Dear ybgirp,

You seem to be trying to sustain two different arguments, the first is that civilization has "exacerbated ... the wars that rage unceasingly and the increasing misery and starvation of billions", the second is your defense of the very instinct at the heart of those malaises when you argue "tribal instincts that make people defend their territories, you both seem to see that as a fault. I'm not so sure."

The fate of the other whip bird family trying to find enough territory to sustain themselves is probably starvation.

I can only urge you to look more closely at the population/poverty trends and you might be surprised. I'm wondering if you have had a chance to see Hans Roslings TED talk? It certainly changed my world view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I will contend that civilization is doing a pretty good job in moving us toward the population peak with many of us and our societies in one piece. Sure with a more equitable distribution of resources the figure could grow but compared to where we were half a century ago it ain't bad.

Civilization has produced legal systems that can negate the need to arm ones family or group in order to protect resources, extending that to countries we have of course the UN and diplomacy. 

That is not to say tribalism is dead it is just as a civilization we have found ways for its expression and enjoyment on our sporting fields rather than pillage and plunder.

Dear Poirot,

Thank you for some weighty posts.

You wrote "I think we managed well enough in such urban atmospheres as long as local communities grew and socialised organically."

Don't you think, for want of a better word, that base instinct or need is being realized particularly by our youth through Facebook and other social media. The communities they are constructing reach beyond the constrains that us parents place upon them, constrain we were free from when we were growing up.

Just as an aside I was watching a YouTube video of a flash mob at Antwerp Station tonight and all I could think of was how an individual without a sense of smell might have felt in the midst of some very strangely behaving people afflicted seemingly invisibly by Genouille's scent. It gets it's claws in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQLCZOG202k&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Dear Lexi,

Thank you from me as well though I'm hoping you haven't left without realizing my post on the Hitler salute was tongue in cheek. 

csteele.

I think the key element particular to industrial society is its insistence on isolating certain sections of society from each other in their daily activities. When I say community, I mean "community" as in the entire spectrum. Modern youth seems to be segregated very early in modern society, so much so that the normal turbulence associated with adolescence is compounded as they adjust to an entry into the "adult world" from which they have been excluded during their formative years.

Here's another take from Ivan Illich comparing traditional and industrial society:

"...Traditional society was more like a set of concentric circles of meaningful structures, while modern man must learn how to find meaning in many structures to which he is only marginally related. In the village, language and architecture and work and religion and family customs were consistent with one another, mutually explanatory and reinforcing. To grow into one implied a growth into others...."

Csteele, every proposition can sustain at least two possible ‘truths’. Our apparent differences arise from the fact that you are thinking about civilised societies, and I’m contrasting pre-civilized tribal communities in which each individual was more or less independent, with civilized communities which demand inter-dependence of citizens, resulting in specialisation and, as we see, alienation of the different groups. Guarding territory was essential for the first group, and ensured their survival. However, with the technological advances encouraged by civilization, this instinct has become lethal.
The link you gave me is astonishing. Such graphics, and such a sensible man to propose that publicly funded research should be made available to the public. The conclusions people draw from these statistics will, of course, be determined by their values. The ‘wealth’ the speaker talks about is money, which is gained at the cost of poisoning the environment and changing the climate so that survival of life as we know it is increasingly unlikely. I don’t consider that to be wealth. Health, too, is more than longevity in a nursing home and child mortality. It includes mental health, which does not seem to be improving.
While there is much to admire in humans [I’ve just been moved to tears by Han Kim playing a Weber Clarinet concerto] I cannot admire a species that knowingly and deliberately causes massive extinction of life, dangerously destabilising the environment in which we evolved, for the chimera of financial wealth. I do not subscribe to the view that humans must survive at any cost.
Does the internet and facebook really compensate young people for the loss of wild nature, clean air and healthy rivers? I’m 71 and despite the insularity and narrow mindedness of society in my youth, we were richer in things of value to ‘life’ than today’s young people, who can never know the planet when it was not overcrowded and polluted. As for the UNO and laws keeping civilized folks playing sport instead of killing each other… really?? [continued next post]

Illich’s quote is good, Poirot, although life in small communities was bound by rigid conventions, and people who were different, suffered badly. Personally, I’ve led a charmed life, done what I want when I want, always convinced my present life is the best possible. I’m healthy and fit with no worries… and I suspect that’s why the direction civilization has taken so upsets me. I can see that were I born now, I could never have the life I’ve enjoyed. I realise young people will have other pleasures, but I cannot accept that the internet and facebook are adequate replacements for a reality that has all but disappeared.
Yes, as you suggest, my position is illogical and untenable. Civilization has allowed me to enjoy a perfect life, and yet I’m damning it. But I can’t stop thinking I’d have been just as contented as a hunter-gatherer a hundred thousand years ago. Oh dear… has dementia begun, do you think?

ybgirp,

I don't suggest that your position is illogical and untenable. If you're looking at things from an anthropological viewpoint, my opinion is that you're spot on. I usually gravitate toward that view myself...it's called looking beyond the paradigm in which you exist. I also agree that Facebook and other social media serve as a tool of socialisation, but are not and never can be replacements for organic community involvement. They represent an adaptation to technological society, a society nowadays where we are more isolated from each other than ever. There was a time where reliance on one's intimate community was part and parcel of social interaction, where the people you worked with were part of your social universe, where, as Illich points out, most education was "complex, lifelong and unplanned."