[I]With regard to disintegration of communities, Nesse and Williams suggest that in recent years ‘[e] xtended families disintegrate as individuals scatter to pursue their economic goals’ (Nesse and Williams, 1995, p. 12). According to them the worst punishment that can be meted out to a human is to live in solitary confinement. And yet, because of the disintegration of the extended family (and even the nuclear family, often breaking down due to increased divorce rates), this is virtually what life is like for a growing number of people in the West. [I/]

Workman, Lance. Evolutionary Psychology : An Introduction. West Nyack, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2004. p 323.

I was googling for that metafilter page and noticed your comment — so you’re the one! I was a little stunned by the viciousness of the response — I learned a lot about myself that I’d have never guessed, I suppose — but by and large I gound it amusing, and some really good comments were elicited to go along with the slurs. So no harm done.

Provocative quote for today: Our political leaders talk about defending marriage, but it is the forces of market capitalism that presents the greatest threat to it - because they threaten all social ties. We must be ready to move where

Lawrence Keeley’s War Before Civilization was written as a defense of the Hobbesian idea of pre- civilized life as “nasty, brutish and short.� Citing anecdotal evidence suggesting that these societies were extremely warlike, he inadvertently adds support to the thesis that “primitive war� is evolutionarily stable, and not as destructive as state warfare. On the causes of primitive warfare, Keeley writes:

“Two of the cross-cultural surveys … attempted to tabulate information on motives and causes, but exactly whose motives or views of cause are recorded is unclear. Despite these ambiguities, the results of these two independent studies are remarkably similar. Both sets of data indicate that the predominant motives for pre-state warfare are revenge for homicides and various economic issues.â€?

Keeley goes on to give certain examples of these economic issues: pig stealing in New Guinea, resource poaching in California, ocean frontage among the Pacifc Northwest Coast chiefdoms, etc. For Keeley, this shows that pre-state societies go to war for purely economic reasons, just as states do. However, I would raise an objection to this, that the effect is not so much for the economic gain, but rather, standing. Very often, the economic gains at stake are rather trivial—one of the tribe’s pigs, for instance. From an economic standpoint, they would be better off to concentrate their efforts elsewhere. However, if such an action is not met with resistance, the perpetrators may gain confidence that they may continue with impunity, and then proceed to do so. Thus, the resulting warfare need not be an economic war as Keeley
suggests, but rather, sending a message that such treatment will not be tolerated.

The number of wars caused by homicides is another piece of evidence in favor of this thesis. For the group, a homicide is very dangerous, and must be met with the full force that the group can muster. For, if the neighboring group can kill a single individual without repercussion, then what is to keep them from doing so more often, until the tribe is wiped out? Thus, the war is meant more to let the perpetrator know that such actions will be met with resistance, and that they should not attempt to wipe them out.

Another objection to Keeley’s work is its anecdotal nature. A total of 201 references are made to 46 cultures. Of these, 6 New Guinea cultures take up 34 of those—roughly 16% of the total. The most oft- cited culture in the book is the Mae Enga. This New Guinea group are pastoralists—and therefore, would be classified as agriculturalists in this paper. However, Keeley cites them as a “primitive� group. A further 31 citations (15%) comes from various Plains Indians who, according to Peter Farb (Farb, 1968), did not exist prior to European contact. Therefore, at least 31%—nearly one third—of the citations which Keeley refers to do not, in fact, refer to the behaviors of actual “primitive� groups.

Keeley focuses on the prevalence of war among non-agriculture societies as a sign of their bellicosity, but Eckhardt rightly points out that, even so, the shorter, less often wars of civilizations produce far more destruction than all of the primitive wars, both absolutely and proportionally. (Eckhardt, W. 1992) These two studies by Keeley and Eckhardt, Keeley relying mainly on anecdotal and Eckhardt mainly on statistical and mathematical evidence, counterbalance each other and together produce the conclusion that “primitive warfare� is constant, but of a very low intensity. All the causes of primitive war can be expressed as asserting the group’s rights, as a deterrent from annihilation.

The instances of such annihilations which Keeley points out are simply what happens when a group does not or can not assert itself against such aggressions. Where possible, these groups will and do wipe out their rivals—it is not an altruistic system, and these are not “peaceful savages.� Rather, it is simply the dictates of cultural evolution; where a rival can be wiped out, it is, but this is very rarely the case.

So, what distinguishes this “primitive war� from “real war�? “Real war� requires a surplus of population to fight, and a surplus of food to feed them with. Non-states fight to intimidate their enemies, with volunteers from the group eager to prove their prowess. Their weapons are usually utilitarian: things that can be used for non-military uses, as well. And they will generally not continue to engage in battle after the first few casualties. States, by contrast, fight to conquer enemy land, or to take booty, or otherwise procure economic goals. They send professional, standing armies armed with purely military weapons, and continue hostilities until the enemy is totally defeated, by it through military annihilation, conquest, or the more diplomatic defeat of surrender.

Land often trades hands in “primitive war,� as Keeley describes. A group will pull back, to create a buffer zone with a feared enemy. Leading that enemy to gradually encroach upon the abandoned land. However, such land acquisition and loss is a side-effect of “primitive war,� and happens by happenstance. In “real war,� as we shall see, such acquisition is almost always the entire motive of the conflict.

In conclusion, then, “primitive war� escalates gradually, giving each side sufficient time to back down if the resource in question is not of sufficient value to warrant further aggression. Raids and warfare are used generally to maintain the appearance of strength, so that neighboring groups will not attempt to abuse, annihilate, or otherwise maltreat the group.

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