THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES After a Quarter Century: A Revision

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By Andrew Bard Schmookler (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)

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My 1984 book, THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES: THE PROBLEM OF POWER IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION, was intended to be a book of timeless relevance and importance: to make sense of the story of humankind; to put the evolution of civilization into the larger context of the history of the evolution of life on earth; to identify the dynamics behind the problematic, agonizing aspects of the history of the past ten millennia; to illuminate, based on that diagnosis of the problem, the general nature of how humankind can better control its destiny and create a more humane and viable civilization.

(The first chapter of THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES has been posted previously here on opednews, and it can also be found at click here

Timeless though its ambitions were, the book was also --like every other human creation-- developed in a particular time. I experienced the vision containing this idea in August of 1970, and the book developing that vision was finally published in May of 1984. In between those dates, I had conducted research into the many diverse relevant subject areas to check out and flesh out the main thesis and the numerous subordinate hypotheses that formed the components of the overall theoretical edifice. My exposition was thus affected by the state of research in the various fields as they stood during that period.

In the years since, I've continued to keep an eye cocked, albeit informally, for new information coming in that might call into question, or contrariwise might confirm, any of my arguments in THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES.

There's been one area that's been troubling, where the new information coming in has been at variance to what I was getting from the literature during the 1970s: it's about the question of how much bellicosity there was before the rise of civilization, both in our pre-civilized (hunting-and-gathering) ancestry and among our closest primate relatives.

It seems pretty clear, for example, that chimpanzees are not nearly so pacifistic as was earlier believed in the 1970s, e.g. in Jane Goodall's then-famous book IN THE SHADOW OF MAN. (The other line off the chimpanzee branch, that of the bonobos, presents a far more benign picture.)

Likewise, with respect to the role of warfare/violence among pre-civilized societies. (It should be noted that, in THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES, the dividing line of concern to me –when I speak of “pre-civilized” versus “civilized” societies-- is not that between tribal societies and the full-blown states that begin to appear 5,000 years ago, but between the hunter-gatherer bands that operated still essentially within their biologically evolved niche and those social forms that began to be possible with domestication of plants and animals and more settled existence more like 10,000 years ago.)

The evidence developed since I studied the subject in the 1970s would compel me, if I were to write the book today, to revise the part of the third chapter (pp. 74-81) that's entitled "Red Sky at Morning: The Dawn of Civilization and the Rise of Warfare." It now seems probable that my view of hunting-and-gathering societies and of non-human primate societies --like the views of many anthropologists, primatologists and archaeologists of several decades ago-- was overly sanguine, or not "sanguine" enough, depending on which sense of the word one has in mind. :)

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That said --and it does feel important to say it, confession being good for the soul-- it is also important to note what that revision does and does not mean for THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES.

Most important, IT HAS NO EFFECT ON THE OVERALL THESIS. The idea I call "the parable of the tribes" says, in essence, that the rise of civilization inevitably would lead to a ceaseless struggle for power among societies, and that it also opened the door for an open-ended process of innovation in all areas of culture; it asserts further that THIS COMBINATION OF STRUGGLE FOR POWER WITH OPEN-ENDED INNOVATION WOULD NECESSARILY RESULT IN A PROCESS OF <em>SELECTION</em>, AMONG THE CULTURAL POSSIBILITIES, FOR THE WAYS OF POWER.

This would be true regardless of whether hunter-gatherers were peace-loving or warlike. And I said, explicitly, in the book: "To be valid, the parable of the tribes...does not require...that warfare among human societies began only with civilization." (p. 75)

In other words, as an explanation for the overall thrust of social evolution for the past 10,000 years, the theory's basic validity would be unaffected by any such revision of the image of human nature.

What would be affected by a more war-like image of pre-civilized humans is our view of the EXTENT to which we would see this selection for power as having WARPED human beings into a shape contrary to our inborn nature. I use imagery, in the book, of our nature being “warped” or “twisted” (in one instance, I use the image of the bound foot of the traditional Chinese woman as such a metaphor). And to the extent that bellicosity was there from the start, and not forced upon us by civilized systems shaped by power (and not by human needs or human nature), to that extent the human tragedy would seem reduced, "our sympathy for our species' plight would be diminished." (ibid) In that light, humankind would seem somewhat less like innocent victims, even if, in the course of the evolution of civilization, we were swept along by forces beyond our control.

Either way, though, "The structure of the overarching system mandates that some of the worst sins of such a [civilization-making] creature would inevitably be magnified into laws of its social existence." (ibid)

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Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. (more...)

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