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human ncrture Anarchy Works the valley civilizations of China and Southeast Asia, myths, language, and rituals that might explain such cultural defections were suspiciously lacking. Culture was used as another Great wall to hold these fragile civilizations together. No wonder the "barbarians" gave up written language in favor of a more decentralized oral culture: without written records and a specialized class of scribes, history became common property, rather than a tool for indoctrination. Far from being a necessary social advancement that people readily accept, the state is an imposition that many people try to flee. A proverb from the Burmese encapsulates this: "It is easy for a subject to find a lord, but hard for a lord to find a subject:' In Southeast Asia, until recently, the primary goal of warfare was not to capture territory but to capture subjects, as people frequently ran for the hills to create egalitarian societiesY It is ironic that so many of us are convinced we have an essential need for the state, when in fact it is the state that needs us. A broader sense of self A hundred years ago, Peter Kropotkin, the Russian geographer and anarchist theorist, published his revolutionary book, Mutual Aid, which argues that the tendency of people to help one another reciprocally, in a spirit of solidarity, was a greater factor in human evolution than competition. We can see cooperative behaviors similarly playing a role in the survival of many species of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. Still, the belief persists that humans are naturally selfish, competitive, warlike, and male-dominated. This belief is founded upon a misrepresentation of so-called primitive peoples as brutal, and of the state as a necessary, pacifying force. Westerners who see themselves as the pinnacle of human 17 The paragraphs regarding the Hill People and Southeast Asia are based on James C. Scott, "Civilizations Can't Climb Hills: A Political History of Statelessness in Southeast Asia," lecture at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, February 2, 2005. evolution typically view hunter-gatherers and other stateless peoples as relics of the past, even if they are alive in the present. In doing so, they are presuming that history is an inevitable progression from less to more complex, and that Western civilization is more complex than other cultures. If history is organized into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Industrial Age, Information Age, and so on, someone who does not use metal tools must still be living in the Stone Age, right? But it is eurocentric, to say the least, to assume that a hunter-gatherer who knows the uses of a thousand different plants is less sophisticated than an operator at a nuclear power plant who knows how to push a thousand different buttons but doesn't know where his food comes from. Capitalism may be capable of feats of production and distribution that have never been possible before, but at the same time this society is tragically unable to keep everyone fed and healthy, and has never existed without gross inequalities, oppression, and environmental devastation. One might argue that members of our society are socially stunted, if not outright primitive, when it comes to being able to cooperate and organize ourselves without authoritarian control. A nuanced view of stateless societies shows them to have their own developed forms of social organization and their own complex histories, both of which contradict Western notions about "natural" human characteristics. The great diversity of human behaviors that are considered normal in different societies calls into question the very idea of human nature. Our understanding of human nature directly influences what we expect of people. If humans are naturally selfish and.competitive, we cannot expect to live in a cooperative society. When we see how differently other cultures have characterized human nature, we can recognize human nature as a cultural value, an idealized and normative mythology that justifies the way a society is organized. Western civilization devotes an immense amount of resources 44 4S
human nature Anarchy Works to social control, policing, and cultural production reinforcing capitalist values. The Western idea of human nature functions as a part of this social control, discouraging rebellion against authority. We are taught from childhood that without authority human life would descend into chaos. This view of human nature was advanced by Hobbes and other European philosophers to explain the origins and purpose of the State; this marked a shift to scientific arguments at a time when divine arguments no longer sufficed. Hobbes and his contemporaries lacked the psychological, historical, archaeological, and ethnographic data that we have today, and their thinking was still heavily influenced by a legacy of Christian teachings. Even now that we have access to an abundance of information contradicting Christian cosmology and statist political science, the popular conception of human nature has not changed dramatically. why are we still so miseducated? A second question answers the first: who controls education in our society? Nonetheless, anyone who counters authoritarian dogma faces an uphill battle against the charge of "romanticism:' But if human nature is not fixed, if it can encompass a wide range of possibilities, couldn't we use a romantic dose of imagination in envisioning new possibilities? The acts of rebellion occurring within our society right now, from the Faslane Peace Camp to the Really Really Free Markets, contain the seeds of a peaceful and openhanded society. Popular responses to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans show that everyone has the potential to cooperate when the dominant social order is disrupted. These examples point the way to a broader sense of self-an understanding of human beings as creatures capable of a wide range of behaviors. One might say selfishness is natural, in that people ineVitably live according to their own desires and experiences. But egoism need not be competitive or dismissive of others. Our relationships extend far beyond our bodies and our minds-we live in communities, depend on ecosystems for food and water, and need friends, families, and lovers for our emotional health. Without institutionalized competition and exploitation, a person's selfinterest overlaps with the interests of her community and her environment. Seeing our relationships with our friends and nature as fundamental parts of ourselves expands our sense of connection with the world and our responsibility for it. It is not in our selfinterest to be dominated by authorities, or to dominate others; in developing a broader sense of self, we can structure our lives and communities accordingly. Recommended Reading Robert K. Dentan, The Semai; A Nonviolent People of Malaya. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979. Christopher Boehm, "Egalitarian Behavior and Reverse Dominance Hierarchy:' Current Anthropology, Vo1.34, No.3, June 1993. Pierre Clastres, Society against the State, (1974), New York: Zone Books, 1987. Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors; Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, Boston: Beacon Press, 1997. David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004. Colin M. Turnbull, The Forest People, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961. James c. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance; Hidden Transcripts, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Bob Black, "The Abolition of Work;' 1985. http:!hvww.inspiracy.com/black! abolition! abolitionofwork.html 46 47
Page 1 and 2: Anarchism is the boldest of revolut
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environment Anarchy Works Anarchist
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environment Anarchy Works that foun
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Anarchy Works 5. Crime Prison is th
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crime Anarchy Works whose presence
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crime Anarchy Works liberated zones
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crime Anarchy Works worth paying th
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crime Anarchy Works What's to stop
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crime Anarchy Works The current par
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crime Anarchy Warks first, philly's
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crime Anarchy Works conditions or s
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Anarchy Works 6. Revolution To put
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evolution Anarchy Works anarchism t
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evolution Anarchy Works of North Da
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evolution Anarchy Works The governm
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evolution Anarchy Works stations th
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makes less than 50% of the minimum
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evolution Anarchy Works contest wit
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evolution Anarchy Works low people
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evolution Anarchy Works they saw th
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evolution Anarchy Works garbage dum
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evolution Anarchy Works Borkenau re
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evolution Anarchy Works We didn't l
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evolution Anarchy Works talk, and,
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evolution Anarchy Works from one ge
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neighboring societies Anarchy Works
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Anarchy Works 8. The Future We are
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the future Anarchy Works dependent
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it works when we make it work Anarc
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Bibliography Emily Achtenberg, "Com
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DerrickJensen, A Language Older Tha
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William Foote Whyte and Kathleen Ki
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