conversations with Greyl

[Goldensilence]

as much as i am a fan and understanding that Daneil quinn has brought uo with Ishmael. Which has totally transformed my understanding of ecology and an assortment of other views. I find myself still perpelxed by the problrm froma marxist point of view. Perhaps you could help me crystalize this viewpoint?!

[greyl]

1. Hi Goldensilence, :)

Sure, I'll try, thanks for asking. Presuming a decent guess at where you're coming from I'll start with this...

Marx died before the discoveries of paleontology a hundred years ago removed any reasonable excuse for people in our culture to go unwaveringly on with the "old" vision of the world they'd had for just a few thousand years.
Marx and Quinn are both pointing out many of the same problems that are attributed to capitalism, but, to use "Ishmael" shorthand, Karl Marx still had a taker vision. He couldn't see the forest/Mother Culture for the trees/capitalism, iow.
"All I know is that I'm not a Marxist" - Karl Marx

some of Quinn's related thoughts:

The Question (ID Number 495)...

I know you've answered several questions about the prophets, but it doesn't seem to me that you've addressed this particular point. Don't you feel that the prophets were in their own way speaking against Mother Culture, just as you are?

...and the response:

One point about "Mother Culture" that I've never specifically addressed in print is that she almost never comes down on one side of an issue. She is as comfortable with Marxist theory as with Capitalist theory. She is as comfortable with the Pro-choice position as with the Pro-life position. She is as comfortable with Moses, Jesus, and Muhammed as she is with Adolf Hitler, Aleister Crowley, and Ivan Boesky.

What Mother Culture is not two-sided about is the fundamental mythological vision of our culture: that the world was made for man, who belongs to an order of being that is separate from and higher than the rest of the living community. None of the prophets attacked this vision; on the contrary, they affirmed it vigorously. So I can't agree with your notion that the prophets were somehow speaking against Mother Culture; they would not have won their huge followings if they'd been in fundamental disagreement with Mother Culture.

I don't perceive myself as "speaking against" Mother Culture. My effort is to make people aware of Mother Culture and what she is saying--and has been saying to us for thousands of years. I'm not "against" the idea that humanity belongs to a separate and higher order of being; what I'm trying to point out is that it's an idea that is going to make us extinct if we don't get rid of it.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

2. I disagee strongly with the quote you've posted

Saying "I'm not against this idea, but it will make us extinct if we don't get rid of it" is meaningless to the point of hypocricy - I can think of few clearer ways of stating that one is against something.

Intellectually, and hence in all sorts of important ways, human are far more different from dolphins or chimpanzees than dolphins or chimpanzees are from bacteria - we have the capacity of abstract thought, something no other species has even slightly - and so whether or not the idea will make us extinct, it's still true.

And the idea that not getting rid of the idea that it is true will lead to extinction is not one that I think merits taking seriously.

Are you presenting the quote as something you agree with, or just for consideration?

[greyl]

3. That was bound to happen.

"Saying "I'm not against this idea, but it will make us extinct if we don't get rid of it" is meaningless to the point of hypocrisy - I can think of few clearer ways of stating that one is against something."

I know what you mean, and hopefully I can explain what Quinn means.

Firstly, he doesn't speak from a metaphysical point of view, he speaks from a pragmatic one.
When he says he's not "against" (his quotes) the idea that humanity belongs to a separate and higher order of being he's showing his usual moral neutrality to unscientific myth of all kinds. Instead of going ad hominem on the the purely abstract idea, he's pointing out the real & present results of how that idea is being played out by a culture that is Conquering the Globe and All Life On It powered and directed by the myth that humanity belongs to a separate and higher order of being.
I'm sure it's not lost on Quinn that there are multitudes at the extreme who deeply believe that hastening the end of the world is literally a divine task. For "chosen" or "saved" humans only, of course.

"Intellectually, and hence in all sorts of important ways, human are far more different from dolphins or chimpanzees than dolphins or chimpanzees are from bacteria

I'd argue with that if it was more related to the point at hand. Even if we assume your statement is true, it doesn't logically follow that "man belongs to an order of being that is separate from and higher than the rest of the living community".

- we have the capacity of abstract thought, something no other species has even slightly

That's not true, but still wouldn't add up to "man belongs to an order of being that is separate from and higher than the rest of the living community". We can talk about dolphins and chimpanzees another time.

I'm curious about something. When and how do you think humans became human?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

5. It's a very interesting question, and I don't know the answer.

Although I'd phrase the question I presume you're asking as "when do you think humans became people".

If I had to guess, I would say that it was a relatively rapid process in evolutionary terms - once you have a little bit of capacity for abstract thought and language, I suspect more develops rapidly. That's pure guesswork on my part, though.

As to the claim that other animals have the capacity for abstract thought: vervet monkeys have a "vocabulary" of about 20-30 sounds, I believe, all of them relating directly to their immediate surroundings: "threat from the air", "fruit this way" and so on; and as far as I know that's about the most advanced example in the animal kingdom, although there are lots of other species on a similar level. Humans, by contrast, tend to have vocabularies of thousands of words, and - crucially - the capacity to invent and explain/share more by putting the old ones together, which I think is the key to the difference - no other animal can say "when I say X, I mean Y" or "what shall we call Z?". I think it's clear that the difference is qualitative and not just quantitative.

[greyl]

8. Ah, "personhood" is a fascinating topic.

We'd have to agree on the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a person before we really got into it.
Using a reasonable and scientific definition of "person", I could present a very strong argument that a dolphin is a person.
But again, that's not really the point. Unless of course you believe that personhood entitles persons to blindly and arrogantly live in an unsustainable and misery causing way while they destroy other "unimportant" members of the community of life. That doesn't sound like an elite, more evolved, or God blessed lot in life to me.

I think it's key to remember that humans as intelligent as we are have existed for over 200,000 years.
There is zero evidence that our 10,000 year old culture is an improvement on any of the other thousands of tribal cultures that existed at the dawn of our culture. Contrary evidence is abundant, however.

To give you my short answer to the question "when and how did humans become human?":

Humans became human about 3 million years ago.
Humans became human by living in a successful and sustainable way, similar to every other creature on earth that has millions of years of evolution under its belt.

[htuttle]

4. The concept that humans are different from bacteria...

...does not necessarily mean that humans are MORE IMPORTANT than bacteria, as a species. That would be akin to saying that human brain cells are more important (as a type of cell) than red blood cells. Brain cells certainly seem more complex (and interesting), but while blood cells can exist without brain cells, brain cells cannot exist without blood cells.

We may value humans more than bacteria. That's fine -- we're humans. But without bacteria, we all die. Measuring the existence of one species against another is pointless -- they're all necessary in one way or another. If we wipe out parts of the Earth's biosphere, it might cease to function, and most importantly to us humans, cease to support humans.

It is the conciousness of being part of a larger *biological* system that modern humans seem to lack, and it is that lack of realization that can lead us to our extinction, opposable thumbs notwithstanding.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. But the problem you're highlighting there, I think

Is more that the word "important" is not adequately well defined than that humans are not different to other species of animal.

[greyl]

7. The definition of "more important" was in the quote you took issue with.

"man belongs to an order of being that is separate from and higher than the rest of the living community"

Wasn't it?

The point is, value judgements like that are nothing more than anthropomorphic/-centric mythology.
That judgement is also a recent one, relatively speaking in the 3 million years of human history and is peculiar to our culture which was 'born' in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago.

[Goldensilence]

9. yes that did help clear that up.

I was a little perplexed after the story of B and when B did that speech with the marxiststs.

So then what are your feelings about gaia theory?

On edit: It's interesting to speak with another who took the lessons of Ishmale and the story of B to heart and mind. I've never really got a chance to really discuss them further with anyone.