Were we better off in a state of nature?

[coberst]

Were we better off in a state of nature?

How credible was the concept of the Noble Savage?

The thing is that society is constantly changing. How can we create a stable society within such a dynamic world culture? We need an ideal as a North Star. An ideal does not depend upon what is or what was but upon what we want or what we need—hopefully that are similar.

I think that Socrates may very well be the first person to recognize what we need. Socrates recognized that the basic need was for wo/men to awaken their critical faculties. Socrates was perhaps the first to recognize that humans are too easily delighted by the praise of their fellows and that this sought after social recognition prevented their free and enlighten action. Humans need to share in a shared social fiction. The anxiety of self-discovery is a constant source of internal conflict for humans.

It appears that human play forms “may even outwit human adaptation itself”. The created fiction becomes more real than reality itself. New humans enter this world and immediately begin the process of survival which becomes “a struggle with the ideas one has inherited”. This fiction reality destroys our rational adaptive process which can react to the real world; we are too busy reacting to our fictional play.

Is it appropriate to say that the Amish might be considered to be the modern Noble Savage?

Is it possible that we could study the Amish as a means for creating a better society?

[vhawk01]

Are you asking everyone or just the 10% of us that would currently be alive under this hypothetical?

Oh and the noble savage is complete BS and is entirely a myth born of guilt or something.

[pokervintage]

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Were we better off in a state of nature?


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If we had remained monkeys then we certainly would be better off in a state of nature (whatever that is).

But for some reason we humans developed the ability to reason. The ability to reason demands evolution from noble savagery to -- ad infinitum. The only thing in the way is extinction. Evolution demands freeing ourselves from daily chores, freeing the mind and developing tools that allow more and more progress towards the ultimate goal - existence.

pokervintage.

[tame_deuces]

I was at a guest lecture from some bigshots within medicine and stress research. What they had basically done was to measure the amount of negative stress symptoms (what you get when stress is a bad thing, as it may also be a good thing) in various tribal cultures. The results were very solid and showed very much higher levels of negative stress symptoms overall in these cultures than in contemporary western cultures.

Sure stress isn't everything, but it certainly points to the fact that 'simple' life is indeed much harder.

[hitch1978]

I think you may be looking at our previous 'state of nature' with biased eyes.

Just because a culture lives without 'jobs' or 'houses' as we see them now, doesn't mean that the way they live is any different. They are still under the same pressures to do well. It is just the definition of 'do well' that has changed. Not our need to do well.

Getting a promotion, winning a wager, playing roleplay games with friends, all have allways had their equivelent in human history.

So, IMHO, the only thing going back no a state of nature would achieve would be to cost us as a species time in developement.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]

I was at a guest lecture from some bigshots within medicine and stress research. What they had basically done was to measure the amount of negative stress symptoms (what you get when stress is a bad thing, as it may also be a good thing) in various tribal cultures. The results were very solid and showed very much higher levels of negative stress symptoms overall in these cultures than in contemporary western cultures.

Sure stress isn't everything, but it certainly points to the fact that 'simple' life is indeed much harder.

[/ QUOTE ]

And even that is only half the story because you don't get to measure the "stress levels" of the 6 kids a couple has that died in childbirth or from cholera or something. Or all the people who starved to death.

This thread is actually interesting to me though, because the "myth of the noble savage" is completely pervasive, at least in the US, and its entirely unquestioned. If anyone makes any illusions to how much simpler life would be if we all lived "in the wild" or if they talk about the peaceful Indians or peaceful natives or anything like that, it is IMMEDIATELY accepted as obviously true. And apparently no amount of data or anthropological research seems to matter.

[tame_deuces]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I was at a guest lecture from some bigshots within medicine and stress research. What they had basically done was to measure the amount of negative stress symptoms (what you get when stress is a bad thing, as it may also be a good thing) in various tribal cultures. The results were very solid and showed very much higher levels of negative stress symptoms overall in these cultures than in contemporary western cultures.

Sure stress isn't everything, but it certainly points to the fact that 'simple' life is indeed much harder.

[/ QUOTE ]

And even that is only half the story because you don't get to measure the "stress levels" of the 6 kids a couple has that died in childbirth or from cholera or something. Or all the people who starved to death.

This thread is actually interesting to me though, because the "myth of the noble savage" is completely pervasive, at least in the US, and its entirely unquestioned. If anyone makes any illusions to how much simpler life would be if we all lived "in the wild" or if they talk about the peaceful Indians or peaceful natives or anything like that, it is IMMEDIATELY accepted as obviously true. And apparently no amount of data or anthropological research seems to matter.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, these are excellent points altogether. I think on many levels we have learned to appreciate human lives alot more as we greatly increased the chance of a relatively long and at least moderately wealthy life, even for the 'average' citizen. You simply have so much more to lose by not making it that peaceful and non-aggressive interaction even outside your known 'social sphere of influence' is often preferable.

All is not rosy red ofcourse, we aren't utopia or anything, but we change and we will probably continue changing in that direction - look at europe over the last 25 years now contra the 2000 years of almost constant war preceding them for example.

[coberst]

Perhaps the Amish way of living might offer us some ideas of how to mold the future without destroying the planet and the species.

[Nielsio]

[ QUOTE ]
Were we better off in a state of nature?

How credible was the concept of the Noble Savage?

The thing is that society is constantly changing. How can we create a stable society within such a dynamic world culture? We need an ideal as a North Star. An ideal does not depend upon what is or what was but upon what we want or what we need—hopefully that are similar.

I think that Socrates may very well be the first person to recognize what we need. Socrates recognized that the basic need was for wo/men to awaken their critical faculties. Socrates was perhaps the first to recognize that humans are too easily delighted by the praise of their fellows and that this sought after social recognition prevented their free and enlighten action. Humans need to share in a shared social fiction. The anxiety of self-discovery is a constant source of internal conflict for humans.

It appears that human play forms “may even outwit human adaptation itself”. The created fiction becomes more real than reality itself. New humans enter this world and immediately begin the process of survival which becomes “a struggle with the ideas one has inherited”. This fiction reality destroys our rational adaptive process which can react to the real world; we are too busy reacting to our fictional play.

Is it appropriate to say that the Amish might be considered to be the modern Noble Savage?

Is it possible that we could study the Amish as a means for creating a better society?

[/ QUOTE ]


Two words:

Voluntary society.

[tame_deuces]

[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps the Amish way of living might offer us some ideas of how to mold the future without destroying the planet and the species.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or perhaps technology, genetics, thorium reactors and advances in philosophy can give us the best of both worlds? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]