The funny thing is, I've never met a single person who has read much anthropological or historical literature who holds this view. Truly. Not one. It's only ever held by people who know nothing of so-called 'tribal living' (as if pre-modern 'tribes' in different parts of the world have much in common!).
Human cultures can be so vastly different as to be truly incommensurable. Have a read of Bill Gammage's 'The Biggest Estate on Earth', about the Australian indigenous nations. They managed the entirely of Australia a single 'estate', providing ample, easily-obtained subsistence from a massive variety of sources, using a variety of agricultural and hunter-gathering techniques. For 60,000 years. The depth of culture and development of rich social interaction this engendered is literally unimaginable to us. A contemporary American or Australian, with our love of comfort and trivial gadgets, philosophical naivety, absence of acquaintance with the nonhuman world, and lack of concern for conspecifics may well seem like an unfathomably ignorant and petulant child to an Australian of 1000 years ago.
There's far too much to say about this in an HN comment, but the notion that modern living is objectively and unambiguously 'better' than that is plainly false. Particularly when you consider that our culture is very likely to destroy most natural systems in the next 100 years. The fashionable lingo is that our societies are 'unsustainable', but the plain accurate truth is that, so far, we have proven to be unviable. Maybe we'll fix this, maybe not. But indigenous Australians have a 60,000 year proven track record.
Note I'm not claiming the converse of your claim is true, but just that you're being grossly simplistic.
> If you didn't believe that, go back to tribal living.
That's an unworthy and silly rhetorical jibe, as you surely must know. We are moderns and must make our lives where we are. That doesn't prevent us from taking a fair and knowledge-based look at premodern cultures.
Agreed. I'm in no position to give up my lifestyle and the conveniences and predilections that accompany it, but reading this article about an American anthropologist who was betrothed to a Yamomami women while doing field work in the Amazon, had children, and tried to assimilate his wife and family into modern Western society (in New Jersey!) made me really reconsider some of my assumptions and priorities:
But life in New Jersey was not working out for Yarima. It wasn't the weather, food or modern technology but the absence of close human relations. The Yanomami day begins and ends in the shapono, open to relatives, friends, neighbours and enemies. But Yarima's day in the US began and ended in a closed box, cut off from society.
The "Tribal living" we're speaking of has a 0% chance of:
Curing disease
Defeating aging
Preventing mass-extinction from a supervolcano or asteroid impact
Leaving the planet before the sun envelops it
Of course, we might not do all of that either. We might get killed by nukes, or climate change. Some of it might not be possible even without those issues.
If you want the human race to continue on, a post-tribal lifestyle is the only way it is remotely possible. It isn't assured - but we know the chance of it happening with tribal living is 0.
Even simpler, a modern state can protect itself (to a certain extent) from other modern states. Being able to protect yourself from the apex predator is a wonderful thing ;)
It's amazing how people romanticize the past. Or imagine that past humans lived in harmony with nature. We never have. We're using to harvesting resources in unsustainable ways, burning old-growth forests intentionally to encourage habitats more friendly to prey animals, etc. Human nature wasn't that much different to now, but the scale and scope sure have changed!
But I'll still argue with 100% conviction that modern life is an improvement over what came before. You know where 1/10 women died in childbirth. Where a cut or a scrape or broken bone was often fatal. Where disease was often lethal and its cause unknown. Where war was just part of the way of life. Where only 1/10 men passed on their genes. Where superstition and practices that we consider barbaric abound. That doesn't mean we have it all right, or that there weren't nice things we gave up along the way. But never at any point was there any real option to stop advancing and keep the status quo. Cultures who did that, if any, are not around in an independent form today. Nature is still survival of the fittest.
And you could go back to tribal living if you wanted. There are plenty of people in the world living in primitive, tribal conditions and poverty with minimal interaction with the outside world. I expect some subset of those tribes would allow you to join them if you so chose. I'd seriously question your sanity if you did though.
And our paleo ancestors helped hunt woolly mammoths into extinction.
Turns out people are people and the "noble savage" thing is mostly myth. Not much hidden wisdom, not really any secret medicinal knowledge, just less effective ways of understand the world and doing things. This isn't to suggest pre modern cultures aren't worth studying, but it is to say they aren't worth romanticizing.
Most of America's landscapes were managed by indigenous peoples for tens of thousands of years. The idea of Europeans sailing to find a sparsely-populated wilderness is a myth. Tenochtitlan was one of the largest cities in the world in the 15th century.
Furthermore, the fact that biochar is a buzzword in green agriculture today shows how little we've learned, seeing as indigenous populations used the "hidden wisdom" of 'terra preta' for thousands of years to enrich the soil. The quality of our crops today is built on thousands of years of selective breeding and clever farming by peoples in pre-Columbian America.
Sure, pre-modern cultures may have had "less effective" understandings of medicine or technology, but at the same time, these cultures survived for millennia. We're definitely more effective at screwing up our planet than they ever were.
Given the pending ecological disaster(s) we're facing, it's probably more responsible to try and learn from the examples set by ancient cultures rather than flippantly declaring that they were "less effective", and dismissing any contrary information as romanticizing.
The Aztecs had progressed beyond tribal society. They were an empire. If there had been peaceful trade, etc, they would likely be no different than you and I. They were certainly on the same path, if a bit behind.
They were a primitive technology empire though weren't they? I've always had the impression their tech was closer to that of the ancient Egyptians... so close to 2000 years behind the Europeans.
> The Aborigines very likely helped turn much of Australia into a desert.
That isn't remotely what that article (or the paper it summarises) suggests -- it has nothing whatsoever to do with desertification. The magnitude of ecological effects of indigenous settlement of Australia is as yet very poorly understood and highly contested, and the timeline even more so. It's possible, but by no means demonstrated, for example, that early human settlement wiped out megafauna, but that it quickly settled into a sustainable pattern as the incomers learned to manage the continent.
To label any detailed description of indigenous cultures as 'romanticizing' or relating to 18th century 'noble savage' myths, for no better reason than that it contradicts unevidenced & derogatory popular myths, is just lazy.
A portrait deriving from the actual evidence carefully unearthed so far suggests nothing remotely resembling a 'noble savage' account of indigenous Australian civilisation, nor one that was 'less effective' than ours. Indigenous Australians were not purely hunter-gatherers, running naked around a 'pristine' environment, but were active managers of an entire continent's biomass. The aforementioned Gammage and Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu are the best popular accounts, both drawing on and carefully referencing primary sources. Reading either might dispel a few prejudices.
"That isn't remotely what that article (or the paper it summarises) suggests -- it has nothing whatsoever to do with desertification"
Yes it is and yes it does. (But to find this out you have to read all the way to the end.)
The idea is that monsoon patterns were changed and the dry season extended which heated the land and resulted in more aridity. It's not a fringe theory at all and there is a fair degree of evidence for it.
Point being, primitives didn't necessarily live in Harmony with nature at all. Any more than we do. They just (to address your later point) were less "effective".
> Yes it is and yes it does. (But to find this out you have to read all the way to the end.)
I've read both it and the study it refers to. It has nothing to do with desertification (and it's not empirical -- it's simply modelling a possibility).
> It's not a fringe theory at all
I said 'contested', not 'fringe'. Big, big difference. The appropriate response when something is contested is to reserve judgement. As I do. And as Gammage, Pascoe et al do (it has little relation to their theses).
> Point being, primitives didn't necessarily live in Harmony with nature at all.
Only hippies ever suggested they did. The mainstream emerging picture of Australian indigenous civilisation has nothing whatsoever to do with 'living in H[sic]armony with nature'. That you choose that phrase, and jump so reactively at straw men, displays only your tribal affiliation to a general thesis, without any knowledge of the specifics.
"We showed that the climate responded significantly to reduced vegetation cover in the pre-monsoon season. We found decreases in rainfall, higher surface and ground temperatures and enhanced atmospheric stability"
In other words, burning vegetation led to a more arid climate. That is the entire thesis of the article. It's really pretty clear.
Not to beat a dead horse still further but one of us is really missing something here. It could be me and if it is I'd like to know what.
"Contested" isn't cause to reserve judgment at all. The age of the earth is contested. Man made climate change is contested. But the age of the earth is very likely what geologists claim it is. And it's also very likely aboriginal burning is one of the causes of aridity in Australia. In which case they weren't "managing" so much as ignorantly abusing. Very much as we do today.
Modern living is necessary for the survival of our species. Otherwise we'll suffer a catastrophic event and die. Therefore it is objecyively better to be working and living at our means pushing those limits of capital.
It seems unlikely that humans will be able to colonize other planets any time soon which would help preserve the human race after an extinction level event -- it will take some impending catastrophe to make that happen, and it's not clear that even then world governments could work together to make it happen.
If Europeans hadn't settled North America, is there reason to think the American Indians would be extinct today?
> It seems unlikely that humans will be able to colonize other planets any time soon
Human activity in space is increasing very rapidly, after recovering from the slowdowns at the end of the space race and the Cold War [1].
What makes you think this trend won't continue? Especially given the ongoing technological advancements and cost savings we are seeing from companies like SpaceX?
Agreed. Right now it looks like we may attempt a Mars Colony in my lifetime and by 2100 I wouldn't be surprised if there were dozens of Martian colonies.
To survive a catastrophic event you want to diversify your risk. Pushing the limit capital implies moving to a big city which makes it far easier for nuclear weapons to wipe out the majority of humans all at once.
Having self sustaining tribes far away from population centers is a very effective way to mitigate the death of our entire species in an all out nuclear war.
> They managed the entirely of Australia a single 'estate', providing ample, easily-obtained subsistence from a massive variety of sources, using a variety of agricultural and hunter-gathering techniques. For 60,000 years.
So an entire continent was just a big happy picnic for 60,000 years, with no famine or war? Uh huh.
Honestly the snark is unnecessary. I made no mention of war, nor perfection. Though as there were variable rates of nomadism in different indigenous language groups, and (in my experience) indigenous Australians are great foodies, there was probably a great deal of picnicking.
There are and have been no perfect human societies, and I'm making no such claims. My point is that unthinking statement, always based only on popular myth, that premodern cultures were uniformly inferior to modern, are unsubstantiated. The picture is much more complicated, particularly if you are willing to countenance values other than those our particular culture has chosen to maximise. Even the most cursory reading of anthropology and history reveals this very easily.
Your statement is equally hyperbolic and unthinking.
For one, "they managed the entirety of Australia" implies uniformity and political unity which did not exist. Australia is huge. Some unlucky groups in the interior had to dig ten feet deep to get water, and travel between wells frequently while waiting for them to refill. And keep their locations a closely-guarded secret, because their lives depended on it. I wouldn't call that "easily-obtained subsistence."
In general, the notion that hunter gatherers have an easier time procuring food than completely sedentary farmers is very much up for debate.
Your assertion that Americans are "philosophically naive" compared to indigenous australians is also... unscientific, to say the least.
We should absolutely reject colonialist value judgements like those found in the grandparent, however, let's not substitute them for an equally simplistic noble savage narrative.
The funny thing is, I've never met a single person who has read much anthropological or historical literature who holds this view. Truly. Not one. It's only ever held by people who know nothing of so-called 'tribal living' (as if pre-modern 'tribes' in different parts of the world have much in common!).
Human cultures can be so vastly different as to be truly incommensurable. Have a read of Bill Gammage's 'The Biggest Estate on Earth', about the Australian indigenous nations. They managed the entirely of Australia a single 'estate', providing ample, easily-obtained subsistence from a massive variety of sources, using a variety of agricultural and hunter-gathering techniques. For 60,000 years. The depth of culture and development of rich social interaction this engendered is literally unimaginable to us. A contemporary American or Australian, with our love of comfort and trivial gadgets, philosophical naivety, absence of acquaintance with the nonhuman world, and lack of concern for conspecifics may well seem like an unfathomably ignorant and petulant child to an Australian of 1000 years ago.
There's far too much to say about this in an HN comment, but the notion that modern living is objectively and unambiguously 'better' than that is plainly false. Particularly when you consider that our culture is very likely to destroy most natural systems in the next 100 years. The fashionable lingo is that our societies are 'unsustainable', but the plain accurate truth is that, so far, we have proven to be unviable. Maybe we'll fix this, maybe not. But indigenous Australians have a 60,000 year proven track record.
Note I'm not claiming the converse of your claim is true, but just that you're being grossly simplistic.
> If you didn't believe that, go back to tribal living.
That's an unworthy and silly rhetorical jibe, as you surely must know. We are moderns and must make our lives where we are. That doesn't prevent us from taking a fair and knowledge-based look at premodern cultures.