The written record doesn't go back much further does it? How would we know whether they were prone to racisme or not? — ChatteringMonkey

Because similar groups of people survive to this day, and are a matter of record. Generally traditional societies aren't just tolerant of but cooperate with other groups, and only become warlike once they encounter other warlike groups. The whole intolerant, tribal natural human notion is just rubbish.

So where do you want to draw the line on Christianity, Constantine? — Marchesk

Context clues, dude. When did big armies of Christians go abroad and kill a ton of people? Was it Jesus?

I just don't agree with your post summarizing historical conflict as largely Western European — Marchesk

Now that really is straw-man--building. My patience for patently BS arguments runs about as far as the benefit of doubt dictates. You're out of yard.

Human beings are differentists - they are always seething with bigotries and prejudices and fears. Are these natural or not?

Reminds me of the old Bedouin proverb: “Me against my brother; me and my brother against our cousin; me, my brother and my cousin against the stranger.” — Tom Storm

:100: :up: "Vanity of vanities" of small differences.

Now that really is straw-man--building. My patience for patently BS arguments runs about as far as the benefit of doubt dictates. You're out of yard. — Kenosha Kid

Then what was all this about?

No, it's not natural. Our ancestors got on peaceably enough. More traditional societies living today don't seem to suffer from it. Our younger generations today, raised in a more multicultural society, seem to have much less if it.

As far as I can tell, it's pretty much entirely a white person thing, and pretty much entirely directed toward ethnicities who originally hadn't heard of Jesus and couldn't defend themselves against the massive armies of people who had. — Kenosha Kid

Looks to me like you're saying our ancestors were mostly peaceful until the white people with their Christianity went colonizing. Which skips over all the history of known civilization (at least) until the crusades.

Because similar groups of people survive to this day, and are a matter of record. Generally traditional societies aren't just tolerant of but cooperate with other groups, and only become warlike once they encounter other warlike groups. The whole intolerant, tribal natural human notion is just rubbish. — Kenosha Kid

I've heard you make that claim before, in your thread about delayed gratification, but I'm unsure about it. While we are certainly very cooperative as a species, current opinion among palaeontologists for example seems to be more that we are also very aggressive compared to other species closest to us. So you know, I'm certainly willing to reconsider this, but I'm not sure why or how you've come to that conclusion.

'Only become warlike once they encounter other warlike groups' could mean warlike most of the time.... we sure had a lot of war in the part of history that is documented.

Then what was all this about? — Marchesk

Literally as written. For most of our existence we haven't had racial conflict. Race hate is largely a white man thing. Which races do white men hate? The ones our crusading ancestors shat all over.

So you know, I'm certainly willing to reconsider this, but I'm not sure why or how you've come to that conclusion. — ChatteringMonkey

From anthropology, pretty much exclusively, wherein the consensus is that small, immediate return HG social groups -- which is how we spent most of our existence -- are pretty uniformly peaceful and cooperative until they have to defend themselves against warlike groups. I didn't think the paleontologist view you mention (axe wounds in skulls sort of thing?) was even still held today. I'll look into that.

check this. https://www.britannica.com/topic/kin-selection (Kin Selection).

Betraying my impatience (read: laziness :rofl: ), this first hit on my search seems fair-minded enough and describes the paleontological rethink I thought had occurred, e.g. mistaking animal bites for spear holes, hunting tools for weapons, etc.

https://www.livescience.com/640-peace-war-early-humans-behaved.html

My impression had been that the violent savage theory had been recognised as too hasty and probably not unrelated to the fact that it was devised by backwards honkies who, let's face it, have never been great with representation.

And it rightly points out that violence was still a factor, even if we mostly got along well. There's always going to be some antisocial element to contend with.

EDIT: Ah! Second hit was: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-humans-tamed-themselves/580447/

From anthropology, pretty much exclusively, wherein the consensus is that small, immediate return HG social groups -- which is how we spent most of our existence -- are pretty uniformly peaceful and cooperative until they have to defend themselves against warlike groups. I didn't think the paleontologist view you mention (axe wounds in skulls sort of thing?) was even still held today. I'll look into that. — Kenosha Kid

Yeah I'm no expert by any means, it's always hard to discuss these things if we get into the weeds, but from what I've gathered it's more of a general picture emerging from the paleontological record in combination with the new insights from population genetics. There are a whole bunch of quasi total population displacement and replacement events in our history, as well as patterns in Y-chromosme lineages that seem to indicate Mongol-style of ravaging in our pre-history.

From anthropology, pretty much exclusively, wherein the consensus is that small, immediate return HG social groups -- which is how we spent most of our existence -- are pretty uniformly peaceful and cooperative until they have to defend themselves against warlike groups. — Kenosha Kid

Our genetics indicates we have around twice as many female ancestors as male. That points to prehistoric war as the norm. There could be other reasons, but "uniformly peaceful and cooperative" is unlikely.

. Also, the fact that the Neanderthals and Denisovans aren't here along side us today. They went extinct for some reason, and it can't have all been from interbreeding.

This is a little like the argument that all babies are atheists at birth, because they haven't experienced religion yet. Likewise, they haven't experienced racism at this point.

Literally as written. For most of our existence we haven't had racial conflict. Race hate is largely a white man thing. — Kenosha Kid

Because racial categories as such didn't exist until the Atlantic slave trade. And it wasn't Eastern Europeans or the Irish doing it. It was several Western European countries, and their colonies.

But there were ethnic conflicts prior to racism. Like between the Scotts, Irish and English. Mainly because of the English. But before them was the Norse and Saxons and Romans.

This is perhaps a more on-point article:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/new-study-of-prehistoric-skeletons-undermines-claim-that-war-has-deep-evolutionary-roots/

Basically it comes across to me that there's a certain political aspect to the way early human groups are portrayed, like there's a need for a certain kind of person to find some natural justification for their own personality traits. The view of early man as violent was forged largely by quite privileged white men between two world wars: paleontology and archeology were gentlemanly pursuits practiced by the kinds of people who today you would expect to vote Republican ;)

The actual fossil evidence and studies of the groups most similar to our prehistoric ancestors suggests the polar opposite to this handy "I can't help being a shit" theory. But it'll stick around no doubt.

Our genetics indicates we have around twice as many female ancestors as male. That points to prehistoric war as the norm. — frank

You'll have to explain that. Are you talking human ancestors?

Yeah, white people.

I tend to think there's no one attribute that explains all our behaviour. I think we have both tendencies, we like cute things and have capacity for love, friendship and cooperation etc, but we can also flip out like disproportional maniacs when the things we value are threatened. And you know both makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, because the environment that we adapted too also isn't one monolithic fixed set of circumstances.

Look at Chimpanzees. They can be both peaceful and aggressive. Less peaceful than Bonobos. Perhaps more peaceful than ants?

I was watching some documentary on Yellowstone, and one group of adult wolves were chased out of their den by another more aggressive group, who proceeded to starve the first group's pups and claim their territory.

And yet we made friends with wolves and domesticated them. House cats did the same to us.

What the kinds of things covered in those articles tells me is that people will rationalise things in whatever way suits them. In the end, it is study and evidence that differentiates between the close-enough and the not-even-close.

Basically it comes across to me that there's a certain political aspect to the way early human groups are portrayed, like there's a need for a certain kind of person to find some natural justification for their own personality traits. The view of early man as violent was forged largely by quite privileged white men between two world wars: paleontology and archeology were gentlemanly pursuits practiced by the kinds of people who today you would expect to vote Republican ;)

The actual fossil evidence and studies of the groups most similar to our prehistoric ancestors suggests the polar opposite to this handy "I can't help being a shit" theory. But it'll stick around no doubt. — Kenosha Kid

I can certainly buy that there's a political bias to the way things have been explained historically, and I'll even buy that our war-like nature has been seriously overblown, but I do find it hard to believe that violence is only the result of ideology. But sure that's ultimately just a guess I suppose.

but I do find it hard to believe that violence is only the result of ideology. But sure that's ultimately just a guess I suppose. — ChatteringMonkey

It's not for animals, anyway. Ideology is more a justification for being violent. I once asked someone who was knowledgeable about Viking culture and history why they pillaged. And they told me because other people had stuff they wanted! How often was that the case for some King or Pope or explorer looking to get rich?

but I do find it hard to believe that violence is only the result of ideology. But sure that's ultimately just a guess I suppose.
— ChatteringMonkey

It's not for animals, anyway. Ideology is more a justification for being violent. I once asked someone who was knowledgeable about Viking culture and history why they pillaged. And they told me because other people had stuff they wanted! How often was that the case for some King or Pope or explorer looking to get rich? — Marchesk

Sure, it does seem ideology is often used merely as a justification... be we do get socialized into a culture too. Part of our nature is that we need to get an education wherein values are transmitted among other things. That's part of the problem of trying to find a 'natural state' of humans, you never find them in an uncultured state. Vikings had their cultural roots too. Also kings might not be all that representative for the species as a whole, but maybe the fact that we tend to follow them is... I dunno, it think it's a mixed bag, humans that is :-).

You'll have to explain that. Are you talking human ancestors? — Kenosha Kid

Homo Sapiens.

The view of early man as violent was forged largely by quite privileged white men — Kenosha Kid

Maybe. Doesn't mean they weren't violent.

My impression had been that the violent savage theory had been recognised as too hasty and probably not unrelated to the fact that it was devised by backwards honkies who, let's face it, have never been great with representation. — Kenosha Kid

:rofl: :up:

Can you explain?

@Kenosha Kid

The archeological record shows that there was a fair amount of violent death prehistorically. Human genetics provides a puzzle that could be explained via ongoing prehistoric war. So the available evidence leaves the possibility squarely on the table.

Ah okay. This is just what I was talking about here:

My impression had been that the violent savage theory had been recognised as too hasty and probably not unrelated to the fact that it was devised by backwards honkies who, let's face it, have never been great with representation. — Kenosha Kid

That there is a higher lower limit of the number of females who can have contributed to the human genome to date isn't a mystery in search of a solution, and certainly

That points to prehistoric war as the norm. — frank

is not justified.

I hope this question isn't too much of a digression from the OP, but my wife and I were talking the other day about the racial issues in the U.S. and wondered: Is there a country (or even a place) anywhere in the world that the U.S. could use as an example of how things should be? If so, where is that and what allowed them to get it right?

America in 1491?

America in 1491? — Kenosha Kid

I know there was lot's of warfare between different tribes but I don't know if it was race-based. I think there was so much capture, slavery and breeding going on that it probably was not based on skin color. I'd like to see an example from today that we could point to and say: "There, that way!" But maybe it is on America to lead the world on this. That arc of justice is really bending slow. I'd laugh but I don't think it's funny.

Is there a country (or even a place) anywhere in the world that the U.S. could use as an example of how things should be? If so, where is that and what allowed them to get it right? — James Riley

Mondragón Cooperative Corporation, Basque country, Spain (emulated in the US at Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi (of all places!))