CONTENTS - ouroboros ponderosa

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lIIlila.)' hC'lllly ' 1 ' 1 I' I'
, ) 00 .'i () (llll"
,
. 'II\(,TSlofS . " it'dI" , .t rill "II' lOll Yl';US apu " Jil which
"H 01 ' hellef w()rd.s) louch is
the I'mm'"'' ula t C artIStic and tech ' .. I (I' '
so evident and b "reee mea . 01 W nt, studlCs which
existence, sme 300 OO
,
have dcmonstrated the
man ,," i th d f years ago, of mental ablilty c(llIivalcnt to mouern
e wor S 0 Bntlsh archeologist Clive Gamble
ased on observations of
' "
survlvmg tnbal peoples, it is ' apparent, to
provide anothcr case .'
enormous and intimate o:t, that hunter-gatherers possessed an
d
local placcs, quite sutIicie:t s t n g of th nature and ecology of their
hundreds of thousand f
.
e mau"urated, agnculture perhaps
new kind of rela!' ,o years before the Neol,thlc revolution," But a
refuseu for so m ; y nS m lP a
tO nature was Involved; one that was evidently
ny g
. ' eneratlons.
To us It has seemed a gr ea t a d vantage to abstract from the natural
relationship of th' , h
hended and valu g : : :reas In the, vast Stone Age being was apprehole,
not In terms of separable attributes 25
Toda
that s;:: : n aola t rge family sits down to dinner and it is noticd
, ' ", hIS IS not uone by count' , mg, 0 r w h en a hut was
built in prehistoric times the , nm b er of reqUlred posts was not specified
or counted, ralher they" , wr ' erent to the Id"a of the hut, intrinsically
involved in 'it :lt (Ev
be detected ot b ( U lar y agnculture, the loss of a herd animal could
istic featurcs' I't y ng but by missing a particular face or charaeter-
, seems , c l ear ' however , a s B ryan !'vI organ argues ' that
, < •
, use lor a number system"
domesticated tlock animals 2 was certamly as a control of
' 7 as WI 'Id creatures becamc products to be
harvcsted , ) [ n d' IS t" anclllg and separ , a t' lon r les t h e heart of mathematics:
the discursive reduction ' ,patterns, states and relationships which we
initially pcrceive as wholet
[n the birth of categories aimed ,at control of what is free and
unordered crystallized b ca' i
the wor l d ' If '
'
, y, r y countmg, we see a new attitude toward
, nammg IS a distanclllg a mast
'
" cry, so too IS number, which
is impoverished namin
it is the signature of ' t\:;n g s a/o;,ollary of language,
meanings of number are instructive: " uic g to 0
. a lcnahn. ,;'he rot
q , grasp or take and to
take, especially to stcal , " also , "t a k en seized hence umb , , " Wh '
made an object of d
'
" ' , .. ,n , at IS
omlllatlOn IS thereby reified ' becomes numb
,
or undreds of thous' d' f
unimpaired access to th:a o ar unter-gatherers enjoyed a direct,
not divided no d ' d
'
rna ena s eeded tor survival. Work was
survivin exam r pnvate p:operty eXist. Dorothy Lee focused on a
ic r
activitie; arc fited i: a:::: a d{s7 g /hat 20ne of the Trobrianders'
e lne, There IS no Job, no labor,
no drudgerv - which finds its re' ar d O d U tSI e the acl."" Equally important
B '
"man's Ilrst ' c ,
'F h
1 1 1 -1\lI 'N r' I IJ 1-!.I III', \1
I", Ih(" " I 'll HII'_',a lity," "Ill\' liberal rUSltliliS for which 1I11111rr are proprly
1.111111\1';, . .. ,heir indillation to make a ft: ast of l:vcrything on hand,"]"' ac­
" H(lill)'. III Sahlills.
\h.1I illf. alld counting or exchange are, of course, relative opposites.
WILt'I(' '''Iideos are made, animals killed or plants collected for domestic
11'.1' ;tIId 1I0t for exchange, there is no demand for standardized numhers
,11 nlcaSlIremcnts, Nleasllring and weighing possessions develops later,
,tI, ,lIg with (he measurement and definition of property rights and duties
I . . ;Jlllhnrily, Isaac locates a decisive shift toward standardization of tools
,11111 language in the Uppcr Paleolithic period," the last stage of hunter­
)',;Jlhner humanity, Numbers and less abstract units of measurement
d,'rive, as noted above, from the equalization of differences, Earliest
",change, which is the same as earliest division of labor, was indetermi-
1I;Jle and defied systematization; a tablc of equivalencies cannot really be
l .. nnulated,JJ As the predominance of the gift gave way to the progress
. . I exchange and division of labor, the universal interchangeability of
IIlalhematics finds its concrete expression, What comes to be fixed as a
principle of equal justice-the ideology of equivalent exchange-is only
I he practice of the domination of division of labor. Lack of a directly­
lived existence, the loss of autonomy that accompany separation from
nature are the concomitants of the effective power of specialists,
Mauss stated that any exchange can be defined only by dcfining all of
the institutions of society," Decades later Belshaw grasped division of
labor as not merely a segment of society but the whole of it.35 Likewise
sweeping, but realistic, is the conclusion that a world without exchange
or fractionalized endeavor would be a world without number.
Clastres, and Childe among others well before him, realized that
people's ability to produce a surplus, the basis of exchange, does not
necessarily mean that they decide to do so, Concerning the nonetheless
persistent view that only mental/cultural deficiency accounts for the
absence of surplus, "nothing is more mistaken," judged Clastres '6 For
Sahlins, "Stone Age economics" was "intrinsically an anti-surplus
system,"" using the tcrm system very loosely, For long ages humans had
no desire for thc dubious compensations attendant on assuming a divided
life, just as they had no interest in number. Piling up a surplus of
anything was unknown, apparently, before Neanderthal times passed (0
the Cro-Magnon; extensive trade contacts were nonexistent in the earlier
period, becoming common thereafter with Cro-Magnon society,"
Surplus was fully developed only with agriculture, and characteristically
the chief technical advancement of N colithic life was the perfection of
the container: jars, bins, granaries and the like," This development also