If people are content to live that way why should we stop them?
Because we are a social species, and people should contribute to the whole.
Brings us back to topic. Altruism. Basically you are stating most people have no Altruism outside of self-interest?
In a way, yes. In terms of evolution, humans are social mammals and dependent on culture and the group for survival and reproduction. Altruistic acts, therefore, are also self-interest because they ensure the foundation for one's own or one's family's survival and reproduction.
Spiritually, I think if we live in a process, in an awareness of our interbeingness with all other beings rather that in a "me vs. you" and subject/object state, then altruism and self-interest are one and the same. This is because there is no self and no other. There is only the process of being itself.
Me too, its the goal of what I talk about. Freeing people from slavery in meaningless jobs to enjoy the things that really matter. I mean everyone should have access to the technology of the current middle class, and better.
What people consider to be "freedom" and "meaningful" varies considerably and for many, has nothing to do with technology. I would argue that finding meaning has more to do with one's attitude than with what one is actually doing. Of course, we all have things we like to do and things we do not like to do. But part of my own progress as a being has been finding meaning in stuff I don't particularly enjoy doing, and finding that the only thing that can really make me free is my own choice to free my own mind.
It seems as much as I harp on about some ambrosial high-tech utopia you sing wistfully of some forgotten paradise that never existed. Maybe all the death, hunger and misery we see foisted on the innocent today is unique to our time!!
It wasn't a paradise, but the stats don't lie. People lived shorter lives, but they worked less than half the hours the average US citizen does (21 hours in the average foraging society- including chores; 51 in the US- not including chores). They spent the remainder of the time story-telling, hanging out with friends and family, dancing, drumming and singing. Doesn't sound like a bad life, even if it was physically demanding and a bit shorter, especially considering that our bodies were built to do physical things, and I don't particularly relish the medically assisted long "life" that I've seen some family members enjoy.
As for the rest... death is a part of life, and needn't be miserable. Hunger was not common among hunter-gatherers in regions outside the Arctic, nor was it common among horticulturists. Hunger/famine became common only with agriculture and higher population densities, and despite having plenty of food now (due to the green revolution), famine continues today... not because we lack the technology, but because we lack the empathy that would put people's needs over governmental borders and political ploys. Technology and science only go so far. They may fix some natural resource parameters, but they can't fix the problems that stem from our lack of humaneness and love.
I have also been at pains to point out on dozens of occasions that when I use the word religion I am, unless otherwise stated only talking about institutional mass religion.
I always forget, because that is not the definition of religion in my field (or the other social sciences). If religion is institutional and spirituality is individual, what is belief and practice that is communal but not institutional?
People should be allowed to want things that improve their lives and make them happier. And they should have them. Intellectual materialism is the best check and balance to maintain objectivity.
Objectivity has two problems... first, there is not contemporary objectivity that is entirely devoid of politics and bias. This is some sort of utopian form of science that isn't what science currently is. I suggest reading some of the internal discussions on science and the post-modern critique, if you haven't already done so. I am not a post-modernist myself, but I take the critique seriously and I find it to be valid- science doesn't operate in a vacuum. Secondly, objectivity alone is neutral- it may be effective in terms of creating technology or explaining how something works, but that doesn't make it a contribution to happiness or to improvement of life. Materialism can yield useful, wonderful things like the smallpox vaccine. It also can yield horrific misery, like nuclear weapons, landmines, and cluster bombs.
Finally, you need to realize that while people tend to want happiness and improvement in their lives, everyone thinks differently about what would give them this. Furthermore, what may cause happiness and improvement for one person can be at the expense of another person or being. Lots of Americans enjoy new cell phones, computers, and televisions on a regular basis. However, it is at a high environmental cost as the old items are full of heavy metals. Many Americans enjoy buying new clothes on a frequent basis, but this comes at a cost to workers around the world who face physical punishment, excessively long hours, and poor working conditions (not to mention child labor). The improvements in the first world have largely been won by taking advantage of people in the third world. I'd suggest Wallerstein and Andre Gunter Frank for these studies- the third world is not "undeveloped" but rather "underdeveloped." Improving lives is a very difficult and complex goal and one that is contested. A soundbite approach simply doesn't work, and wholesale distribution of Western culture and technology not only doesn't work, but it is often not perceived as improvement or a cause for happiness.
Happy smiley Navaho living their semi-nomadic ideal? Yes it was nice, very occasionally. But you have to be a realist too, there were more tribes that ate each other than got on peaceably.
Back it with stats and references.
I was talking of hunter-gatherer society (90% of human history), which is band level society. I was not speaking of pastoralism or tribal society.
As FYI, violence was nearly unheard of in band level society. In tribal society, it was more common but rarely escalated to the point of war. There was nothing like the massive deaths and misery we have associated with modern, state-based warfare.
The only practical way for mankind to return to such ideals is for a major event that wipes out billions and destroys the technological innovations of recent times. What a loss!! No Hubble telescope, no Heart Surgery, no printing press, computers, friends who can keep in daily contact across oceans. The loss of going backward would a huge tragedy.
I wasn't suggesting a return to foraging. I was suggesting that we learn all we can about what has worked for sustainability and peace from *all* peoples and *all* times... rather than viewing ourselves as some sort of pinnacle of achievement. Global capitalism and the results of the industrial revolution are about 400 years old. That's not much.
I do not suggest going "backward" (though that statement is itself framed in a Western superiority complex point of view). I suggest learning from the world's cultural diversity and acknowledging our shortfalls. I suggest a return to a sort of earth-based religion that is more about community and what is sustainable and one's local place... and is less about rules and global organizations. But what I do not advocate is getting rid of spirituality and religion... and I back my position with a large literature from cultural ecology and medical anthropology. I would say that one great sum-up of the value of these modes of thinking would be Kay Milton's "Loving Nature."
I believe in the potential of our species to find ways to take life far and wide and technological and scientific evolution is vital to that end.
I have no idea what it means to take life far and wide.
Sometimes I wish, as an anthropologist, you would deal more with that aspect rather than trying, as is your habit
, to take it all into the realm of personal spirituality.
I'm not just an anthropologist, I am also a human being with a spiritual experience. It is my spirituality that prompts me to do interfaith dialogue. Otherwise, I would be content to just talk about anthropology with other anthropologists. I think I have been fairly consistently against using religion for ends that cause misery and suffering. Rather than toss religion out, however, I maintain that the problem is a systemic, cultural one at this point... and not simply an ideological one. Ideology and religion are superstructural aspects of culture, and these tend to change
because of changes in infrastructural apsects (forces and relationships of production), not the other way 'round. Religion tends to be conservative, that is- literally conserving the older way of a culture. Hence, we see religion change slower than other parts of culture. I do not argue for a lack of change in religion, but rather against a superior attitude that tosses out the bulk of human experience in favor for some non-existent utopian science devoid of politics.
You have agreed on more than one occasion that religion and politics have evolved together as faithful lovers, they are inseparable.
All of society and culture is this way. Both evolved together, and in fact could be arguably grounded upon, economic systems.
And you know as well as I do there are billions of people out there who do as their religion dictates without question. You know how powerful religion really is on societies. But it seems like you spend a lot of time trying to play down how crucial this is to the political reality we find ourselves stuck in. My take is that religions are corrupted beyond rescue.
There are also billions who do as their national leader dictates without question. There is a crisis of having lots of people who have no critical thinking skills and little desire to gather information, think, and take responsibility at all. I don't think it's a religious issue.
I may come across as being quiet on this matter of religion and politics, but if so, it is more to do with my own personal reasons for being here than my beliefs and discussions elsewhere. I am very much against theocracy and anything smacking of it in my own society, though I don't presume to think I can dictate to other cultures and nations that they should follow suit. It's a delicate balance to study other cultures and also be an activist- one that every social scientist has to carefully weigh.
As for corruption, I can agree that many (though not necessarily all) of the world's major institutionalized religions have been corrupted for economic or political ends. However, in each of them there are also resistence movements that arise, and I don't think we can abandon and alienate these people by lumping all of them together under one common perceived problem. Furthermore, religion is not only an institutionalized global thing, and to argue to throw out belief systems and ritual practices in general makes no sense given the broad diversity that religion actually encompasses.
We simply approach these problems in different ways. I choose a way that resonates with my own spiritual experience and that I perceive as positive- encouraging everyone to study, to experience, to grow individually and to always challenge authority of all kinds.
As a species we are like a boy who's just been given his first chemistry set. Its all fizzes, bangs and a whole load of mess. But as the boy grows I think he will take these basic naive experiments as a vital lesson on how not to do things. We already have great minds being extremely innovative in making things better... the ability of the human mind to find solutions should not be underestimated.
There are many solutions that never make it to execution- not because they do not work, but because they are blocked by economic and political interest. We have many great minds being innovative (and always have in humanity), but we also have many minds that are fearful, greedy, or too short-sighted. Despite a long history of seeing how awful war is, we continue to cause this suffering. Despite knowing how horrific famine is and having enough food, we cause this suffering. I see individuals repeat the same stupid mistakes over and over, and this is magnified at a social level.
I hope that people snap out of it, but the reality of the situation is that unlike the boy with his chemistry set, we only get one planet to play with and we can't go pick up another at Toys R' Us after screwing up the first one. There is a learning curve, certainly- but there is also a very real parameter around the experiment and a lot at stake. We can't screw it up indefinitely at ever-widening levels of impact and expect to move forward despite this.
Will I ever see it? Of course not.
Come now- hold out some sort of hope. I try to seek a balance. In my rational, analytical mind, I see that humanity is increasingly hopeless.
In my spiritual mind, I see that humanity has boundless potential... and I hope that we begin to see a massive movement toward kindness, toward love, toward all the best that our drive toward altruism could lead... if applied to the widest possible group of beings. I hope that humanity evolves beyond its "us vs. them" exclusionary boundaries and into an altruism that is inclusive of all beings.
