Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
production, this created pressures on territories leading to disturbances that had only
previously been seen with climatic or volcanic eruptions. When hunting territories did come
under pressure, there was undoubtedly inter-tribal or clan rivalry, but probably uncommonly
so. Most disputes were resolved by fission as long as new territory was available. Indeed,
despite them being hunters and killing animals, “them,” hunter-gatherers such as the San,
Pygmies, Hadza, Jomon of Japan, and Birhor of India, are rarely aggressive although it can be
argued this is because of their marginalization by other agriculturists. Furthermore, the rise of
warfare also corresponded with an ice age that would have limited land for herbivores and
thus also put pressure on hunting territories; likely a factor in the battles between Neanderthals
and Sapiens.
A relevant question to all of this is whether the San Bushmen lived a life of the “noble
savage” in a peaceful Garden of Eden, the term itself an oxymoron? The term noble savage
comes from a play by John Dryden about Granada but is often ascribed to Jean-Jacque
Rousseau (although he never used the term). Charles Dickens also wrote a critique of the
lifestyle of noble savage, particularly the American Indian, in an essay that made the term more
recognized. When I was about fourteen or fifteen, Golding's topic
Lord of the Rings
was our
set workbook, a common practice since it was during the Cold war and the topic starts off after
a nuclear explosion. The basic argument was that when left to their own devices leaders try to
organize society, boys generate suspicion about beasts and each other, develop weapons, and
turn on themselves because of their tendency toward evil nature, as savages. Clearly, there are
many examples of the evil nature of adults. For eons, writers have debated human nature and
whether it is largely evil or neutral and learnt as Rousseau argued. John Locke, a physician and
influential English writer, believed that clans were essentially peaceful but have to band
together to repel outside pressures, particularly over territory. This was the case with the San
Bushmen; history states that they attacked early hunters like Harris and stole cattle. The same is
true in the case of the current San Bushmen living in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve during
the 2000s. They have had to band together to protect themselves against the Botswana
government trying to take their territory away from them to make way for diamond mines. The
government tried to do this either with inducements to new settlements with promises of
luxuries or cutting off water supply from both natural and manmade water wells. The basic
social contract that Locke wrote about was that in return for peaceful living and security,
people were prepared to give up some liberty and freedoms ceded to a governing body
responsive to the People. The rules of this government was then to be those as recognized as
defined by Nature, the people's recognized rules and mores, and those deemed necessary for
societies good. Clearly, the Framers of the Declaration of Independence were of the opinion
that religious belief underlay the Declaration with references to “hold these truths to be self -
evident that …endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” and the “Supreme
Judge” and “divine Providence”. One key question to this is what are the rules and mores
based on - are they based on Roman Judeo Christian mores held to be true by most, and what
if the majority do not hold to these Truths? Rousseau, who came later, and was very influential
in the French revolution and later in Napoleon's ideas, argued differently. He argued men were
savages, and the only way to establish a civil society was for a central government to control
Search WWH ::
Custom Search