Comments on: Breaking: Hunter Gatherer Societies Were Incredibly Violent

By: Chris Thomas Slater

Chris Thomas Slater — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:39:29 +0000

Although there is certainly romanticizing of hunter/gatherer societies, the even violent seeming ones did not have the degree of institutionalized violence nor the technological capability to even come close to the levels of violence we can do today. Also a form of violence that does not exist in classless hunter/gatherer groups is the violent perpetrated everyday by the disparities in wealth and power and the extreme violence carried out daily, in just one example: militarized fascistic state police and the prison industrial complex.

By: jason

jason — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:40:59 +0000

Just out of curiosity,

Franz Boaz has direct influence on a social anthropology that romanticizes HG societies how?

By: Kit Stolz

Kit Stolz — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:00:23 +0000

Good post. Those who admire tribal societies do — in my experience — romanticize hunter-gatherer societies, arguing that our species since has been on the road to nowhere, what with over-population, climate change, pollution, etc. It’s a bit simplistic.

By: Tänased lingid (30.06.2009) « Fear and Loathing

Tänased lingid (30.06.2009) « Fear and Loathing — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:20:56 +0000

[...] Omaaegsed küttide ja korilaste ühiskonnad olid äärmiselt vägivaldsed [...]

By: Thorfinn

Thorfinn — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:56:18 +0000

I imagine there’s a lot of variation here. Some modern hunter-gather societies are violent–the Yanomamo–but as you say this may reflect the problems with being a hunter-gatherer in a modern context. The isolated Sentinelese may not be very violent at all. Meanwhile, some agricultural societies, as in New Guinea, are very violent.

Moreover, the idea that hunter-gatherers are ‘violent’ doesn’t say much about whether that way of life is preferable to the agricultural life that followed it. Is it any better to die of dehabilitating disease after a life of chronic work than in violence? I agree that the hunter gatherer life is romanticized, but in certain respects it seems genuinely preferable to what followed.