Great historical efforts often turn out differently than intended. Sometimes they're remembered for how they turned out. Sometimes they're remembered for how they failed.
Eight years later, the reasons for our invasion of Iraq seem murky. Sure, Saddam acted as though he had WMD in contradiction to UN agreements, and he was a dangerous thug and murderer who payed Palestinian families to sacrifice their sons in suicide bombings, had used banned weapons against Kurds and Israelis, and appeared on the verge of becoming a middle-man in Al Qaeda's search for greater weapons in an era when not all Soviet nukes were quite accounted for. But our government blundered these cards and played them badly, electing instead to trip over its own mistakes, and, worse, allow GWB to speak in public.
As a contrarian who takes the long view, however, I'm not convinced it wasn't a net win for the world. The sight of Iraqis voting, however flawed the elections, may have planted a seed in hearts around the region. Iran has a functioning republic, but the choices are very narrow, and the people are weary of it. Several Arab countries continued to experience their internal tensions, newly informed, possibly, by repeated elections in Iraq and the fact that the Americans didn't grab the oil after all.
Now we see that when the tension finally broke across the region this year, every country had a different experience, some of them quite brutal. None of them were opportunistically invaded by the new Crusaders (though the real reason for NATO's lengthy mission over Libya remains suspect). All of them yearn for some vision or other of responsible government. In this new environment, I have to ask: What anymore makes Iraq so special?
Yes, I supported that war and have balked at removing troops too swiftly. But now, when our troops pull out, Iraq will not necessarily become a big nasty Mess O' Potamia. It will instead, possibly, be just one more Arab country attempting to grow an inclusive form of government without Western troops interfering directly. Given this, Iraq deserves to lose the distinction of being occupied as soon as possible. Bit of a reversal for me, but we really have to catch up to events.
Another reason for hope: The world is less violent than ever.
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Fascinating article. One of his slides that interested me most, however, lacked a link to its larger size. The "hunter-gatherer" societies in the data he was presenting also had high warfare attrition. That sounds as though it runs counter to the theory that hunter-gatherer, non-agricultural societies are far less warlike than their agricultural cousins. What was missing from his data -- since it was not the focus of his topic this is unsurprising -- was a consideration of what percentage of wartime violence was attributed to clashes between the non-agricultural and the agricultural tribes. It looked as though the time spans were concurrent with his previous graph.
I mention this because he concluded that Hobbes was correct. The interpretation of other sets of data from pre-agricultural times suggests Hobbes was incorrect, but only because pre-agricultural data was not included in anyone's studies.
Pre-agricultural societies were small in number, had access to vast resources, and had little ownership. They foraged and moved about. Their skeletal remains show that they were healthier than we are today, and show little signs of violence. They were cooperative.
Yeah, a digression from your topic, and I apologize. But I love this forensic anthropological shit.
Forensic anthropological shit is da bomb and don't you forget it and I demand an apology for that apology!
Anyway I'm failing to parse your assertion. This article supports Hobbes; you say pre-ag remains show little signs of violence. Whence your latter data? If from somewhere else, then what means Hobbes was incorrect "only because pre-agricultural data was not included in anyone's studies"?
I would be extremely skeptical of any conclusion that nomadism is inherently less violent for the reason it predates property and ownership, as has been asserted within my hearing, because the human animal doesn't really change. What does change is property and agriculture increase population and population density hence competition. In pre-ag days, tribes would most often find it less expensive to shy away from competitive threats and try somewhere else, rather than fight about it. IOW, property is bad because it increases health, wealth, population, and violence risk factors. Amatcher speckyulayshun, o' course.
Great article. It is a cause for hope and the gods know we need some small ray.
Until reading this article I had only the comfort of knowing that, unlike former times, it is no longer acceptable to hang a cat in the village square and cheer while the poor creature burns to death.
Credit goes to the Asha Bot for sharing it on Facebook, whence I remembered and retrieved it.
Ugh, people. I guess things are slowly improving, idk. Sometimes it seems hopeful, but then you think about the stuff that's happened in the last hundred years, horror on such a massive scale, because we're technologically capable of that now, even if more people wouldn't do bad things, it only takes a few who would. And the rest to do nothing, as the saying goes.
But that's not to say we should give up hope, nope. I'm just not convinced that anyone knows what to do to make things better. Seems like getting rid of disgusting thug dictators has to be better than not. We shall see what happens next. Too bad Obama is such an awful fuck-up domestically because his foreign policy isn't that bad, I suppose.
-Paula
Oh man . . . .
How is Obama such an "awful fuck-up" domestically? Are you just following the media guide to reducing his chances for re-election?
He's done all kinds of positive things, but the for some reason the press doesn't want him to get any credit. Yes, I said the press. It's mostly run by conservative corporations who have a vested interested in his presidency ending with one term. Here's a quote out of an MSNBC story on coverage for the President:
"'It's a combination of the economy worsening, falling approval polls that follow that, and then the anticipation of the political impact that might have leading into the campaign,' said Tom Rosensteil, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. 'The press and the political press in particular operate a little bit like Wall Street investors; they're not just reporting on what happened, but they're building expectations about what happens next.'
The coverage of the Republican presidential candidates was more positive."
Look into what Obama has done, rather than his failure to work magic with an economy in the face of a House majority that refuses to work with him, a Senate majority that filibusters everything that might help us out of the mess we're in, and a Senate majority that seems to say "Well, now, wait just a second . . . " whenever something important needs doing.
As for this guy's article on violence, it seems heavily Eurocentric, and just scanning it I don;t see any mention of the civil wars that have plagued central and west Africa for the last 40 + years, or the ongoing insurgency in the southern Philippines, Kashmir, Southern Sudan. I don't buy it. How much have we really improved in this way since the days we had that long list of crimes for which one could be put to death?
Sorry, I meant to say "Senate MINORITY that filibusters everything that might help us out of the mess we're in."
Can't speak for Paula of course but the MSNBC thing is exactly right.
The press and the political press in particular operate a little bit like Wall Street investors; they're not just reporting on what happened, but they're building expectations about what happens next.
The media have driven politics by the manner in which they report on expectations and results rather than actual plans and accomplishments. They essentially amplify a small sample of public reaction so that it becomes the larger public position. This has been going on for a very long time.
I have no idea if the media is left or right, they're just in it for the money and to preserve their power, which is for the money. Why after all did it take them so long to report on OWS?
Well, look at who owns most of the major media outlets in this country; who puts out the most coverage. It's largely corporate, and no friend of anyone on the liberal side of the aisle.
What's OWS?
OWS = Occupy Wall Street and its offspring both legit and bastard, Oakland being an example of the latter.
He does mention Rwanda and Darfur and modern civil wars and genocides but I'm not sure if he really pulled in the numbers.
OK, I'll look at the article again, but it seems like a massive exercise in wankery. The world is still exceptionally violent. The sad thing is that I'd bet that over half of those engaged in it don't really know why.
OWS! Yes. How could I not figure that out? Monday, I guess. Yes, it needs to grow LARGER! Bastard offspring or not, there's no other way to get any results, at least in our country.
Whence my other data? The resources listed in the bibliography in "Sex at Dawn", s well as memories of several science programs that may have been using the same data sets.
Foraging humans in a lower population setting had longer lives and were healthier. Because they were nomadic, when resources ran out, they could move to find other resources. There may have been clashes between tribes that competed in the same locales, but it could be deduced that since they had access to plenty and no reason to presume ownership, they adopted a culture of cooperation, recognizing the benefits to each of cooperating with the greater population. Similar foraging tribes within recorded history (natives on south Pacific islands and in south American jungles f'rex) support this theory.
The author's data does not appear to include information from the pre-ag periods thus his conclusion that compared to today primitive man lived lives that were nasty, brutish, and short is only accurate with respect to humankind in post-ag times.
I guess a more thorough conclusion would be that so long as humans embrace land ownership, they are becoming better at resolving conflict through non-violent means, and this may be due to a general increase in wealth and health for the masses.
Doesn't your last paragraph sort of gloss over the millennia of slaughter and warfare that eventually led to "becoming better at resolving conflict through non-violent means"?
I'm considering that the thesis that property ownership increases violence may be correct after all. I don't believe that's a strike against it, because I can't really imagine any other development, but I do like to be honest with my own conclusions.
I think we will become more violent as resources become scarcer. More scarce? More few? (thanks, Dubya!)
What did Dubya do to make resources more scarce? If anything, his policies were designed to make them more available, at costs, per the anti-Dubya side, to peace and to the environment.
Or are yew jes tryin to talk like him an say more scarcer, with a higher scarcitiness?
It is true that war always attends to conflict over resources, access to them, control over them. But the article seems to uphold the idea that improved political systems are reducing the likelihood of that conflict. I agree. As horrible as things can be, they just aren't like they used to be. And if someone presses a button to obliterate 100,000 people in some city, I bet you all sides will gasp in horror and start talking right away.
The short life theory of early humans has pretty much been set aside as anthropologists realized their original dating methods simply stopped counting at about age 35, so the theory had it that 35 was the total lifespan.
One study I just read shows that about 25% of early humans survived past 40.
Dubya said something about something, I forget what, becoming "more few." Just one of the many inexplicable linguistic twists he was reposibibibble for.
Anyhow, don't misunderestimate Man's inhumanity to Man. It wasn't that long ago that Stalin killed millions, before WW2. No one ever mentions it. It seems to have no impact. Weird.
psychopaths probably always existed. They are a tiny percentage of the human population but have statistical significance when they assume positions of power. Ego and drive seems to accompany psychopathy, all but ensuring world leaders will most likely be psychopaths. The non-psychopaths will simply talk all funny-like.
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