The origin of sedentary lifestyle

[Eongar]

Concerning the issue of Buddy, only a good communicator that makes the complex simple. I understand you want to broaden the perspective on this or any issue, but maybe it was not the right way, I'm speaking Spanish and it's hard to follow.

On the issue discussed in this post, I developed the idea that it is probable that an aggravating factor in the occurrence of serious psychological disorders has been a change in diet in those days. A body lacks the necessary nutrients and / or the addition of gluten, lectins, etc.. even caused a shift in perception of the life of society at the time. Coupled with the "need" to protect the territories of these societies and other eventualities -emergence of diseases that did not exist before the rise of agriculture, for example-, perhaps we can understand change and worsening of the human condition.

Also the emergence of agriculture and sedentary lifestyle, and therefore the possession of property, caused the appearance of hedonistic vision of life as Lobaczewski wrote:

From time immemorial, man has dreamed of a life in which his efforts to accumulate benefits can be punctuated by rest during which time he enjoys those benefits. He learned how to domesticate animals in order to accumulate more benefits, and when that no longer met his needs, he learned to enslave other human beings simply because he was more powerful and could do it.

Dreams of a happy life of ‘more accumulated benefits’ to be enjoyed, and more leisure time in which to enjoy them, thus gave rise to force over others, a force which depraves the mind of its user. That is why man’s dreams of happiness have not come true throughout history: the hedonistic view of ‘happiness’ contains the seeds of misery. Hedonism, the pursuit of the accumulation of benefits for the sole purpose of self-enjoyment, feeds the eternal cycle where good times lead to bad times.

During good times, people lose sight of the need for thinking, introspection, knowledge of others, and an understanding of life. When things are ‘good,’ people ask themselves whether it is worth it to ponder human nature and flaws in the personality (one’s own, or that of another). In good times, entire generations can grow up with no understanding of the creative meaning of suffering since they have never experienced it themselves. When all the joys of life are there for the taking, mental effort to understand science and the laws of nature – to acquire knowledge that may not be directly related to accumulating stuff – seems like pointless labor. Being ‘healthy minded,’ and positive – a good sport with never a discouraging word – is seen as a good thing, and anyone who predicts dire consequences as the result of such insouciance is labeled a wet-blanket or a killjoy.

Perception of the truth about reality, especially a real understanding of human nature in all it’s ranges and permutations, ceases to be a virtue to be acquired. Thoughtful doubters are ‘meddlers’ who can’t leave well enough alone. “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke.” This attitude leads to an impoverishment of psychological knowledge including the capacity to differentiate the properties of human nature and personality, and the ability to mold healthy minds creatively.

The cult of power thus supplants the mental and moral values so essential for maintaining peace by peaceful means. A nation’s enrichment or involution as regards its psychological world-view could be considered an indicator of whether its future be good or bad.

During good times, the search for the meaning of life, the truth of our reality, becomes uncomfortable because it reveals inconvenient factors. Unconscious elimination of data which are, or appear to be, inexpedient, begins to be habitual, a custom accepted by entire societies. The result is that any thought processes based on such truncated information cannot bring correct conclusions. This then leads to substitution of convenient lies to the self to replace uncomfortable truths thereby approaching the boundaries of phenomena which should be viewed as psychopathological.

The fact of having a hedonistic lifestyle in humans causes greed, ambition and a whole range of behaviors harmful to society all together. And while lose interest and concern for the issue of evil. Straight Talk, a hedonistic lifestyle complicates things and causes the loss of the notion of Reality throughout a whole. Hunter-gatherers probably had a broader view and easy living situations and acted better.

 

[Eongar]

I don’t think that sedentary life, though increased by agrarian society, necessarily was caused by it. Not every member of a hunter /gatherer society hunted or foraged, there were those who made the clothes, tended the fire, and made the tools/weapons.

Sedentary can also mean living in one place, and I think it is sound to see a link with agriculture, but this could have more than one cause. Shortage of animals and the reliance on seacoasts for food, e.g., could necessitate settling in strategic areas and may even have been the precurse to growing food more and more.

After a certain amount of population growth, increased demands for more varied trades would result. The localization of food and the need to protect it from rival tribes would definitely attract the pathological types to control it all.

Is it possible that even the sedentary were instigated (at least in part) by psychopathic individuals

I’m thinking that this may be a little simplistic since we know psychopaths aren’t creative and are less intelligent than normal people. They do however, recognize an opportunity for control when it emerges.

True, we must also consider disasters, comets and other, it also forced to adopt certain ways of living due to the scarcity of animals and other like you said. Surely in every area, in every tribe, the motivations of the emergence of ways of perceiving and living things was something very specific in each case. That is clear. But it can also be common links in some aspects.

 

[durabone]

Jerry's comments got to me to read Alvaro's post again, and I noticed this:

It appears that the first wars arose from sedentary / agriculture.

Interesting that if nomads fought each other, it would by definition "be on the road." Call them raiders, pirates, road warriors, what have you. The word "war" is seems then may be geographically rooted, so to speak. At least in how it is used.

And the dictionary definition seems to support this:

war |wôr| noun
a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state

Thus, wars may not have begun until after the sedentary lifestyle was in place, and war itself might be argued to be a feature of the sedentary lifestyle.

Alvaro I have not read your latest 2 posts, but I realize now that I may have made an assumption about something you wrote.

These words:

to better control and manipulate the population and to control land use and enjoy

I actually felt your meaning of 'and enjoy,' I don't want to bias your meaning with my interpretation though. You are talking about controlling 'land use' that's clear, but I'd like to make darn sure I understand what you meant by 'and enjoy' without overlaying my interpretation. Perhaps a slight re-wording might help?

Thanks!

 

[Eongar]

In Spanish there is an expression "use and enjoyment" which refers to the use of something, a house, for example. My fault because English has no meaning.

 

[durabone]

"ment" yes, that's my mind filled in. I did read it right. Thanks!

 

[Buddy]

OK Álvaro, I think I get you now. :)

I think there may be connections between the general idea of being sedentary and the discoveries related to diet--especially gluten. This is, of course, directly connected to agricultural pursuits and indirectly connected to all else--including pathology as we will see.

To keep it simple, lots of research has shown relationships between gluten and health. Gluten grains, corn, soy and so forth are agricultural products. Gluten grains, dairy, soy and corn damage the intestinal tract’s ability to convert glutamate to glutamine and vice versa. From there, more damage and other imbalances become likely.
Glutamate is even being shown to play a role in stimulating the production of dopamine from neurons.

Many neurological disorders, including epilepsy, (which was once thought of as 'demon possession') have improved with glutamate and aspartate interventions because some of the new anti-convulsants work by blocking glutamate. See the GARD diet here:
_http://dogtorj.com/what-is-food-intolerance/gluten-vs-glutamate-vs/

So, a body wherein excessive glutamate is doing its damage and stimulating production of abnormal amounts of dopamine as neuroinhibitor to mask the pain--could well be directly related to a hypo-active lifestyle with sedentary behaviors, OSIT.

That's a proposed physiological context underpinning the cognitive and behavioral context. Behaviors are limited to those repetitive actions needed to till and toil the land and such. Cognitive ability also becomes limited to, and fixated on, the boundaries of the farm. When someone reaches a point where all they can see and care about is whatever is in front of them, a lot of human ability and humanness can be lost, no?

During the time when more and more damage is being done to the body, effects on the mind and emotions might begin showing up in all kinds of behaviors. Reinforcement feedback loops of daily life simply continue unhealthy cycles while eventually worsening everything. A conservancy state of being might be a good description of life within a scarcity environment and sedentary definitely fits in with a conservancy mode. At some point, for all the reasons mentioned, and more besides, there are bound to be behaviors manifesting as what we might certainly classify today as characteropathies.

I guess since all this is cyclic activity, then whether we view psychopathy and characteropathies as a 'cause of sedentary' depends on where in the cycle we stop and note our observations and make conclusions.

This is all gross oversimplification to me. If anything needs expanding on, please ask.

 

[webglider]

quote from Alvaro:

The fact of having a hedonistic lifestyle in humans causes greed, ambition and a whole range of behaviors harmful to society all together. And while lose interest and concern for the issue of evil. Straight Talk, a hedonistic lifestyle complicates things and causes the loss of the notion of Reality throughout a whole. Hunter-gatherers probably had a broader view and easy living situations and acted better.

I'd like to see support for the idea that hunter gatherers had "easy living situations". I would imagine if the food source is scarce, the bonds of cooperation may, in some way, begin to fray. Maybe not. There would be lots of worry about survival, and it would be very hard to see the vulnerable members of the society put at risk Children and the elderly would be the most fragile and maybe expendable members of the society. Maybe not.

But there is a point that Gurdjieff made that is very important to remember. He argued that to be a whole human the being of a person and the intellect of the person both need to be developed. By intellect I mean the acquisition of knowledge. So maybe, at some point, some force separated groups of people into those who would develop objective knowledge, and those who would develop being. Everyone would have both of course, but the degree to which each would be developed would not be balanced. That split could give rise to all sorts of social problems.

 

[Foxx]

No, but I figured it would clue you that I was aware that you knew that would hit me as a trollish remark.

I think your self-importance felt that it was a trollish remark--after a while, it gets tiring to read internally considering posts which keep happening again and again, especially coming from someone who's been a member here for over 4 years and since you've had this pointed out to you numerous times.

And as a beginning of your own post which I, and probably others, regarded as insightful and intelligent, I simply thought my post was undeserving of a summary dismissal by less discerning readers.

Again I'm confused--are you referring to me as a less discerning reader? If I can't make heads or tails of what you're talking about, what other option do I have personally but dismissal or pointing out that it doesn't make sense, especially considering your history of posting in this regard?

Returning to the topic...

Interesting that if nomads fought each other, it would by definition "be on the road." Call them raiders, pirates, road warriors, what have you. The word "war" is seems then may be geographically rooted, so to speak. At least in how it is used.

I think a necessary prerequisite of raiders/pirates/whatever would be for a group to have a stockpile of something that another group wanted. From my understanding, stockpiles of things were the result of agriculture, so I still wonder how much actual "warring"/plundering would have gone on.

One other thing that occurs to me, however, would be psychopaths or pathologicals who would try and rape or take women as captives from other groups--possibly in the context of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon humans. Though that would be well before agriculture (but certainly not limited to being before agriculture), it would result in conflicts without the many reasons that agriculture created for conflicts.

 

[Buddy]

Again I'm confused--are you referring to me as a less discerning reader?

No.

If I can't make heads or tails of what you're talking about, what other option do I have personally but dismissal or pointing out that it doesn't make sense, especially considering your history of posting in this regard?

Ummm, is there a scarcity of possibilities? How about just a simple request for clarification?

 

[durabone]

webglider:

I'd like to see support for the idea that hunter gatherers had "easy living situations"

This reminds me of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, displayed below in a pyramid scheme illuminati sort of manner. Lack of air, water, or food, and you and your family are moving! Before you can deal, according to many, with Self-Esteem and Self-Actualization - you must have shelter.

webglider, you are a master of understatement:

That split could give rise to all sorts of social problems.

Make sure the peasants must live on a dirt floor! Wait! This situation persists today!

From my understanding, stockpiles of things were the result of agriculture, so I still wonder how much actual "warring"/plundering would have gone on.

Agreed, and apparently, once stockpiles reach a certain size, they become impractical to move.

 

[anart]

Again I'm confused--are you referring to me as a less discerning reader?

No.

If I can't make heads or tails of what you're talking about, what other option do I have personally but dismissal or pointing out that it doesn't make sense, especially considering your history of posting in this regard?

Ummm, is there a scarcity of possibilities? How about just a simple request for clarification?

Buddy, I don't think you're being very helpful. You see, there IS an issue here with your posts. As a matter of fact, I would bet that many people skim a lot of your posts instead of actually reading them (if they even skim them) due to the content and the way you choose to write. It is a choice because we've all see you write clearly and concisely when you choose to.

So, instead of being all self-important and offended, why not just work on it, again, and write in a way that's more accessible to everyone. This way, everyone wins - people will actually read your posts, and thus benefit, and you'll actually gain some control over yourself by doing what "it does not like".

 

[durabone]

Come to think of it, laying up stores for Winter requires a huge stockpile that could not easily be moved. If our winters lasted two weeks, things might be different. Interesting!

EDIT: Could this be why nomads like Bedouins persist in more temperate regions?

 

[Buddy]

...why not just work on it, again, and write in a way that's more accessible to everyone. This way, everyone wins - people will actually read your posts, and thus benefit, and you'll actually gain some control over yourself by doing what "it does not like".

OK, I trust your judgment. And fwiw, I also trust those Admin to whom I have already demonstrated respect and appreciation. As well as moderators who are trained to mirror. Thanks.

 

[whitecoast]

I'd like to see support for the idea that hunter gatherers had "easy living situations". I would imagine if the food source is scarce, the bonds of cooperation may, in some way, begin to fray. Maybe not. There would be lots of worry about survival, and it would be very hard to see the vulnerable members of the society put at risk Children and the elderly would be the most fragile and maybe expendable members of the society. Maybe not.

I think it is more the opposite actually. Those simple hunger gatherers (those tribes which did not accumulate food or depend largely on the abundance of one resource like fish or grains or cattle) had far more environmental pressure to maintain healthy and egalitarian social bonds with their kin, since any internal considering or self-importance was much more threatening to the well-being of the network. If a tribe was to survive in an area for any given time, they HAD to learn to get along.

Complex hunger-gatherers (the precursors of sedentism, which depend on particular resources more and accumulated/stored food and wealth) have often much greater populations due to increased exploitation of natural resources. It is in these societies we begin to see greater political concentration of power and less egalitarianism. I think perhaps this may have to do with abundance of resources leading to having an easier life, which encourages moral indolence toward ones neighbors due to being less directly dependent on them for your survival.Thus the ponerogenic cycle begins. For what it's worth.

But there is a point that Gurdjieff made that is very important to remember. He argued that to be a whole human the being of a person and the intellect of the person both need to be developed. By intellect I mean the acquisition of knowledge. So maybe, at some point, some force separated groups of people into those who would develop objective knowledge, and those who would develop being. Everyone would have both of course, but the degree to which each would be developed would not be balanced. That split could give rise to all sorts of social problems.

I'm having trouble picturing this. I mean, I'm sure the disparities between knowledge and being became greater during The Fall, but to suggest that it was specifically due to pathological education kind of stretches it. I think the mind of the group would already have to be compromised from exorphins, psychopathy, and trauma before its perpetuation to the children could occur securely. FWIW.

 

[durabone]

What I gathered from Paul Shepherd's work is that warfare and conquest began largely with the arrival of animal husbandry and domestication. This was a fundamentally different way of life from that of the early agriculturalists. Animal husbandry required less manual labour than the continuous planting and reaping of fields. And unlike agriculture--which need only take up as much space as your local field--animal grazing required a semi-nomadic lifestyle that would allow the herds to continuously graze new grasslands after depleting older areas. They essentially had to follow the rainfall, which is the reason why many believe these cultures became more obsessed with an authoritarian Sky-God instead of an agricultural Earth-Mother. This is also why those shepherd cultures became obsessed with appeasement of divine will through sacrifice and such. Since sheep numbers were the direct correlate of one's wealth, gradually those cultures that learned to steal cows became stronger. It is this initial increase in stealing and inter-personal violence that instigated the creation of the "warrior culture," which glorified strong leaders, valour in battle, and other pathological social qualities. Shepherd points to the Navajo as a culture that had relatively little interpersonal violence until animal husbandry came onto the scene. Perhaps the psychopathy gene was there all along, but only became encouraged to develop once

Nice post whitecoast! The author's name is Shepherd?!? I love the smell of a hot irony! It's a very interesting twist to read the biblical story of Joseph, after stipulating that the Egyptians were vegetarians. The Egyptians then owned working animals, which they were required to give up to get grain from stingy Joseph. The smell of their animals roasting on the outskirts of town by Shepherds, which they considered an abomination according to the New English Bible, must've boiled their blood.

Am I correct that Animal husbandry requires pens for years, and hence is not part of the nomadic/herder lifestyle?

EDIT: irony = whitecoast, you posted while I wrote!