The origin of sedentary lifestyle

[Buddy]

[quote author=whitecoast]
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.[/quote]

You think these hunter-gatherer tribes had abstract concepts like internal considering and self-importance? Personally, I think such concerns can arise only in covert mentalities bent on mischief towards the more honest and open hunter-gatherers and their tribes.

[quote author=whitecoast]
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.[/quote]

I think that scenario you describe where abundance and moral indolence coexist, is only a temporary situation of abundance and is occurring within an overall scarcity environment and with a related mindset. So I'm not sure that "easier life" is really applicable here.

I don't know what 'moral indolence' refers to in this context, but if it's the bad behavior of which I'm thinking, then it might be related to scarfing up stuff before others do, as well as other behaviors supporting that goal of snatching stuff up and trying to hide or protect it? The motivation for this would be that if I don't get it now, someone else will and the more I have, the more I can probably get in the future.

Anyway, so that's still a combination mindset-environment context of scarcity but with temporary abundance.

In an environment of natural abundance coinciding with the same mindset, it would seem more likely that individuals would display more of a comparatively innocent and open nature by default. Which might explain why it was so easy to deviously outsmart and eventually totally dominant the Native Americans.

But I might be totally off and you may be entirely correct. Maybe others will offer their views on this as well?

 

[durabone]

whitecoast, thank you. I like the way you write.

they HAD to learn to get along.

Well blessed be. Can I go there now?

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.

Consider what you said: "an easier life, which encourages moral indolence toward ones neighbors."

I don't think I'd go with 'encourages.' You might mean, 'enables.'

 

[whitecoast]

You think these hunter-gatherer tribes had abstract concepts like internal considering and self-importance? Personally, I think such concerns can arise only in covert mentalities bent on mischief towards the more honest and open hunter-gatherers and their tribes.

Well, if we are honest with ourselves we can't exactly go back to the Pleistocene and ask them. :) The best we can do is look at indigenous cultures that have similar environments and technology as those we've excavated from the Pleistocene. And I've yet to know of an indigenous culture that doesn't have a story about a boastful, hubristic fool who got what he or she deserved, while dragging many other people through their mess. So there probably is an encoding of these concepts into the mythos of the people, but it's also possible these are "post-fall" adjustments, after the cultures had learned to deal with the introduction of psychopathic genes/personalities in their ranks. But that, obviously, doesn't help when a larger, more ponerized culture comes along and wipes them out.

I think that scenario you describe where abundance and moral indolence coexist, is only a temporary situation of abundance and is occurring within an overall scarcity environment and with a related mindset. So I'm not sure that "easier life" is really applicable here.

Yup, Lobaczewski and I would agree with you. I just used "resource abundance," "easy life," and "moral indolence" to refer to the first stage of the hysteroidal cycle-- to illustrate how certain aspects of a complex hunter-gatherer society and its increased exploitation and dependence on certain abundances contributes to ponerization. Just to tie it all back to Alvaro's question.

I don't know what 'moral indolence' refers to in this context, but if it's the bad behaviour of which I'm thinking, then it might be related to scarfing up stuff before others do, as well as other behaviors supporting that goal of snatching stuff up and trying to hide or protect it? The motivation for this would be that if I don't get it now, someone else will and the more I have, the more I can probably get in the future.

Anyway, so that's still a combination mindset-environment context of scarcity but with temporary abundance.

In an environment of natural abundance coinciding with the same mindset, it would seem more likely that individuals would display more of a comparatively innocent and open nature by default.

In psychological terms, moral indolence refers to the laziness of system 1. It will only do what is minimally necessary to ensure the survival of its genetic line. This is an evolutionary adaptation used to discourage animals from wasting energy and wearing themselves out.

In a simple hunter-gatherer society, remaining sour after a dispute between you and a hunting buddy could mean the difference between eating a day from now or three days, or even never. When the consequences for our actions are much more glaringly obvious, system 1 is more likely to take the hint and naturally invest energy into behaving constructively with others. The veil the Kundabuffer lays over the prospect of Death is much thinner in these societies, so to speak. OSIT.

That immediate psychological connection starts to become uncoupled in the complex hunter-gatherer societies, due to delayed returns and such. When you are less directly dependent on your neighbours to survive, system 1 is much less naturally invested in making sure you and they have good relations. It may be related specifically to hoarding, as you suggest, but there's probably hundreds of reasons why people aren't nice to one another. As long as psychopaths don't make things overtly intolerable while resources remain abundant, who cares about a couple lives being shattered here and there by psychopaths?

That all changes once the crisis hits of course--once a critical resource fails, or the pile of bodies Big Men leave in their wake gets a little too large. In the case of the former they just decided to attack other people in the area and take their land and resources as well, to tide them over until crisis hits again. That is pretty much the entire history of civilization and colonialism in a nutshell. Problem, Reaction, Solution. That is, unless enough Adamic humans have their higher centers connected for them to create and organize enough to put a stop to the chaos (or at least, drive the infection underground again).

I guess what I'm saying is, in hunter-gatherer societies with less accumulation and singular resource dependence, the line between the hedonistic and crisis points in ponerogensis are thin enough to be virtually non-existent in some cases. This probably keeps the memory of the virtuous times--when higher moral character returns to the people--more alive and present in the population, which probably keeps them vigilant for destructive and anti-social behaviour. The prolonged hedonistic period of delayed-return or complex hunter-gatherers increases the amnesia of the people, and impoverishes their advanced psychological knowledge over time as it falls into disuse. Unless there are schools which can keep it alive. OSIT.

That, at least, is my understanding.

 

[webglider]

quote by webglider:

quote
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.

quote by Potamus 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.

Here is an example from History:

The advancement of knowledge in Europe during the time of Columbus allowed the building of the ships and the manufacture of the instruments by which ships could navigate to otther hemispheres which they did. And what did they do when they get to their destinations? They raped, stole, burned, sold into slavery, terrorized the people who lived there. Given this example, I have to conclude that those cultures, despite their technological advances had little or no Being.

Let's now turn to the cultures that welcomed these marauders with gifts, feasts and welcome. Some of these cultures had religions that described the return of gods that had left them long ago. Due to their lack of objective knowledge, the level of their Being, which was, at least in this was circumstance generous and kind, was the source of their undoing.

I imagine there were psychopaths in native cultures, but perhaps in some - especially those who lived in difficult climates and terrains - survival would depend on identifying and eradicating psychopaths by exclusion, banisment or execution.

So, just for argument's sake, let's say that the native people developed more Being due to the the emphasis their society put on hospitality and maintaining good social relations.

And then, again just for argument's sake, let's say the Europeans developed their society in such a way that commerce, individual wealth and power were the qualities that inspired respect. It would naturally follow that they would need more technology to explore and exploit places and peoples on the earth to provide them with these essentials. In such a way, their intellect would develop, and their Being would atrophy.

Gurdjieff writes ISOTM that

People in western culture put great value on the level of a man's knowledge, but they do not value the level of a man's Being and are not ashamed of the low level of their own Being, for example he may be a great scientist make discoveries and advance science and at the same time he may be and has the right to be, and has the right to be, a egotistic, cavilling, mean, envious, vain and absent minded man - (people) do not realize that the level of a man's knowledge depends on the level of his Being page. 65

Why is it that some cultures emphasized Being and others "Knowledge"? It seems like some kind of set up for exploitation and hyperdimensional feeding - or so it seems to me, I could be wrong. And now it seems that "Knowledge" has wiped out Being on a global level paving the way for great suffering to all.

 

[Buddy]

And I've yet to know of an indigenous culture that doesn't have a story about a boastful, hubristic fool who got what he or she deserved, while dragging many other people through their mess.

Yup. We talked about one example on the Creating a New World thread here, and How to prepare for the coming Ice Age here, using what obyvatel described as "...the Inuits whom Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls the second most ancient surviving hunter-gatherer tribes of the world."

Interestingly, to me, all that 'mess' began with a catalyst. Reminds me of the analogy of the mixing of the ingredients for bread, including the leavening.

 

[anart]

Speaking in general, I don't think it is a natural condition of Native Americans or any other early tribal culture to have general behavioral issues related to what we today view as the aforementioned concepts of self-importance and internal considering. At least not until some catalyst is somehow introduced--maybe from the 'outside', so to speak (see below link).

I think you're making some huge assumptions with this statement, or perhaps misusing the terms self-importance and internal considering. 'Native' or 'early tribal' cultures were still 3D STS beings and, as such, would have these same issues as they are issues of 'the predator'. They are issues that come with being 3D STS. They may have manifested in different ways, due to societal differences, but I highly doubt that these early cultures were free of such inherent tendencies since they are part of being a 3D STS human. Perhaps the humans 'before the fall' were free of such internal influences, but I'm not sure that you're thinking that far back? fwiw.

 

[Buddy]

I think you're making some huge assumptions with this statement, or perhaps misusing the terms self-importance and internal considering. 'Native' or 'early tribal' cultures were still 3D STS beings and, as such, would have these same issues as they are issues of 'the predator'. They are issues that come with being 3D STS. They may have manifested in different ways, due to societal differences, but I highly doubt that these early cultures were free of such inherent tendencies since they are part of being a 3D STS human. Perhaps the humans 'before the fall' were free of such internal influences, but I'm not sure that you're thinking that far back? fwiw.

Stimulating question. Mis-using, more than likely. I'll have to give it some more thought first as I don't know to what extent I put in or left out some of what you mentioned.

Aside:
Interesting self-observation here: when you're in the neighborhood and we're in communication, I seem to feel all warm and relaxed inside. Maybe I just notice it more ATM, since I was probably seized up in self-defense mode recently.

Anyway, thanks.

 

[anart]

Aside:
Interesting self-observation here: when you're in the neighborhood and we're in communication, I seem to feel all warm and relaxed inside. Maybe I just notice it more ATM, since I was probably seized up in self-defense mode recently.

Hopefully it's not an allergy. ;)

 

[Buddy]

After thinking about this for awhile, I seem to have settled on possibly the only way that the process I described above might be theoretically valid or a useful analogy.

Simply put, after the Fall that the C's describe, there's the process the Semioticians describe which may serve as a 3rd density representation of what actually happened. Basically, that developmental process referred to is human infants being born into the Matriarchal state of Nature, then drawn into the Patriarchal order of culture through the self-referencing ego development mechanism of mirroring the child's reflection back to them and associating it with pointing and verbal assertions like "you, that's you, etc". A process the child learns to mimic by internalizing it to "me, that's me, etc."

Anyway, the description in my previous post would simply represent this particular 'fall'. Wheels within wheels, so to speak.

That situation would be pretty devious, I think, since some ancient mystics, sages and wise men might be talking about this 3D fall in their esoteric writings and more modern day scholars could take their descriptions and references as representing the real fall and get stuff wrong, keeping the truth hidden in an extra layer of veil whose metaphors would sound very similar to the actual state of affairs.

But all this talk may just be further complicating things and that's not my intent. Besides, I seem to be having more of a visceral realization that self-importance and internal considering is too well woven into the fabric of 3D existence to be any other way than what anart stated.

The scenario presented seems to be interesting, but I no longer subscribe to any idea of mere self-assertive self-awareness.

 

[whitecoast]

[quote author=webglider]Why is it that some cultures emphasized Being and others "Knowledge"? It seems like some kind of set up for exploitation and hyperdimensional feeding - or so it seems to me, I could be wrong. And now it seems that "Knowledge" has wiped out Being on a global level paving the way for great suffering to all.
[/quote]

Okay. I think I misunderstood your original post webglider. I thought you were saying that someone long ago decided to separate the teaching of knowledge and being, which led to the neolithic corruption... not sure how I came to that conclusion. Sorry anyhow.

[quote author=Buddy]ATM, I'm inclined to believe a person who starts their life in the Matriarchal state of Nature (a phrase from Semiotics which, among other things, studies relationships between the stages of individual development and language development) and grows up in that kind of environmental context retains not only a reverence for the All, but a sort of being-consistency where everything about them is essentially out in the open. Habitual behaviors based only in self-serving rituals simply have little or no reason to get started, OSIT.

{snip}

At any rate, starting out life in a ponerized culture, we become divided into a being with a superficial personality and an inner self which can be a quite different "me". But this divided state is not natural in the sense that it is provided by Nature, so neither is the existence of self-importance and internal consideration. At least in the sense in which I understand Gurdjieff.

{snip}

So, until the ruts of self-referencing behaviors manifest, indicating that this false ego thing has become normalized, I'd think any manifestations of what looks like self-importance or internal considering is mostly simple expressions of the person's self-assertive self-awareness, though this may be a bit simplistic. It certainly doesn't cover all the bases, so to speak.[/quote]

I think the bolded point is contentious. I get what you're trying to say: that people are inherently good (if not STO), providing their DNA receives all the right confluent environmental inputs (loving family, stimulating childhood environment, love of open questing for knowledge, etc.) to ensure the full expression of the open-altruistic dynamic to become virtuous beings. You may also say a catalyst is responsible for disrupting this and causing ponerogenesis and sedentism. But to assume that any psychological deviation from this natural state is what causes ponerogensis proper is invalid, I think.

In the natural world, disturbances and disasters abound. Wildfires, earthquakes, meteorites, hurricanes, etc. can all serve as acute catalysts to disrupt the development of children in an affected community via trauma of various sorts, which can lead to psychological compensations that eventually become maladaptive and develop into false personality.

If this were enough to be the drop of sewage that turns the barrel of wine into sewage, human culture wouldn't have lasted as long as it has. So I reiterate again that, yes, I think early human cultures could tacitly (if not abstractly) identify self-importance and internal considering arising from random events and correct it within the same generation if not two. Since these disasters would be acute and generally uncommon, you may only get a handful of people who have distortions in their being every generation or so, at most. A good analogy for this is the number of cells that turn abnormal in our body every day but don't become malignant or metastatic. A culture needs that level of robustness, OSIT.

That all changes when we introduce psychopathy. Departing from the usual acute causes of psychological distortion, we now have a chronic, multi-generational psychological stress that natural human psychology was unable to deal with at that point (and to this day still struggles with it). This would be roughly equivalent to Pottenger's experiments on Cats--how, after several generations of horrible nutrition, birth defects and other epigenetic dysregulation amassed in the experimental subjects. Perhaps something similar happened to regular humans after several generations of chronic exposure to pathologicals.

Maybe this is what the C's were referring to when they said that the Lizards burned off sections of our DNA during their takeover of our world, causing us to be predominantly STS?

How do you read the above? Is it understandable without necessarily be 'right' or 'insightful'?

Well, since you asked, I got the gist of it more or less but I had to read the last 4-5 or so paragraphs first, since they contained about 80% of you were trying to convey (unless I misunderstood something?) Not quite "US Presidential Debate" or "Simple English Wikipedia" level material but it's getting there.

 

[Buddy]

How do you read the above? Is it understandable without necessarily be 'right' or 'insightful'?

Well, since you asked, I got the gist of it more or less but I had to read the last 4-5 or so paragraphs first, since they contained about 80% of you were trying to convey (unless I misunderstood something?) Not quite "US Presidential Debate" or "Simple English Wikipedia" level material but it's getting there.

Thanks. That's good to know!

 

[durabone]

Thank you whitecoast, more to think about:

Why is it that some cultures emphasized Being and others "Knowledge"? It seems like some kind of set up for exploitation and hyperdimensional feeding - or so it seems to me, I could be wrong. And now it seems that "Knowledge" has wiped out Being on a global level paving the way for great suffering to all.

Kind of an Adam & Eve flavor. The bold words, if true, tell me that this may be happening across the universe!

In the natural world, disturbances and disasters abound. Wildfires, earthquakes, meteorites, hurricanes, etc. can all serve as acute catalysts to disrupt the development of children in an affected community via trauma of various sorts, which can lead to psychological compensations that eventually become maladaptive and develop into false personality.

That all changes when we introduce psychopathy. Departing from the usual acute causes of psychological distortion, we now have a chronic, multi-generational psychological stress that natural human psychology was unable to deal with at that point (and to this day still struggles with it).

Perhaps I am just cynical, but doesn't it seem that ruthless, perhaps psychopathic leaders/chieftains already ruled the nomads before the sedentary lifestyle? If so then, wouldn't the trauma of natural disasters be punctuations in an already tyrannical environment that "lead to psychological compensations that eventually become maladaptive and develop into false personality"?

Reminded me of this great book, thank you, one of my favorites back in 2000:

Beyond Civilization: The world's four great streams of civilization: their achievements, their differences and their future
by Keith Chandler
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Civilization-civilization-achievements-differences/dp/059520550X

Anyone here ever read it?

 

[Buddy]

Perhaps I am just cynical, but doesn't it seem that ruthless, perhaps psychopathic leaders/chieftains already ruled the nomads before the sedentary lifestyle?

According to a wikipedia article on Nomads, 'before the sedentary lifestyle' would mean the Hunter-Gatherer type of nomad and, ATM, it doesn't seem so to me just based on what I can imagine of their daily life from the descriptions I've read.

That makes me interested in how hunter-gatherer nomads compared with those hunter-gatherer Inuits about which Ms. Estes wrote.

If so then, wouldn't the trauma of natural disasters be punctuations in an already tyrannical environment that "lead to psychological compensations that eventually become maladaptive and develop into false personality"?

If so, then I'd agree with the statement if it said "added to false personality"--assuming it already existed-- otherwise probably not unless the trauma was subsequently blocked out. But then I'm still in the process of grokking 'false personality' and I recently expanded my understanding of "grok".

BTW, I haven't read that book you refer to, but is there anything in it about the Hunter-Gatherer nomads and their 'leaders/chieftains'?

 

[anart]

I think it's important to realize that everything we think we know about these 'hunter gatherer lifestyles' is created by historians who really don't know anything. Even the archeological evidence (scant as it is) is presented by historians who can't really put two and two together. So, basing entire thought processes and threads on such scant evidence basically amounts to wiseacring or mental masturbation because we don't have the puzzle pieces necessary to really know much about what you're all discussing in the first place.

If you've read Secret History of the World then you know that our historians are clueless at best and liars at worst, so basing a conclusion on such information doesn't make much sense and at the end of the day we know that agriculture was akin to the domestication of man - and things devolved at a steady rate from there. It's not really rocket science, I don't think.

 

[Buddy]

...at the end of the day we know that agriculture was akin to the domestication of man - and things devolved at a steady rate from there.

Well, thank you. That's an explicit statement on the matter for which I seem to have been looking. It satisfies me ATM. :)