Hollywood wants us te believe, that man is prone to fight and trigger happy. If you ever have watched a fist fight in a movie....what a "joy".
In the previous lecture we saw clear evidence that we have an instinctive aversion of violence and this creates a great mystery.
If waging war had a beginning, why then did we start it? Ok, man never has been an angel. Anger, jealousy and hate are ancient emotions, as are its consequences.
What we know about our ancestors is, that in the beginning they were hunter/gatherers. There are two ways to find out how their life looked like.
On the one hand we have archeology and archeological findings on the other hand in some rare places on this earth still live tribes of hunter/gatherers.
They move from place to place, just where the food is. They don't like inequality. They share everything with the whole tribe.
As nomadic groups they often run into other groups and there is an active exchange of experiences and ideas and people.
These are all findings of anthropologists, who studied these tribes.
Someone could object that these are small groups. A large population or organization still needs someone
who makes decisions, otherwise it becomes an unorganized chaos, in which nothing comes about.
Managers and kings will love this theory. It sounds reasonable. How can you built a pyramide or temple or a city without someone controlling the proces?
One thing is for sure: it can be done. One of the famous examples is Göbelki Tepe. It must have been built by hunter/gatherers, because it dates back to 11.500 BP. (Before Present)
That was the time, when there was not yet agriculture and farmers.
Göbekli Tepe is on a flat and barren plateau, with buildings fanning in all directions.The tell (artificial mound) includes two phases of use, believed to be of a social or ritual nature.
The hunter/gatherers lived a relaxed life and the picture of the ferocious caveman with is huge club fighting each other all the time is what we call today fake news.
If waging war was such an important part of the life of the hunter/gatherer, then why didn't he made pictures of it.
The caves of Lascaux for example contain hundreds of paintings made 17.000 years ago by the hunter/gatherers.
All pictures of animals and hunting, not of huge battles among men. So, where did it went wrong?
Only 15.000 years ago the last Ice Age came to an end and the climate got warmer.The area in the Middle East between Nile and Tigris became a land of milk and honey.
And what was it that Jean-Jaques Rousseau said? The first man who puts a fence around a piece of land and says "This is MINE", there it went wrong.
Rousseau might be the real realist, the French philosopher opposed the belief in the advance of civilization.
Against the belief that students are still instilled to this day, which is, that once we would have been primitive cavemen who beat each other up.
Peace, security and progress would have been made possible by the invention of property, agriculture and the state.
Our ancestors would have eagerly embraced those gifts because they had had enough of endless hunger and war.
Nothing was further from the truth, Rousseau believed. The philosopher thought that everything went wrong when we settled down in one place, exactly what archeology now confirms.
He saw the invention of agriculture as a great fiasco, and there is now an abundance of scientific evidence for that proposition.
Thank you for your attention again....
Main Sources:
MacMillan The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1995
http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.htm
Rutger Bregman, "De meeste mensen deugen",, 2019
The Discussion
[13:17] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): thank you Herman
[13:18] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): so we have to put away all the fences and work together
[13:18] herman Bergson: So, something has made us violent....
[13:18] CB Axel: I don't think I'd like to go back to being hunter/gatherers. Grocery shopping is bad enough.
[13:19] herman Bergson: Won't happen CB....only in dystopian movies :-)
[13:20] herman Bergson: But what we can observe in history is, that war had a real berginning
[13:20] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): i think we HAVE to wrok together after this crises
[13:20] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): indeed
[13:20] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): work I mean:)
[13:20] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): I hope we have realized something after this
[13:21] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): maybe we realize that money isn't everything
[13:21] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ah
[13:22] herman Bergson: I must admit that I like the effects of the present crisis....
[13:22] herman Bergson: Less criminality.....
[13:22] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): yes:)
[13:22] herman Bergson: Less consumption of gasoline
[13:22] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): clean air
[13:22] herman Bergson: Really interesting
[13:22] herman Bergson: yes
[13:22] herman Bergson: a nervous OPEC
[13:23] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): ツ
[13:24] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): sure business must go on but we hav to focus more on the product and not the profit, after all someone have to provide what we eat, things we can do (for example I make ure the golf courses are equipped and in shape with the right stuff so u can go and hit that little ball in the summer evenings
[13:24] theo Velde is online.
[13:24] herman Bergson: But the observation of today is that the rise of agriculture and property were our biggest mistakes in history, it seems
[13:25] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well Brazil president is burning amazonas down for agriculture so
[13:25] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): and all the other inventions after that?
[13:25] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ye can go out of control completely sometimes
[13:25] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but still we need food and bread and beer of course
[13:25] herman Bergson: We'll get to that in next lectures Beertje :-))
[13:26] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): ah, always running ahead:)
[13:26] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hehe
[13:27] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): i guess for our ancestors the invention of agriculture was a need to battle the hunger
[13:27] herman Bergson: I guess this is an easy lecture today....no controversies :-)
[13:27] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): some smart woman dropped some seeds and saw it was growing...
[13:28] herman Bergson: Or created agriculture the hunger Beertje
[13:28] herman Bergson: Due to periods of good harvests the population increased....
[13:28] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): than she did it again...
[13:28] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well how long have we had bread and beer? VERY long, beer is the worlds oldest alcoholic beverage
[13:28] herman Bergson: so, the production had to be increased.....
[13:28] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and not sure id want to be without any of those
[13:29] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): still have to be done properly
[13:29] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): beer was needed because the water was undrinkable
[13:29] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): not just plowing everything down
[13:29] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes that true
[13:29] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): when all sewage went into for ex the Thames because treatment plants had not been invented yet
[13:30] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): and it didn't have the high alcohol percentage that we have today
[13:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): alcohol don't make a poit in beer until up to a quite high percentage when u can actually feel the taste
[13:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): the issue with completley non alcoholic beers have been that the process leaves a bi taste
[13:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but thats improving
[13:31] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): there was a guy who could change water in wine they said
[13:31] herman Bergson: I guess we are a bit of topic now ^_^
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): aa so LETS HAVE A BEER!
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ♫~Proost~♫
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ☼◄Skål►☼
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ♪↕Cheers↕♪
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ▬↨►Kupp◄↨▬
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes im a beer lover
[13:31] herman Bergson: MAybe time to finish our discussion for today and head for the next lecture
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and so may nice ones today
[13:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): YUM!
[13:32] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): could it be that the invention of agriculture lead to more people?..it was easier to fed them
[13:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): in that TURF game we meet usually once a moth all the players and have a beer together
[13:32] herman Bergson: Then I would suggest Bejiita....get yourself a good beer and enjoy:-)
[13:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[13:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): aaa I have a couple
[13:32] herman Bergson: Class dismissed ^_^
[13:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): cu next time (if im not out TURFing again)
[13:32] CB Axel: Thank you, Herman.
[13:33] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hehe
[13:33] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): cu all
[13:33] Blackrose (blackrose.baroque): nice lecture Herman
[13:33] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes
[13:33] CB Axel: See you all Thursday. :)
[13:33] herman Bergson: Just get yourself a good beer, Bejiita...may be expensive in Sweden tho
[13:33] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[13:33] herman Bergson: Ok CB....See you :-)
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