy party is o - v- e- r.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('firestarter', 'T')hen explain how it was accomplished for nearly two million years?

[jdumars]

Seldom, FWIW I just bought 2 NOS P38s for the collection today.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', 'S')eldom, FWIW I just bought 2 NOS P38s for the collection today.

[jdumars]

Yes, we do! We're trying to sell it. Ready to give it away. We've dropped the price to $55k. ugh.

The river moved a little so now it isn't so flood prone. It's the perfect bug out locale.

[firestarter]

I really don't get the middle ground/synthesis between the primitive and civilization argument at all. No one, whether they go by the name Heinberg, Zerzan, Kaczynski, et al ever demonstrates how the world can function any more harmoniously in this half baked state, although I don't believe Zerzan buys in to it as a viable possibility. Do we get THERE (half baked state) from here by force? Does technology function THERE as it does here? Is this synthesis a golden age ushering in freedom and thus anti authoritarianism writ large or must it be constantly proctored by gurus and experts exhibiting loving force where needed?

I need more convincing, otherwise it comes off as Utopian nonsense which is much more fanciful than (re)embracing our historically PROVEN, biospheric sustaining, primitive roots.

[buzzard]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', 'b')tu, I defined exactly what I mean by civilization above. In fact, I will re-quote it here:
"as a culture­ - that is, a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts­ - that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil: from civis, meaning citizen, from latin civitatis, meaning city-state), with cities being defined ­so as to distinguish them from camps, villages, and so on ­as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life."
History has two very long, highly-indicative trails of evidence that support my assertions:
1. There are histories of peoples such as the Tolowa, Urok, Quillayute, etc. that lived in one regional area for over 12,500 years with an extremely minimal ecological footprint.
2. There are histories of civilizations that have collapsed because they were unsustainable.
So where exactly is your logic coming from? I am misinformed because it's never happened before? That's a problem on two fronts... yes, it has happened before, many times, and, my arguments are based on simple laws of resource consumption/ecological stability required for living organisms. Are you saying that nothing can be deducted unless it happens?
Someone please come up with a good argument for their point other than I am wrong and you are right. Read Collapse by Jared Diamond. Read Endgame by Derrick Jensen. Walk out your front door and look around.
If there were suddenly no electricity, no fossil fuels, no running water. How long would you and everyone around you be able to survive? What about the people in densely-populated cities?
Peak oil is simply another puzzle piece in the greater picture. Limits to growth. Carrying capacity. Ecological tipping points. The arguments for civilization are academic. The arguments against it are endemic.

[CrudeAwakening]

Interesting thread, and some great points raised by jdumars and others.

I think this quote encapsulates the problem well:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', ' ')Civilized people do not understand the systems and resources on which they live because they rely on others to provide it.

[Cog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('firestarter', 'A')ctually, pre civilized tribal life (tribes-gatherer hunters-- existing before civilization) was essentially ludic/peaceful, egalitarian, exhibited little if any organized violence, was non sexist, non materialistic, had no conception of private property, and existed in this general condition for some two million years.

[jane]

Ok, well I am happy with the responses to my post! I always take a couple of days to watch where it goes and pick up after getting the running them.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'A')men. People also falsely conclude that all tribal societies are somehow more "in balance". This is just plain funny. Some tribal societies are just as psycho and out of whack, in their own way, as we are, with our perpetual growth paradigm. The role of superstition, scapegoating, sorcery, etc... is part of the spiritual milieu of many of these cultures, and does indeed help keep population in control, through family and tribal conflicts.
As Aaron asked, isn't there some other way, some kind of middle ground?

[firestarter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('firestarter', 'A')ctually, pre civilized tribal life (tribes-gatherer hunters-- existing before civilization) was essentially ludic/peaceful, egalitarian, exhibited little if any organized violence, was non sexist, non materialistic, had no conception of private property, and existed in this general condition for some two million years.

[Cog]

I did not make the assertion that primitive people were peaceful. You did.

You have bone fragments and pottery shards. I have recorded history to prove the contrary. Maybe you are making the assertion that as soon as man figured out written language it made him violent.