despite my efforts at limiting my pen-l participation, to get more work
done, I have to respond to Louis and Ricardo. SUMMARY: Louis thinks I was
disagreeing with him in a major way, but I wasn't. Ricardo and I have a much
more fundamental disagreement, after the initial terminological squabble.
The fact that their initials are "L" and "R" is coincidental.
1. I wrote: >> In the Amazon, there have been tribes that have been
characterized as "extremely nice" by outsiders (whites) just over a mountain
or across a wide river from those characterized as "extremely fierce." <<
Louis responds: >This muddies the discussion. We are not talking about
head-hunting but
ecological despoliation. What does "nice" and "fierce" have to do with
killing nearly all the beaver in the Northeast during the 1700s? I just
heard the same crap about Indian savagery on the Spoons mail-list. I wish if
people wanted to find reasons to put Indians on the same moral plane as the
invaders who murdered them, that they'd at least come up with some
right-wing scholarly citations.<
I was NOT arguing for the alleged savagery of the American Indians, which as
you note is exceeded by the white folks bearing capitalism. I was NOT
putting the Indians on the same "moral plane" as the invaders. I was INSTEAD
arguing that there's a wide variety of experience amongst the various Indian
tribes. Some were more ecological than others. If you read what I read with
this in mind, you'll see what I was saying.
In your original missive titled "Ecology and the American Indian," you start
with the accurate statement that the "various tribes who inhabited North
America before the European invasion had been there for tens of thousands of
years, where they _developed_ economically sustainable hunting-and-gathering
economies that were respectful of the environment" (emphasis added). The
fact is (at least from my reading it is) that some of these societies
developed ecologically-sane methods of production more quickly than others.
Also, as several people noted, not all American Indian societies were
hunting-and-gathering. (I would add that many were agricultural, as in the
US Northeast, rather than gathering.)
Louis:> I recommend Simon Schama, for example. In his hatchet job on
Kirkpatrick Sale, he did a good job documenting head-hunting, cannibalism,
ritual human sacrifice, etc. All Jim can muster is a reference to "extremely
fierce" tribes. Try harder next time, Jim.<
I have no brief for Simon S. -- or for Kirkpatrick S. Please spare me the
sarcasm and patronizing attitude.
2. >>With the development of the classical empires (Aztecs, Egyptians,
Romans, etc., etc.) a certain uniformity (or law, etc.) is imposed on the
subject populations and the same time that improved transportation and
communication (for the purpose of uniting the empire) encourages homogeneity. <<
L: >I love it how somebody can pontificate on entire civilizations in a
sentence. I should take this approach in future posts. It would save trips
to the library.<
Does this say that you disagree with my sweeping generalization? I admit
it's sweeping, but such generalizations help one move toward greater
understanding in conjunction with detailed study. (If I may say so, the
relationship between the abstrat generalizations and the concrete specifics
is "dialectical," with each transforming the others.) You, too, make
sweeping generalizations. I agree with most of the ones that you made about
the Am. Indians.
Ricardo comments on what I said above: >I wouldn't say "homogeneity", but
rather differentiation. It is common knowledge in sociological theory that
the direction of
societal evolution is toward more differentiated and complex structures.
Although, in the global sense, as empires absorb other societies, this
process is accompanied by
cultural de-differentiation.<
It's the "cultural de-differentiation" that I was talking about when I used
the idea of homogenization, as should have been clear from context.
BTW, I would be leery of accepting the "common knowledge in sociological
theory," since just a few years ago that crowd thought Talcott Parsons was
the best thing since sliced bread. If by "more differentiatied" you mean
"increasing division of labor, specialization, in both production and
society" (econ. jargon), that's generally accurate. That would go along with
increasing complexity, using the non-technical jargon.
3. >>With the development of the world market and capitalism as an
accumulation machine, uniformity becomes the dominant theme to an extent
that is qualitatively greater than for the classical empires. Most classical
empires, for example, instituted pre-existing tribal organizations as part
of the tributary organization, imposing collective responsibility of the
tribe as a whole for the sins of the individual members (where of course
"sin" is defined by those in power). This helped preserve the old tribes, in
a distorted way. Something like this occurred with the bantustans in S.
Africa, too. <<
L: >What kind of malarkey is this? What in the world do bantustans have to
do with the relationship between stratified, agriculture-based societies
like the Mayans, Aztecs and Incans with hunter-gatherer tribes like the
Jivaro et al? Are the Incans to the Jivaro as the Boers are to the Zulus?
Perhaps Jim should strive for depth rather than breadth. His post is a
million miles wide and a quarter-inch deep.<
Spare us the insults. In a short post, it's impossible to be deep. But we
can't fill pen-l with nothing but long posts (like this one, alas).
Anyway, I was making a point about "stratified societies" (of which there
are many sorts) which simply impose greater _homogenization_ than in tribal
hunting-and-gathering societies. My point was to draw a line of increasing
homogenization of cultures from the various tribal societies to the empires
to the modern capitalism with which we live. The classical empire -- which
had a more recent version in the form of S. Africa -- involves forces which
help preserve cultural heterogeneity that the current flavor of capitalism
does not. (I would argue that there was much more to the apartheid system
than simple capitalism.)
4. >>But with a fuller development of capitalism, the drive toward
uniformity strengthens. Now English is on its way to becoming the world
language (if it isn't already), while more and more of the subject states
are subject to exactly the same cookie-cutter impositions of the IMF/World
Bank, no matter what the local conditions are. <<
L: >This is a concession to the crude understanding of the Communist
Manifesto that Wojtek expressed just yesterday. It really is pervasive on
the left and forms part of our conventional wisdom. Marxism, however, must
be the enemy of conventional wisdom if it is to do any good. There may be
cultural uniformity insofar as people watch Arnold Schwarzenegger videos or
listen to rap music. What is not on the agenda is economic uniformity.<
Except for the seemingly obligatory insult, I agree with this. I was talking
about _cultural_ homogeneity. On a subject that I wasn't discussing, Louis
is absolutely right that capitalism involves increasing economic inequality
(when unfettered by efforts to make the system more human).
5. >>I think that it's correct that the world is moving in the direction
where a capitalist is a capitalist, a capitalist country is a capitalist
country, etc. and we can ignore variations. Even many or most of the
imperial privileges that US workers were able to benefit from are
disappearing as the US is becoming a dependent country like all the others.<<
L: >And this is just so much nonsense, since it slips from "cultural"
uniformity to "economic" uniformity with no underlying analysis. A
capitalist country is a capitalist country? Is that all we need to know?<
no -- see my next paragraph (paragraph 6). How do you know, BTW, that
there's no underlying analysis. Can you read my mind?
L: >If Bolivia and Belgium are both capitalist countries, then the term is
almost useless as a form of political and economic analysis. The notion that
somehow the US is becoming "dependent" like genuinely dependent countries
like Bolivia or Mali is ludicrous.<
again -- see my next paragraph. As before, general or abstract analysis is
not a substitute for concrete, empirical, analysis but a complement.
6. >>All of this is talking about _tendencies_, of course. The real world,
as we know it right now, still involves tremendous amounts of variation that
cannot be ignored. The people in the US are still relatively privileged,
even if the privileges are fading.<<
L:>The only tendency I see here is cliched thought.<
Louis, you write some very good things on pen-l. But when you get defensive
it's a pain. In this thread, we had some differences in terminology. Why
turn them into BIG DEBATES?
In response to what I said about the enforced homogenization that's occuring
in the current phase of capitalism (paragraph 4), Ricardo writes:
R:>Again, this is part of the story, and perhaps misleading, since it
ignores that key element of modernity known as "individualism", which is
that we ought to decide for ourselves - in communication with others - what
is right and what is best for our lives. Individualism does not equal the
market eventhough these two are tightly connected. And one connection is the
market encourages a wider diversity of activities than was/would be possible
in primitive-feudal, command economies.<
If I remember R's missives of the past, he's a fan of Aristotle. My reading
of Aristotle (and I don't want to get into quote-mongering) is that he
favored a kind of individualism for citizens (mostly male non-slaves) of a
sort that puts capitalism to shame.
The kind of individualism that capitalism promotes is that of the spender of
money, not that of the democratic participator in politics (Ari's ideal).
Politics is instead a spectacle passively watched by the "consumers" who are
consulted only via plebiscites called polls or elections which are
irrelevants since all of the major political issues are settled by those
with money and power. (The average person these days in the US seems to have
most influence when there's a sex scandal to denounce, as if high
fornication and fellatio were really an important issue compared, say, to
the war against Iraq.)
Capitalist individualism is also that of the insecure consumer who must
submerge his or her individuality to the authority of the capitalist manager
for 8 or more hours a day. It's the individualism of the "organization man"
-- or the teenager who imitates all of the other teens to deal with
fundamental psychological insecurities and to rebel from mommy and daddy.
It's been often remarked that people in the US are fiercely individualistic
but tend to imitate each other more than in most other lands. (I treat the
US as the "highest stage of capitalism.")
The article from the ATLANTIC MONTHLY that Louis posted had a good example
of a kind of individualism that capitalism abhors (except when it's the Ted
Turners, the Rupert Murdochs, and the born-rich who enjoy it). Joy Gordon
talks about small-biz entrepreneurs in Cuba who seem to have much more
security than those in other Latin American countries -- because the state
guarantees the attainment of basic needs. "this is possible in Cuba only
because and insofar as it has remained socialist" she says.
If we are to talk about "individualism," please explain what you mean by the
term. The qualification "modern" doesn't help. All it means is that we're
talking about recent years as opposed to olden times. We're not talking
about some ultra-abstract "modernity" but about capitalism.
Final point: awhile back, someone argued that the Europeans didn't name the
natives "Indians" after the residents of the Asian subcontinent. I think
this is right. I think that Columbus and his ilk named the natives after the
residents of the East Indies, i.e., Indonesia and its environs.
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine
