When Did the ME Go Wrong?

[The Brain]

The hunter-gatherers on the streets of Stockholm suggest that the lifestyle is complete crap.

Recently one of them called me a fucking "psycho killer". The song is better than her personal hygiene.

[Queequeg]

First, you are using the Aztecs and then saying that "Many" Native civilizations were just as violent?  Maybe you mispoke and you really only meant that the Aztecs were "fantastically violent" - although you may also have in mind the Mayans.  That still leaves a whole range of Native civilazations that were not as violent as the rest of the world.

Care to name any?  Classical Mayan civilization wasn't as violent as the Aztec, but the Aztecs, Toltecs, post-classical Maya, and to some extent the Incas were all brutal civilizations.  The Comanche (incidentally closely related to the Aztecs), Apache and many of the other Steppe/Prairie Native American tribes were also quite brutal, probably as or more brutal than their Mongol equivalents.  That said, I don't know enough about pre-Columbian agricultural people of North America to comment on the level of violence there; I suppose that without the horse and wheel it would be hard for a Eurasian style upper class to develop, as taking grain and forming a central government would be very difficult.   

Second, you yourself are able to think off the top of your head of other civilizations that were just a violent.  Btw no chance the Aztecs killed as many as the Nazis in the same amount of time.  I think you have to rethink your comparisons.

The Nazis prove my point entirely.  They are horrible in that they combined modern technology and thought with the brutality of the Aztecs.  They are horrible because they came close to being like the Aztecs in a far more advanced society, a society that has progressed.

Even in the Holocaust there is evidence of this progression, as the Nazis would have been far more terrifyingly awful if they'd ever taken to cutting out the heart and eating the corpses of Jews and Russians as some kind of religious ceremony. 

[Berkut]

Even in the Holocaust there is evidence of this progression, as the Nazis would have been far more terrifyingly awful if they'd ever taken to cutting out the heart and eating the corpses of Jews and Russians as some kind of religious ceremony. 

I dunno, that would have slown them down a bit at least.

Jew is notoriously tough.

[Queequeg]

Even in the Holocaust there is evidence of this progression, as the Nazis would have been far more terrifyingly awful if they'd ever taken to cutting out the heart and eating the corpses of Jews and Russians as some kind of religious ceremony. 

I dunno, that would have slown them down a bit at least.

Jew is notoriously tough.

Yeah I was going to say that this wouldn't have been as effective on a mass scale.  My point still stands though; the Holocaust had to be reasonably well hidden so that your average Euro maybe had some idea of what horrible suffering was going on "in the East", while with the Aztecs the visibility of genocide was half the point, and was elevated to the status of keeping the sun in the sky rather than being some kind of necessity as it was for the Nazis.

[The Brain]

It would have been just horrible, HORRIBLE, if the Nazis had EATEN the Jews after murdering them in their millions. It would have made the whole business A LOT worse.

[crazy canuck]

Wait - isn't that a judgment on the "progress" from hunter-gatherer to civilization? On what basis are you holding that being a hunter-gatherer isn't "better"? 

I have never denied that the move from one means of production (for want of a better description) to another isnt progress in the general sense.  What I have been quibbling with you about is your argument that this has happened in a kind of linear manner whereas I point to the collapse of various civilizations around the world and say it is far from linear or certain.

[crazy canuck]

The Comanche (incidentally closely related to the Aztecs), Apache and many of the other Steppe/Prairie Native American tribes were also quite brutal, probably as or more brutal than their Mongol equivalents.  That said, I don't know enough about pre-Columbian agricultural people of North America to comment on the level of violence there; I suppose that without the horse and wheel it would be hard for a Eurasian style upper class to develop, as taking grain and forming a central government would be very difficult.

If you dont know much about precontact agricultural people in N. America then you shouldnt be making broad generalizations about them.  Btw you are going to have to cite something to get me to believe your assertion that the steppe/Prairie Native American Tribes were "probably more brutal then the Mongols".  What are you basing that on?

[crazy canuck]

Even in the Holocaust there is evidence of this progression, as the Nazis would have been far more terrifyingly awful if they'd ever taken to cutting out the heart and eating the corpses of Jews and Russians as some kind of religious ceremony.

There is evidence that the Nazis would have progressed to eating the Jews?....  I dont think that is the kind of progress Malthus has in mind.

[Malthus]

In contrast, "modern" war is horrifically violent, but doesn't actually impact as many persons.

What do you mean by modern war?

More or less as shorthand for what Oex is talking about - Euro-style war from colonial time on, cannons & guns.

It is sometimes unbearable to read how these guys would stand to be shot at, and suffer horrible injuries and casualties stoically (Keegan writes that it is no wonder most other peoples wouldn't stand for this).

The battlefield was horrible to be sure - but most Euros never saw one. In contrast the cviolence among the !Kung San tended to be of the Hatfield vs. McCoy type feud, involving a much greater portion of the population over a much longer period of time - the worry was not of facing a war, but of waking up dead because a member of a rival family yours is fueding with happened to spot your campfire ... and of course in that society there is no such thing as police or laws, the only thing restraining people is fear of reciprocal violence, and every person is trained in the use of hunting weapons. 

[Malthus]

Wait - isn't that a judgment on the "progress" from hunter-gatherer to civilization? On what basis are you holding that being a hunter-gatherer isn't "better"? 

I have never denied that the move from one means of production (for want of a better description) to another isnt progress in the general sense.  What I have been quibbling with you about is your argument that this has happened in a kind of linear manner whereas I point to the collapse of various civilizations around the world and say it is far from linear or certain.

Well, in that case we aren't really disagreeing, since I have never denied the existence of local collapses & dark ages.

What I take issue with is the assumption, stated above, that there has been no real "progress" since Sumerian times until the present (modern) age . To my mind, there has quite obviously been such - as obvious as the fact that civilization is a "progress" from hunting & gathering.

[jimmy olsen]

In contrast, "modern" war is horrifically violent, but doesn't actually impact as many persons.

What do you mean by modern war?

More or less as shorthand for what Oex is talking about - Euro-style war from colonial time on, cannons & guns.

It is sometimes unbearable to read how these guys would stand to be shot at, and suffer horrible injuries and casualties stoically (Keegan writes that it is no wonder most other peoples wouldn't stand for this).

How is this any different then marching/charging into a melee? The first few ranks were almost always killed.

[Malthus]

In contrast, "modern" war is horrifically violent, but doesn't actually impact as many persons.

What do you mean by modern war?

More or less as shorthand for what Oex is talking about - Euro-style war from colonial time on, cannons & guns.

It is sometimes unbearable to read how these guys would stand to be shot at, and suffer horrible injuries and casualties stoically (Keegan writes that it is no wonder most other peoples wouldn't stand for this).

How is this any different then marching/charging into a melee? The first few ranks were almost always killed.

But is that really true? Most pre-modern professional-type armies attempted to avoid inevitable death - the Romans for example had a system worked out to rotate the front rank fighters during battle as they got tired, in medieval times protective armour & the value of ransoms made capturing & not killing your opponents the ideal (save in dire necessity as at Agincourt), etc.

Moreover, many peoples (steppe warriors notably) preferred to harrass the enemy with missile weapons from a distance and avoid direct fighting until the enemy was certain to lose.

[Sheilbh]

In terms of non-violent warfare the condotierri have to come first.  Now that was progress.

[Berkut]

But is that really true? Most pre-modern professional-type armies attempted to avoid inevitable death - the Romans for example had a system worked out to rotate the front rank fighters during battle as they got tired, in medieval times protective armour & the value of ransoms made capturing & not killing your opponents the ideal (save in dire necessity as at Agincourt), etc.

While warfare is, of course, rather violent and bloody, the casualty rates of individual battles are never as horrific as people imagine them to be.

I once really pissed someone off because I told them that the USAF could never sustain 10% losses on a per mission basis during the strategic bombing campaign of WW2, which he found to be insulting and ridiculously untrue since he KNEW that they commonly lost that many planes.

[saskganesh]

It's not romantic at all.  But the fact is that the fundamental economic realities of peasant life and even basic methods and technologies of production didn't change much from the times ancient riverine civilizations to the late 19th century and beyond.

Well the fundementals of farming aren't going to change much at all.  I mean farmers still dig a hole, toss seeds in, and harvest what grows out.

wow.  I don't even know where to begin.

Farmers do that right?

the only thing in common with peasants is the "harvest what comes up" part. my take, we've had maybe three fundamental shifts in ag over the last century, involving:
1) mechanisation
2) chemical (post ww2)
3) biological (80's onward, includes both GMO and Organic philosophies.)

They still plant them right?  At it's most basic (which is what I thought JR was talking about it) it's still put in seeds and take out crops.

of course, they still plant them. to argue that because this fundamental persists, we don't have to pay attention to changes, even paradigm-shifting ones, pretty much obliviates history.

it's like saying there is no difference between modern war and stone age brawls,  because fundamentally, it's always about men killing other men. the rest is mere details.

given this 20 page long thread is about history, and how civilizations change or do not change, its a curious argument.