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Mary Poindexter McLaughlin's avatar

This is fascinating, Peter. One part that particularly stood out for me personally is the idea that human beings are not necessarily egalitarian by nature. I'm guilty of subscribing to that rosy view, but it actually makes so much sense that hunter-gatherers would have had to cultivate that characteristic, just like all the other characteristics that make teamwork, and thus survival, possible. We are blank slates when we arrive, ready to learn whatever our community values. Thanks so much for your clear, compelling explanations and insights!

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Mark V's avatar

As you say, we can't return to the hunter gatherer way of life (and perhaps wouldn't want to), but we can learn from them.

Along these lines, I wonder how long it took for Neolithic and even later hunter/farmers in, say, Mesopotamia, to give up their egalitarian ways, and to become more of an "ownership" society, separated into nobles and peasants (or slaves)?

I am guessing that there was an interim period when they used farming and animal husbandry to supplement their food availability, even had some diversification of labor allowing some people to make a living as merchants or artisans, yet perhaps still had hunting and gathering available as a safety valve, allowing them to just say no to becoming someone else's servant.

Freedom, after all, means having real choices, among things worth having - and that's what we want for ourselves now.

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