Moving beyond dichotomy of Rousseau vs Hobbes as the narrative for human history, both of which have very pessimistic and narrow views of the past and present
Taking into account information and observers beyond European cannon (eg. indigenous peoples)
Need to re-imagine everything about how we study “inequality,” and what is good vs. bad, and the concept of original sin— “rediscover what freedoms make us human in the first place”
Actually no evidence that small groups are egalitarian and large groups must be hierarchical
Chapter 2
Indigenous critique of European discussion on origins of social inequality
Asking about the origins of social inequality assumes that there was a time when it didn’t exist— how would people during the Enlightenment even imagine this was true?
Ideas of social inequality and inequality only arose after discovery of the “New World,” along with conversation of natural law…
Which itself had its origins in whether it was okay to do what was being done to indigenous populations
What did indigenous people think of their European invaders? Look to travel literature (starting with New France)
Seen as very unequal (though the word equality was rarely referred to)l, not generous
Indigenous views of individual liberty much closer to ours today than the 17th century European’s is
American (indigenous) viewers of European society saw emphasis on property and money as stupid
Whole idea of rational debate also inspired by conversations with indigenous intellectuals
Eventually thought coalesced into singular linear concept of social evolution, dictated by how food was acquired— completely ignoring hierarchical structure of peoples like the Inca
Egalitarian societies at bottom of ladder— symbols of ancient past
Indigenous critique → wealth and power of French were results of unnatural social arrangements
Major question of the Enlightenment, along with the significance and meaning of personal liberty, freedom, social progress, inequality etc.
Back to Rousseau, and how he dominated the conversation for all time
Thought experiment of moral decline of society, which in and of itself imposed limits on freedom— marked most by emergence of property rights and civilization
Rousseau basically agrees with indigenous critique BUT cannot envision society being anything else
In indigenous view, individual liberty is based on some degree of communism— to help the poor/misfortune have opportunities; vs European view in which it was based on private property (autonomy in not being dependent on other people, from Roman times)
What does equality actually mean? What does egalitarian mean when used to describe indigenous people?
There is something wrong with society today, but answer isn’t so easy anymore
Chapter 3
What led to emergence of kings, etc.?
Many more, and more ancient, cultures with “complex” societies than we are taught about, even from Ice Age
Hard for us to imagine ancient times when different species of Homo interacted, flora and fauna so different than we know
Some groups shifted between social systems (and steps on the conventional “social progress ladder”) by season— seasonal dualism
Also evidence for “anomalous individuals” going back to the Ice Age
The real question, then, is not on the origins of social inequality but how we got stuck
Ancient peoples were our intellectual equals— just as aware, and ignorant, of social structures and such
Chapter 4
Trend not as much to globalization as to more parochial and local allegiances, bounded by culture and language, etc.
What does egalitarian mean? Really only defined as absence of hierarchy, etc; seems to be an ideal— people feel that they are the same wrt some values that everyone agrees are important
Suggests there needs to be a universal set of values— autonomy/freedom? gender equality?
One distinction of humans vs non-humans = we produce more than we need; are creatures of excess
Chapter 5
Important question: what has led people to try to define themselves as so different from their neighbors?
Some foragers knew how to do agriculture, but consciously chose not to
No “original affluent society”— many different forms and experimentations!
Slaves were not free (had no friends) because they could not make commitments for themselves
Environmental determinism vs self-determinism in terms of how humans develop their specific cultures? As with everything, neither extreme— some of each
Equality and hierarchy developed together
Schismsogenesis? → defining a culture/identity in opposition to another
Chapter 6
The origins of farming; how Neolithic people avoided agriculture
Assumption of patriarchy in all ancient societies is probably wrong
Idea of the “Fertile Crescent” is a modern invention, actually comprising several crescents that followed different trajectories
Wheat did not domesticate humans, and there was no real “Agricultural Revolution
Took much longer for domestication changes to cereal grasses to occur than it could have (wasn’t always the “adaptive” choice)
People switched between modes of production like they did with social structures → complex process/transition
Chapter 7
“The ecology of freedom,” how farming spread around the world
Agriculture did not automatically imply the use of private property— at first, more shifted modes of occupation of land
Agriculture starting in few locations → centralized states and “civilization” also not true: actually more than 20 places where domestication of crops and animals occurred, and all followed different paths
Environmental determinism (Jared Diamond) has many flaws… failure of farming to “diffuse” was often the choice of people not to engage in it
How far can geography go in informing history rather than just explaining it?
Chapter 8
Emergence of cities
How did ”mega-sites” like those in Ukraine, Basque region avoid hierarchical structures?
Conceptualized themselves in circular organization, rotating responsibilities, mutual aid relations
Overall, egalitarian organization of society was much more common among groups of growing scale than was initially thought
Chapter 9
Examples of democracy in early American societies (eg. pre-Aztec)
Some of the groups Cortez allied with were not kingdoms as so often described— scholars have not consulted many primary sources describing the actual interactions between the Europeans and Americans
Chapter 10
The origins of the “state”, and what that even means, and if it really means anything at all
Social power = 1) power of information 2) threat of force 3) charisma
Elements of the state similarly = 1) control of violence 2) control of information 3) charismatic politics…no necessity for these elements to occur together— so what is the definition of a state, really?
Three elements institutionalized as 1) sovereignty 2) administration 3) heroic politics
People agree that Aztec, Inca, Maya were “states,” had sovereigns with royal and religious overtones
Much of history dismissed as “pre” and “post” kingdoms or golden ages of societies, even though these intermediate periods weren’t just people waiting around— just that there weren’t single kings or leaders
These empires, kingdoms, etc. = islands in history, surrounded by times of people living as confederacies, “segmented societies”
What of the freedom to change social structures seasonally?
Most of what we would consider “states” only had one or two elements institutionalized
Egypt = paradigmatic case of what “should” have happened (sovereignty and administration coming together), earliest of second order refines
Three primordial freedoms: to move, to disobey, to transform social relations
How many of these early states, kingdoms were seasonal phenomena? K
In summary: civilization and state did not develop simultaneously
Chapter 11
Historical origins of the indigenous critique
Amerindians had their own long history of “social evolution,” much of which contributed to conceptions of political systems, democracy, and freedom around the world
What Europeans observed in 18th c was not just reaction to their arrival, but result of Amerindian’s own experimentation with social structures (ex. Mississipian cultures had lots of petty kingdoms, which had almost all disintegrated by the time European contact was made)
Examples of changes from cities like Cahokia to more tribal/”ecological” ways of living may have been advantageous to them, vs the trends that happened in Europe and beyond
Not a coincidence that the Enlightenment started just as contact with the Americas was made! Iroquois, Osage, etc. peoples had many a conversation with European intellectuals that influenced the movements
Chapter 12
Conclusion; the dawn of everything
Technology is obviously important but other things are too
Scale doesn’t necessarily mean hierarchy
Lots of innovation that drove “social evolution” came from women who were probably not white
There is no “original” human condition, democracy isn’t confined to small groups, etc. — all myths!