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When dawn came, and the people of the Paiute camp emerged from their wickiups, the Watching priest was astonished not by what they did, but what they did without.
[This is one of a series of meditations on what we might have learned, and might still learn, from the history of Native Americans about how to live without modern technology and industry, which we may have to do in the near future.]
About a hundred years after Father LeJeune vented about the unwillingness of the Montagnais to give or receive orders, another Jesuit priest awoke in the predawn hour in a Paiute village, near the other coast of the North American continent. Apparently the Jesuits, who at least were willing to observe and take down information about the lives of the Native Americans, were no better than anyone else at sharing what they learned, because this priest was as shocked by what he saw as Father LeJeune had been, for the same reason.
As daylight came and the villagers stepped out of their wickiups, they went immediately into action, some gathering twigs for tinder, others starting the breakfast fires, some fetching water, others preparing food. All this activity, and all that was to come that day and every day, proceeded without anyone giving anyone else an order.
Everyone in the Paiute camp, the astonished priest recorded, saw what needed to be done, in that hour and in that season, and everyone — without hesitation or reluctance or second thoughts — gravitated toward the tasks they were capable of doing. The people were not divided into chiefs and subjects, or into order-givers and order-takers, or rich and poor or nobles and proles. They were simply the People, doing what was best for the People.
The notion that anyone would trust any undertaking to even a small group of people without “someone in charge,” a chain of command, a table of organization — let alone that such anarchy had been the foundation of 10,000 years of stable life — was simply incomprehensible to the Jesuit priest, and remains so to most of us today. With the result that when we consider options for a do-over of our failed society, functioning without a chain of command is not one of the options we consider.
That same morning, as I recall it, that same Jesuit was talking with one of the elders of the village when they were interrupted by a coltish swarm of children who sped past, yelling, in the grip of some game. The elder simply stopped talking while the bedlam enveloped them, and resumed their conversation when it receded.
“Why do you not correct them?” asked the Jesuit. (Anyone here been to Catholic school?)
The elder was puzzled by the question. “Why would I do that?”
“To teach them the right way to be.”
“They’re children!” said the elder. “They need time to see the right way to be. And then they will follow it. Because there is no other way to be.”
And there it is. The ultimate cement for putting together and keeping together a robust and enduring society. The conviction that there is no other way to be.
This is not the same thing, by the way, as a conviction that we are the best, and all others are inferior to us. The Montagnais tried to instruct Father Lejeune on this point: “They said that when I prayed to God they greatly approved of it, as well as of what I told them, and hence, that I must also approve of their customs, and I must believe in their way of doing things.”
That plan did not turn out well, because of course the Jesuits had no intention of respecting the ways of the Montagnais. But partly also, perhaps, because now there existed, for the Montagnais, another way to be. Not so for the French; their contempt for the “savages” precluded any imitation of their ways. The prejudice persists.
A commenter on a previous piece in this series called the lack of choices available to the native cultures “oppression,” and contrasted it with the “creativity” of the developing agricultural world. And our society is all about creative choices. Our children are bombarded from birth with messages about choices: “you can be anything you want to be.” You can choose your occupation, your religion, your political party, even your gender. In this welter of choices, the most important of which you are expected to have made by the age of 18, the one shared value is money — you are expected to make a lot of it.
As this complex, cobbled-together culture, an embodiment of greed and narcissism, comes apart under us, its premises exposed as lies, its parts as shoddy, where shall we look for a replacement? To a different business plan with a new chain of command?
Or is there something in us that yearns for a Paiute morning?
Tom wrote: “As this complex, cobbled-together culture, an embodiment of greed and narcissism, comes apart under us, its premises exposed as lies, its parts as shoddy, where shall we look for a replacement? ”
I wonder if the implication is that we can create a society that is NOT the embodiment of greed and narcissism? To answer this question, do we not need to ask what is it that has created this society.? What has created ALL human societies and cultures, in fact?
Surely society is the outer reflection of the human mind? Because you and I are greedy, full of selfish pursuits, we create a society that is based on these qualities. So no amount of reform of society can change this situation. Only a fundamental change in human consciousness can bring about real change in society. Is this not obvious? This is the real problem, but we never put our attention, never devote our energy, to this fundamental issue. Instead the world is occupied with political reform, economic reform, social reform, and the rest. With what result? As readers of the website must well know, deterioration of society continues, accelerates in fact.
The real crisis is not out there, the real crisis is in the human mind.
I agree that the real crisis is in the human mind; and that society is the outer reflection of the human mind. I do not agree that you and I and necessarily greedy, but have been taught by our culture that that is the way to be. I am highlighting here stories of people and cultures that did not revolve around greed and selfish pursuits; I am arguing against the notion that “human nature” is fixed in that regard.
And I agree that attempting to “reform” our way out of the mess we’re in is hopeless. Once the mess has crashed and burned, and the slate of human history is once again clean, I would hate to think that the survivors would simply do the same damn things over again. I want them to change their minds, and thus change the future.
I think that greed does exist in all of us along with all the other human characteristics, good and bad. In hunter gatherer societies greed of individuals and humans as a group was sharply limited by resources and so social convention followed. As we became farmers resources expanded and allowed greed, for goods and power, to expand accordingly, again social conventions followed. Since the beginning of the fossil fuel age there has been ever more room for greed and social conventions have kept up, to the point that we now have a political/economic system, capitalism, that embraces, admires and rewards greed. It is possible even that population genetics may have selected us as our population exploded across the oil age to be more greedy on average than our pre-oil population.
As we run out of oil there will be less surplus to support greed, we may even be experiencing peak greed along with so many other peaks.
Bob wrote: “As we run out of oil there will be less surplus to support greed, we may even be experiencing peak greed along with so many other peaks.”.
Sounds a very attractive and intriguing concept, Bob “peak greed”. But I see no evidence that the self is loosing its grip on the human mind, rather the reverse if anything.The self, the ego, manifests not only as greed but as ambition, ruthless competition, fear, envy, violence …. As I wrote to Tom, the more we believe that somehow change will happen TO us, the less we feel that we ourselves are responsible for the present mess.
Clive,
Yes, we had and have choices and continue to be responsible but as we exhaust resources and meet the ecological limits of the planet those choices will narrow to bare survival for the lucky and/or prepared. I do not mean to suggest that peak greed will in any way save us, just that there will be less resources to support greed. Nor do I see any sign that we will save ourselves, our ability to do so notwithstanding. For instance, most people I know who would be insulted to be called a climate change denier nevertheless effectively deny any personal responsibility by flying wherever they want for the fun of it, money permitting.
As there is a large overlap of skills between learning to live in an ecologically ethical way and the skills that will be needed to survive on a depleted planet, there may even be some natural selection against greed but that would be long after “impact,” not something that will affect it in any way.
Humans are not just greedy ambitious, ruthless etc., we also manifest the opposite of all those characteristics in varying amounts across the population, otherwise we would have wiped ourselves off the planet long since. We probably spend more time co-operating to get common tasks done that we do competing for example. Societies can shift which characteristics prevail but expecting a ” fundamental change in human consciousness” is like expecting a fundamental change in the laws of gravity to arrest a fall from a cliff. We are and will remain the species that we evolved as, with possible incremental changes over the coming eons.
Hi Tom, thanks for publishing my comments and giving them some consideration.
Certainly we are conditioned by our society into greed and the ways of the self generally. And then each individual feeds back into society in a sort of endless loop. Whether that loop be broken is a crucial question.
I never actually stated that ‘human nature’ is fixed for ever. But it cannot be changed by determination, by acts of will, since such action will always stem from that nature that is trying to be changed. It is a subtle problem, but the future of the whole planet may depend on finding a solution.
So Tom, you hope that change will come after the collapse of present society. I have to say this sounds … well, optimistic. You do agree that only a different sort of mind can bring about a different society. Why do you feel collapse would bring about a fundamentally new human mind? Has mankind ever really learned from experience? Has experience ever fundamentally changed him? As soon as one war ends, he prepares for the next one. There has been almost infinite suffering in this world, but has anyone ever learnt to transcend it?
You are hoping for the best, Tom, but if I may ask, isn’t hope a factor that prevents us changing NOW? We hope the future will bring change, we hope someone else, some external factor, will change us. Perhaps if we put aside such hope, we may each take responsibility ourselves, realising that THIS mind HAS to change, now. I feel there is no other way.
Clive, have you been reading Krishnamurti? :)
SomeoneinAsia wrote:
“Clive, have you been reading Krishnamurti? :)”
I think it is best if one’s words are judged as true or false based on their content, rather than referring to a third party. Accepting the authority of others, rather than thinking things out for oneself, has gone a long way to creating the present mess.
Europe had its own egalitarianism, with temporary rather than permanent leaders, chosen for specific tasks such as long voyages, war, and construction projects.
No one remembers this, because it only existed in pre-Christian times.
The last examples of this were the Vikings. We must remember that Iceland was settled purely because of the refusal to live under the iron hand of a hereditary king.
I find it fitting that the chronicle depicting life was penned by church officials, largely hostile, and lacking any depth, such an attitude chained Europe to an oppressive hierarchy for far too long.
Perhaps what we do find in this Christian record is a dim reminder of our condition before the hostile takeover.
Ah Mr. Lewis, I really enjoy it when you illustrate how the ‘simple’ (maybe ‘natural’ to the Paiute) way of ‘group-think’ is so much less complex and taxing than the ‘civilized’ way of enormous groups of “pecking orders,” classes, races, genders, affiliations, preferences, PC, and all the rest that’s imposed, implied or impressed on us.
Somebody always wants to be “better than,” have more than, rule over, lord something over, think of themselves as the center of the universe, etc. seems to be an inherent problem with the civilized way. We won’t even get into nepotism, ethnocentrism, money and all that other stuff we’ve imposed on ourselves.
One thing I wonder is how did the native populations kept their numbers down when we (of the “superior civilization”) have overshot the carrying capacity of the planet with our numbers?
Thanks for another great read, sir.
According to a variety of anthropological studies, primitive human societies, such as the Amerind, reproduced mindlessly.
What this means is that their population was controlled by the carrying capacity of their environments. In times of drought and stress, more would perish, thus reducing the population to sustainable levels. There was no willful or intentional effort to produce fewer offspring, it was a simple matter of who survived pestilence, war, and starvation.
We can observe this process today, where various “indigenous” populations have skyrocketed due to the generosity of the Europids, who provide endless supplies of food and medicine to ensure maximum fertility, without understanding the nature of the situation they modify.
Modern industrial ‘civilization’, which is created by the Europids, is consuming mindlessly, which is at least as bad as reproducing mindlessly. And whereas ‘primitive’ peoples at least had the excuse that they were ignorant of the limits to our resources (assuming that’s indeed the case), the Europids know there are such limits — and yet actively deny they exist. If that’s not the case, then why do we continue to subscribe to the suicidal ideology of endless growth? And where this ideology is leading us, I’m sure I don’t have to waste my breath elaborating.
Who’s dumber, a person who doesn’t know that fire burns, sticks his hand in a fire and gets burnt, or a person who, despite being warned repeatedly that fire burns, keeps denying this and even tries building up a fire that will be huge enough to burn the house down?
Thanks Mike, I expected as much but didn’t do any research to find out.
Tom,
I have spent a significant portion of my life engaged with primitive societies, and this has provided me with a rather non-mainstream perspective. Dances with Wolves may well have been the penultimate example of romanticized mainstream notions of primitive society, and this attitude clearly holds sway today.
I suppose this attitude comes from our dissatisfaction with the society we find ourselves in, and a desire to escape it.
We tend to forget that life without modern medicine is far more harsh, and often cut short. We do not understand that the eager grasp for technology from our primitive brethren is because they recognize it’s power. No one who hunts for sustenance is going to choose a spear over a gun, and despite the stories of amazing cures achieved by shamans and healers, modern medicine is far better when it comes to things like setting bones and combating infections.
None of this is meant to conceal the huge issues facing us today, but it should be noted that the sustainability that so many admire in primitive societies comes with a price, and concomitant absence of so many of our ideals, from the preciousness of children to the high value placed upon Nature, to the joy of following one’s self actualization.
Take all these wonderful things — modern medicine etc — and balance them against what modern ‘civilization’ has brought about and is going to bring about, such as climate change, resource depletion, the greatest mass extinction in 65 million years etc etc. Where will the balance swing?
Anubis is smiling.
Hi Bob, thanks for the reply.
I do not ‘expect’ fundamental change in the sense of sitting back and waiting for it to happen. I see that if human consciousness is to change, it is up to me to bring that change about in this bit of consciousness that is regarded as ‘mine’.
I do not regard that as an impossibility. If it is an impossibility, then I would say that then it is a certainty that we are doomed. We may be doomed anyway.
We have evolved large and complex brains, which are obviously very capable in some (technical) areas. But so far we have not evolved psychologically (spiritually if I may use that much-abused word) at all, so far. However, we cannot conclude that, with self-understanding and sufficient seriousness, putting aside all that is false, such a change might not be possible. It is up to each of us to inquire into this possibility – the alternative is just to accept our conflict, our suffering, our lack of love, as inevitable.
By the way, I hold to no beliefs, I do not have any philosophy with which to meet the challenges of life. All that stuff has failed to bring about the fundamental change in human beings that is so essential.
Hi Mike
You wrote:
“and concomitant absence of so many of our ideals, from the preciousness of children to the high value placed upon Nature, to the joy of following one’s self actualization”.
You seem to bee referring to Main stream society here, although I find that hard to believe. Correct me if I am wrong.
What is the point of having ideas when we do the opposite? What meaning does that have? Everyday thousands children die from malnutrition and easily preventable causes, and more and more they are exploited and dreadfully abused. And as for “A high value placed on nature” – surely you are joking.
And what “joy” is there in modern society? Everywhere man is in conflict, with others and in himself. There is immense confusion, chaos, and suffering.
SIA,
Equating mindless reproduction with resource depletion may make sense to you, and if so, you are welcome to your opinion, but understand that opinion is all you are offering. First off, are you aware that people have and do stand against the commodification of Nature? Do you understand that reducing Nature to resources is commodification? Do you care?
Clive,
Could it be true that you are unaware of the long love affair with the Natural world?
Have you ever attended an Arts and Crafts show, and observed the homage paid to wildlife, and the natural world?
Have you made yourself aware of the long literary tradition associated with Nature?
Did you ever notice the many periodicals, businesses, environmentalists, and efforts to both preserve and celebrate that world?
If you are asserting that the sum total of this society rests in the small cadre of shitheads who are chasing their next trillion, and those eager to ride their coattails, then I’m afraid you are quite mistaken.
Reply to Mike Kay
Yes, nature has been idealised, romaticised, sensationalised. And treated with a fair degree of respect by many indigenous people. And some people have had a meaningful relationship with nature, no doubt. But what is the overwhelming relationship in the present times? Surely you would not dispute that mankind has been exploiting nature mercilessly? We are destroying it at an alarming rate. These are the facts, they are sufficiently documented, testified to without me listing the statistics of horror, the encroachment on the forests, the degradation of the oceans and all life in it, the extinction events.
i don’t know why I bother to mention these things, they are so well known. Air is polluted, water is polluted, soil is degraded and polluted.
You wrote:
“If you are asserting that the sum total of this society rests in the small cadre of shitheads who are chasing their next trillion,”
I was not aware I had said any such thing. But if you are asserting that all the environmental damage is carried our by a tiny percentage of society, I would very much question this. Could the oil industry keep pumping out the oil, if billions of people were not using it daily, not only in their transport but in their use of plastics and pharmaceuticals? Is it not the norm in the developed world that people produce vast amounts of rubbish? Is it just the privileged few that are responsible for putting more and more climate-change producing carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere, and acidifying the oceans? Or are we all responsible, at least mostly in the developed world.
I think the claim that only a small percentage of people are acting destructively, and the great majority are acting innocently and reponsibly, very much needs to be questioned
Clive,
Animals alter their environments.
Human animals alter their environments, often radically.
No, I don’t think humans knowingly, willfully set about wrecking the biosphere.
Yes, I do find that many humans have genuine love and adoration for wild lands.
Personally, I find it interesting that certain world views so obviously exclude facts and perspectives that challenge the rather sophomoric morality of these views.
Finally, if you cannot see that this society is utterly controlled by minority special interests to the detriment of all else, and that their policies steer this entire thing, then you cannot grasp that policies converting the natural world into money are their purview.
Now, if you are suggesting that those who are the foot soldiers of this conversion are equally responsible, and equally those who have been indoctrinated to become the willing recipients of the debt generated by this conversion, well I can’t accept that.
There is a spiritual aspect to this as well.
The above essay focused clearly on contrasting hierarchical with egalitarian social structure. In a hierarchy, the few tell the many what to do, how to do it, and how to react to it all. Thus the elite class. Thus the conformity with their message.
Can you connect the dots?