Where have you been?

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"Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.” Jack Handy

These anxieties are reasonably and rationally addressed by membership in a religious group.

All of these anxieties are reasonable and rational reasons for opposing any kind of societal change.

Ergo, religious groups are the main sources of opposition and conservativism towards societal change.

I object to selective obsessions over particular anxieties. There is no basis for asserting that the three anxieties listed in the beginning are the ONLY substantial or important human anxieties. There are other anxieties that may have the opposite effects, but they are ignored here.

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[I]Remember what the dormouse said, 'feed your head'. [/I]

well yes - I didn't mean to leave that out. but it was the increased food production, and developing the skills of animal husbandry (funny word that, really) that allowed specialisation to develop. you see - there was more time to begin to develop different social models, including hierarchies. Prior to this knowledge belonged to the elders. they were old, wise, had lived a long time, and passed knowledge on. There may have been a special person who had some special role - the shaman/witch doctor - but in hunter gatherer societies this was not necessarily always the case. Women also - although their knowledge may have been different from that of men - were able to be 'elders'. A sedentary lifestyle allowed the specialisation into this role, and also allowed room for 'the elders' to include younger men with time on their hands due to the yields of their households. One of the factors that may have reduced women's position was that higher calorie intake increased fertility - and as a result female life expectancy probably reduced, leaving less female elders. To be honest I think this is about the time where the original stories that became genesis began - you know - the 'go forth and multiply' sort. Also, this would have lead to the desire to accumulate more workers to increase yields further. These yields enabled the storage of food, which was important, but also became something that had a future value and required protection. Exchange had long existed in societies - hunter gatherer societies had exchanged objects for millenia - but this was something different.

All of these factors created social structures that required specialisation. In simple agrarian societies the degree of specialisation isn't great - most players possess a good range of skills, with some developing particular specialisations - but as society develops and becomes more hierarchical, the degree of specialisation increases.

hmmm - I guess its not exactly a linear model of societal development. It seems that a small bit of specialisation here, mixed with a couple of wives here, for practical purposes, not about power/control/exploitation of women, the introduction of additional temporary/bonded labour - whether spoils of war, via an agreement with a neighbouring family or a traveller passing through and picking up and sharing knowledge and skills he has learnt elsewhere, small changes in technology - sometimes also acquired via trading knowledge from other peoples - and a few good harvests and we move to the next step - until eventually we get to those magnificent kingdoms of the ancient world, and highly intellectual leaders who desire to create 'good' societies - such as Hammurabi.

When we get to this level we begin to see legislation coming in to determine how we relate to each other, we see that roles in society, including how we treat our servants, slaves and the poor becomes 'legislated' and more formalised.

If we compare the beginnings of such societies, under such rulers, we see a lot of good in the way people are regarded. We can also see negatives, especially to our modern eyes. It is hard to say how much of an improvement all this is for any group. certainly if we look at the position of women among the !kung, or the Australian aborigines - it wasn't as bad as what we have seen in some more 'advanced' societies. And I think this is interesting.

My suspicion is that the position of women becomes worse under a 'failed' society, than one which has never 'advanced' to that level. I haven't really looked into it, but virtually every instance I have come across where the position of women is poor, it seems as if a civilisation has crashed in one way or another, or that people have been coopted into a dominant society, as a second class/colonised group. Just a theory, however cross cultural studies on domestic violence show that tribal people who move into shanty towns as a result of land takeovers generally start the cycle of violence, even where this was unknown in their traditional cultures. It is a long shot I know - but I think poor treatment of our fellow human beings is generally symptomatic of some pathological, rather than normal state.

Anthropologists who have studied chimpanzees living near refugee camps over several decades have seen similar increases in violent behaviour.

yes. I will get there soon. but right now I'm only becoming Dark Age Daisy

While I appreciate and agree with most of your two fine posts here, I'll beg to differ a bit on this. Hierarchy is merely a result of the recognition that one individual alone cannot overcome and even perform all tasks within a social group. Thus hierarchy is a basic requirement for social life. It is not necessarily a game of dominance but a simple game of divide and conquer, - namely dividing the tasks in order to conquer the benefits of societal living.

Nothing seems to indicate that people then were different than people are now with respect to different abilities of performing different tasks within society. The importance and methods of delegation may have been altered through different era's of technology, though. Especially during the significant switch of venturing into development of crop and stock technologies.

I don't think changes in social models were due to 'more time'. It doesn't seem likely that entering farming technologies should result in any "left-over" time. One could probably argue by comparing existing hunter/gather societies with those of, in our eyes, primitive farming that time is not an issue. Rather I think that different requirements by different technologies is the first and foremost cause for change in social models. Next are changes in environment, which may be a consequence of the former, thus enhancing both the rate and direction of change.

They don't start out conservative necessarily. They start out strong and UNIFIED. Unified in purposes and beleifs. Purposes and beliefs about how the citenry can best behave to maintain a strong and unified society and population. Liberalism has very much divided our population today. Powerful organizations like the ACLU have played mindgames with an easily influenced population and added to this division. One of the mindgame strategies they use is blaming their OPPONENTS for the division they have caused. They blame the religious as they wage WAR on anybody with any religious beleifs. They blame religion as they tear any religious statement or sentiments out of our society and culture. They can influence the lazy or simple minded and be seen as HEROES as they do this. Liberalism in our education system has made a business of rewriting and omitting history from history books. Through lies and mindgames they influence and weaken opposition. Further dividing us and weakening our NATION.



Not necessarily the best from an ETHICAL standpoint. The most coherent though. Coherent in that they haven't begun the process of self destruction from the inside OUT yet. Maybe ethics will improve as time passes. This is limited by the animal nature that is still PART of humanity. Ethics may improve for a time from a starting point. Improvement will degrade due to "human nature" though and turn to degeneracy. I don't think there is one single instance this has not been demonstrated historically.


I was raised to believe very little actually. I hold my "ethics" because they're logical. Many today wouldn't SEE them as logical because they've been fed garbage and bought into and BELEIVED the garage they've been FED. You can see many examples of what I'm talking about right here on this forum.

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[I]They exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator. . . . Therefore, God gave them up to passions of dishonor; for their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature.[/I] - Romans 1:25-26

Use liberals artistic manipulation of logic and language against them.

Because we function within the boundaries of TIME, change is inevitable.

Societal ethics are necessary because we're a life form that still has basic drives and urges to LIVE. You offer a lot of flowery language to impress maybe ? Fair enough then.






Sounds to ME like you're arguing for relativism:


Relativism is the philosophical position that all points of view are equally valid and that all truth is relative to the individual.



http://www.carm.org/relativism/whatisrelativism.htm




Yes, we know. An arrogant faith in yourself. A faith that you KNOW with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that you're RIGHT. So you've "been generous" with us


You're faith has little or nothing to do with and cannot be compared in ANY way to religious faith of any kind. Maybe some will buy into the idea that you "share faith" with them. I won't be fooled.




Ahhhh, the arrogance is too aggressive to stay hidden isn't it ? You "feel that you have one up on them." Because you "know that change is inevitable." You're "one step ahead."


You DO admit that "if I'm right about this,"


You say though that you "have faith" that "it is so" that YOU know the correct "direction we should head." You're faith in yourself and your OWN opinions cannot be compared to peoples belief and faith in a creator or a God. You're attempt to join these two tells me that this doesn't make sense anywhere but inside YOUR head.

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[I]They exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator. . . . Therefore, God gave them up to passions of dishonor; for their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature.[/I] - Romans 1:25-26

Use liberals artistic manipulation of logic and language against them.

Couldn't this be summed up under a more general heading? "Corporate Culture" is a relatively new phenomenon when set against the backdrop of societal ethics shifting. Perhaps it could be summarized by saying that powerful factions with common collective interests (as opposed to individual trendsetters) have historically managed to bring changes for their own ends?

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[b][SIZE=2]"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."[/b][/SIZE]

-Thomas Jefferson

I bolded the part that interests me and is relevant (IMO) to this thread. The rest seems like a partisan rant, which is, at best, tangentially relevant and overly specific to current political attitudes in the US (thus crippling any real impact on the discussion).

It seems to me that you are saying that nation states are often forged out of a desire for specific changes, and with a spirit of strong agreement among the founders as to what principles should provide the basis for that society. It then seems to me that you are arguing that deviance from these goals is what leads to the downfall of said societies. Is this correct?

Would you say that this is broadly applicable, not just to the US, but also to other nations born in revolution (or colonization) such as Soviet Russia? Did the USSR fall apart because it deviated too heavily from the original ideals?

So, do you believe that the course of human history is comprised of little "bursts" of greatness (revolutions to form nation states) followed by long periods of slow decline, which set the stage for the next "burst"?

The first two sentences intrigued me because I was curious as to how you would defend your ethics from a logical standpoint, but then you dropped the ball with a blanket ad hominem asserting that people only disagree with your opinions because they've "been fed garbage". You might as well have said "My ethics are logical because if you don't share them you're a poo-poo head."

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[b][SIZE=2]"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."[/b][/SIZE]

-Thomas Jefferson

It CAN be that deviance from those goals leads to a downfall. More likely it's going to be a combination of that and changes made through time to ADJUST to certain variances introduced (unforeseen/unintended consequences). Internal enemies are an often ignored danger too. Ignored ? Yes, because they aren't veiwed as enemies when they're doing their work.



I'm not sure the USSR fell apart because it deviated to heavily from it's original intentions. That may be the CASE but I don't know. It may BE that it's original intentions were an unweildy or unworkable way of managing a society/civilization. That seems the most likely. It may ALSO be that it was a combination of these factors.

I DO beleive that that is the relatively RECENT course of human history (last 2 or 3 thousand years). With our very recent grasp on technologies giving us so much power to use, comes much responsibility. Time will tell if we are ready FOR the responsibilities that come with the latest technologies we've acquired. We have an opportunity to possibly "evolve" beyond this pattern in the handling of our social order(s). Time will tell.



I should have maybe said that many of us really aren't interested in anything beyond ourselves and our OWN insular little lives. This makes these kinds of people (what I just described) somewhat vulnerable to manipulation via the media and the economy.


Oh yeah, you ARE a poo poo head


Welcome to the poo poo head club mate :-)

Couldn't resist LOL

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[I]They exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator. . . . Therefore, God gave them up to passions of dishonor; for their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature.[/I] - Romans 1:25-26

Use liberals artistic manipulation of logic and language against them.

I wonder if it really is, or if it just looks that way because we're living through different stages of both?
Also- the process is bound to be slower for an 'invisible' minority. If you see a black guy walk down the street, then you know you just saw a black guy. If you see a gay guy, you most likely have no clue, so no desentization occurs.

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[FONT=Times New Roman][COLOR=DarkGreen]"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love"
-Anias Nin [/COLOR][/FONT]