Stay on the power grid, keep driving your gas powered car to a job you dislike, buy all your food.

[greyl]

Believe that this life isn't your only life, that your next lives will be incrementally better.
Believe that this Earth isn't the real world, that the afterlife is your primary concern.
Believe that aliens, angels, channeled entities, or divine prophets are the best source of knowledge for how to live.
Believe that our particular civilization is the highest expression of either evolution or Divine Creation ever.

Or don't.


Beyond Civilization by Daniel Quinn - a synopsis:

One of our most fundamental cultural beliefs is this, that Civilization must continue at any cost and not be abandoned under any circumstance. This notion seems intrinsic to the human mind --self-evident, like The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Implicit in this belief about civilization is another: Civilization is humanity's ULTIMATE invention and can never be surpassed. Both these beliefs exemplify the cultural fallacy, which is the notion that one's beliefs are not merely expressions of one's culture but are intrinsic to the human mind itself. The effect of this fallacy is that it's almost impossible for the people of our culture to entertain the idea that there could be any invention beyond civilization. Civilization is the end, the very last and unsurpassable human social development.

No one is surprised to learn that bees are organized in a way that works for them or that wolves are organized in a way that works for them. Most people understand in a general way that the social organization of any given species evolved in the same way as other features of the species. Unworkable organizations were eliminated in exactly the same way that unworkable physical traits were eliminated--by the process known as natural selection. But there is an odd and unexamined prejudice against the idea that the very same process shaped the social organization of Homo over the three million years of his evolution. The people of our culture don't want to acknowledge that the tribe is for humans exactly what the pod is for whales or the troop is for baboons: the gift of millions of years of natural selection, not perfect--but damned hard to improve upon.

Civilization, in effect, represents an attempt to improve upon tribalism by replacing it with hierarchalism. Every civilization brought forth in the course of human history has been an intrinsically hierarchical affair--in every age and locale, East and West, as well as every civilization that grew up independently of ours in the New World. Because it's intrinsically hierarchical, civilization benefits members at the top very richly but benefits the masses at the bottom very poorly--and this has been so from the beginning. Tribalism, by contrast, is non hierarchical and benefits all members with notable equality.

It's out of the question for us to "go back" to the tribalism we grew up with. There's no imaginable way to reestablish the ethnic boundaries that made that life work. But there's nothing sacrosanct about ethnic tribalism. more

An R/T thread on the topic.

[Tellurian]

1. Yes, I still remember the Peace and Prosperity under President Clinton..

Neoconic Republicans have no place in our society.

Somebody, make it SO!

[greyl]

2. How does that relate? nt

[Tellurian]

3. Clinton's stewardship applied tribal techniques

evenly across the board to benefit our civilization.

His presidency was based in the betterment of ALL humanity
lacking the divisiveness of a fundamentalist hierarchy ideology, the haves and the have nots..

[midnight]

10. I certainly thought so. What I don't understand is NAFTA.

It seems like such a bunch of crap. How did that come about?

[Tellurian]

11. I've heard Clinton remark, he regretted NAFTA..

my understanding is he did it as an extension of bipartisanship to the beast masters.

I'm sure there is more to it than that..Unfortunately, I was not privy to anymore information.
I can only surmise, what he was told, did not happen..

[greyl]

12. I think you're hitting notes in accidental harmony, played in a different key.

Clinton's presidency doesn't deserve to be idolized relative to Earth & humanity.
Speaking from an American(USofA) perspective, relative to gw, Clinton is a potent superhero for the world, but I'd place some new alloy of Kofi Annan, Richard Dawkins, Margaret Meade, Helen Caldicott, Nancy D'Alesandro et al, at the godhead of the entity that is beginning to remember/realize that Earth is our steward.

That said, I'm looking forward to the resurrection of Robin. ;)

[Tellurian]

30. That would be fine...if we were speaking in a comic sense

at least, I am not. However, in relation to Clinton, he was the steward of our country for 8 yrs. That is a fact you will have to accept and live with. Otherwise, you as a follower needing hero worship guiding your ship through rough and still waters seeking direction at every turn are a lost soul. You fail at knowing which side of the shoreline is the best for you to disembark because you need to have it both ways.

Your hero of the moment, Quinn..quote:

"Tribalism, by contrast, is non hierarchical and benefits all members with notable equality." This one line quote encapsulates the very essence of Quinn's philosophy and parallels the centerpiece and legacy of Clinton's presidency.

That said, I appreciate your sardonic attempt at an argument without pith. It just doesn't cut it in the real world.

[greyl]

31. I must have confused you.

I love Bill Clinton, it's just that his major concerns aren't exactly parallel with the change of vision alluded to in the OP. The Robin I spoke of is Al Gore, meaning Bill is Batman. Get it? ;)

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tellurian]

38. So, you pressed the alert button and deleted my post

because I asked you if you were the Joker or the Riddler?

wow..

[greyl]

41. No.

The other part of your post (that you don't mention) was a personal attack. It wasn't extremely offensive, but it was alertable - against the DU rules, iow.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. what prosperity?

I got burned out and left my job in 95 and it dried up anyway.
My honey got canned from engineering at the beginning of '93 because Clinton got elected I guess. The conservatives figgered the economy was gonna tank.

The Clinton years are when I fell way out of the middle class. Couldn't find a job for years, and
when I did find one, they were WAY below my educational level and I had stupid bosses that were jealous of me and made shit up on me.

[Tellurian]

9. Gee, thats a shame..were you posting at FREE REPUBLIC at the time?

I take it, you decided self employment was the solution..

[greyl]

13. I can't take you seriously.

Surprised?

[Trajan]

15. Yours was the exception, I believe ...

There is hard data which suggests that there had been no wider, deeper gain for american citizens than that of the Clinton years ....

My own included ....

Im sorry you suffered under Clinton .... What kind of shit did they make up about you ?

[Bridget Burke]

34. Perro means "dog".....

What does "perra" mean?

[Jim Warren]

39. female dog

Remember your articulos.

[Bridget Burke]

43. That's what I thought.

Although English does have a word meaning "female dog."

[bananas]

4. I don't have the time right now to read this

but I will k&r because it seems germaine.

[bananas]

5. There was an x-files episode about this

Mulder's sister's clone was one of the bees.
FWIW.

[shance]

6. Denial isn't a river in Egypt is it?

Wonderful post.

Kick and recommended.

[hfojvt]

8. "What people (aside from rulers) don't like about hierarchical societies

is that they don't exist for all their members the same way. They provide a life of unbelievable luxury and ease for the rulers and a life of poverty and toil for everyone else."

I'm about halfway through that book, but am not actively reading it. Perhaps I should pick it up again.

[greyl]

14. perhaps.

I haven't finished it either.
Do we already have enough to go on? ;)

[HamdenRice]

16. False, reductionist and ultimately silly and unscientific

The referenced article is just silly. The referenced author, Daniel Quinn, merely demonstrates that he has absolutely no knowledge of the anthropology of social structure.

Rather than promote this pseudo social science, try reading some real, empirical, inductive studies of pre-colonial social structures, such as Richard Elphic, Khoi-Khoi and the Founding of White South Africa; William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England; and some other relevant social anthropology and get back to us.

[greyl]

25. Har har.

It's almost like you don't know what you're talking about and are arguing for the sake of arguing. I can't find an argument in your argument.
You must be unaware that Quinn's stuff is supported by, and builds upon, the works of such respected experts as Jared Diamond, Franz Boas, Richard Dawkins, and Margaret Meade.
I'm not sure what problems Richard Elphick or William Cronon would find with Quinn's work. Have you read Cronon's Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature by any chance? I can't imagine you have, but I recommend that you do.
I searched, and found nothing on Elphick regarding Quinn, but it's a very different story with Cronon.
Search "cronon daniel quinn" and prepare yourself.

[shadowknows69]

17. Civilization needs to reinvent itself

and I think we're in the beginning stages of that. Unfortunately it will probably only come about by civilization as we know it completely unraveling first and that means most of us are going to die badly to get us to that point. Luckily I do believe in reincarnation. It makes sense to me. If one believes that our consciousness is a form of energy, and I do, then by natural law it cannot be created or destroyed, just change forms. We are all made of stars in other words. Whether reincarnation is an actual human to human or human to plant etc etc. kind of thing. who knows? It could be as simple as your energy zips out to the cosmos and gets stuck in a comet or something. I'm really beginning to feel that homo sapiens is simply a failed species. We had loads of potential but ultimately the boneheads of our genepool outnumbered the enlightened by about 100 to 1 and we weren't enough to keep them from fucking it up for all of us. Anyhoo that's my cosmic two cents of the day. See you round the crab nebula.

[rpgamerd00d]

18. OK.

"Stay on the power grid, keep driving your gas powered car to a job you like, buy all your food."

OK. (fixed the job part)

[formercia]

19. It takes a long time.

My tribe is my immediate family. My front yard is becoming a garden, as is every other usable square foot on our sub-acre property. It's been over 10 years in the making and the improvements are never ending.
I hope my young son will appreciate what I tried to do and learn to live and be minimally dependent on the system.

You hear so often about being one paycheck away from disaster. Been there, done that. Never again if I can help it.

[Tellurian]

20. good on ya, formerica..nm

[UncleSepp]

21. This is interesting.

I'm looking forward to more. I'm particularly intrigued by the connection you make between this:

"Believe that this life isn't your only life"
and this: "that your next lives will be incrementally better"

leading on to the rest of the article, and also connecting back to wasteful consumption. Your well-constructed sentences and concise, rhythmic expression leaves me wanting a fuller explanation of how a belief in reincarnation necessarily leads to squandering natural resources. How about it?

[greyl]

23. I don't say that

a "belief in reincarnation necessarily leads to squandering natural resources".
I'm only pointing out that the salvationist dogma of Abrahamic religions has a sympathetic counterpart in Eastern religion.

[UncleSepp]

24. Okay, that wasn't very clear from the structure

The reference to reincarnation didn't clearly imply Eastern religion. The way the rhythm and structure of the sentences drives toward the end line, and then the article, has enough momentum that it feels like one point leading to another and then to another with a certain inevitability.

Have you done a lot of public speaking? If not, have you considered it? Your writing, even just a little sample of it, sounds like something that ought to be spoken aloud and with passion.

[greyl]

26. That's true, my fault. ;)

I've done very little public speaking, and haven't seriously considered it.
Is it misunderstood that I wrote the contents of the grey excerpt box? If not, thanks for the compliment. :)

[UncleSepp]

27. No, it's clear that you're leading up to someone else's content

Being the "intro guy" for the big talent is a hard position to be in, and you do that very well. You really build the interest in a way that leads to the material itself, and not to yourself.

[greyl]

29. Ah, good. Thanks very much, then. :) nt

[NotGivingUp]

22. It's a real shame how many threads are started here at DU that

somehow always seem to get twisted into something else. It must be an inundation of trolls. As for the initial post, I would love to get back to tribal living. The problem is,the people who want to live off of other people's labor just won't allow it to be that way. How do we put a stop to the greedy bastards who always want to exploit people and don't seem to have a sense of conscience?

[UncleSepp]

28. I'm on my way back to it, communal living, someday...

...as in, someday in March or April. This time, we'll have the resources for a useful garden. Nobody's stopping anyone from going back to a collective and sustainable way of life. Assemble some people you get along with who have a good range of complementary skills, and get going. No greedy bastard is going to stop you - they might give you funny looks or be rude, but they won't stop you. The way to stop the greedy bastards, IMO, starts with not being one of them and continues with not buying into their game that they have taken away your choices and your freedom. Go for it Maybe if your bunch and my bunch end up in different parts of the country, we can exchange our surpluses.

[NotGivingUp]

36. You know what? You are right. It starts with each one of us.

Good luck to you and your bunch. Which way are you headed?

[UncleSepp]

40. Florida.

It wouldn't be my ideal choice, but there are other reasons. It's good for growing and there are some good deals on land and houses.

[NotGivingUp]

42. What a coincidence.

I'm in Florida. We plan on leaving in a year or two. We're thinking about Tennessee.

[JNelson6563]

33. It's not like the OT folks didn't try to stop it!

Check out the old testament. Many those guys really hated cities! Fought tooth and nail to hang onto that tribal system. Other groups did too around the world but alas, to no avail. Once the exploreres, imperialists and missionaries got a patch of land in their sights, it was all over.

Now there is no stopping "civilization's progress" unti we have ruined the world and have no choice.

Julie

[BlooInBloo]

35. What a bizarre, semi-literate, simplistic, authoritarian, religion-backing "thought".

[genie_weenie]

37. Well, the question then is, is it wrong

to force people to live in hierarchal society?

The Government of Kenya forced the Maasai and the Ogieks, through the passage of laws stripping them of indeginous land rights and then resettling them, to join the 20th century.

I'd like to hope we can move into a peaceful tribal system but I think it might be impossible. Governments exist to continue their existance not make things better for their subjects. Too many people want to exploit the labor of others. Too many people can use their position to gain power/money/more position.

[greyl]

44. As a general rule, I'd say hell yes, it's wrong. But it's not just about right or wrong.

It's mostly about what works and what does not work, I think.
Nobody predicted the Renaissance, and it didn't arise out of a prescription or new programs - it came about because of a change of vision enacted incrementally by individuals.

There's reason to have authentic hope for the future habitability of Earth, but paradoxically, people need to realize how poorly things are going before they consider the possibility of changing their lives at a personal level.

The ruled masses of our culture have been no less miserable than the ruled masses of the Maya, the Olmec, and other civilization-quitters we've examined. The difference between us and them is that we possess (or are possessed by) a complex of memes that so far have utterly barred us from quitting. We're absolutely convinced that civilization cannot be surpassed by any means and so must be carried forward even at the price of our own extinction.

Beyond Civilization - Daniel Quinn

[Hoping4Change]

45. k & r