CARTA: Violence in Human Evolution - Robert Kelly: Do Hunter-Gatherers Tell Us About Human Nature?

(Visit: www.uctv.tv/) When many people want to discover the core of human nature, they turn to those people who allegedly are or represent humanity’s original condition, hunter-gatherers. Do hunter-gatherers have a special ability to reveal human nature? Robert Kelly (Univ of Wyoming) examines this question by focusing on the issue of violence. Do hunter-gatherers say that we are inherently predisposed to violence, or to peaceful cooperation? Trying to answer this question raises a more general one: Is there such a thing as human nature? Recorded on 05/16/2014. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 28355]

[@yepremkhan4202]

Excellent talk and quite scientific. Essentialist views of human nature are parts of ideologies of dominant groups that refuse egalitarian and cooperative approaches to human societies, ignoring the simple fact that the material conditions of human social life influence and determine the nature of historically determined man. Thx Prof!

[@conniead5206]

Cite any culture that is or was totally egalitarian. There is no age limit in it’s definition. That idea is a pipe dream. Right in there with fairytales. Hunter gatherer cultures before 8,000 BCE might have been the closest to the fantasy. But social animals usually have some form of hierarchy. Within the group and within the family groups in them. If they have multiple family groups. EVERYBODY who could worked. No doubt in my mind that those who refused or didn’t put effort into their tasks were kicked out. Bet that was extremely rare. Those who were old and injured were taken care of. Even if the injured couldn’t hunt after getting better, they could help with other tasks. They didn’t have money but those who worked hard and did things better probably got treated differently. More respect. Oops. Not equally. But there were those who led the groups. The San that live in the bush of Sub-Saharan Africa are fairly egalitarian. As the speaker pointed out about the one author’s book, it is not that they don’t get angry, they are not supposed to show it. When they do others wrap their arms around them and restrain them. Maybe they should have them expend their anger energy on something else. Pounding rocks, dancing wildly, pounding root vegetables, or something along those lines. The murder rate is higher than researchers expected. A lot higher. They have no prisons so they exile them. This is basically a death sentence. Even if they hang around close by NOBODY will help them. No matter how long they plead. No matter how sick they get. No matter if they are severely injured. In your egalitarian fantasy I bet everybody is nice and happy. Or that you imagine there is a way to change, nicely, everybody who doesn’t fit your mold. Instead of reading theories by people who read theories by people who read theories or made up a story about a mystical Shang ri la, go read about what is actually currently known about what Homo Sapiens have done around the globe.

[@yepremkhan4202]

@@conniead5206 I definitely see your point. Yes, Homo sapiens have such large variability in innate abilities and genetic endowment that hierarchy in human society is inevitable. The question is what is the most egalitarian hierarchy that is ethically just? My last sentence will explode in 39 seconds due to extremely low entropy! 🤓 And thanks btw for the lengthy response!

[@LinuxLinense]

The relation between warfare and population pressure reminded me of Rwanda.

[@oliveirantunes]

great talk!

[@Neo-African]

Brilliant breakdown. I have been shouting it for years now that violence is not a significant part of human nature as people bogusly always just claim with the blanket statement; War has always been part of human society. IT IS A LIE!!! In fact I will go on to say that though conflict may arise because of recourses but war arises as a result of egotism.

[@Argentarius11]

He never said War was the result of Egotism. He said it showed up when there is population pressures, mostly with the sedentary hunter gatherers.

[@Neo-African]

​@@Argentarius11 The origin of warfare in human history is very clear.... Firstly, Since the the advent of the Homo-Sapien 300Kya, there is no archeological evidence anywhere on the planet for warfare until on 12Kya at the end of the last ice-age....Hunter-Gather populations were and are not warlike....After the the hnter-gatherers, then came the Sedentary Farmers who were also not warlike... It is around this time with the end of the last ice-age, with domestication of the cattle and the advent of the practice of Nomadic pastoralism that the first pastoralists begin to engage in the original mode of warfare as "Plunder & Pillage" of the early sedentary farmers in the times of drought famine an aridification triggered by the sudden climatic change in central & southern Eurasia that came with the end of the last ice-age. The yearly or seasonal raids by pastoralists populations prompt the sedentary farmering populations to eventually over a few millenia coalesce into cities and become city dwellers with the first armies, then walled cities with the first "Standing Armies"....and it is wit the dawn of the standing armies and now conflict between city states that warfare morphs into the concept we have of it today.... Whether plunder & pillage or Organised warfare, it takes egotists & psychopaths to organise & execute a plunder & pillage raid or organised warfare whether for resources or not rather than engage in trade.

[@dbprice100]

Scarlet fever has not been eradicated, but small pox has.

[@neddyladdy]

CARTA, what is that? Looks like an acronym, is it an acronym?

[@fwqkaw]

Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny maybe

[@stevensouthcoat9961]

It is easy to agree with the basics of this talk, but religion complicates and confuses the mixture of reasons, why and when, people, who under normal circumstances would cohabit peacefully, turn to conflict, to resolve their differences. We today, are only observers of the past. We may know what happened and when, in a specific place, but not truly why an event occurred.

[@r.leib.9857]

"This isn't because they're good people" ??? How would he know if they are good people or not; who is he to judge?

[@JediNiyte]

He's saying that individual non-violence isn't necessarily correlated with one's moral intuitions.

[@aptcmpasion]

they're a silly people w/ a potential for basically, stupid, violence

[@silentmajority5634]

Warfare is distinctly human and there is nothing we can or SHOULD do to change this. We can’t feed the people we already have on the earth, it seems to me that nature has a way of taking care of this issue already.

[@nextworldaction8828]

...It seems to me these subjects are new to you.

[@Neo-African]

@@nextworldaction8828 You can clearly see his psychopathic reasoning. He just watched a science talk about violence and human nature and he clearly didn't get it . . . . unfortunately, this is the kind of psychopathic reasoning that is controlling the world today, only because it has a gun pointing at the rest of us.

[@Neo-African]

The silent majority, . . . . of psychopaths???

[@alexburke1899]

That’s a strange view to have, we could have half a trillion people on earth if we develop the right technologies and have the right leadership. You can always build upward and farm vertically far more food than we do now. The reason we have war and huge militaries nowadays is partly/mostly economic and think if we redistributed some of those trillions to science, education and infrastructure. Think how many world leaders and politicians that are basically religious extremists that don’t believe in science. It’s not really about survival of the fittest anymore stupid people are going to keep having kids so we should research how to house, educate and feed them so this planet doesn’t turn into more of a dystopia. I’d seriously recommend you look into some futurism videos, there’s a guy named Isaac Arthur that makes some good ones; it might change your whole view of life and this subject.

[@RonJohn63]

Trigger warnings make me sad to live in these times.