In this chapter Mumford introduces a key concept of the book, that of the megamachine. The first aspect of the megamachine is the invisible machine which means the ability to organized mass amounts of labor. The invisible machine is made up of people who have been assigned specialized roles in the creation of large works. The results of this machine are visible, as are the tools and remains of workers, the invisible part is the organizing structure. This is what an art history teacher of mine was trying to get us to see when showing us slides of Stonehenge, the pyramids and ziggurats. These monuments tell us that whoever built them had the ability to coordinate and enforce a rigorous long term work project.
The invisible machine is founded on the ability of kings to coerce conformity to their authority. This ability, as we have seen, is based on an alliance between the military force of the kings and their armies, and the supernatural sanction lent by the priestly class. The order born from this alliance was fragile and those who lead through fear of earthly and heavenly harm were paranoid of losing there ability to intimidate. "Without submissive faith and unqualified obedience to the royal will, transmitted by governors, generals, bureaucrats, taskmasters, the machine would never have been workable. When these attitudes could not be sustained, the megamachine collapsed." (Mumford, 191)
If the ability to coerce conformity exists in sufficient amounts, the next problem is how to use it to unify individuals into a mechanized group that blindly followed orders. This requires a commander with exact knowledge of the end product and the means for reaching it, and with the means to transmit and reproduce these ends and means through the chain of command. The solution to this problem came from the organizational methods of the army, and the technology of written language. This tech allows for exact message transmission and accountability in the dual sense of knowing who didn't follow orders and know how much of what the collective has. This represents a further centralization of intelligence, the ability to report to headquarters.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Mumford - chap. eight - Proto-state, king/priest alliance
We saw how the shift to ag took place and created a surplus of food. The existence of this surplus means that people are freed from the necessity of farming and other professions can come about (social specialization). It also means that when somebody controls the food, the can control society. Mum identifies the 3rd century BCE as the period when the shift from the essentially democratic neolithic village culture to an authoritarian proto-state begins to take place in the river valleys of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India. This new culture unified over large areas in a hierarchical manner what used to be autonomous, loosely organized villages. Again, this shift was not due to tech, it took place in Egypt before the wheels, plows, or written language, but due to the appearance of a more "efficient" type of social organization. (Mumford, 163-165)
Control of agriculture on a large scale is the basis of the new authority. In order to control agriculture an institution was needed to coordinate large-scale irrigation, planting, and harvesting of grains. This institution was the priestly temple and it was here that the first written languages arise to record the production, storage, and distribution of grain. The exclusive control of this technology went along with the priestly knowledge of the cycles of nature, on earth and in the heavens, to give authority to the priest caste. They could predict weather and astronomic phenomenon, and this gave them the appearance of supernatural powers. A shift in religious emphasis takes places here, from plant-gods and animal-spirits, to vindictive omnipotent gods of the heavens.
The roots of the institution and cult of the divine ruler was in the transformation of the "paleolithic hunting chief" into the king. They possessed the necessary quality of ruthless self-confidence and the hunting weapons that could be used to create armed men to enforce the kings will. The new social arrangement was a mutant fusion of neolithic peasant farming with paleolithic hunting culture. The Neolithic villages were easily assimilated by proto-states because they lacked the weapons of hunting cultures and the ability to mobilize under the command of a strong leader. Even so, they contributed the agriculturalists persistence, orderly social life, and food surplus that was necessary to form the armies of the proto-state. (Mumford, 169)
The proto-state also rested on the fusion of the authoritarian hunting chief and the nascent priests, originally tenders of shrines and performers of rituals. The supernatural authority of this group was necessary to legitimize the demands of the king and force submission and consent. "The efficacy of kingship...rests precisely on this alliance between the hunter's predatory prowess and gift of command, on one hand, an priestly access to astronomical lore and divine guidance" (Mumford, 171) The mace or club was the tech symbol of this union, one which lives on in the royal scepter.
A new type of observation is displayed here, one derived from the earlier style that lead to domestication but different in that it utilized abstract symbols to count, measure and quantify. The Egyptian solar calender is symbolic of this new science, which was the occupation of the new priestly class. All of the technological advances follow from this application of mathematical calculation and observance of cyclical, natural phenomenon. The authority of the king is an extrapolation of the knowledge of these ordered and unchanging processes.
A major attribute of this new political institution is its demand for complete obedience. There was a need for this obedience in the larger scale communities of the late neolithic. Many myths of the origins of kings tell of a time of disaster, famine, or other emergency that necessitated the delegation of absolute powers. As kings obtained subservience to their "divine will", they began to come into conflict with other kings equally convinced of their heavenly ordination. This coerced relationship between ruler and ruled is displayed as natural in Mesopotamian folk lore. The belief is expressed that the king is always right, what he commands is like words from god written in stone. The parallels with our current political situation in America are obvious. The problems raised by this unqualified decision making are also obvious, there was no room for common sense or deliberation of ideas and policies by a group.
(Mumford, 175-179)
Control of agriculture on a large scale is the basis of the new authority. In order to control agriculture an institution was needed to coordinate large-scale irrigation, planting, and harvesting of grains. This institution was the priestly temple and it was here that the first written languages arise to record the production, storage, and distribution of grain. The exclusive control of this technology went along with the priestly knowledge of the cycles of nature, on earth and in the heavens, to give authority to the priest caste. They could predict weather and astronomic phenomenon, and this gave them the appearance of supernatural powers. A shift in religious emphasis takes places here, from plant-gods and animal-spirits, to vindictive omnipotent gods of the heavens.
The roots of the institution and cult of the divine ruler was in the transformation of the "paleolithic hunting chief" into the king. They possessed the necessary quality of ruthless self-confidence and the hunting weapons that could be used to create armed men to enforce the kings will. The new social arrangement was a mutant fusion of neolithic peasant farming with paleolithic hunting culture. The Neolithic villages were easily assimilated by proto-states because they lacked the weapons of hunting cultures and the ability to mobilize under the command of a strong leader. Even so, they contributed the agriculturalists persistence, orderly social life, and food surplus that was necessary to form the armies of the proto-state. (Mumford, 169)
The proto-state also rested on the fusion of the authoritarian hunting chief and the nascent priests, originally tenders of shrines and performers of rituals. The supernatural authority of this group was necessary to legitimize the demands of the king and force submission and consent. "The efficacy of kingship...rests precisely on this alliance between the hunter's predatory prowess and gift of command, on one hand, an priestly access to astronomical lore and divine guidance" (Mumford, 171) The mace or club was the tech symbol of this union, one which lives on in the royal scepter.
A new type of observation is displayed here, one derived from the earlier style that lead to domestication but different in that it utilized abstract symbols to count, measure and quantify. The Egyptian solar calender is symbolic of this new science, which was the occupation of the new priestly class. All of the technological advances follow from this application of mathematical calculation and observance of cyclical, natural phenomenon. The authority of the king is an extrapolation of the knowledge of these ordered and unchanging processes.
A major attribute of this new political institution is its demand for complete obedience. There was a need for this obedience in the larger scale communities of the late neolithic. Many myths of the origins of kings tell of a time of disaster, famine, or other emergency that necessitated the delegation of absolute powers. As kings obtained subservience to their "divine will", they began to come into conflict with other kings equally convinced of their heavenly ordination. This coerced relationship between ruler and ruled is displayed as natural in Mesopotamian folk lore. The belief is expressed that the king is always right, what he commands is like words from god written in stone. The parallels with our current political situation in America are obvious. The problems raised by this unqualified decision making are also obvious, there was no room for common sense or deliberation of ideas and policies by a group.
(Mumford, 175-179)
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Mumford - Chap. six - Agri. Revolution
Mumford breaks the history of domestication into three periods:
(late) paleolithic 30,000 - 15,000 BCE
Mesolithic 15,ooo - 8,000 BCE
neolithic 8ooo - 3500 BCE
He starts with the caveat that domestication was a slow process with no "revolutionary" moment. Material remains can't be our only guide, sickles along with mortar + pestle were used long to cut grain and grind minerals long before people performed intentional planting. The one tool that did have obvious ramifications was the stone axe, used to clear land, build dams + irrigation networks, allow the large human communities we see a step to civilization. (Mumford, 127) The ramifications are that man now applied the tendency of order-forming, that he used to transform himself, onto his environment at large.
The trend towards intensified labor noted in the paleolithic shaping of tools grew into a spirit of industriousness in the neolithic, meaning "...the capacity for assiduous application to a single task, sometimes carried over years and generations." Mumford laments, and I agree, that something was lost in this process. There is a freedom to the hunter/gatherer life and a closeness to nature that is lost when men become domesticators. In the effort to domesticate, to take things out of their natural context, we ourselves became domesticated and taken out of our natural context. (Mumford, 128, 129)
While the great advances make themselves apparent in the period between 9000-7000 BCE, they rested on a serious of stages going back much further. The first was the paleolithic acquisition and retention of knowledge about plants. The mesolithic saw the use of horticulture with crops such as the yam and taro roots, which, being supplemented by hunting and fishing, allowed for year-round sedentary existence. This stable occupation of the land allowed people to observe plant reproduction and experiment with cultivation. Stable occupancy also gives rise to the domestication of the dog, who started hanging around settlements to scavenge garbage. The original use of dog and pig by humans was for scavenging (think pigs/truffles).(Mumford, 132-133)
The rise of high-yielding crops in the Near East was due to knowledge of soil fertility, irrigation, and seed-selection, not to any tool improvements. Almost all the crops we utilized today were domesticated before the rise of metallurgy and what we call science. The selection of these particular species out of thousands was the result of identification and experimentation done well before domestication. For example, all five natural sources of caffeine found in the natural realm were discovered by pre-ag humans; tea, coffee, cola, cacao, and yerba mate. This selection was about more than picking the most nutritious plants, it involved knowledge of soil, season and climate, and water requirements.
The shift in tool making from from knapping to grinding indicates a shift from ritualized labor to painstakingly tedious work. The repetition of a single act to the point of drudgery is indicative of the conditions of civilized life. It is the other side of the disciplined observation and repetition of action necessary for agriculture, and it is embodied in a specific personality type. "These repetitive habits proved to be immensely productive. But there is hardly any doubt that in some degree they dulled the imagination, and tended to select and advance the more submissive types..." (Mumford, 137,138)
Another manifestation and symbol of the shift towards man-made life was the use of bread as a staple. Bread represents the security farmers received as a reward of diligent labor. Sedentary agriculture man could plan for the future and "improve his land" for generations. The storage of grain represents the birth of capital accumulation, the hierarchical power relations typical of civilization have their birth with this social surplus. Paul Shepard discussed the opposing tendency of agricultural life, the instability of having to rely upon a few sources of nourishment and the regularity of weather. But Mumford's point of further imposition of order on the environment, and regimentation of social life remain valid. (Mumford, 139)
A last important technological innovation was the use of baked clay containers, born from the need to store grain. Many processes indicative of the "Neolithic economy" rest on the use of containers. Beer requires vats, grain must be protected from moisture and rodents, baskets store and transport good, barns shelter animals. The permanent home is a container as well. The tool associated with creating clay containers is the potters wheel, which was the grandfather of the wheel. This technological step continues that started with stone working, and rests on the idea of furthering continuity. Stone tools allowed a continuous supply of meat, clay containers a continuous supply of grain, and this thread of continuity allows the progress of civilization.
(late) paleolithic 30,000 - 15,000 BCE
Mesolithic 15,ooo - 8,000 BCE
neolithic 8ooo - 3500 BCE
He starts with the caveat that domestication was a slow process with no "revolutionary" moment. Material remains can't be our only guide, sickles along with mortar + pestle were used long to cut grain and grind minerals long before people performed intentional planting. The one tool that did have obvious ramifications was the stone axe, used to clear land, build dams + irrigation networks, allow the large human communities we see a step to civilization. (Mumford, 127) The ramifications are that man now applied the tendency of order-forming, that he used to transform himself, onto his environment at large.
The trend towards intensified labor noted in the paleolithic shaping of tools grew into a spirit of industriousness in the neolithic, meaning "...the capacity for assiduous application to a single task, sometimes carried over years and generations." Mumford laments, and I agree, that something was lost in this process. There is a freedom to the hunter/gatherer life and a closeness to nature that is lost when men become domesticators. In the effort to domesticate, to take things out of their natural context, we ourselves became domesticated and taken out of our natural context. (Mumford, 128, 129)
While the great advances make themselves apparent in the period between 9000-7000 BCE, they rested on a serious of stages going back much further. The first was the paleolithic acquisition and retention of knowledge about plants. The mesolithic saw the use of horticulture with crops such as the yam and taro roots, which, being supplemented by hunting and fishing, allowed for year-round sedentary existence. This stable occupation of the land allowed people to observe plant reproduction and experiment with cultivation. Stable occupancy also gives rise to the domestication of the dog, who started hanging around settlements to scavenge garbage. The original use of dog and pig by humans was for scavenging (think pigs/truffles).(Mumford, 132-133)
The rise of high-yielding crops in the Near East was due to knowledge of soil fertility, irrigation, and seed-selection, not to any tool improvements. Almost all the crops we utilized today were domesticated before the rise of metallurgy and what we call science. The selection of these particular species out of thousands was the result of identification and experimentation done well before domestication. For example, all five natural sources of caffeine found in the natural realm were discovered by pre-ag humans; tea, coffee, cola, cacao, and yerba mate. This selection was about more than picking the most nutritious plants, it involved knowledge of soil, season and climate, and water requirements.
The shift in tool making from from knapping to grinding indicates a shift from ritualized labor to painstakingly tedious work. The repetition of a single act to the point of drudgery is indicative of the conditions of civilized life. It is the other side of the disciplined observation and repetition of action necessary for agriculture, and it is embodied in a specific personality type. "These repetitive habits proved to be immensely productive. But there is hardly any doubt that in some degree they dulled the imagination, and tended to select and advance the more submissive types..." (Mumford, 137,138)
Another manifestation and symbol of the shift towards man-made life was the use of bread as a staple. Bread represents the security farmers received as a reward of diligent labor. Sedentary agriculture man could plan for the future and "improve his land" for generations. The storage of grain represents the birth of capital accumulation, the hierarchical power relations typical of civilization have their birth with this social surplus. Paul Shepard discussed the opposing tendency of agricultural life, the instability of having to rely upon a few sources of nourishment and the regularity of weather. But Mumford's point of further imposition of order on the environment, and regimentation of social life remain valid. (Mumford, 139)
A last important technological innovation was the use of baked clay containers, born from the need to store grain. Many processes indicative of the "Neolithic economy" rest on the use of containers. Beer requires vats, grain must be protected from moisture and rodents, baskets store and transport good, barns shelter animals. The permanent home is a container as well. The tool associated with creating clay containers is the potters wheel, which was the grandfather of the wheel. This technological step continues that started with stone working, and rests on the idea of furthering continuity. Stone tools allowed a continuous supply of meat, clay containers a continuous supply of grain, and this thread of continuity allows the progress of civilization.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Mumford - Chap. Five - Paleolitic Tech
When looking at the material record of stone tools and the developments from Chellean and Acheulian to Aurignacian, anthropologists assumed hunting was a primary occupation of early man. What we classify as weapons may in fact be tools used for foraging, trapping, or non-food purposes. Humans are by nature omnivorous and our diet has always been mainly vegetarian. Methods of trapping with snares no doubt preceded language and hunting. Mumford emphasis is that the original technology humans utilized was the body itself, and we developed many techniques for survival before we used any manufactured tools.
The ability to observe and mimic other animals gave a unique advantage to early humans. We may have learned "trapping from the spider, basketry from birds, dam building from beavers, burrowing from rabbits, and the art of using poison from snakes" (Mumford, 101) The drive to explore the world, identify and classify its parts is an essential aspect of human nature that far preceded tool use, and one that is overlooked by literate man (who views problem-solving and construction as the primary attributes of intelligence). Taxonomy was the original act of data compilation, one that existed before we had the means to communicate this data culturally.
Pattern recognition was a catalyst for the intellectual expansion of mankind. The habit of exploring the environment, identifying a multitude of useful and dangerous organisms, and recognizing the categories of nature is the precedent to naming these things (language), and to human science.
Mumford discusses body modification as part of the process of exploration and manipulation that lead to human technology and civilization. Humans needed to understand and master their own bodies before they could move on to the environment at large. The act of body modification did not give any survival advantage to individuals, it was done as an act of self-actualization, again showing a drive in man separate from that of the animal instincts. It was part of the drive toward aesthetics and beauty, which Mumford relates to a formation of self identity. "As with language and ritual, body decoration was an effort to establish a human identity, a human significance, a human purpose" (Mumford, 111)
Mumford now turns to a more concrete historical explanation of the changes in human culture and technology engendered by the Pleistocene glacial periods. He talks about the slow rates of change in Acheulian and Levalloisian tools, which persisted relatively unchanged for periods over a hundred thousand years. Once you get to the last glacial period, about thirty thousand years ago, the shift from one discernible culture (in terms of tools) to another takes place in only 3-5 thousand years. This is explained by the fact that the climactic changes shortened the growing season dramatically and forced humans to shift from foraging to hunting of large herd mammals. In order to accomplish this, humans had to develop an extensive tool kit, and have the intelligence and communicative ability to pass on the knowledge needed to create tools and perform group-hunting of animals.
Mumford identifies the bow and arrow as the first machine. Tools before this were merely extensions of the human body. It is an abstract design, but combines the three ingredients of early technologies: stone, wood, and animal products. Mumford speculates on the possibility that the idea for the bow came from using twine to create music. He emphasizes the connection he sees between technology for tangible survival purposes and the drive towards aesthetics and beauty, the uniquely human attempt to express an inner state. (Mumford, 114)
When humans started using stone tools extensively they introduced a key concept of civilization; work. The mining of usable stone and the pain-staking shaping of tools displays characteristics not found before. It was an operation in which persistent effort was needed to achieve future pleasure, rather than the following of impulse and expectation of immediate reward. After downplaying the role of stone tools, Mumford acknowledges their late role in the creation of the human condition. (Mumford, 116)
The tools used reflect a bigger change in social arrangements for the hunting of big game requires cooperation of individuals with specialized tasks. It also required subordinates following the lead of a commander, the most experienced and knowledgeable. A position of authority like this was not necessitated by foraging or early agriculture. The psychological disposition necessary for life in civilization ("the collective human machine") was evident in the "docile ritualistic conformity" existing alongside with "exhilarating self-confidence, venturesome command, and....a certain savage readiness to take life." A side effect of this over-emphasis on masculine traits was the appearance of the mother goddess, which may have been utilized as a psychological counterbalance. (Mumford, 117)
Another significant human creation appears in a new form during this period; the cave painting. Mumford believes this art, like language, song, and dance, began as simply symbolic but became detached from ritual as it became a useful technology. Cave paintings reenacting the hunt were used to teach initiates the methods. Crude anatomical drawings show where to thrust a spear. Hunting was thus an impetus to artistic expression. (Mumford, 118-121) Another aspect of this new artistic sensibility is the emphasis on sex. Art may have been used to stimulate reproduction in a climate that depleted sex drive.
The ability to observe and mimic other animals gave a unique advantage to early humans. We may have learned "trapping from the spider, basketry from birds, dam building from beavers, burrowing from rabbits, and the art of using poison from snakes" (Mumford, 101) The drive to explore the world, identify and classify its parts is an essential aspect of human nature that far preceded tool use, and one that is overlooked by literate man (who views problem-solving and construction as the primary attributes of intelligence). Taxonomy was the original act of data compilation, one that existed before we had the means to communicate this data culturally.
Pattern recognition was a catalyst for the intellectual expansion of mankind. The habit of exploring the environment, identifying a multitude of useful and dangerous organisms, and recognizing the categories of nature is the precedent to naming these things (language), and to human science.
Mumford discusses body modification as part of the process of exploration and manipulation that lead to human technology and civilization. Humans needed to understand and master their own bodies before they could move on to the environment at large. The act of body modification did not give any survival advantage to individuals, it was done as an act of self-actualization, again showing a drive in man separate from that of the animal instincts. It was part of the drive toward aesthetics and beauty, which Mumford relates to a formation of self identity. "As with language and ritual, body decoration was an effort to establish a human identity, a human significance, a human purpose" (Mumford, 111)
Mumford now turns to a more concrete historical explanation of the changes in human culture and technology engendered by the Pleistocene glacial periods. He talks about the slow rates of change in Acheulian and Levalloisian tools, which persisted relatively unchanged for periods over a hundred thousand years. Once you get to the last glacial period, about thirty thousand years ago, the shift from one discernible culture (in terms of tools) to another takes place in only 3-5 thousand years. This is explained by the fact that the climactic changes shortened the growing season dramatically and forced humans to shift from foraging to hunting of large herd mammals. In order to accomplish this, humans had to develop an extensive tool kit, and have the intelligence and communicative ability to pass on the knowledge needed to create tools and perform group-hunting of animals.
Mumford identifies the bow and arrow as the first machine. Tools before this were merely extensions of the human body. It is an abstract design, but combines the three ingredients of early technologies: stone, wood, and animal products. Mumford speculates on the possibility that the idea for the bow came from using twine to create music. He emphasizes the connection he sees between technology for tangible survival purposes and the drive towards aesthetics and beauty, the uniquely human attempt to express an inner state. (Mumford, 114)
When humans started using stone tools extensively they introduced a key concept of civilization; work. The mining of usable stone and the pain-staking shaping of tools displays characteristics not found before. It was an operation in which persistent effort was needed to achieve future pleasure, rather than the following of impulse and expectation of immediate reward. After downplaying the role of stone tools, Mumford acknowledges their late role in the creation of the human condition. (Mumford, 116)
The tools used reflect a bigger change in social arrangements for the hunting of big game requires cooperation of individuals with specialized tasks. It also required subordinates following the lead of a commander, the most experienced and knowledgeable. A position of authority like this was not necessitated by foraging or early agriculture. The psychological disposition necessary for life in civilization ("the collective human machine") was evident in the "docile ritualistic conformity" existing alongside with "exhilarating self-confidence, venturesome command, and....a certain savage readiness to take life." A side effect of this over-emphasis on masculine traits was the appearance of the mother goddess, which may have been utilized as a psychological counterbalance. (Mumford, 117)
Another significant human creation appears in a new form during this period; the cave painting. Mumford believes this art, like language, song, and dance, began as simply symbolic but became detached from ritual as it became a useful technology. Cave paintings reenacting the hunt were used to teach initiates the methods. Crude anatomical drawings show where to thrust a spear. Hunting was thus an impetus to artistic expression. (Mumford, 118-121) Another aspect of this new artistic sensibility is the emphasis on sex. Art may have been used to stimulate reproduction in a climate that depleted sex drive.
Friday, November 14, 2008
More on Mumford
Just back from road trip from Texas through OK, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and NE Oregon. Whats up Manhappenin Kansas!! Nebraska is lame. Wyoming is beautifull. Crater of the moons in Idaho is spectacular. See my photos on Picasa.
In this entry I'll relate Mumfords thoughts on dreaming, ritual, and their relation to the growth of distinctly human thinking and culture. Mumford sees dreaming as an overflow mechanism of the brain. (Mumford, 49) He thinks humans got to know their own minds and the creativity the mind engenders through dreaming. The notion of a life beyond death, the other world or ancestoral realm inhabited by spirits and gods could have originated in the act of dreaming. We could explore our own unconscious and irrational side through dreaming, and bring order to it through instruments. "The invention and perfection of these instruments - rituals, symbols, words, images, standard modes of behavior - was....more neccesary to survival than tool-making, and far more essential to his later development." (Mumford, 51)
Since humans had to a degree cast off instinctual animal behavior, they had to develop a method of ordering their schizophrenic consciousness (waking, dreaming), of relating current events to past. The origins of ritual are in repetive dance and gesture in response to or recognition of natural or social events. Meaning could be applied to this behavior only if done over and over again by a group, "shared feelings" produced by "sequences of connected actions." (Mumford, 60) This type of communication is very different from any other animal communication because of its abstraction and the creative role played by the group. We used our bodies as the technology to express individual expierence through ritual behavior with meaning shared by the group.
Humans display a need for order and repetition that can only be satisfied by ritual behavior. You can see this in the infants insisitence on hearing a story read exactly the same way night after night. Repetitive play gives much satisfaction, thus showing how the human brain is geared toward the performance ritual. This order seeking aspects counters the openess and instability of human intelligence. Ritual does not always function this way, it can retard innovation and delay the development of intelligence. Rituals are group habitual behavior, and lend a conservative aspect to culture; they are concerned with doing things as they have always been done. But the establishment of order on the human psyche is what is important, and how this order was then discovered in the natural world.
In this entry I'll relate Mumfords thoughts on dreaming, ritual, and their relation to the growth of distinctly human thinking and culture. Mumford sees dreaming as an overflow mechanism of the brain. (Mumford, 49) He thinks humans got to know their own minds and the creativity the mind engenders through dreaming. The notion of a life beyond death, the other world or ancestoral realm inhabited by spirits and gods could have originated in the act of dreaming. We could explore our own unconscious and irrational side through dreaming, and bring order to it through instruments. "The invention and perfection of these instruments - rituals, symbols, words, images, standard modes of behavior - was....more neccesary to survival than tool-making, and far more essential to his later development." (Mumford, 51)
Since humans had to a degree cast off instinctual animal behavior, they had to develop a method of ordering their schizophrenic consciousness (waking, dreaming), of relating current events to past. The origins of ritual are in repetive dance and gesture in response to or recognition of natural or social events. Meaning could be applied to this behavior only if done over and over again by a group, "shared feelings" produced by "sequences of connected actions." (Mumford, 60) This type of communication is very different from any other animal communication because of its abstraction and the creative role played by the group. We used our bodies as the technology to express individual expierence through ritual behavior with meaning shared by the group.
Humans display a need for order and repetition that can only be satisfied by ritual behavior. You can see this in the infants insisitence on hearing a story read exactly the same way night after night. Repetitive play gives much satisfaction, thus showing how the human brain is geared toward the performance ritual. This order seeking aspects counters the openess and instability of human intelligence. Ritual does not always function this way, it can retard innovation and delay the development of intelligence. Rituals are group habitual behavior, and lend a conservative aspect to culture; they are concerned with doing things as they have always been done. But the establishment of order on the human psyche is what is important, and how this order was then discovered in the natural world.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Lewis Mumford
A major similarity between Mumford's view on the evolution of human consciousness and Shepard's is that they both acknowledge that the enlargement of the brain was not an adaptation of immediate value. It carried with it many factors that would seem to be counter-adaptive, such as the fragile state of a newborn whose skull has not fused, and the problems with birthing a larger cranium through a birth canal already restricted by bipedalism. Although this long period of infant dependency created the conditions for cultural learning, effective use of culture to formulate and pass down human experience was not a direct result of cranial capacity.
The hardware was there to create Aristotle before we even learned to effectively use language. (Mumford, 39, 40) It took much experimentation to arrive at the level of tribal culture. That is what evolution gave us, the ability to use free-thinking to devise new strategies, to experiment. The proactive creation of the human identity is very important to Mumford's thinking. He feels that the evolution of human culture was not innate or passive. It was active, evolution made us more than animals, but we became human on our own, through trial and error using our minds to adapt our behavior and cultural institutions to the environment. All culture functions by shaping the plastic human personality offered by biology. We don't instinctually follow, but attempt to use our bodies and organs for different purposes. (Mumford, 46) Technologies, as extensions of our bodies, build on this foundation.
In a dog eat dog world, I'm a bowl of antifreeze.
If it really is me against the world, I think I'd put my money on the world.
If you really have to play the hand thats dealt you, can't we at least choose the game??
The hardware was there to create Aristotle before we even learned to effectively use language. (Mumford, 39, 40) It took much experimentation to arrive at the level of tribal culture. That is what evolution gave us, the ability to use free-thinking to devise new strategies, to experiment. The proactive creation of the human identity is very important to Mumford's thinking. He feels that the evolution of human culture was not innate or passive. It was active, evolution made us more than animals, but we became human on our own, through trial and error using our minds to adapt our behavior and cultural institutions to the environment. All culture functions by shaping the plastic human personality offered by biology. We don't instinctually follow, but attempt to use our bodies and organs for different purposes. (Mumford, 46) Technologies, as extensions of our bodies, build on this foundation.
In a dog eat dog world, I'm a bowl of antifreeze.
If it really is me against the world, I think I'd put my money on the world.
If you really have to play the hand thats dealt you, can't we at least choose the game??
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
I'm back......with Lewis Mumford
Back from a hiatus, my intellectual rantings come in periodical outpourings. Went to California for a week, Santa Cruz, SF. Good brewpub in Arcata, Humbolt brewery, love the red nectar. Was moved by Obama's victory speech, I am wary of politicians who can stir my emotions. I can't buy into the whole "hope" thing, not because I don't have hope, but because I know better than to invest it on a politician. Some people thought that some desperate false-flag terrorism or other fascist power grab would take place, but they are missing the fact that its not only republicans who are part of the power structure. Big business, intel, and other players we despise as having hijacked our government can play either side of the game, they'll support democrats or republicans, so long as the status quo is maintained. Obama is acceptable to the ruling class because he is not going to rock the boat. He is a friend of Israel (speech to AIPAC) and is not going after the intel community (retroactive immunity). Hope is OK, but I would rather place it on the rationality of the human mind than a politician.
The rationality of the human mind and its need for creative expression are topics Lewis Mumford adresses in his 1966 book The Myth of The Machine. I've been wanting to read Mumford for a while, as he is frequently sourced by anthro/soc writers. The relation between him and Paul Shepard is obvious from the initial 40 pages I have read so far. He is dealing with the historical paradigm/preconception of human history as being the development of man the tool-maker, homo faber. This view, which we are somewhat beyond today, sees technology as the driving force of cultural development to the level of civilization. He explains how this comes from the transposition of modern views, and the emphasis of archaeology on material remains (stone tools, architecture). Its is his hypothesis that use of technology is a byproduct of the real key to human culture, human thought and its unique vehicle, symbolic language.
Rather than tool making to increase food supply being the key to the growth of intelligence, Mumford sees toolmaking as connected to the artisitic dimension born of mans need to express "...superorganic demands and aspirations". (Mumford, 8) He balances his emphasis on rationality with the observation that man can be most irrational. He relates this to the minds capacity for adaptabilty seen in phenomena such as uncertainty, creativity, and counterproductive behavior. We are not simply instictual, but have the freedom of creative thought. As a counterbalance to this creative unpredicability, we create ordered systems to explain the natural world. (Mumford, 39)
The parellels between this and Shepard's ideas are blatant, if you compare this to earlier entrys.
The rationality of the human mind and its need for creative expression are topics Lewis Mumford adresses in his 1966 book The Myth of The Machine. I've been wanting to read Mumford for a while, as he is frequently sourced by anthro/soc writers. The relation between him and Paul Shepard is obvious from the initial 40 pages I have read so far. He is dealing with the historical paradigm/preconception of human history as being the development of man the tool-maker, homo faber. This view, which we are somewhat beyond today, sees technology as the driving force of cultural development to the level of civilization. He explains how this comes from the transposition of modern views, and the emphasis of archaeology on material remains (stone tools, architecture). Its is his hypothesis that use of technology is a byproduct of the real key to human culture, human thought and its unique vehicle, symbolic language.
Rather than tool making to increase food supply being the key to the growth of intelligence, Mumford sees toolmaking as connected to the artisitic dimension born of mans need to express "...superorganic demands and aspirations". (Mumford, 8) He balances his emphasis on rationality with the observation that man can be most irrational. He relates this to the minds capacity for adaptabilty seen in phenomena such as uncertainty, creativity, and counterproductive behavior. We are not simply instictual, but have the freedom of creative thought. As a counterbalance to this creative unpredicability, we create ordered systems to explain the natural world. (Mumford, 39)
The parellels between this and Shepard's ideas are blatant, if you compare this to earlier entrys.
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