But I, for one, have never crushed anyone’s skull for power and wealth (mine or anyone else’s), and I’m not sure I know anyone who has, and the net quantity of skullcrushing per person seems to be decreasing over time despite the extremely nasty skullcrushing bonanzas of the early-to-mid 20th century.
I’m not sure if the user you are replying to meant it like this, but it would make sense that your ancestors did plenty of the “skull-crushing” for you (in a sense), and that is why you are here today. The colonialism and use of violence in the past is why you enjoy the life you do today.
The colonialism and use of violence in the past is why you enjoy the life you do today.
Maybe so. Also, the single-celled-ness of my distant ancestors was an essential step to the form of life I now have; their primitivity is (part of) why I enjoy the life I do today. This observation doesn’t in the least lead me to wish I were a single-celled life form, nor to see single-celled life forms as somehow my superiors, nor to anticipate a future reversion to single cells in my descendants.
If your suggestion is that since some of my ancestors were skullcrushers and I wouldn’t be here without them I should look back with admiration to my skullcrushing ancestors, or that I should expect my successors to return to skullcrushing, then I would be interested to know why the argument doesn’t apply equally to unicellularity.
I would be interested to know why the argument doesn’t apply equally to unicellularity.
I apologize for a misunderstanding. My argument was not that one should “expect [their] successors to return to skullcrushing.” It is that, as skull-crushing was an essential part of our evolution, it makes sense that we still have that latent impulse. Think sex.
I … have never crushed anyone’s skull for power and wealth … and I’m not sure I know anyone who has
The people who actively “skull-crush” for power and wealth are largely tribes of people in the third world. This is occurring in many parts of Africa and some parts of the Middle East. This is where they do not enjoy the same quality of a first-world life as you or I do. Sure, you may not do any skull-crushing. You live a life which is pleasant enough, and the propagation of your lineage is guaranteed enough (and if you do not wish to bear fruit, so to speak, this is another indicator of the pleasantries of the first world). This is missing the point.
So at least within my nice liberal middle-class bubble—which is, y’know, actually a pretty big bubble, encompassing a substantial fraction of the population—the “joy of crushing one’s enemies” seems not to be much of a thing any more.
First, it’s not a large bubble given total human population. It is in fact quite a small bubble standing on the shoulders of violent giants. Maybe we should leave this bubble from time to time.
Second, the joy of crushing you enemies is still innate, as you state yourself (“if you allow for metaphorical crushing … then there’s more of it about”). Just as sexual reproduction leads to competitively viable organisms, leading to our innate desire for sex (even without the explicit desire to reproduce—another wonder of our first world) , violent competition led us to the point we are now. Can you say that you do not enjoy your doses of “metaphorical crushings”? Would you say that, in a doomsday-scenario, the use of violence would be a competitive advantage? If so, then surely some are utilizing it. They would have the advantage. They would reproduce (whether consensual or not—yet again a modern world invention). And we return to our forebears, and the latent spirit of violence lying beneath the surface of our civilized lives…
I digress. I’m not implying that all acts of our ancestors are needed today. I am stating that, no matter one’s personal experience with violence, their existence has benefited from previous acts of violence. To state that these impulses have left us is false.
Can you say that you do not enjoy your doses of “metaphorical crushings”?
Well, speaking purely for myself, my skullcrushing activities never get more non-metaphorical than, say, a game of chess. I’ve no particular objection to fictional violence, but tend to find it among the least interesting things in the fiction containing it. I will concede that I enjoy winning at chess, but I beg leave to doubt how much evidence that is for the stability of joy-in-actual-skull-crushing.
I’m afraid it seems to me that your comment is long on rhetoric and short on actual reasoning, which makes it difficult to respond to in a way I find adequate. So I’ll just repeat in slightly different words what I already said: yes, plenty of skullcrushing in our ancestral past, but I am unconvinced that this fact tells us much about what our future either will or should be like.
I am unconvinced that this fact tells us much about what our future either will or should be like.
My digression above could have caused a misunderstanding of my point. I do not mean to say that we are/should return to violence in the Western world, but rather that the desire is still present within us and large-scale violence happens much more often than in our semi-homogeneous middle class bubbles.
I don’t imagine the conversation is headed to any conclusion/meeting point, but I wanted to clarify what I was saying to highlight the misunderstanding.
I’m not sure if the user you are replying to meant it like this, but it would make sense that your ancestors did plenty of the “skull-crushing” for you (in a sense), and that is why you are here today. The colonialism and use of violence in the past is why you enjoy the life you do today.
Maybe so. Also, the single-celled-ness of my distant ancestors was an essential step to the form of life I now have; their primitivity is (part of) why I enjoy the life I do today. This observation doesn’t in the least lead me to wish I were a single-celled life form, nor to see single-celled life forms as somehow my superiors, nor to anticipate a future reversion to single cells in my descendants.
If your suggestion is that since some of my ancestors were skullcrushers and I wouldn’t be here without them I should look back with admiration to my skullcrushing ancestors, or that I should expect my successors to return to skullcrushing, then I would be interested to know why the argument doesn’t apply equally to unicellularity.
I apologize for a misunderstanding. My argument was not that one should “expect [their] successors to return to skullcrushing.” It is that, as skull-crushing was an essential part of our evolution, it makes sense that we still have that latent impulse. Think sex.
The people who actively “skull-crush” for power and wealth are largely tribes of people in the third world. This is occurring in many parts of Africa and some parts of the Middle East. This is where they do not enjoy the same quality of a first-world life as you or I do. Sure, you may not do any skull-crushing. You live a life which is pleasant enough, and the propagation of your lineage is guaranteed enough (and if you do not wish to bear fruit, so to speak, this is another indicator of the pleasantries of the first world). This is missing the point.
First, it’s not a large bubble given total human population. It is in fact quite a small bubble standing on the shoulders of violent giants. Maybe we should leave this bubble from time to time.
Second, the joy of crushing you enemies is still innate, as you state yourself (“if you allow for metaphorical crushing … then there’s more of it about”). Just as sexual reproduction leads to competitively viable organisms, leading to our innate desire for sex (even without the explicit desire to reproduce—another wonder of our first world) , violent competition led us to the point we are now. Can you say that you do not enjoy your doses of “metaphorical crushings”? Would you say that, in a doomsday-scenario, the use of violence would be a competitive advantage? If so, then surely some are utilizing it. They would have the advantage. They would reproduce (whether consensual or not—yet again a modern world invention). And we return to our forebears, and the latent spirit of violence lying beneath the surface of our civilized lives…
I digress. I’m not implying that all acts of our ancestors are needed today. I am stating that, no matter one’s personal experience with violence, their existence has benefited from previous acts of violence. To state that these impulses have left us is false.
Well, speaking purely for myself, my skullcrushing activities never get more non-metaphorical than, say, a game of chess. I’ve no particular objection to fictional violence, but tend to find it among the least interesting things in the fiction containing it. I will concede that I enjoy winning at chess, but I beg leave to doubt how much evidence that is for the stability of joy-in-actual-skull-crushing.
I’m afraid it seems to me that your comment is long on rhetoric and short on actual reasoning, which makes it difficult to respond to in a way I find adequate. So I’ll just repeat in slightly different words what I already said: yes, plenty of skullcrushing in our ancestral past, but I am unconvinced that this fact tells us much about what our future either will or should be like.
My digression above could have caused a misunderstanding of my point. I do not mean to say that we are/should return to violence in the Western world, but rather that the desire is still present within us and large-scale violence happens much more often than in our semi-homogeneous middle class bubbles.
I don’t imagine the conversation is headed to any conclusion/meeting point, but I wanted to clarify what I was saying to highlight the misunderstanding.