When has humanity been at its most peaceful in history?

[Cavegirl 10]

I tend to be very wary of using Wiki as a source!

 

http://www.suite101.com/content/stone-age-weapons-a260919

 

Of particular importance is the use of Stone clubs. Spears/Bows/Knifes/Axes all have a use in hunting. Bearing in mind the risk of injury in closing to within range of an animals claws/teeth and that the result of that injury would be, almost certainly, fatal, added to which clubs are actually of little use whereas hunting, axes, blades serve much better for dispatching crippled/disabled prey, the conclusion I would draw is that clubs are an anti-personnel weapon. I may be in a minority in that view but....

 

I would suggest that clubs actually serve better than knives for dispatching crippled prey. With a stab wound you must wait for a long period for the blood to drain from the beast before it dies plus there is a chance of the knife getting stuck in the flesh and thus you lose your weapon if the animal doesn't die. A swift club to the head (ah remember the baby seals?, but fishermen too prefer to club a fish) can kill an animal outright or at least dull its senses, plus it doesn't ruin the pelt.

 

If you look at a military history website you should expect that it will focus upon warlike behaviour and not offer a reasoned view. They have no evidence to suggest that people were killed by these tools or they would discuss the skeletal evidence. Where are the mass graves of the war dead with all the associated trauma on the skeletons that date from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic or Neolithic? The truth is that occasional people died of violence, but people simply didn't engage in military style behaviour, no matter how primitive, until the Bronze Age. It would have been too costly for them. So they had no need to make weaponry designed specifically for killing other human beings- the tools they had would have sufficed on the odd occasion that it happened.

 

I take your point with Wiki, I was just being a bit lazy. It's quite difficult to link to academic papers because you have to pay the journal. Still, in the interests of decency I've hunted out an academic link for you that confirms what was stated on Wiki. Page 394 here:

 

http://rdsinc.com/pdf/samples/sp806681.pdf

Edited May 7, 2011 by Cavegirl

[Cavegirl 10]

Like happened in Animal Farm? Shared power simply results in the power being concentrated in a minority, at the expense of the majority. Look how many democracies/republics have been subverted.

 

Then how do you explain the fact that for hundreds of thousands of years of social development power did not end up concentrated in the hands of the few? Again it's about control over land, goods and resources- this is why some people want power and control. Soviet Russia was a horribly failed experiment, but one that could definately be learnt from in the future. If the situation arises again and people decide to form a liberal Communist society then they would have to learn the lessens from history and put in place safeguards to prevent it happening again. All perfectly acheivable if the masses understand the situation.

[Longcol 597]

Then how do you explain the fact that for hundreds of thousands of years of social development power did not end up concentrated in the hands of the few?

 

Because the world was sparsely populated and little competition for resources?

[Cavegirl 10]

Because the world was sparsely populated and little competition for resources?

 

Exactly the point I was making Longcol yes.

[Longcol 597]

Exactly the point I was making Longcol yes.

 

So co-operation can only work if there isn't competition for resources?

[Harleyman 12]

[QUOTE=Iuchi_Zien;7612145]Like happened in Animal Farm? Shared power simply results in the power being concentrated in a minority, at the expense of the majority. Look how many democracies/republics have been subverted.

 

As far as I can tremember the pigs took over the farm at the end of the story and shared power with no one.

Orwell's simplification of the aftermath of the Russian revolution

[Mangoes 10]

Four legs good, two legs better.

[Cavegirl 10]

So co-operation can only work if there isn't competition for resources?

 

No. There is a right wing liberal capitalist political theory which recognises that non-hierarchical societies can operate within a completely unregulated free-market competetive environment. It suggests, in a sense, that individuals are given equal opportunity to obtain goods and services, education, healthcare etc and that the market, if given free-reign will quickly adapt to ensure that these needs are met. It's a kind of selfish cooperation (cooperative because each person has an equal share of the power and responsibility to change society), but it operates in a competetive market environment.

 

These liberal capitalists would need to ensure that no corporate monopoly ever formed because this could lead to fascism. If a monopoly did begin to form they would have to spend their purchasing power elsewhere to bring it down.

 

Liberal communists remove the idea of competition completely by removing the idea of private property and replacing it with voluntarism and sharing, but again, for liberalism to work you need to have a pro-active political society that is aware of the ever present dangers of totalitarianism and has in place measures to prevent it from occurring. Just as we need to be vigilant in our own conservative society of the signs and dangers of totalitarian fascism.