THE NOT SO NOBLE SAVAGE – PART II THE PRE-HISTORIC PARADISE

Control/Click here for, THE NOT SO NOBLE SAVAGE: PART ONE -

I was humming along, thoroughly enjoying Oxford historian Yuval Noah Harari’s mega bestseller, Sapiens, when about fifty pages in, I began to wonder where the book was going. The opening chapters about pre-historic man had my full attention. I was racing down the highway of ideas when I started tapping the break, eventually coming to a screeching halt. The following statements slowed me down:

• …the average forager, had wider, deeper and more varied knowledge of her immediate surroundings, than most of her modern descendants.

• But at the individual level, ancient foragers were the most knowledgeable and skillful people in history.

• The hunter-gatherer…foragers seem to have enjoyed a more comfortable and rewarding way of lifestyle than most of the peasants, shepherds, laborours and office clerks who followed in their footsteps.

• …foragers enjoyed a lighter load of household chores. They had no dishes to wash, no carpets to vacuum, no floors to polish, no nappies to change and no bills to pay.

• The wholesome and varied diet, the relatively short working week, and the rarity of infectious diseases have led many experts to define pre-agricultural forager societies as the original “affluent societies.”

Thanks, but no thanks. Is there anyone within the sound of my voice who would like to change places with the Flintstones? They may have had just wonderful lives in filthy caves littered with bones and feces, but those lives were short. Their teeth rotted and fell out, no doctors to call, infections could be deadly, and food was scarce during droughts. They may have been the most knowledgeable and skillful people in history, as Harari wrote, but their nomadic lives in did not allow them the time to take advantage of the diversity of individual skills, otherwise known as specialization. Instead of each family doing their own hunting, tanning, weapons building, cooking, pottery making, basket weaving, and so on, each individual could use his specialized skill for the benefit of all.

References to household chores, bills to pay, work week and floors to polish seem almost satirical. Okay, I’m willing to polish floors as long as my teeth don’t fall out preventing me from chewing all those nuts and berries, resulting in an early death.

Harari is not alone in his admiration for our primitive predecessors. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics and Society, by Marvin Perry et al, the sixth edition, published in the year 2000, came to a similar conclusion. (The abridged text used in my Western Civ. classes.) The authors are explaining the effect of pre-historic man's discovery of agriculture and the domestication of animals.

Villages changed patterns of life. A food surplus freed some people to devote part of their time to sharpening their skills as basket weavers or toolmakers. The demand for raw materials and the creations of skilled artisans fostered trade, sometimes across long distances, and the formation of trading settlements.

So far, so good. But then the pre-historic world turned dark.

An awareness of private property emerged…

Stop right there. Who doesn’t like private property? Rousseau, Marx, Lenin, Mao, the authors of this text, and today’s hypocritical left. We sometimes forget that the original natural rights, suggested by John Locke in 1688, consisted of life, liberty and property. No one can take these from you. Your property, like your life, is inviolable.

Back to the text

Hunters had accumulated few possessions, since belongings presented a burden in moving from place to place. Villagers, however, acquired property and were determined to protect it... Hunting bands were egalitarian; generally, no one member had more possessions or more power than another. In farming villages, a ruling elite emerged that possessed wealth and wielded power.

No doubt farming also affected our emotional development. Human beings who had evolved as hunters and foragers, enjoying considerable leisure, personal freedom, independence, and equality, were now forced to adjust to a different tempo of life - unending toil, stifling routine, and the need to obey the commands of the elites. Scholars ponder the psychological dimensions of this shift from the hunter's way of life to sedentary farming.

Most of the two volumes of this text were very good, often excellent, but one is hard-pressed to find even a glimmer of truth in this pre-historic utopian fantasy. The description of his life as having "considerable leisure, personal freedom, independence and equality," sounds like the Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, Neolithic man had little time to enjoy all those nuts and berries; life expectancy in the early neolithic era (7000 to 5000 BC) was estimated to be 33.6 for men and 29.8 years for women.

The discovery of agriculture and the domestication of animals are generally considered to be the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind because they enabled man to stay in one spot where he finally had time to use his big brain to innovate, specialize and move on to what we call civilization. He certainly didn't have time as a nomadic hunter. Domesticated animals not only provided easy access to food, but provided transportation, fertilizer, leather, wool, a longer life and the animal power to plow and move goods.

The authors of the college text paint a bleak picture of farming communities in which "unending toil" was so much worse than nomadic life. We are supposed to think that nomadic man was happy because he was unburdened by personal possessions. We can be sure that homo erectus like most creatures on Planet Earth were territorial, hierarchical, acquisitive and quite possessive of his skins, clubs, caves and women, and being at least as smart as birds, had leaders giving orders and underlings following them.

Nomadic life was primitive, unchanging, uncertain and much closer to Hobbes' classic description of life being "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Why was it better to hunt animals than to have them in a pen? Farming was no picnic to be sure, but it made civilization possible. It created community. It enabled specialization - tool makers, pottery makers, basket weavers, hunters, tanners, bakers, carpenters, - all of which provided more goods for more people.

The "elites" giving commands, which the authors seem to abhor, are necessary and natural in every society; it's called government; it manifests itself with chiefs and tribal councils and with presidents and parliaments. Chiefs and hierarchies brought order, that helped primitives to understand the world and organize it for survival and community.

The assertion that pre-historic nomads were egalitarian and that no one gave orders is unfounded and unsupported speculation. Most animal species, including birds, who are far down the brain chain, naturally develop dominance hierarchies in which the stronger males get the best territories and the best females, thereby enhancing the species.

In his Pulitzer-prize winning 1997 book, Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond warns against reading too much into the equality of primitive bands. "...the term 'egalitarian' should not be taken to mean that all band members are equal in prestige and contribute equally to decisions. Rather, the term merely means that any band "leadership" is informal and acquired through qualities such as personality, strength, intelligence and fighting skills."

In other words, there was a decided lack of equality in primitive man's talents, statuses and social interactions. Just as it has always been. Just as it is today. Just as it will be in millennia to come.

Why is this important? What is the relevance to today’ world?

When we glorify the primitive, and attribute to him wisdom, peace, common sense, happiness, democratic structures, and sexual freedom (i.e. they are not uptight about sex), we are simultaneously denigrating civilization. The existence of the noble savage will prove that we naked apes are capable of civilized behavior, that mankind can live in harmony, that war and competitiveness are social constructs. The implication is that civilization is a corruption of what we are meant to be. If primitives can do it, then we can too. Thus, if we can find even one tribe of Rousseau’s mythical savage, we have found the socialist utopia; we will have proved the viability of Marxism.

When purveyors of primitives ennoble these backward people, when we are told that they are somehow happier and morally superior to us, they are saying that people in loin cloths, beating drums around a fire are better than we civilized beings. Primitive Man Good. Civilized Man, Bad. This paradigm transposes to 2025 to mean, Poor People Good, Rich People Bad. Western Countries Imperialist, Third World Countries, Victims. Western Civilization Oppressors, Everyone Else Oppressed.

These utopian interpretations of our primitive ancestors are consciously or unconsciously designed to support the leftist gospel that inequality is a social construct, private property is corrupting and unfair, while lack of it is utopian.

The elevation of primitives over the marvels of Western Civilization continues today even though we have yet to find a single example of happy natives unencumbered by property and civilization. If only the purveyors of peace-loving, utopian primitives could find morally superior tribes living in peace and harmony, then we western barbarians could be capable of similar human values and virtues. We have much to learn from illiterate peasants.

Where then, can they be found? The past as Harari suggested? Some remote corner of the world? The Amazon? The mountains of Tibet? The Australian Outback? Polynesian islands?

In a future essay, CRISIS will continue its search for the Noble Savage.

For more background, please click here to read Part I, published on January 3, 2025.

THE NOT SO NOBLE SAVAGE: PART ONE - by Fred Singer - CRISIS

SUBTACK SIDEBAR

If you would rather not read Part I, here is the key excerpt.

Rousseau created the theoretical savage who lives a pure, unfettered, healthy and happy life in a condition of pristine simplicity. Projecting himself into this philosophical fantasy, Rousseau describes this noble savage as a solitary individual needing neither speech nor social interaction. He had no desire to create, innovate or invent. “The free-flowing savage,” like his creator, roamed alone; he was spared war, jealousy and hatred. His was a world of innocence and equality. He was active, healthy, vigorous and fleet of foot; ignorant but happy.

How then did this noble savage become modern man who "destroys and defaces all things?" Rousseau has an answer:

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.

Private property was the root of all evil. It led to "crimes, wars... murders ...horrors and misfortunes." Governments formed to protect private property, and in the process, created restrictions on the individual. Social classes developed. The privileged few enslaved the masses. Living in communities led to innovation and technological advancement, and as a result, the healthy savage became sedentary; he lost his strength and ferocity. Hypocrisy, phoniness and the facades of civilization replaced the ingenuousness of the friendly, flowing savage. Sincerity died.