Help me understand the anti-progress crowd.

March 23, 2006 6:34 AM

While I'm certainly have empathy with those who are critical of uber-consumer capitalism, I cringe when I hear people glorify the past or "primitive" cultures. (more...)

These people say things like...
1. In non-industrial cultures, people had more free time to be with their family.
2. These "primitive" cultures are more "natural", and provide for a more "genuine" or human life.
3. Technology, while providing *some* good, has in general been bad for the planet and our future survival.

Whenever I hear these things, I often find myself asking (to myself at least), "where is the evidence for such claims?"

1. I remember studying a hunter/gatherer people in New Guinea while in college, and I recall the study revealing that they had *less* free time because of the hours put in just to survive. Does anyone know of any good links regarding this type of thing?
2. The whole "natural" thing kills me. How do you define "natural"? It seems that some people draw an arbitrary line, where some things are "natural" and others are not. I only mention this because it's tied into the whole outlook that I'm describing.
3. While I agree that technology has led to some bad things, I would argue that the good outweighs the bad. Really, the definition of technology is often described by drawing some arbitrary line. For example, what is technology? Is it computers, telephones, eye-glasses, medicine, respirators, books, pencils, knives, clothes??

Has anyone come across this? How do you respond? Are you one who feels this way? Why?

posted by tom_g to human relations (72 answers total)

I hear this a fair amount among liberals. The response depends on their rhetoric. If it's just general anti-modernism, I tend to point out things like ritual sacrifice and superstition. If it's Luddism, I point out how much things like vaccines, refrigeration and even screen windows affect people's lives. If it's the "Back to Nature" hippy contingent, I point out that there's not enough arable land to support everyone without the use of modern farming techniques.

To get a little bit Heidegger, one of the biggest problems with "the spirit of technology" is seeing people not as people, but as means to an end. As a labor resource, not as individuals. There are also valid concerns about destructive or inentended effects of technology on people. However, a sweeping condemnation is just as ignorant as a sweeping endorsement.

Further, a lot of the fetishization of the primative other is just more romantic imperialism. The "noble savage"? People frequently like to pretend that a) the Native Americans were all one big happy bunch before we came, and b) that they had this total respect for the Earth and nature, both of which are bullshit. The only real differences between Europeans and Native Americans were iron, horses and gunpowder. The same is true of any indigenous culture— they're going to be different, but likely bastards in equal proportion to any other group.
posted by klangklangston at 6:44 AM on March 23, 2006

Regarding the issue of how much leisure time hunters and gatherers might have, looking at current societies that get subsistence that way can't tell the whole story. Presently, the only societies that still do so are in the most marginal environments (rain forest and desert) for for human subsistence. Hunting and gathering in more abundant environments would have been easier. Coastal environments are the first that occur to me, and those are some of the places where evidence of complex societies exist before agriculture was in place.
posted by ursus_comiter at 6:44 AM on March 23, 2006

You're probably referring mainly to the primitivism movement which has been getting publicized in the last decade or so, particularly since the Unabomber and the uptick in paranoia/technology concerns since 9/11. The Wikipedia article is fairly well-sourced, though mostly with people from the movement, so there is some further reading if you want to get into their mindset. Kirkpatric Sale is the one who is cited as saying "No group on earth has more leisure time than hunters and gatherers, who spend it primarily on games, conversation and relaxing." but a lot of people sort of feel this to be true at a weird gut level because it "makes sense" to them.

My general feeling is that because a lot of this argument relies on the concept of The Good Life, it's pretty hard to argue whether any one person is better off, though you can argue strongly that civilization is "better" if you refer to commonly-held indicators like lifespan, standard of living and freedom from danger/harm etc. I am not a primitivist myself, though I know a lot of them and I do have a lot of anti-capitalist leanings. I think this is a difficult debate to get into because of a few things
1. you just can't go live in a cave and pretend that penicillin and aspirin and other people don't exist, so for anyone entrentched enough to go write about it, it's more of a philosophical ideology than a real practical "how I live" set of guidelines
2. the nature of observing disturbs the observed, so we have no real idea what groups of people are like not seen through our own filters. Go read Invented Eden : the elusive, disputed history of the Tasaday for some back and froth on this topic
3. the natural thing, as you say. These are words of religion and philosophy, not really science and math

In short, I'll argue about technology and naturalness about as much as I'll argue about Jesus and sin. In my world, they're both similarly abstract concepts though I understand that they are not to other people. While I applaud your attempts to understand this sort of mindset, I'll have to strongly caution you that it's pretty much a holy war topic, not something that can be gotten down to truthinesses and falsities and solved on way or the other.
posted by jessamyn at 7:00 AM on March 23, 2006

This is a bit chat-filtery, but . . . it's a nuanced topic and there's no 'correct' stance that's all or nothing.

On the one hand, life in a modern society means being subjected to psychological stresses, intellectual labor, exposure to additives, preservatives, inhaling pollution particulates - all things that our minds and bodies have not had time to evolve for. Given the anti-natural-selection effect of civilization, these are things we will most likely never evolve for.

We also happen to be destroying the only environment in which we can exist without vast amounts of mechanical appartus.

On the flip side, most of these things are byproducts of our meeting other, more pressing concerns. Without that pollution, there would be no manufacturing providing things like the chemicals and machines necessary for modern farming techniques. Or anti-biotics to prevent people from dying by cutting their finger - when I was 8 years old I got a vicious infection from a small cut on my foot that would have been lethal without antibiotics - it was up to my knee before it was stopped.

We are, as a species, slowly poisoning ourselves on a massive scale and destroying our habitat. But we are doing so largely in the name of survival - once we've popped more immediate concerns off of the stack, I'd like to think that said poisoning and environmental destruction will be at the top.
posted by Ryvar at 7:01 AM on March 23, 2006

[also, please save your wisecrack comments for email or metatalk]
posted by jessamyn at 7:01 AM on March 23, 2006

I usually urge more precision on the part of the person I'm speaking with. You're right to be frustrated by the use of "natural" as a stand in for good, and your third point about technology is precisely what needs to be brought out in these conversations. If the desire is for some mythical past, alright, let's make the past less mythical. This is a hard conversation to have because as jessamyn points out, it's more in the nature of faith than fact.

There are two other points that I tend to think about in these discussions, although I don't always raise them:
1) Thoreau wrote a great book, a piece of essential literary Americana, but also a fiction. There's been plenty of debunking of Walden, of the specifics of it, and you can look for them. That doesn't obviate the points he makes, but it's interesting because it both suggests that what made Walden possible as experiment was the society that he was writing against, and that historically, the harkening back to a simpler, earlier time is a strong impulse. In my experience an awful lot of the people talking like you describe are actually interested in some romantic vision of the 19th century, while Thoreau was already writing about some mythical time before. (At least in part.)

2) There is a strong and abiding link between the kind of primitivism you describe and illiberal tendencies. For instance, and not to Godwin, Heidegger revealed himself as a Nazi precisely because of their rhetoric about a return to some kind of (ontological) nature. The volksfrie movement was all about "authenticity" and natural Germanness, with foreigners and Jews identified as the technological and modern polutant. A similar lure caught fellow traveler Jean Giono in France whose books are all about this very return to nature. But, beyond the Nazis, there is a problematic concern with purity, however defined, that ends up really wreaking havoc with the attractiveness of a lot of these types of movements and efforts.

Finally, there is a part of the argument about technology and rural life which is compelling and well-represented. Wendell Berry is worth reading (his essays are more to my taste than his novels, although a few of those are pretty good) for cogent arguments about the need for a rural and agrarian economy at the heart of the US.
posted by OmieWise at 7:18 AM on March 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

Well, Jared Diamond has said that the invention of agriculture was the worst mistake in human history. He contends that the hunter-gatherers had it pretty good. I don't think he's romanticizing things at all, and he's a smart guy. I'm not sure I agree (I like things like penicillin and cellphones), but it's an interesting argument.
posted by adamrice at 7:21 AM on March 23, 2006

1. I remember studying a hunter/gatherer people in New Guinea while in college, and I recall the study revealing that they had *less* free time because of the hours put in just to survive. Does anyone know of any good links regarding this type of thing?

Jared Diamond's Guns, germs and steel has a good exploration of this sort of thing and, more generally, about the effect of technological development on societies. His thinking, as far as I can tell, isn't clouded either by nostalgism or techno-fetishism.
posted by docgonzo at 7:23 AM on March 23, 2006

Well, think about it for a sec. here. If you don't have carpets nor a vacuum cleaner, how much time would you spend vacuuming your rugs?

How much do "primitives" spend on day care, oh, yeah, that's right, when your child is slung around your neck 24/7 while you gather roots or cook those roots or eat those cooked roots, then there isn't much need for child care.

Now is it better to raise your children in day care and schools and to live in carpeted houses? Well, that's really up to your society.
posted by Pollomacho at 7:34 AM on March 23, 2006

A stumbling block here is our notion of "free time." In a hunter-gatherer society, there is no clear division of activity into "work" and "play." Or at least the border is somewhat more blurred than it is in our society. Hunting is work but at the same time sport, for example. Whatever tasks the particular group traditionally assigns to women would be combined with socializing, child care and so forth.

Another point noted above is that living in a more abundant and "friendly" environment would probably mean that subsistence was far less labor-intensive. Daily life in such a society would appear to us to offer more family time, but that's judging by our own society's standards.

I do think there is something to be said for adopting a slower pace in life, sharing resources and integrating family life and work more than we currently do.
posted by La Cieca at 7:44 AM on March 23, 2006

As for number one, every recent anthropology textbook I've ever had has made some variation on the claim that of all the modes of production hunter/gathers spend the least amount of time making a living. According to the texts, typically they spend three to four hours a day actually hunting and gathering and traveling for food. The rest of day is supposedly filled with games, creation myths, and picking fleas from each other or something. I'm a little skeptical, too.
posted by glibhamdreck at 7:47 AM on March 23, 2006

Pollomacho and La Cieca remind me of a related point -- childcare isn't really "free time." I realize that in hunter-gatherer societies you're probably not dealing with the influence of Dr Spock and so parent-child interaction may be less consuming, but there's still the (false) underlying assumption in these ideas that childcare is somehow not work.
posted by occhiblu at 7:56 AM on March 23, 2006

I find it a frustrating argument as well, partly because I find that often people who espouse that theory have no practical experience with that kind of lifestyle.

I have lived in four developing countries, two of which were at the bottom of the UN Human Development Index (Senegal and Guinea), and I traveled extensively in very isolated locations within Guinea. That experience helped me draw a few conclusions.
- There really is no such thing as the "nobel savage" - even the people I met in the most isolated villages in Guinea had the same sort of petty hopes and schemes that the rest of us do.
- Idealizing poverty is ridiculous - almost everyone I met in developing countries desperately wanted better health, better comfort (imagine living with a UTI your whole life bc no one knows what they are or how to cure them), more food (or richer food), as well as fun stuff like radios, clothing, shoes, purses, music, etc. Third, (and this is where I agree with the luddites)
-On the other hand, there is something to be said for technology contributing to isolation and depression among people. Guinean subsistence farmers do seem to have more time for friends and family than most Americans I know. This is because they have a working season (rainy), and basically an unemployment season (dry). During the dry season they don't really go to the fields - they tend to stay near the homes, relaxing in hammocks bc it's so hot at that time, doing maintenance on their houses or working on other projects. And no matter what time of year it is, since few even have radios, they tend to spend their evenings and market day eating, sipping tea, relaxing in hammocks, braiding each other's hair, generally socializing with each other. What I observe in the US is that people tend to spend some of their free time on the computer, in front of the TV, at the gym, (working long hours), etc., and I think that tends to isolate us. (My own feeling is that the more time we spend in front of tvs and computers the more depressed we get, because humans are social animals and need a certain amount of time with other humans.)
posted by Amizu at 8:05 AM on March 23, 2006

occhiblu writes "Pollomacho and La Cieca remind me of a related point -- childcare isn't really 'free time.' I realize that in hunter-gatherer societies you're probably not dealing with the influence of Dr Spock and so parent-child interaction may be less consuming, but there's still the (false) underlying assumption in these ideas that childcare is somehow not work."

I think occhilu's comment is worth reading again, and really gets to the heart of the argument in these cases. Everything hinges on how you define work, and it often seems very narrowly defined by proponents of the natural lifestyle. Perhaps things now considered work would not be in such a society, but that doesn't mean it would all be fun and games.
posted by OmieWise at 8:14 AM on March 23, 2006

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article624177.ece

Jungle dwelling is more stressful life

The indigenous Mangyan people of the Mindoro Island in the Phillipines live a traditional and primitive life on the edge of the tropical jungle. Norwegian researchers have now found that the Mangyan way of life produces the same types of stress that modern technological living does - only more so.

"We were greatly surprised when the data was analyzed and we found that, not only did the jungle dwellers have the same ailments we did, they had them to an even greater degree. Also, we found that the distribution of ailments was exactly like that in modern society," Staff and Hellesnes said.

Fatigue, depression, sleeplessness are all common complaints that are not solved by a hunter-gatherer lifestyle grounded by some basic agriculture.

Like present-day affluent Norwegians, the most common physical complaints were muscle and skeletal pains. But while 82.1 percent of Norwegians answered that they have had such problems in the course of the past 30 days, 100 percent of the Mindoro felt the same.

Stomach ailments pestered 60 percent of Norwegians during the previous month - over 80 percent of the Mindoro had the same complaint.

The lack of control over their existence gave the Mindoro far more to worry about, and even such basic elements like food or childbirth are laden with uncertainty on the fringe of the jungle. A basic difference between the two varying cultures is that the Mindoro do not view their pains as illnesses, but rather as a normal state of affairs.
posted by martinrebas at 8:18 AM on March 23, 2006

Fascinating questions. I’ve had similar discussions with friends. I actually believe that our society should question the uber consumer lifestyle, but not by blindly stating another alternative without examining the consequences first. Unfortunately I think the several questions fragment into many different directions, so I will try and confine my response to number 1, brief ideas regarding the other concepts.

In response to number 1 - non industrial cultures people had more free time to be with their family.

I usually ask the individual whether they have lived in a developing country and examined the daily life of those individuals. If they haven’t, I provide them with examples of daily life (I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa).

I observed women make daily several kilometer hikes (if everyone has land to farm, and 400 people live in a village, then you need to hike far away from that village to have adequate space). They worked by hand for several hours with machetes to clear the land. They then carried several kilograms of the (root, etc) back. If you needed to cook your food, then that required another trip, again carrying several kilograms of wood back. I am not exaggerating when I state that people carried their weight in food or wood. Many of the women that did this were between the ages of teens – 80s. The work never ends, 7 days a week, for the rest of your life. Children accompanied their parents and worked in the field too. Mind you, this was for subsistence survival – food and water. It is a hard life. I saw people frequently either not treat (or delay) medical treatment for children. This included parasitic worms to malaria, many of which can kill a child or compromise the health of a developing child. I could go on with more examples, but you get the point.

Technology (is it good or bad for the earth, etc) – that also oversimplifies the topic.

You could find a hyperbolic example to demonstrate that it is good (vaccine against polio, an antibiotic to destroy pneumonia) or that it is bad (nerve gas). We should look at the possibilities of technology and pose a lot of questions – what are the possible good along with deleterious consequences? How can we fix or minimize the deleterious consequences? The technology is not necessarily the problem, but if we just blindly use it without asking questions, that may become a problem. If a product benefits one society and damages others, is it worth the cost? (ie., where does the material for cell phones or lap top computers come from, and should that land be destroyed? Or producing a product that acts as an endocrine disruptor and causes changes in animals (the people aspect is not yet known) in several parts of the world, is it worth it?) There really is not an answer to the last question you pose, but it is something that many cultures should ask.
posted by Wolfster at 8:25 AM on March 23, 2006

Begin by asking, "are you over thirty?"

If they say yes, inform them that in many primitive cultures, they'd be dead already. The fact that they're still around to have an opinion means that modern culture has something to offer them.
posted by Malor at 8:45 AM on March 23, 2006

I wish I hadn't already expended my "wasting time on internet stuff" mental energy this morning, because I'm one of those people who generally fits the mode you're talking about. (Actually, I'm a sort of paradox: I love technology and might be considered an early adopter, but I also hate technology and if I was given the power to remove automobiles and television from this world, I would do so with a moment of hesitation.)

It's important to realize that the "anti-progress crowd" is not some unified group. Nor is it possible to generalize about the people who don't like technology. Just as with atheists, there's no single type who is wary of progress. As some people have mentioned, there are the technophobes, the Luddites, the Edenists (my term); there are people who idealize some imagined "noble savage" (though, from my experience, these are a lot less common than most of the commenters here believe — condemning them is like condemning flat earthers), there are people who maintain a simple lifestyle because of religious views (e.g. Amish and Mennonite); and there are people like me who believe that technology in general is a good thing, but that certain technologies are more destructive than they are positive.

The key to this discussion is to get to the core of What is Important? What is important in life? What is important in interpersonal communication? What is good? It may seem silly to be addressing such big, nebulous issues in relation to this question, but for many of us that's what this is all about. Yes, television provides some benefits — nobody can deny this — but does its benefits truly outweigh the destructive role it plays in our society? Does the quick broadcast of news really counterbalance the shortened attention spans in our children, the sedentary life-styles, the relentless advertising and push for a consumerist lifestyle? Most people would argue that television's benefits outweigh its negatives. I disagree.

I don't want to argue about television, or automobiles, or any other technology, though. I'm not an effective debater, and others have done the work before me.

If anyone is really interested in this topic (and this means you, tom_g), I recommend that you read some of the essays from Wendell Berry. Go to your library. Check out his books. Read and contemplate what he has to say. I'm not telling you that you have to agree with him, or that he's right. Berry is a strong voice for many of us, though, expressing some of the things we see, know, and think.

Some quick thoughts:

• Everything I've read does show that in non-industrial cultures people had more time with their families. Or, more precisely, that we in the west (particularly the U.S.) work longer and harder than most people in the past have had to. Our standard of living is certainly much higher, if measured from a material perspective, there's no question, but it comes at the expense of time.
• "Primitive" cultures more "natural" and "genuine"? That's a strange claim. More natural, perhaps, in that they're much closer to the earth, and more in tune with the world around them, but more genuine? What does that even mean? I say laugh at that claim. That's some New Age mumbo-jumbo there.
• Technology: good or bad? I don't think it's possible to lump all of technology together. Some advances are good. Some advances are bad. Often it depends on your perspective, which side of the technology you're on.
• Hooray! to OmieWise for ragging on Thoreau. Walden was a noble idea, but it's hilarious for some of the stuff in it. "I needed a hoe, so borrowed one from my neighbor." "I held a party and made people stand around in my hut, and they didn't seem to mind." "I was hungry, so I went into town to eat at a friend's house." Etc. The thing is, I don't think many modern "anti-progressians" look to Thoreau as an example, and for exactly these reasons.

That's all the rambling I have time for. I wish I had it in me to give a detailed, thoughtful reply, because it's a good question and deserving of a good response from somebody who's there. As I say, I find myself trapped halfway between the modern world and some simpler lifestyle. Plus I'm no debater. I'm not the guy to further this argument, but I thought you'd like to hear where "one of us" was coming from.
posted by jdroth at 8:48 AM on March 23, 2006

Well, the basic pro argument is that humans were healthier and better fed while living the hunter-gatherer life then they were growing food. That makes a lot of sense as we evolved as foragers.

Certainly, that's no longer the case in the developed world and that's mostly due to the technical progress brought on by agriculture, IMO.
posted by delmoi at 8:57 AM on March 23, 2006

Begin by asking, "are you over thirty?" If they say yes, inform them that in many primitive cultures, they'd be dead already.

This is an excellent point, and grants the need for certain medical technologies, but one can't just leap from this to "all technology is good". Wolfster makes a good point:

I actually believe that our society should question the uber consumer lifestyle, but not by blindly stating another alternative without examining the consequences first.

I think that more than anything, "anti-progressians" just want people to slow down, to live more deliberately, to think about the consequences of choices and actions.

Of course, it's technology that gives me time to think about these topics, and allows me to discuss them with strangers all around the world. Damn, if life isn't complicated!

(One last thing: I think that most people who feel strongly about this simply remove themselves from the matrix. They go live alone in the woods. They buy a small plot of land in a rural farm town and grow their own food and only do with themselves. They're Amish and live in an insular world. They join a co-op or sign on at a commune. I think most of us recognize that we're dependent on technology, for good and ill, and we have these ideas more as intellectual ideals than as actual goals.)

Must. Work. Now. Too much time on Metafilter this morning...
posted by jdroth at 8:58 AM on March 23, 2006

There is a definition of happiness as being the state where a person's thoughts, words and actions are in agreement with each other (I think I have seen this attributed to the Dalai Lama, I'm paraphrasing). It kind of makes intuitive sense that such a state would be easier to achieve in a less developed society where your problems and goals are likely to be much more obvious. Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi [current discussion in the blue] has some good (research-based) discussion about low-tech societies in his book Flow.

By the way you can count me as someone who doesn't want to go back, not under any circumstances!
posted by teleskiving at 9:00 AM on March 23, 2006

Ah, the Noble Savage, I know him well. Every semester I wrestle with him in the classroom for control of the minds of my students. Every semester he beats me.

1. More free time. This is likely true, for most cultures. Ursus_comiter makes an important point upthread, that virtually all modern ethnographies of hunter-gatherer societies are of people living on (or forced onto!) marginal lands. Because by the time of the rise of modern anthropology in the late 19th century, all productive lands had been wrested away from hunter gatherers.

Before they lost all the good land, however, hunter-gatherers had a quality of life that was often admired by their more civilized competitors. The best case study of this is James Axtell's essay, "White Indians of North America." Axtell digs up dozens of accounts of Europeans captured in warfare who chose to stay with their captors. The reverse, however, almost never happened. Indians who lived with whites were always looking to escape.

On the other hand, the average lifespan of North American Indians on the eve of conquest seems to have been about 30 years! And if you lived in a culture whose main foodstuff was corn (as the vast majority of Indians did), you spent most of that time with a tooth ache and protein deficiency.

2. Primitive cultures are more natural. Obviously, this statement is so packed with assumptions it is hard to know where to start. Certainly the old saw about Indians being somehow in tune with their environment is not believed by anyone working in the field. North American Indians altered their environments in profound ways, and not always for the better. They did so mostly with fire, but also through overhunting and agriculture. Charles Mann's 1491 is a recent roundup of some of the evidence.

Native cultures were more open in many ways than their European counterparts. But they could also be incredibly rigid in things like gender roles and religious beliefs. And, (though this point gets debated) they had very high levels of violence.

3. Technology is bad. This is more a religious doctrine than a refutable empirical point. You sum up the case against this view quite nicely. I am getting ready to go on a hike with my six-year-old. He was born with two severely clubbed feet. In any previous generation, he wouldn't have had much of chance. Not that I would have lived long enough to reproduce with my eyesight!
posted by LarryC at 9:08 AM on March 23, 2006

I second docgonzo on checking out Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. He has an extensive discussion on the people of New Guinea. One particular point I remember is that in that culture the odds that one will be murdered by another human are much, much higher than our society.

And I think you can have a workable definition of "natural" as "that which is not created or set in motion with human hands". You could get into long abstract discussions if you want, but I think it would be good enough to frame the question you're exploring.

I was just thinking about this topic recently as I read a history of China, right back to the hunter-gatherers. It made me think how much it rocks not to have to find our food. While I don't think technology is nearly as great as advertisers and economists would have us believe, I do think is has some benefits.
posted by Idiot Mittens at 9:21 AM on March 23, 2006

The problem isn't the "anti-progress crowd" (that's a new one!), the problem is you. Instead of trying to figure out a new set of responses, you might ask yourself why you feel so uncomfortable about their arguments.

By the way, there is plenty of evidence that hunter-gatherer societies spent much less time working. This is pretty well accepted among most anthropologists and anthro text books. So you might just, you know, open a book.

The "natural" argument is a logical fallacy. It's called, unsurprisingly, the naturalistic fallacy. Anybody who makes the strong claim that "natural"=="good" can be ignored. Yet, I suspect you're uncomfortable with this argument because it "rings true" to you. Indeed, it strikes a lot of people as something that makes sense. The underlying truth in this argument isn't that primitive societies are closer to nature or the somesuch, but that they are better equipped for satisfying the basic needs of human life. And indeed, this is likely the case. Societies evolve, just like organisms, and there is plenty of evidence that primitive societies have evolved highly sophisticated mechanisms for ensuring the happiness of each individual and the community. The Norwegian study quoted above is a total outrigger and I'm pretty suspicious of it.

I think you know perfectly well what constitutes "technology." You can hide behind the sophistic argument that any and all device or process is an argument but this would be childish of you. Perhaps just sit down and question your faith in technology. Read the Jared Diamond article linked above about what the introduction of argriculture did to primitive societies. What always strikes me about people like you is this belief that technology is created to improve human conditions and not to increase capital. You're uncomfortable with this question probably because you'd rather not admit that technology, and its creation, is a morally empty process that doesn't care whether it makes people happy or not. It's ok to be a technology apologist--most people are these days--but, again, you might consider examining your own beliefs.
posted by nixerman at 9:22 AM on March 23, 2006

That's easy. Humans have existed for millions of years. The industrial revolution happened approximately 300 years ago. In that 300 years, the world's oil reserves have been depleted by approximately 60%. The atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by approximately 40%. The age of puberty has dropped significantly.

The standard of living has increased significantly since the industrial age, but the increase is not sustainable.
posted by malp at 9:27 AM on March 23, 2006

And if you lived in a culture whose main foodstuff was corn (as the vast majority of Indians did), you spent most of that time with a tooth ache and protein deficiency.

Didn't they get their protein from beans? Diamond says (GGS p. 125) "Many cereal crops are low in protein, but that deficit is made up by pulses, which are often 25 percent protein."

Great question, by the way!
posted by languagehat at 9:29 AM on March 23, 2006

Begin by asking, "are you over thirty?" If they say yes, inform them that in many primitive cultures, they'd be dead already.

By the way, this is a stupid point. It only works if you make the pretty strange assumption that living longer is a "good" even if you're life is basically miserable. Unless you think that living longer is an end in itself, lifespans across various societies is irrelevant.

As for violence, this is also pretty questionable. A thousand years of Christianization has conditioned most people to look at violence as a bad thing. This is a socio-historical bias. Violence has, in the past, has been regarded as a pretty good thing, if not essential. Nowadays we might say that a man who kills for wife for pissing him off is a criminal; in another place and time he'd be widely praised for having the courage to defend his honor.

This leads me to actually answer your question, heh. The Standard Western Response against primtivism is to play-up the role of the individual. If you elevate the good of the individual above the good of the community then it is possible to "rank down" most primitive societies. In most primitive societies (including Europe up until a few hundred years ago) the group was far more important than the individual. Your standard "rights" dialogue wasn't even a potential. Thus, we all say that even if individuals were/are happier in primitive societies, because primitive societies don't respect human rights, they are not to be forgiven.
posted by nixerman at 9:34 AM on March 23, 2006

Mention of Czikszentmihalyi is a reminder that many hunter-gatherer activities have a strong potential to generate flow (particularly if, for example, successful hunting is crucial to survival). It is perhaps less easy to connect flow to performing the third revision of a Powerpoint deck in response to a manager's insistence that "you need more bullet points."

Whatever the (considerable) disadvantages of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, "too much pointless busywork" is not a complaint you'll hear very often in a primitive culture.
posted by La Cieca at 9:34 AM on March 23, 2006

"Natural" and "primitive" life styles suck: you are confined to a small territory, you suffer and die from zillions of "natural" causes and accidents, women die in childbirth, you have no other memory to build a culture on than stories told by toothless 30 years old grandparents, you are either an enforcer of a victim of a strict order supported by stupid superstitions, you live fast, you learn zilch and you die.

Thanks but no thanks.
posted by bru at 9:46 AM on March 23, 2006

Has anyone come across this?

Sure, all the time. And its close cousin, "When I was a boy...".

How do you respond?

I don't. I would sooner argue with a creationist about how things were in Eden.
posted by tkolar at 9:46 AM on March 23, 2006

Those people are full of crap.

1. Have they ever lived without electricity?
2. Have they ever lived without access to modern medicine? (Vaccines in childhood notwithstanding)
3. Have they ever lived in a society where they had no constitutional rights?

Unless they say yes, they should cork it. And if they say yes, then ask them why they aren't there now. End of story.
posted by ewkpates at 9:47 AM on March 23, 2006

enforcer OR a victim
posted by bru at 9:47 AM on March 23, 2006

It only works if you make the pretty strange assumption that living longer is a "good" even if you're life is basically miserable.

Aw, but we humans have an almost unlimited capacity for hope. I can't find it now, but there was a recent New York Times article describing how people who live in the poorest parts of the world are the most optimistic.
posted by desuetude at 9:50 AM on March 23, 2006

I lived with nomadic herders for a while and they did have a lot of leisure time.
posted by thirteenkiller at 9:56 AM on March 23, 2006

Oddly, I got that sort of nonsense last evening at a book club. All the 'older folks (women) said such nonsense as Kids today can not write, cannot converse, cannot be social because of net, ipods, texting...my answer: things change and they now know more, see more, read more, hear more.

Short and simple answer: compare logivity today with any "glorious" time in the past! if they come back with quality of life versus quantity, ask which they would prefer: alive NOW or happy warrior in the past. And dead.
posted by Postroad at 10:06 AM on March 23, 2006

You who would dismiss these people glibly and out-of-hand are doing a disservice to them and to yourselves. Rise above your smug self-assuredness and actually examine what they're saying (and not what you imagine they're saying). Educate yourself on history and anthropology. They're not completely right, but neither are you. (And, of course, neither am I.)
posted by jdroth at 10:16 AM on March 23, 2006

Whenever I said anything like that, my mom would say "did you know that one in four women used to die in childbirth?" I don't know if it's true, but I do think of it any time I hear people talking about wanting civilization to collapse.
posted by salvia at 10:32 AM on March 23, 2006

Great responses everyone. Thanks.

I will indeed have to read some of the articles/books mentioned.

I found nixerman's response to be the most interesting - primarily because s/he seemed to express, in a far more articulate way, what some of my friends and family have been stating for years. For example....

I think you know perfectly well what constitutes "technology." You can hide behind the sophistic argument that any and all device or process is an argument but this would be childish of you.
Honestly, the reason I ask is that I *don't* know what constitutes technology in the minds of my friends who have such a problem with "it". The reason I don't know is:
a) When I ask them, they usually pick some arbitrary device or system to mean technology (phone, tv, "western medicine"). When I ask them what makes this "technology", while certain other things are not, I cannot get a response. It appears that they have some things they like, or take for granted, that just are not considered technology - even to the point of picking and choosing within particular areas of "technology".
b) I honestly do not know. I think of technology as some innovation or tool that accomplishes a particular task. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. That's why I'm asking the question. If I'm being childish, it's the mere act of stating that I do not have an answer. I am asking for help.

This is pretty well accepted among most anthropologists and anthro text books. So you might just, you know, open a book.
Another reason for my post. I dig the sarcastic humor though. Pretty cool.

The problem isn't the "anti-progress crowd" (that's a new one!), the problem is you. Instead of trying to figure out a new set of responses, you might ask yourself why you feel so uncomfortable about their arguments.
I feel so uncomfortable with their arguments because:
1. They are not satifying my need for evidence, or reasonable argument.
2. These opinions come from the closest people in my life who I have much respect for.
3. I share with these people many traits, such as my loathing of particular aspects of modern capitalist society. I'm interested in the alternative. I'm interested in the act of questioning.

What always strikes me about people like you is this belief that technology is created to improve human conditions and not to increase capital. You're uncomfortable with this question probably because you'd rather not admit that technology, and its creation, is a morally empty process that doesn't care whether it makes people happy or not.
I'm a socialist, so you're not going to nail me down on the "look what you're capitalist culture is producing" trip.

Let me try to explain a common discussion that I might have from time to time with person x.
x: I wish I was born in an earlier time.
me: What time? When?
x: I don't know. Some time when people lived a more natural, human existence.
me: When would that be?
x: I don't know. What if we lived as farmers 150 years ago?
me: You mean, when you wouldn't be able to vote because you're a woman? When I would die because of my asthma and the lack of modern medicine? And when my death would cause you to be abandoned to fend for yourself or find a man to care for you?
x: I don't know. Some time when....what do you think? You think *this* culture is good...?
me: No, you know I have major concerns. I'm just trying to figure out what time would've been good. I mean, what alternative exists or has existed that would be better than what we have now?
x: you're an apologist for corporate power and environmental destruction.
me: ouch
posted by tom_g at 10:34 AM on March 23, 2006

You who would dismiss these people glibly and out-of-hand are doing a disservice to them and to yourselves.

No, not really.

To return the Eden analogy: the specifics of what life was like or wasn't are meaningless. People want to believe in simpler times, and will continue to do so regardless of any injection of "reality" into the discussion.

If it makes them feel better to believe these things, it does me no honor to tear down their faith. And it does them no service to have their faith attacked.

There are a few people, mostly anthropologists, who actually care about the facts of the situation. Everyone else is just wishing on bygone days.
posted by tkolar at 10:39 AM on March 23, 2006

salvia said...
Whenever I said anything like that, my mom would say "did you know that one in four women used to die in childbirth?"

Used to? They still do in many places around the globe.
posted by tkolar at 10:40 AM on March 23, 2006

Given your example conversation, I would say your problem in communicating is just that you're being too literal. Take "I wish I was born in an eariler time" to mean "I wish I could run off and have a real vacation, and live in paradise forever."

You obviously have a real point you're arguing, and many of your questions are good, but you may be creating an argument where there really doesn't need to be one.

I mean, it *would* be exciting or interesting or at least novel to live in an earlier time, at least for a bit, but if I make a statement like "I wish I could stand on the moon" it doesn't necessarily mean I want to start talking about astrophysics.
posted by occhiblu at 10:41 AM on March 23, 2006

(All of that to say, your conversational partners may not be defending their position particularly well or consistently because it's not really what they mean to be talking about.)
posted by occhiblu at 10:42 AM on March 23, 2006

occhiblu:
I suppose it was a rather stupid example conversation. But these are people who have spent time in Latin America, and consider living "off the grid". They are having *major* problems with society to the point where they are rejecting things like vaccines and inoculations for children, and western medicine as a whole. I didn't mean that these were light little conversations based on someone's whimsical comments like, "it would be fun to live in an earlier time".
posted by tom_g at 10:48 AM on March 23, 2006

what malp said. Post-industrial lifestyle is unsustainable, and that worries many people.

Also, one can look at this another way. Certain technologies and institutions are developed in the context of unlimited energy supply, and some of these are very destructive. The institutions of globalized capitalism, for instance, are such modern institutions bent on erasing an amazing amount of other knowledge and other technologies from the planet.

I think Heidigger wrote about this, but my interpretation would be terrible.

Some people consciously reject the assumption of unlimited energy and resources and seek to remember the other technologies, and live in the context of the other technologies--'lifeways.' it's an intense project, terribly time-consuming and life-altering. But in regards to ensuring that humans can continue to survive without unlimited energy, it's seen as a necessary project. you could file it under 'making sure humans can survive' or "cultural diversity."

Some people doing this kind of thing are more reactionary than others, but then again, so are we people who live in the post-industrial society. You could imagine doing both, part time.

Check Out Wild Roots
posted by eustatic at 10:55 AM on March 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

They say "more time with your family" like it's a good thing...
posted by small_ruminant at 10:57 AM on March 23, 2006

Damn this thread is getting pretty long..

Help me understand the anti-progress crowd.

You seem to be fetishizing progress. The word itself is kind of overburdened with Adam Smith and the protestant work ethic, or something. You should also determine if you are asking about progress into the future, or progress seen so far.

I would never give up the artifacts of progress that I use - my bicycle, electric light, the stove.. On the other hand, there are lots of things that I would happily see gone from this planet - cars, any weapon more sophisticated than a blade (okay, so maybe you can make an argument for the usefulness of a long-gun..). I won't go on..

Also, when looking at the culture of earlier civilizations.. There are lots of things broken about the way we live. By looking at earlier societies we can learn things about human nature and that can help us to improve our circumstance. I would never give up my atheism, but the community building aspects of religion are very valuable to a functioning society, and I miss them..

Finally, as an engineer by training, there are areas of technology within my specific expertise that I just don't want to be involved with, and I would be more than happy if those things never developed beyond the current status for as long as I live. That shocks a lot of engineers. :P

Just so that I'm not misunderstood, I'm an individualist. I would never desire to force my ideas on anyone else, but I do think my ideas would help improve peoples lives - as individuals, and society as a whole.
posted by Chuckles at 11:00 AM on March 23, 2006

*Heidegger. blech.

neat site on the essay question concerning technology
posted by eustatic at 11:08 AM on March 23, 2006

tom_g, fair enough. But I think I'd still stand behind a larger point, that maybe you shouldn't be quite so literal with your interpretation of "earlier time." It sounds like the people you're talking to have specific points they're making -- vaccinations, medicine, TV, whatever -- so maybe engage on the particulars rather than getting into a semantic debate about what "time period" would have encompassed all that (because you're right, there isn't one).

I'm basically just having flashbacks to stupid arguments I used to get into with a friend, because I tend to speak rather metaphorically (when I hear "earlier time" I don't really assume that's what the speaker means, but hear a shorthand framework that the speaker will now build out) and he's a hell of a lot more literal (so he'd balk upon hearing "earlier time" with objections like your own, without letting me flesh out what I was using the phrase "earlier time" to symbolize).

Maybe I'm getting too hung up on this (though you did post to human relations!). It's just that as many have pointed out, both sides of the argument have merits, and you seem intelligent enough on the topic to recognize that, so why not spend the time discussing and learning more with the people around you rather than polarizing it and turning it into an argument?
posted by occhiblu at 11:09 AM on March 23, 2006

If you desire the amount of leisure that hunter gatherers have it is entirely possible in the modern world. Get a part or quarter time job and you can make 5K+ a year depending on your skillset. You can rent a room in a home for $200 a month in many places. You can eat simply for about 10-20 dollars a week. You can walk everywhere. You can go to the library. You would not have medical care but in the event of a catastrophe you could be bailed out.

People seldom do this for a variety of reasons; it's not socially acceptable behavior, a number of commercial messages convince us that it we are somehow inadequate if we don't have certain inessential goods. Maybe more importantly, the marginal returns to labor have been changed by technology. Each additional unit of labor (more importantly the consumption associated with labor) is more productive today than it was under hunting and gathering. The returns on leisure have grown too but not as much. Watching TV isn't so much better than hearing a story, Halo is not so much better than tag. So because the returns on labor time (and the associated consumption) have increased more than the returns on leisure time people spend more time on labor.
posted by I Foody at 11:10 AM on March 23, 2006

tom_g, It's honestly difficult for me to determine whether your questions are made in good faith, but I'll just go ahead and assume they are...

Honestly, the reason I ask is that I *don't* know what constitutes technology in the minds of my friends who have such a problem with "it".

The question of technology has been plaguing continental philosophy for the last 200 years. If you're looking for a checklist that you can use to determine whether concept X constitutes technology then you're not going to find it.

But seriously, I mean, this is bordering on nonsense. A better question, tom_g, might be what you consider technology? You make statements that seem to imply that technology is a Good Thing That Helps People--how are such statements possible? You obviously have a very clear idea of what constitutes technology. Let's play the game and assume that x has the identical notion.

The argument isn't against technology, it's against the role of technology. You think technology is a positive force that improves people's lives. Other people think technology is a morally neutral force that both improves people's lives and hurts them. Other people think technology is a function of capital and thus serves only to alienate people from each other and themselves. The question of what is 'technology' is pretty besides the point. How is this confusing?

1. They are not satifying my need for evidence, or reasonable argument.

The problem is, again, you aren't listening. Re-reading this thread, you've made no serious attempt to (1) describe the problems of the "anti-progress crowd" beyond simplistic, straw-man statements and (2) question your own beliefs. So, here's a suggestion. Forget about the "anti-progress crowd." Examine your own beliefs. Why do you believe technology has done more "good" than "harm"? And who is this mysterious "we"? Surely you're not talking about the other 90% of the world that was enslaved by technologically superior Europe? Why do you believe that people are happier today then they were in the past? Why don't you consider that primitive societies did provide benefits that have been totally lost in the march to modernity?

The easiest way to understand somebody in a debate is to make their arguments for them. Try stepping outself your own smug assurance and seriously entertaining their beliefs. Look at all those base assumptions you make in this thread and put them to the question. Let's flip your question around completely:

Can somebody help me understand the "pro-progress crowd"?
posted by nixerman at 11:14 AM on March 23, 2006

(And by "learning more with the people around you" I meant "learning more about how they define these issues, since you're dealing with them, not us, on a regular basis" and not "You're obviously a doofus about all this," which is how it may have sounded -- sorry, bad writing on my part.)
posted by occhiblu at 11:15 AM on March 23, 2006

Stephen Pinker spends a lot of time and uses a lot of references debunking this myth (that of the Noble Savage), along with the Ghost in the Machine and the Blank Slate, in his book, The Blank Slate.

The book is somewhat controversial, in that his arguments take aim at a lot of the positions held by conservatives and liberals.

Pinker is a psychology professor at MIT.
posted by landtuna at 11:22 AM on March 23, 2006

Yeah, the whole "romanticism of the primitive" perspective has always bugged me, as I've generally found it to be espoused by two groups of people :

1) People who have absolutely no experience with the very real hardships of a hunting/gathering lifestyle. (think preachy undergrads and hipsters)

2) Survivalist nuts and hippie types who actually practice what they preach.

In either case, do you really want to take their advice on how you should live your life?
posted by Afroblanco at 11:22 AM on March 23, 2006

"The question of technology has been plaguing continental philosophy for the last 200 years. If you're looking for a checklist that you can use to determine whether concept X constitutes technology then you're not going to find it."

200? Try at least 400.

One of the most persistent tropes of Enlightenment thinking was an argument that starts with "the state of nature." Only Machiavelli really sidesteps this (he doesn't ground his philosophy philosophically, but rather practically).

The best two sides of the argument would be Rousseau's Origins of Inequality (a Romantic argument for the state of nature) and Hobbes' Leviathan (life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"). Locke uses the State of Nature as a justification for natural law, which is one of the foundations of modern individualism.

In short, the state of nature is great because civilization is a system of restraints created to preserve the bartering away of rights (everywhere free men in chains) sez Rousseau. In short, the state of nature sucks because you're likely to be eaten by a grue or clubbed over the head by a jerk, sez Hobbes. Most people like freedom, inherent in a state of nature. Most people don't like insecurity, inherent in a state of nature.
posted by klangklangston at 11:40 AM on March 23, 2006

nixerman, let me give you a simple example (strawman if you like, but real). Attending college in the early 1990s, I was surrounded by very progressive like-minded people (atheist, anti-capitalist, skeptical, feminist, left-wing). Great. However, there was a new thing creeping up that was giving some people the willies: computers. There was huge debate among feminists regarding the use of these capitalist machines. Some argued that they were elite tools that would alienate feminists from the working class, and eventually pull them from the good fight - or worse...it would foster a feminist movement that ignored working class woman and their needs. Anyway, there was another argument. This feminist minority argued that computers were a tool. Merely a tool. It was a tool that people could use to network and achieve their goals.
These are arguments that people can and should have. However, at the time, I found the pro-computer argument more convincing.

I feel that there are many new tools or technological breakthroughs that can be used - like a pen - for good, bad, or neutral pursuits. What I'm attempting to do is *have this discussion*. I don't like sweeping statements (despite what you think), like "technology is good", or "technology is bad". I need to think...what do you refer to when you say that? and why?

nixerman: Why do you believe technology has done more "good" than "harm"?
I wouldn't be alive if I was born prior to modern medicine. Call me selfish, but I'm grateful to have the opportunity to live and enjoy life and my children.
I'm writing this to hear about the "harm". If they harm is environmental destruction, well then I am very sympathetic. However, are we talking about the destruction that is caused because we are an effective species, or is it something else? Is the alternative that we all become hunters and gatherers? Can the planet sustain that?

nixerman: Why do you believe that people are happier today then they were in the past?
I'm not sure. Studies show that Republicans and the religious tend to be happier than Democrats and non-religous. Maybe people in the past were happier. What past are we talking about? What culture? Was it a time of war? Was it a time of peace? Sounds good, but I need more.

nixerman: Why don't you consider that primitive societies did provide benefits that have been totally lost in the march to modernity?
I think there are/could be benefits. For one, if it is true (and it appears that my studies in Anthropology 101 in college were crap based on MeFi posts today) that hunter-gatherers had more time with their family, than that is something that is more positive.

By the way, my wife, kids, and I are considered "off the grid" liberal hippy freaks. While I'm a software developer, we live a minimal existence - very few belongings or so-called modern "needs" like cable tv, dvd player, etc.
My wife is home with the kids, and we are considering homeschooling. We had a homebirth,etc.

I'm really not the technological progress apologist that you're making me out to be. I am just skeptical, and have posted for more info.
posted by tom_g at 11:43 AM on March 23, 2006

Just in case no one has mentioned it so far: John Stuart Mill's "On Naure".
posted by joedan at 1:29 PM on March 23, 2006

I think some of the comments here are revealing that the debate is not about technology and progress versus a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Rather, the debate most people seem to want to engage in is what factors are ruining or about to ruin our society. And everyone's opinion on that matter will be different.

jdroth: "I was given the power to remove automobiles and television from this world, I would do so with[out] a moment of hesitation."

Chuckles: "there are lots of things that I would happily see gone from this planet - cars, any weapon more sophisticated than a blade"

Evangelicals say that abortion and lack of Jesus are ruining America.

Richard Dawkins would say that religion is the cause of society's problems.

I would say that all of these positions are emperically unsupportable. There's simply no way to engage in a controlled experiment that would demonstrably show which changes make societies better. Even in the cases where you can compare societies, the debate shifts to what metrics you use to gauge how good a society is.

I think anyone's stance in this matter has more to do with their own lives and how they think that they could have been made better, than with any real analysis of large-scale societal behavior.
posted by breath at 1:36 PM on March 23, 2006

tom_g, I'm sorry if my comments come off as so accusatory. I think I'm just having a bad week. There's something about your question that pinged me the wrong way, but... I don't really want to debate the benefits of technology with you. Frankly, it's a pretty boring issue to me. All I was trying to do was demonstrate that the issue is not as simple as you seem to think and you need to take more time to closely examine these issues and your own beliefs. Alas, I think you're still missing the point which just shows that I failed. There are literally mountains of books about this topic and related topics so, instead of hitting up the green you might ask your local librarian.
posted by nixerman at 1:42 PM on March 23, 2006

Evangelicals say that abortion and lack of Jesus are ruining America.

breath, you should read the answers before you criticize them.. As I said earlier: Just so that I'm not misunderstood, I'm an individualist. I would never desire to force my ideas on anyone else.
posted by Chuckles at 1:50 PM on March 23, 2006

breath, way to take one sentence from my comments out of context and then try to extrapolate my meaning. You missed by a long shot. Care to have another go?
posted by jdroth at 2:04 PM on March 23, 2006

(Chuckles, I think the evangelical thing was a separate example, and that your views were invoked only until the quotation marks closed.)
posted by occhiblu at 2:05 PM on March 23, 2006

I deleted the part that addresses breath's point more directly.. The "empirically unsupportable" statement is a direct attack on the rational of all the opinions he quotes (that includes jdroth and I, as well as the evangelicals, etc.). It is a conversation killer. Something like "Oh, you think so? Well, go do a ten year study on it, then I will talk to you."

Anyway, I shouldn't have said anything, it is a silly digression..
posted by Chuckles at 2:12 PM on March 23, 2006

Begin by asking, "are you over thirty?"

If they say yes, inform them that in many primitive cultures, they'd be dead already. The fact that they're still around to have an opinion means that modern culture has something to offer them.

This is a red herring. The average lifespan of hunter-gatherers is about thirty or forty because of high infant and childhood mortality. Once you were out of the woods, so to speak, it was common to live to your, say, 50's or 60's. We have plenty of examples of Neandertals of that age.

As far as the "work less" hypothesis goes, well, Diamond and pretty much every human demographer I've talked to have confirmed that. A hunter gatherer only has to forage for 3-4 hours per day to get enough food to live on. If anyone wants a citation, I'll try to dig one up. Now, is that mitigated by the harsh lifestyle of living on the land? Depends. It's probably pretty much impossible for one of us to go out and do this because we've been acculturated to another lifestyle, but if we were born and raised in such a lifestyle, sure, why not? Humans and protohumans did it for at least 2.5 million years (and that's just dating from the time of the first tools). We turned out just fine.
posted by The Michael The at 6:05 PM on March 23, 2006

In the process of reading Guns, Germs, and Steel right now. Unless I'm misunderstanding the text, what he's basically saying is that hunter-gatherers turned to agriculture because it allows for a higher production of food per acre. This allowed people to support more children. Some hunting-gathering peoples had better access to viable crops and domesticable animals, and these peoples were the earliest to develop agriculture.

So, what set us down this whole path of technology and food production was the desire to reproduce more. As long as we still want to do that, my guess is that we'll always have "civilization" as we know it.
posted by Afroblanco at 6:24 PM on March 23, 2006

Just point out what you just did - tactfully tell the person that they are describing/presenting/imagining a somewhat rose-coloured version of the functioning of that society which is glossing over some aspects critical to making any meaningful comparison to the problems and/or successes of current society.

It might also be worth mentioning that the Amish and various communes and others demonstrate that the rat race is not forced upon us - we have choice in the matter, and that we are here means we have chosen this society, and our decision to live this way suggests we consider it the best way for us, and this in turn ensures we will be romantically intrigued by the Other - the thing we choose not to have.

Actually, depending on how blunt you can be without offending, the word "romance" or "romantic" could be a useful one.

Lastly, read a book or two, so your knowledge on the topic is broad enough to be able to lay down some pertinent info if pressed. The above mentioned Guns, Germs, Steel, is an good suggestion - it's popular, accessable, and importantly, it's likely to be respected by those who hold these kinds of views, since if anything, it's slanted at disproving the notion that technology indicates inherent superiority.
posted by -harlequin- at 8:19 PM on March 23, 2006

Can't read this entire thread right now so apologies if this is a repeat. Here's a specific example to potentially help you understand where they're coming from.

(Sorry I don't have links but), at a former job, an architectural lighting consulting firm, my boss was compiling research articles on how night shift workers of all sorts have worse health, and people who live in areas with artificial lights have worse health, and people who get exposed to bright sunlight in the morning have better health, and people with more exposure to daylight learn more......

The overarching picture that emerged was: Humans do best sleeping in very dark environments and spending their days exposed to natural light/sun. Maybe because the species evolved under those conditions. But they're not the conditions we face now. Things like artificial lights, odd schedules, and working indoors have subtle impacts on people's daily well-being via hormones like melatonin.

When I work a 40-hour a week job, my sleep cycle gets tied to the clock, and the alarm rings before the sun comes up. But when I camp out, it's felt great to have my sleep cycle in sync with the sun. I'd probably say something wishy-washy like "it just feels right." But researchers are quantifying the long-term impacts of this "feeling right," and they're finding biochemical pathways to explain how these long-term impacts occur.

So, even if your friends can't say "my melatonin cycle is disjointed from my Krebbs cycle" or whatever (I made the second part up), these people might have a point.

There are a lot of other ways we can't be "in sync." And there is a lot of good research on how our bodies were made to sync up with some specific aspect of nature (there are more color sensors in the eye for two specific variations on the color green, e.g.). And there is research on the larger impacts on people's health and well-being from getting to be more or less in sync. Check out some literature reviews by Frumkin, for one, or I can send you a partial bibliography if you email me.
posted by salvia at 8:25 PM on March 23, 2006

Didn't they get their protein from beans?

Yes and no. The curse of maize is that it is way, way more productive than any other native crop. A few acres can produce enough calories for a family for a year. In the smaller, semi-sedentary societies like the Iroquois or Powhatans, they were probably able to keep up a good protein intake via beans and hunting. But in the big mound cities of the southeast and other densely populated areas like the Valley of Mexico, they could not match the corn with enough beans, and the game was hunted out for hundreds of miles around. So corn it was.

A corn-dominated diet has a number of problems. First is the lack of protein--one anthropologist wrote that the mound cities suffered from a "silent hunger." After the introduction of corn, adult skeletons get smaller, showing the effects of a lack of protein. Also corn is mastic--it sticks to the teeth, promoting decay. (Ate a bag of Doritos lately?) And the grinding of corn produced a gritty, stone fortified flour that further eroded the teeth.

/apologies for the derail!
posted by LarryC at 9:29 PM on March 23, 2006

There are so many facets to this conversation it is hard to deal with them all in a single post (or thread!), but there is one aspect I can help with...

Yes, most "primitive" societies spend far less time on subsistence tasks than modern people spend in their employment. 20 hours a week on subsistence tasks are typical, and 10 is not unheard of.

However, as set forth by an anthropologist named Sahlins about 40 years ago, the reason human societies started to invest more time in "work" was not related to changes in subsistence technology (hunting and gathering to horticulture to agriculture). Rather, it was related to changes in economics and politics. (The confusion in causality arises because the social change often facilitates the eventual subsistence change.)

Most "primitive" societies that anthropologists have recorded are aggressively egalitarian (used here in the sense that anthropologists use the term) People who try to act better than others by displaying more wealth or acting "uppity" are penalized socially. Individuals with surplus are encouraged to share with others, which usually helps to strengthen social bonds. This means there are few incentives for people to work more than is necessary for subsistence, thus the hours are limited. The hardest workers in those societies do so not to accrue goods, but to be known as the most generous. They use this goodwill to become respected and to assume a form of leadership.

What changed is that the rules that had been pretty stable for 100-200 thousand years begin to change about 10,000 years ago. In various places and times the strictures against being "uppity" get dropped. (The sequence of cause and effect is very complicated and seems to be different for different places and times). The rules of the game change and individuals begin to accumulate and control surpluses. This changes the economic and the political dynamics between individuals, and started us on the path to the present. But note the change to an inegalitarian society can happen with hunter and gatherers with the right conditions.

So in once sense the anti-progrssive crowd is correct (although not always articulate). For a long time human societies worked to just satisfy their subsistence needs plus a little extra for buffering against risk. This meant they had a relatively small ecological footprint. They were not environmental angels however, and even their minimal needs caused environmental change and a few extinctions. This changed, and the social system we have in place now helps drive a nearly insatiable appetite for resources. This social system has been in place for thousands of years now. But since the Industrial Revolution we now have the technology to extract even more resources and extract them even more efficiently and we are now in direct competition for those resources with an even increasing percentage of the world's species.

Like you, I cringe at the use of the word "natural." Like other terms (i.e. "primitive" and "civilization") it is a loaded and imprecise term and generally not used by people who make their living studying these issues. I especially dislike the fact that some people fetishize "natural." This is especially evident with "natural" medicine. If someone is taking plant X simply because it was used by some "primitive" group to cure their disease, I recommend they consult a compendium of ethnobotany like . You will find every "primitive" group likely used a different remedy for the same malady. Which one do you take? If you have simply fetishized the primitiveness of the origin of the cure, you will have no clue.

Clearly the way out of all of this is better information and more knowledge. The same technology that lets us exploit more resources is also helping to inform us which of those practices are harmful. There is no way to put the genie back in the bottle, and no way to convince 6 billion people to voluntarily consume less. The way forward is to make our practices more sustainable. Aiming for more "natural" may be well intentioned, but it misses the target. And while it might be sem-successful as a means of letting the public know we are on a dangerous path, it is dangerous as a goal because it is so vague and it is impossible to achieve in a meaningful way.
posted by Tallguy at 7:50 AM on March 24, 2006

Thanks very much, LarryC. That's exactly what I wanted to know.
posted by languagehat at 7:56 AM on March 24, 2006

Great responses continue to come in. THanks!
posted by tom_g at 8:18 AM on March 24, 2006

Well, I guess in my previous comment I shouldn't have so casually lumped out-of-context comments in with the evangelicals. My point was that everyone has some ideas for how their own world can be improved, and that these ideas inform our opinions of what an ideal society would be. How could it be otherwise? And mind you, I'm not intending this in a derogatory or negative manner, merely descriptively. It's not a conversation killer because the debate is still worthwhile, it's simply philosophy rather than SCIENCE! Maybe that was obvious already, I don't know.

That said, I find the arguments that humans haven't evolved to be adapted to a modern lifestyle to be rather weak. Our hairlessness seems to indicate that we have at least adapted to the use of clothing. Of course, we're not perfectly adapted to our current environment: no animal is. Our maladaptedness causes us some short-term pain until we evolve (which we certainly will), but technology can partially compensate in the meantime. Like those sun alarm clocks that wake you up with simulated natural light, I have a friend who swears by those.
posted by breath at 10:01 AM on March 24, 2006

Interesting question, for sure. It's hard to add much to what's already been said, but one thing that strikes me is the essential falsity or rhetorical nature of the 'past' being referred to here. The myth of the Golden Age is as old as Hesiod, and when people use it, they're usually doing it to defend some present action or inaction -- but the past they're nostalgically referencing is a chimera, a rhetorical device.

If you're interested in the history of this idea, you could look at Adam Kuper's The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion (London: Routledge, 1988). Kuper's point is that the idea of the 'primitive' in anthropological thought -- whether conceived of as inferior and savage, or noble and uncorrupted -- has far more to do with the expectations and beliefs of the anthropologist than any actual, historical group of people who may have existed in the past.
posted by Sonny Jim at 12:04 AM on March 25, 2006