But it’s not obvious that they were more egalitarian when it comes to political power or ability to do violence.
When the most powerful weapon is a mounted knight in full plate mail, its easy for a small minority to dominate. When the most powerful weapon is the pointed stick...
When the most powerful weapon is a mounted knight in full plate mail, its easy for a small minority to dominate.
The medieval period is pretty late in the history of farming; I had in mind the early period of farming, when foraging and farming were more competitive.
But I think this focuses too much on visible organized violence and not enough on total violence. Were forager men more or less likely to beat their wives than farmer men? Forager parents vs. farmer parents? It seems possible that a larger percentage of the male forager population had potential access to rape through raids than the percentage of the male farmer population that had potential access to rape through soldiering, but I would want a lot of anthropological data before I made that claim confidently, which is why I don’t think it’s obvious.
This is a bit of a change in topic from the original comparison- tribal hunter-gatherers to modern society- but I think that the sorts of things people use violence and political power for are so different that they can’t be compared that directly. As the saying goes, God created man but Sam Colt made them equal: in America it’s not that uncommon for individual losers to shoot the most politically powerful man in the country, often leading to his death. I suspect the rate of losers in tribes murdering the local chief is much lower. But maybe what we want to compare is not ‘ability to do violence’ but ‘ability to get away with doing violence,’ but even then I don’t think we have the data to make a good comparison. Was the ability of tribals to go on the run to escape vengeance better or worse than the ability of moderns? It seems like there are multiple dimensions with different directions for that comparison.
An interesting read, but I was not claiming that a more egalitarian distribution of physical power decreases violence—if anything, having one dominant power leads to peace because no-one challenges them, while as you say, the levelling power of firearms means that anyone can inflict violence.
AFAIK many tribal societies were much more violent—I read somewhere that in some tribes the majority of adult male deaths were due to homicide.
Actually, one thing that I noticed while reading this book is that despite engaging in violence far more frequently than people in non-tribal cultures, the Yanomamo don’t really seem to have a conception of martial arts or weapons skills, aside from skill with a bow. The takeaway I got was that in small tribal groups like the ones they live in, there isn’t really the sort of labor differentiation necessary to support a warrior class. Rather, it seems that while all men are expected to be available for forays into violence, nobody seems to practice combat skills, except for archery which is also used for food acquisition. While many men were spoken of as being particularly dangerous, in all cases discussed in the book, it was because of their ferocity, physical strength, and quickness to resort to violence. In fact, some of the most common forms of violent confrontation within tribes are forms of “fighting” where the participants simply take turns hitting each other, without being allowed to attempt to defend or evade, in order to demonstrate who’s physically tougher.
I’m not sure how representative the Yanomamo are of small tribal societies as a whole, but it may be that serious differentiation of martial skill didn’t come until later forms of societal organization.
When the most powerful weapon is a mounted knight in full plate mail, its easy for a small minority to dominate. When the most powerful weapon is the pointed stick...
The medieval period is pretty late in the history of farming; I had in mind the early period of farming, when foraging and farming were more competitive.
But I think this focuses too much on visible organized violence and not enough on total violence. Were forager men more or less likely to beat their wives than farmer men? Forager parents vs. farmer parents? It seems possible that a larger percentage of the male forager population had potential access to rape through raids than the percentage of the male farmer population that had potential access to rape through soldiering, but I would want a lot of anthropological data before I made that claim confidently, which is why I don’t think it’s obvious.
This is a bit of a change in topic from the original comparison- tribal hunter-gatherers to modern society- but I think that the sorts of things people use violence and political power for are so different that they can’t be compared that directly. As the saying goes, God created man but Sam Colt made them equal: in America it’s not that uncommon for individual losers to shoot the most politically powerful man in the country, often leading to his death. I suspect the rate of losers in tribes murdering the local chief is much lower. But maybe what we want to compare is not ‘ability to do violence’ but ‘ability to get away with doing violence,’ but even then I don’t think we have the data to make a good comparison. Was the ability of tribals to go on the run to escape vengeance better or worse than the ability of moderns? It seems like there are multiple dimensions with different directions for that comparison.
An interesting read, but I was not claiming that a more egalitarian distribution of physical power decreases violence—if anything, having one dominant power leads to peace because no-one challenges them, while as you say, the levelling power of firearms means that anyone can inflict violence.
AFAIK many tribal societies were much more violent—I read somewhere that in some tribes the majority of adult male deaths were due to homicide.
Skill is an a large premium. Thus those who have the free time to practice can end up dominating.
Actually, one thing that I noticed while reading this book is that despite engaging in violence far more frequently than people in non-tribal cultures, the Yanomamo don’t really seem to have a conception of martial arts or weapons skills, aside from skill with a bow. The takeaway I got was that in small tribal groups like the ones they live in, there isn’t really the sort of labor differentiation necessary to support a warrior class. Rather, it seems that while all men are expected to be available for forays into violence, nobody seems to practice combat skills, except for archery which is also used for food acquisition. While many men were spoken of as being particularly dangerous, in all cases discussed in the book, it was because of their ferocity, physical strength, and quickness to resort to violence. In fact, some of the most common forms of violent confrontation within tribes are forms of “fighting” where the participants simply take turns hitting each other, without being allowed to attempt to defend or evade, in order to demonstrate who’s physically tougher.
I’m not sure how representative the Yanomamo are of small tribal societies as a whole, but it may be that serious differentiation of martial skill didn’t come until later forms of societal organization.